The Golden Tulip

by Rosalind Laker

  “It must have been hard work to get everything in order.”

  He shrugged with a smile. “The results have been worth all the effort. The soil is good and each spring my land turns to ribbons of tulips and hyacinths. I grow other flowers too, but in lesser quantities.”

  She had seen such carpets of flowers, the colors almost taking one’s breath away. “I always think it’s a sad sight when the barges transport huge mounds of those glorious tulip heads to dump them.”

  “They have to be cut off the stems the first year if the bulbs are to be a commercial proposition. Did you ever thread some of those blooms together when you were a child?”

  “Yes, we did,” she replied with enthusiasm. “A friend of my late mother used to bring us a huge basket of them. My sisters and I would sit in the courtyard and choose from all the different colors to make garlands to wear on our heads and hang around our necks. I still like to see those tulip chains draped over doorways and festooning wagons and sailboats.” She gave a little laugh. “I remember always wishing I could lie on a bed of those blooms!”

  Her words innocently conjured up such a seductive image for him that he needed to change the subject. “You’re still nursing that hyacinth on your lap. Let me put it aside for you.”

  “I don’t want it out of my charge now that I’ve been entrusted with it,” she declared lightly, but with seriousness behind her words. “You must have made this Feast of St. Nicholaes an outstanding one for all your new customers by giving them such bounty.”

  His hesitation before he answered her could only have lasted for a matter of seconds, but during that lapse their eyes held and the realization dawned on her forcefully that no other customer had received anything. His reply, skirting her remark, confirmed indirectly what Sybylla had whispered to her.

  “Most of my customers have been established with me for quite a while.”

  She returned her attention to the plant in order to hide her racing thoughts, her lashes lowered. “How often should the earth in this pot be moistened?” she asked quickly, “and where would be the best place in the house for it to stand?”

  It was entirely new to her to have a plant in the house and that was the general rule. Flower beds, public and private, might blossom and flourish everywhere in season, delighting the eye on all sides, but blooms were rarely brought indoors. The fastidious Dutch housewife had no place for a film of dusty pollen or dropped petals on her spotless surfaces. It was why paintings of flowers were so popular, giving the beauty without any of the mess, quite apart from the exorbitant cost of choice blooms.

  When she had received from him all the advice she needed, Francesca seized on the chance the hyacinth had given her to break up their conversation. “I’ll go now and put this plant in a good position.”

  He stood up as she left the bench. “May I come with you?”

  Before she could answer him, Hendrick and two other men had stepped in to draw him into conversation about garden landscaping. She heard him say it was something he specialized in before she carried the potted plant away from the chatter and laughter into the quietness of a side room. There a candle lamp gave a soft light and a fire glowed in the grate.

  Carefully Francesca placed the Delft pot on a side table under the window where it would get plenty of light while being out of any draft. She could hardly wait for it to bloom. What a subject for painting at this time of year! Then she became thoughtful as she remained standing by the table with her fingertips resting against the sides of the Delft pot with its blue-and-white pattern. Sybylla had been right. Francesca knew as surely as if Pieter had told her himself that this plant had been a ploy to gain an entrée into her home and further their acquaintance. To herself she commended him for his initiative, although, despite her attraction to him, it was misguided. Had her display of enthusiasm for his winning the race on the river led him to believe she would welcome this move of his?

  She turned her head to where a Venetian mirror hung on a side wall and saw her own reflection within the gilded frame like a painting in a candlelit setting. The face of the girl she saw there was not exactly troubled, but there was disquiet in the countenance. According to Maria, she was long overdue for courtship and kissing, but she had made her decision. Work and more work made an antidote to natural physical desires.

  Just recently, for no reason that she could think of, Hendrick had taken a fresh interest in her work, although she knew it was an effort for him, and he had given her some tuition that had been most helpful. It was not on a regular basis and only when he was in a good mood, but she was grateful for it and felt she had made some advancement. She did not want disruption in her organized existence from Pieter van Doorne with his determined chin and penetrating eyes. This same evening she must squash any designs he might have on her time, for she had none to spare. She would be polite, but more distant. By this means she had discouraged a would-be suitor last year and the same young man was among the company in the reception room this evening, his newly betrothed with him. She turned with a swish of red velvet and lace-edged petticoats to go back to the merrymaking, but Pieter stood in the doorway.

  “Sybylla told me where to find you.”

  Francesca realized that it was just the sort of thing her mischievous sister would do. She indicated the plant where it stood on the table. “I’ve found a good place for the hyacinth, as you can see.”

  He went across to it and she guessed it was not so much to check on where it stood as to delay her leaving the room. As she had half expected, he turned from it to rest his weight against the edge of the table, more than ready to prolong the time with her.

  “I have a confession to make,” he said quite seriously.

  So he was about to confirm what she already knew. “Oh? What could that be?”

  “I used this hyacinth as an excuse to meet you again. There was no chance to talk last time and even less on the two previous occasions.”

  “One, don’t you mean?”

  He shook his head, smiling. “No. I saw you the first time when I stood delivering the bulbs. I could see right through to the open door of the studio. You were in costume with a wreath of flowers on your hair. It was just a glimpse and then your father pushed the door closed.”

  She gave a little laugh, her eyebrows raised. “You are full of surprises, Heer van Doorne!”

  “Call me Pieter, please. May I address you as Francesca?”

  She shrugged lightly. “If you wish.”

  “Tell me more about your work, Francesca.” He glanced about the room. “I’m certain none of these paintings is yours. I know that one over there is a Seghers.”

  “That’s right.” She recalled her mother’s distress over Hendrick’s extravagance when he had come home with it from an auction. In the past his acquisitive nature had made it impossible for him to turn away from anything he wanted and the house was full of paintings, contemporary and otherwise, that he had been unable to resist. The Seghers had caused one of those sharp quarrels between her parents, which had ended in the usual way upstairs. Now, in adulthood, she understood fully how much her mother had loved Hendrick, Anna’s forgiving, generous heart unable to hold out against his wiles. “The only work of mine hanging in this house is in Maria’s bedchamber. I would not dream of letting any of my paintings take a place beside the works on these walls even if my father allowed it.”

  “But the day will come.”

  She regarded him with amusement. “How can you possibly know that?”

  He thrust himself away from the table and came across to her. “I don’t, but I’m sure about it. Will you show me your painting of the hyacinth when it is done?”

  It was a request she could not refuse. “Yes, of course,” she said willingly.

  He took a step closer. “I should like to see you often, Francesca.”

  This was her chance to stem their acquaintanceship before it advanced any further. “I have little time to myself. When I’m not painting I’m dealing w
ith domestic matters.”

  “But there is always the spare hour. Everybody needs some relaxation. We could go to the theater—there’s enough to choose from in Amsterdam—and to concerts. We could talk and walk and really get to know each other.”

  She had never been more tempted. His height, his smile and the sheer attractive physical presence of him threatened to blot out everything else for her. “I think not,” she managed to say and was saved from any argument by the notes of the virginal striking up melodiously from the reception hall. “My sisters’ concert has begun. Let us go quickly!”

  She led the way and, looking through the archway into the reception hall from the stair hall, she saw that everyone was well settled and listening attentively. Not wanting to disturb anyone with a late arrival, she indicated the stairs.

  “Let’s sit here,” she whispered to Pieter.

  She had expected him to sit on the tread above hers, but he chose to squeeze in beside her, his hip and thigh against hers. Two of the audience had already glanced in their direction and she decided to stay where she was to save any further distraction. She set her mind to concentrate on Aletta’s solo piece and away from this virile young man.

  Aletta’s piece came to an end and there was enthusiastic applause. Then she and Sybylla began to play together. Sybylla’s viol produced a soft resonance and was really an instrument more suited to Aletta’s temperament than to hers, for even when the music was fast it sounded placid. Perhaps that was why it appealed to Sybylla, who was unable to moderate her own emotions, but at heart she was a true musician. She had her eyes closed as she played, lost in the music, the bow in her hand held from underneath with her fingers touching the stick, each note beginning and ending in gentleness.

  Francesca’s artist’s eye was struck by the picture her sisters made and her fingers itched for paper and pencil. Tonight, no matter how late the guests left, she would make a sketch while this view of her sisters was sharp in her memory. Then in the days ahead she would set them on canvas. Aletta would be seated at the virginal, which was painted green and decorated with Dutch scenes on the raised lid. The back lacing of her figured silk gown was as straight as her spine, her oval face reflected in the mirror sloping from its nail in the wall above the instrument. Sybylla, who though not having received either of the new garments she had hoped for, would appear as now, wearing Maria’s gift of a deep lace collar, which had been added to her rose silk gown shortly before the guests’ arrival. It lay on her shoulders, delicate as frost.

  Then, shattering Francesca’s concentration, Pieter took hold of her hand. He must have felt her whole body jerk in reaction, for when she would have pulled her hand away his cool, strong clasp tightened and her hand was trapped, palm against palm, fingers entwined. She sensed that he glanced sideways at her, but she kept her gaze rigidly on her sisters, nothing to show the effect the meeting of his hand with hers was having on her. She had no idea that handholding could be so sensual or so curiously intimate, aided as it was by the shadows in which he and she sat and the little distance that shut them off from the rest of the gathering. Even the music helped, as if it were being played specially for them. Her pulse was racing and when he moved his hand slightly, making a caress of his clasp, she was aware more strongly than ever of some intangible bond by which he was seeking to draw her wholly to him.

  He released her hand only to let her applaud and then regained it, even though she tried to keep it from his reach. When he took it from her lap she gave up the contest.

  As soon as the concert was over she sprang to her feet. “I must check now to see that everyone gets more refreshment.”

  He grinned as she flew from him to busy herself among the guests. Sybylla had vacated the chair on which she had been playing and he took it to speak to Aletta, who sat sideways to the virginal, thanking people for their compliments. When they had moved off, he added his own.

  “You play so well. I admire such musical talent.”

  “I thank you,” she said shyly. “Are you traveling all the way back to Haarlem tonight?”

  “No. I’ve a house here in Amsterdam,” he answered, “which I bought two years ago. I shall be staying there.”

  “It’s as well you have two homes in this case. I peeped out of a window before Sybylla and I sat down to play and I was going to warn you that it is snowing hard. I’m still marveling over the hyacinth you brought us.”

  “It was an experiment in culture and some interpollination that I’ll not make public again. Several people here were at pains to point out to me that a house is no place for plants of an experimental nature or otherwise.”

  “Nevertheless, the hyacinth will be appreciated by my family. I shall make it the subject of a painting before it fades.”

  “Francesca intends to do the same.”

  “I thought she would, because she loves flowers so much.”

  “She has promised that I shall see her painting when it is finished. May I see yours too?”

  “Yes, indeed you may. Please tell me more about your plants and bulbs and flowers. Do you have stalls other than the one here in Amsterdam where my father ordered the bulbs?”

  “Yes, I have another stall at Haarlem and at a couple of towns within easy reach. I take every outlet I can for my produce.” He smiled slowly, his eyes narrowing. “I’m as ambitious as you and Francesca. I leave no stone unturned to get my name known.”

  Sybylla had returned to pull up another chair and sit on his other side. “You’re aiming to be a rich man, are you?” she asked with a giggle, having just caught the tail end of what he had said.

  He gave her a dancing glance. “I intend to be successful and if riches come with that state of affairs I’ll be well satisfied.”

  She tossed her head provocatively. “That’s too long for me to wait. Plants and flowers can’t be hurried out of the ground.”

  “So you wouldn’t want to invest in my venture, Sybylla?” he joked.

  “No!” she squealed back delightedly. “Or to be your wife either! Whoever you marry will have to help you weed and sow and snip off the tulip heads. I want an idle life where I’m waited on hand and foot.”

  He laughed, entertained by her. Normally Aletta would have checked her sister severely for her behavior, but something Pieter had said seemed to offer a solution to a certain problem that somehow she had to solve. It had come like a ray of light, but she could not talk about it here.

  “How often do you have your stall in Amsterdam?” she inquired.

  “Not at all now until the spring.” He saw disappointment pass across her face and wondered what lay behind her question, but she gave no clue and let her sister dominate the conversation.

  Guests had begun to rise to their feet to leave and Pieter did the same. Outdoor garments were fetched and donned. Aletta seized the chance to speak to Pieter more privately.

  “Is there somewhere in Amsterdam where I might find you one day soon? I can’t make it any more definite than that. I should like to seek your opinion on a certain business venture.”

  He looked at her searchingly. Since she obviously intended to come on her own he could not invite her to his home, but must keep the rendezvous to some public place. “I go to the Exchange at noon on the last Wednesday of every month.”

  She nodded gratefully. “I’ll remember that.”

  Francesca stood at Hendrick’s side to bid each guest good night. Farewells were quickly said and there was no lingering on the stoop outside, because each time the door was opened the snow swirled in. Pieter stood ready to depart.

  “May this evening have seen the first of many such hours that we shall spend in conversation together, Francesca.”

  She shook her head slightly. “Although it will always be a pleasure to see you at my home, I have to say again that my time is completely taken up.”

  “Nevertheless, I remain hopeful. Good night to you.” He moved on to thank Hendrick for his hospitality and gave a last long look in Francesca’s d
irection before he clapped on his hat and went out into the swirling snow.

  When the door was finally closed on the last departing guest, Francesca’s thoughts turned to the clearing up, but Griet’s married sister had been hired to be in the kitchen that evening and once the glasses had been gathered up from tables and ledges there was little left to be done. Maria was persuaded to go straight to bed and Hendrick followed shortly afterward, reeling slightly and having difficulty in placing his feet on the stairs. By the time Griet’s brother-in-law arrived to escort his wife home there was hardly any sign that a party had been held. Francesca locked up while her sisters and Griet went yawning to bed.

  Alone in the warm kitchen, having brought a sketchbook and pencils from the studio, Francesca settled down to draw by the rosy glow of the firebox. She did not feel in the least tired, too stimulated by all the happenings of the evening. An image of Pieter persisted in coming between her and her drawing, as if he had gained a mental and physical grasp on her. Eventually she stopped what she was attempting to do and deliberately sketched him instead. Her pencil seemed released, almost as if it were following familiar lines by its own volition, and the result was a startling likeness. She covered the drawing over quickly, knowing she would never be able to complete what she had intended to do with it in front of her, still more vivid now than he had been in her mind’s eye. Then she found that having exorcised his haunting, she was able to finish her sketch of her sisters to her satisfaction.

  Then suddenly she was tired. She blew out the kitchen candle lamp and took an extra candlestick that had been left for her to light her way to bed. At the foot of the stairs she hesitated, feeling herself drawn to look once more at the plant that had been forced into growth especially for her. She retraced her steps into the side room. This time she took notice of the pattern on its Delft pot. She saw that it depicted sailboats and rowboats on a river.