Girl With a Pearl Earring

by Tracy Chevalier

  I opened my eyes and took a step back from him. “I came here to explain that the rumor is false, not to be accused by you. Now I’m sorry I bothered.”

  “Don’t be. I do believe you.” He sighed. “But you have little power over what happens to you. Surely you can see that?”

  When I did not answer he added, “If your master did want to paint a picture of you and van Ruijven, do you really think you could say no?”

  It was a question I had asked myself but found no answer to. “Thank you for reminding me of how helpless I am,” I replied tartly.

  “You wouldn’t be, with me. We would run our own business, earn our own money, rule our own lives. Isn’t that what you want?”

  I looked at him, at his bright blue eyes, his yellow curls, his eager face. I was a fool even to hesitate.

  “I didn’t come here to talk about this. I’m too young yet.” I used the old excuse. Someday I would be too old to use it.

  “I never know what you’re thinking, Griet,” he tried again. “You’re so calm and quiet, you never say. But there are things inside you. I see them sometimes, hiding in your eyes.”

  I smoothed my cap, checking with my fingers for stray hairs. “All I mean to say is that there is no painting,” I declared, ignoring what he had just said. “Maria Thins has promised me. But you’re not to tell anyone. If they speak to you of me in the market, say nothing. Don’t try to defend me. Otherwise van Ruijven may hear and your words will work against us.”

  Pieter nodded unhappily and kicked at a bit of dirty straw.

  He will not always be so reasonable, I thought. One day he will give up.

  To reward him for his reasonableness, I let him take me into a space between two houses off the Beast Market and run his hands down my body, cupping them where there were curves. I tried to take pleasure in it, but I was still feeling sick from the animal smell.

  Whatever I said to Pieter the son, I myself did not feel reassured by Maria Thins’ promise to keep me out of the painting. She was a formidable woman, astute in business, certain of her place, but she was not van Ruijven. I did not see how they could refuse him what he wanted. He had wanted a painting of his wife looking directly at the painter, and my master had made it. He had wanted a painting of the maid in the red dress, and had got that. If he wanted me, why should he not get me?

  One day three men I had not seen before came with a harpsichord tied securely in a cart. A boy followed them carrying a bass viol that was bigger than he. They were not van Ruijven’s instruments, but from one of his relations who was fond of music. The whole house gathered to watch the men struggle with the harpsichord on the steep stairs. Cornelia stood right at the bottom—if they were to drop the instrument it would fall directly on her. I wanted to reach out and pull her back, and if it had been one of the other children I would not have hesitated. Instead I remained where I was. It was Catharina who finally insisted that she move to a safer spot.

  When they got it up the stairs they took it to the studio, my master supervising them. After the men left, he called down to Catharina. Maria Thins followed her up. A moment later we heard the sound of the harpsichord being played. The girls sat on the stairs while Tanneke and I stood in the hallway, listening.

  “Is that the mistress playing? Or your mistress?” I asked Tanneke. It seemed so unlike either of them that I thought perhaps he was playing and simply wanted Catharina to be his audience.

  “It’s the young mistress, of course,” Tanneke hissed. “Why would he have asked her up otherwise? She’s very good, is the young mistress. She played when she was a girl. But her father kept their harpsichord when he and my mistress separated. Have you never heard young mistress complain about not being able to afford an instrument?”

  “No.” I thought for a moment. “Do you think he will paint her? For this painting with van Ruijven?” Tanneke must have heard the market gossip but had said nothing of it to me.

  “Oh, the master never paints her. She can’t sit still!”

  Over the next few days he moved a table and chairs into the setting, and lifted the harpsichord’s lid, which was painted with a landscape of rocks and trees and sky. He spread a table rug on the table in the foreground, and set the bass viol under it.

  One day Maria Thins called me to the Crucifixion room. “Now, girl,” she said, “this afternoon I want you to go on some errands for me. To the apothecary’s for some elder flowers and hyssop—Franciscus has a cough now that it’s cold again. And then to Old Mary the spinner for some wool, just enough for a collar for Aleydis. Did you notice hers is unravelling?” She paused, as if calculating how long it would take me to get from place to place. “And then go to Jan Mayer’s house to ask when his brother is expected in Delft. He lives by the Rietveld Tower. That’s near your parents, isn’t it? You may stop in and visit them.”

  Maria Thins had never allowed me to see my parents apart from Sundays. Then I guessed. “Is van Ruijven coming today, madam?”

  “Don’t let him see you,” she answered grimly. “It’s best if you’re not here at all. Then if he asks for you we can say you’re out.”

  For a moment I wanted to laugh. Van Ruijven had us all—even Maria Thins—running like rabbits before dogs.

  My mother was surprised to see me that afternoon. Luckily a neighbor was visiting and she could not question me closely. My father was not so interested. He had changed much since I’d left home, since Agnes had died. He was no longer so curious about the world outside his street, rarely asking me about the goings-on at the Oude Langendijck or in the market. Only the paintings still interested him.

  “Mother,” I announced as we sat by the fire, “my master is beginning the painting that you were asking about. Van Ruijven has come over and he is setting it up today. Everyone who is to be in the painting is there now.”

  Our neighbor, a bright-eyed old woman who loved market talk, gazed at me as if I had just set a roast capon in front of her. My mother frowned—she knew what I was doing.

  There, I thought. That will take care of the rumors.

  He was not himself that evening. I heard him snap at Maria Thins at supper, and he went out later and came back smelling of the tavern. I was climbing the stairs to bed when he came in. He looked up at me, his face tired and red. His expression was not angry, but weary, as of a man who has just seen all the wood he must chop, or a maid faced with a mountain of laundry.

  The next morning the studio gave few clues about what had happened the afternoon before. Two chairs had been placed, one at the harpsichord, the other with its back to the painter. There was a lute on the chair, and a violin on the table to the left. The bass viol still lay in the shadows under the table. It was hard to tell from the arrangement how many people were to be in the painting.

  Later Maertge told me that van Ruijven had come with his sister and one of his daughters.

  “How old is the daughter?” I could not help asking.

  “Seventeen, I think.”

  My age.

  They came around again a few days later. Maria Thins sent me on more errands and told me to amuse myself elsewhere for the morning. I wanted to remind her that I could not stay away every day they came to be painted—it was getting too cold to idle in the streets, and there was too much work to do. But I did not say anything. I could not explain it, but I felt something was to change soon. I just did not know how.

  I could not go to my parents again—they would think something was wrong, and explaining otherwise would make them believe even worse things were happening. Instead I went to Frans’ factory. I had not seen him since he had asked me about the valuables in the house. His questions had angered me and I had made no effort to visit him.

  The woman at the gate did not recognize me. When I asked to see Frans she shrugged and stepped aside, disappearing without showing me where to go. I walked into a low building where boys Frans’ age sat on benches at long tables, painting tiles. They were working on simple designs, with nothing of t
he graceful style of my father’s tiles. Many were not even painting the main figures, but only the flourishes in the corners of the tiles, the leaves and curlicues, leaving a blank center for a more skilled master to fill.

  When they saw me a chorus of high whistles erupted that made me want to stop my ears. I went up to the nearest boy and asked him where my brother was. He turned red and ducked his head. Though I was a welcome distraction, no one would answer my question.

  I found another building, smaller and hotter, housing the kiln. Frans was there alone, with his shirt off and the sweat pouring from him and a grim look on his face. The muscles in his arms and chest had grown. He was becoming a man.

  He had tied quilted material around his forearms and hands that made him look clumsy, but when he pulled trays of tiles in and out of the kiln, he skillfully wielded the flat sheets so that he did not burn himself. I was afraid to call to him because he would be startled and might drop a tray. But he saw me before I spoke, and immediately set down the tray he held.

  “Griet, what are you doing here? Is something wrong with Mother or Father?”

  “No, no, they’re fine. I’ve just come to visit.”

  “Oh.” Frans pulled the cloths from his arms, wiped his face with a rag and gulped beer from a mug. He leaned against the wall and rolled his shoulders the way men do who have finished unloading cargo from a canal boat and are easing and stretching their muscles. I had never seen him make such a gesture before.

  “Are you still working the kiln? They have not moved you to something else? Glazing, or painting like those boys in the other building?”

  Frans shrugged.

  “But those boys are the same age as you. Shouldn’t you be—” I could not finish my sentence when I saw the look on his face.

  “It’s punishment,” he said in a low voice.

  “Why? Punishment for what?”

  Frans did not answer.

  “Frans, you must tell me or I’ll tell our parents you’re in trouble.”

  “I’m not in trouble,” he said quickly. “I made the owner angry, is all.”

  “How?”

  “I did something his wife didn’t like.”

  “What did you do?”

  Frans hesitated. “It was she who started it,” he said softly. “She showed her interest, you see. But when I showed mine she told her husband. He didn’t throw me out because he’s a friend of Father’s. So I’m on the kiln until his humor improves.”

  “Frans! How could you be so stupid? You know she’s not for the likes of you. To endanger your place here for something like that?”

  “You don’t understand what it’s like,” Frans muttered. “Working here, it’s exhausting, it’s boring. It was something to think about, that’s all. You have no right to judge, you with your butcher that you’ll marry and have a fine life with. Easy for you to say what my life should be like when all I can see are endless tiles and long days. Why shouldn’t I admire a pretty face when I see one?”

  I wanted to protest, to tell him that I understood. At night I sometimes dreamed of piles of laundry that never got smaller no matter how much I scrubbed and boiled and ironed.

  “Was she the woman at the gate?” I asked instead.

  Frans shrugged and drank more beer. I pictured her sour expression and wondered how such a face could ever tempt him.

  “Why are you here, anyway?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you be at Papists’ Corner?”

  I had prepared an excuse for why I had come, that an errand had taken me to that part of Delft. But I felt so sorry for my brother that I found myself telling him about van Ruijven and the painting. It was a relief to confide in him.

  He listened carefully. When I finished he declared, “You see, we’re not so different, with the attentions we’ve had from those above us.”

  “But I haven’t responded to van Ruijven, and have no intention to.”

  “I didn’t mean van Ruijven,” Frans said, his look suddenly sly. “No, not him. I meant your master.”

  “What about my master?” I cried.

  Frans smiled. “Now, Griet, don’t work yourself into a state.”

  “Stop that! What are you suggesting? He has never—”

  “He doesn’t have to. It’s clear from your face. You want him. You can hide it from our parents and your butcher man, but you can’t hide it from me. I know you better than that.”

  He did. He did know me better.

  I opened my mouth but no words came out.

  Although it was December, and cold, I walked so fast and fretted so much over Frans that I got back to Papists’ Corner long before I should have. I grew hot and began to loosen my shawls to cool my face. As I was walking up the Oude Langendijck I saw van Ruijven and my master coming toward me. I bowed my head and crossed over so that I would pass by my master’s side rather than van Ruijven’s but the crossing only drew van Ruijven’s attention to me. He stopped, forcing my master to halt with him.

  “You—the wide-eyed maid,” he called, turning towards me. “They told me you were out. I think you’ve been avoiding me. What’s your name, my girl?”

  “Griet, sir.” I kept my eyes fixed on my master’s shoes. They were shiny and black—Maertge had polished them under my guidance earlier that day.

  “Well, Griet, have you been avoiding me?”

  “Oh no, sir. I’ve been on errands.” I held up a pail of things I had been to get for Maria Thins before I visited Frans.

  “I hope I will see more of you, then.”

  “Yes, sir.” Two women were standing behind the men. I peeked at their faces and guessed they were the daughter and sister who were sitting for the painting. The daughter was staring at me.

  “You have not forgotten your promise, I hope,” van Ruijven said to my master.

  My master jerked his head like a puppet. “No,” he replied after a moment.

  “Good, I expect you’ll want to make a start on that before you ask us to come again.” Van Ruijven’s smile made me shiver.

  There was a long silence. I glanced at my master. He was struggling to maintain a calm expression, but I knew he was angry.

  “Yes,” he said at last, his eyes on the house opposite. He did not look at me.

  I did not understand that conversation in the street, but I knew it was to do with me. The next day I discovered how.

  In the morning he asked me to come up in the afternoon. I assumed he wanted me to work with the colors, that he was starting the concert painting. When I got to the studio he was not there. I went straight to the attic. The grinding table was clear—nothing had been laid out for me. I climbed back down the ladder, feeling foolish.

  He had come in and was standing in the studio, looking out a window.

  “Take a seat, please, Griet,” he said, his back to me.

  I sat in the chair by the harpsichord. I did not touch it—I had never touched an instrument except to clean it. As I waited I studied the paintings he had hung on the back wall that would form part of the concert painting. There was a landscape on the left, and on the right a picture of three people—a woman playing a lute, wearing a dress that revealed much of her bosom, a gentleman with his arm around her, and an old woman. The man was buying the young woman’s favors, the old woman reaching to take the coin he held out. Maria Thins owned the painting and had told me it was called The Procuress.

  “Not that chair.” He had turned from the window. “That is where van Ruijven’s daughter sits.”

  Where I would have sat, I thought, if I were to be in the painting.

  He got another of the lion-head chairs and set it close to his easel but sideways so it faced the window. “Sit here.”

  “What do you want, sir?” I asked, sitting. I was puzzled—we never sat together. I shivered, although I was not cold.

  “Don’t talk.” He opened a shutter so that the light fell directly on my face. “Look out the window.” He sat down in his chair by the easel.

  I gazed at the New Church
tower and swallowed. I could feel my jaw tightening and my eyes widening.

  “Now look at me.”

  I turned my head and looked at him over my left shoulder.

  His eyes locked with mine. I could think of nothing except how their grey was like the inside of an oyster shell.

  He seemed to be waiting for something. My face began to strain with the fear that I was not giving him what he wanted.

  “Griet,” he said softly. It was all he had to say. My eyes filled with tears I did not shed. I knew now.

  “Yes. Don’t move.”

  He was going to paint me.

  1666

  “You smell of linseed oil.”

  My father spoke in a baffled tone. He did not believe that simply cleaning a painter’s studio would make the smell linger on my clothes, my skin, my hair. He was right. It was as if he guessed that I now slept with the oil in my room, that I sat for hours being painted and absorbing the scent. He guessed and yet he could not say. His blindness took away his confidence so that he did not trust the thoughts in his mind.

  A year before I might have tried to help him, suggest what he was thinking, humor him into speaking his mind. Now, however, I simply watched him struggle silently, like a beetle that has fallen onto its back and cannot turn itself over.

  My mother had also guessed, though she did not know what she had guessed. Sometimes I could not meet her eye. When I did her look was a puzzle of anger held back, of curiosity, of hurt. She was trying to understand what had happened to her daughter.

  I had grown used to the smell of linseed oil. I even kept a small bottle of it by my bed. In the mornings when I was getting dressed I held it up to the window to admire the color, which was like lemon juice with a drop of lead-tin yellow in it.

  I wear that color now, I wanted to say. He is painting me in that color.

  Instead, to take my father’s mind off the smell, I described the other painting my master was working on. “A young woman sits at a harpsichord, playing. She is wearing a yellow and black bodice—the same the baker’s daughter wore for her painting—a white satin skirt and white ribbons in her hair. Standing in the curve of the harpsichord is another woman, who is holding music and singing. She wears a green, fur-trimmed housecoat and a blue dress. In between the women is a man sitting with his back to us—”