“Not yet, I think. She will assume I have been called out and you are waiting here for my return. I’ll take you home myself when you have rested a little longer. Then I can see how Vrouw van Deventer is at the same time.”
Neeltje closed her eyes thankfully again. She could understand more fully now how her mistress must dread rising from her couch when she felt least like doing so. But a certain disquiet remained. Why was that? Then it came back to her. In the meager street lighting she had taken a wrong turning, which had delayed her arrival at the doctor’s house. All the details were coming back now. Just near her destination a man had leapt from the shadows, grabbed the bridle and with one huge hand had hauled her from the saddle, letting her crash down on the cobbles. Dazed and bleeding, she had heard her attacker ride away and, terrified of being run over by a coach in the darkness, she had crawled from the street to the house steps. Somehow she had stretched up to reach the knocker, collapsing from pain as the door opened. She could not remember now who had been standing there or what she had said before she fainted. But she must have been away from home for a very long time!
“I must get back now!” she exclaimed, attempting to sit up. “I took longer in the dark to get here than I had expected and my mistress was very poorly indeed when I left.”
He took more notice then and soon afterward she was being assisted down the steps, the doctor on one side and a manservant on the other. She felt giddy and it was difficult to breathe, which she blamed on the tight binding about her ribs, but soon her mistress would be reassured about her and she would be in her own bed.
When the van Deventer house was reached, Dr. Mattheusz could hear that dancing was in full swing in the reception hall. The music drifted on the night air and he considered it wiser to instruct his coachman to drive around to a rear entrance. He was one of many of his fellow countrymen who disapproved of dancing, believing that it raised passions that led to immorality, but he did not wish to disrupt the gathering by appearing with this injured woman in her bloodstained clothing. He had no personal malice against those enjoying themselves. He had come to this house to care for the patient at his side and to attend to the one who awaited him.
“I must go to my mistress,” Neeltje insisted when helped from the coach, but she was almost fainting with pain and the doctor forbade her.
“Go straight to bed. I’ll explain everything and another maidservant can wait on Vrouw van Deventer tonight.”
Neeltje was reluctant, but she had to obey.
Ludolf was dancing a slow courante with Sybylla, their hands linked shoulder high and the steps slow and graceful. Out of a jealous whim toward Francesca he had invited no youngish bachelors on this occasion, and the only men present without partners were widowers, two in their forties and the rest older than himself. All three Visser girls danced well, Aletta having informed him during an earlier dance that Sybylla kept both her and Francesca abreast of all the new dances. He had not yet danced with Francesca, wary now of the slightest risk of gossip, but he had partnered five other women in addition to her sisters.
“Whatever did you say to Father to make him so merry?” Sybylla questioned with a giggle. “Look at him over there.” She indicated where Hendrick was all smiles in the dance.
“Why not ask him?” Ludolf suggested, knowing that whatever Hendrick replied the true reason would not be given.
She looked at him quizzically. “Aletta did and he said you were going to buy his painting of the tax collector.”
“Well?”
“I think that’s most unlikely.” She glanced upward and around at the sumptuous room. “Why should you wish to hang a painting of a representative of those for whom you surely have no liking?”
He laughed heartily, deciding that he would endorse Hendrick’s lie by buying it. “Perhaps that is the very reason. I can put the painting facing the midden or the most costly item in the house that I possess. The joke will be mine.”
She giggled. “You are the most outrageous man!”
“Don’t deny that you like me all the better for it!”
Her eyes twinkled at him, but she did not take the bait. “Do you think Amalia is able to sleep with this music playing and all the noisy chatter?”
He could guess what was coming. Aletta had hinted at it, but he had brushed aside her reminder of his half-promise. “She doesn’t sleep well at the best of times. Why do you ask?”
“You did say when my sisters and I arrived this evening that we might see Amalia later. It seems so hard that she should have tried to gather enough strength for this evening and then, when she failed, not to have a single visitor.”
Sybylla was honest enough to admit to herself that had there been any dashing young men present she might have forgotten Amalia completely. But she was genuinely fond of her new friend and was glad that she had remembered her lying in her apartment away from these exciting festivities with only Neeltje for company.
Ludolf thought quickly. Suppose he did take the three girls to Amalia’s apartment? He was convinced that his wife’s death would not be attributed to foul play, but why not strengthen his apparent innocence still further by going willingly, and seemingly unsuspectingly, to find his wife had expired at last from her illness. He could count on hysterics from Sybylla, to which he would add his own restrained display of bravely borne grief. Most important of all, he would be able to satisfy his curiosity as to why he had not been called away to the apartment.
“Then gather your two sisters when this dance is ended and we’ll find out if Amalia will see you. If so, I’ll have to return to the dancing, but you may judge how soon you should leave her again.”
As the music stopped Sybylla left his side to summon both Francesca and Aletta. Before Ludolf could make any move himself Hendrick blocked his way.
“I was hoping we might have a little chat on our own for a few minutes,” Hendrick said significantly.
Ludolf struggled with his annoyance that the artist should approach him at this particular time. “I realize you are eager to know the details, but they can’t be hurried through.”
“I’m at your command. Shall I call on you?”
“Yes. We don’t want to be overheard or disturbed. Come tomorrow at three o’clock. It’s not a very convenient time for me, but I will cancel another appointment.”
Cheerfully Hendrick accepted this arrangement. Then his daughters went with his patron to the invalid wife’s apartment and he strolled away to watch some games of cards at tables in one of the drawing rooms. He longed to be playing too, but a man with empty pockets and debts deeper than the Amstel could only be a wistful spectator.
Ludolf opened the door of Amalia’s room, the sisters behind him. With a rush of dreadful apprehension he saw that the couch was empty, the carmine-stained cushion having fallen to the floor.
“As I expected,” he stated after a fractional pause, “my wife has retired. I’ll go first on my own into her bedchamber.”
The girls waited as he strode for the double doors, which opened before he could reach them. Both Francesca and Sybylla recognized the short man in black clothes and a white periwig who stood there, having been presented to Dr. Mattheusz when he had called on Amalia one day.
“Heer van Deventer,” the doctor said in solemn tones, “I arrived here only a few minutes ago and was on my way to find you. I regret that I have the gravest news for you.”
“What’s happened?” Ludolf’s question was almost inaudible.
The doctor looked toward the girls and then back at Ludolf. “Do you wish me to say in the presence of others what I have to tell?”
Ludolf gave a nod, relief at what he was obviously about to hear giving him a soaring sense of power that once again he had manipulated events to his benefit. “I believe you have already prepared us. Two of these young women have drawn close to my dear Amalia quite recently.”
“Then with great sorrow I have to say that your wife died alone here this evening after sending her maidser
vant to fetch a potion from me. Unfortunately the woman was violently attacked and injured just as she reached my house and collapsed as I opened the door. It was not until she had recovered her senses that I understood your wife was in an extremely low state, and so I decided I should visit her while bringing the injured woman back at the same time.”
Ludolf groaned in a heartbroken fashion, bowing his head, and the sisters drew closer together, Francesca and Sybylla pale with shock and with tears in their eyes. Only Aletta spoke. “The poor lady!”
The doctor stepped forward and, being too short to guide Ludolf by the shoulder, placed a hand on his back. “Come now and see her. She is at peace.”
Ludolf dropped his hands to his sides and, like a man bereft of all he had cherished, went slowly into the bedchamber. The doctor did not accompany him but stayed in the dayroom, closing the doors to let him be alone with his late wife. Then, seeing that two of the sisters were thoroughly distressed, the third with an arm around each in comfort, Dr. Mattheusz went across to them.
“It may ease your grief to know that Vrouw van Deventer did not suffer,” he said kindly.
Sybylla, who had not behaved as Ludolf had expected, looked at the little doctor with swimming eyes. “How terrible that she was on her own! To think that we were all in the banqueting hall and then dancing while she—” She broke off, covering her face with her hands.
Aletta spoke to her soothingly and thought, as she had many times before, that Sybylla, for all her superficiality, had a tender heart. “As Vrouw van Deventer was in bed, it’s almost certain she went in her sleep.”
“That is sound thinking,” the doctor confirmed. It was not for these young women to know that he had found Amalia half fallen from the couch. The satin cushion under her head had slipped, taking her with it. Having known her as a woman always fastidious about her appearance, he had guessed how she would have hated to be found in an ungainly position and, out of charity, he had picked her up and carried her through to lay her on her own bed. His personal regret was that the delay in Neeltje’s errand of mercy had prevented him getting to Amalia in time to summon her husband to her bedside for her last moments.
The bedchamber doors opened again and Ludolf emerged. The doctor noted that he looked extremely sad, but not totally devastated, and he supposed that Amalia had been in such a weak state for so long that this devoted husband had been partly prepared for her demise at any time.
“Would you be so kind as to make an announcement to my guests, Dr. Mattheusz?” Ludolf requested brokenly.
“Of course, mijnheer. I’ll do it at once.” The music had been jarring on the doctor’s ears, for this was now a house of mourning. He hurried from the room. Francesca guided her sisters to follow while all three of them murmured condolences. Ludolf thanked them with a bow. Away in the reception hall the music trailed away and silence fell. As they went to receive their cloaks Francesca knew afresh the horror of the struggle in the library. To think that it should have happened almost within Amalia’s last hours. If Ludolf felt any remorse it had not shown in his eyes when he had looked at her. Her loathing of him made her flesh creep. When she and her sisters reached the reception hall the same stricken look was on every face. Hendrick came to them at once and spoke sympathetically. Francesca, her heart heavy with grief at Amalia’s lonely passing, was glad of his comforting arm about her shoulders and saw how Sybylla cuddled up to him on his other side as if she were a child again.
While all the guests had made their departure, Ludolf remained alone in the apartment. The one question that was still causing him anxiety was who had entered the room and moved Amalia’s body from the couch to her bedchamber. It was greatly to his relief when Dr. Mattheusz returned and explained what he had done.
“I knew you would be puzzled when, in time, your wife’s maid told you she had left her mistress on the couch in a very weak state, virtually unable to have moved to her bedchamber alone.”
Ludolf was all gratitude. “A most kindly thought, Doctor. I thank you with all my heart. Apart from what my dear wife would have felt, had she known, it would have been a terrible thing if those three young women had entered the room and seen my wife lying dead. The shock would have been most distressing.”
Once alone again Ludolf, with his hands on his hips, surveyed Amalia’s dayroom. When a suitable time had elapsed he would have the whole decor changed here and the rooms refurnished to become integrated with the main house again instead of being a separate apartment. The Pieter de Hooch painting caught his eye. It had been wasted hanging here. He would have it rehung in a drawing room where it would be better displayed. Naturally he would have to play the role of a grieving widower for a long time to come. Yet he knew to the very day what length that period should be and, as it was already into the early hours of a new day, it would date from tomorrow.
HENDRICK FELT SOMEWHAT uncertain about keeping an appointment in a house so suddenly tipped into mourning, but no message was sent to cancel it and so he set off for the van Deventer house in good time. The manservant who admitted him had bunches of black ribbon on the shoulders of his livery and two maidservants, hurrying across the reception hall, wore black lace aprons. This place of hushed voices was in sharp contrast to his own home, where friends and neighbors were calling in all the time to wish Francesca well with her apprenticeship and hand her little gifts.
Ludolf was waiting to receive him in a room where they had first played cards with Claudius and Otto. Hendrick thought it a poor choice of venue, considering the reason why he was here, but perhaps it had been deliberately selected. The new widower was in unrelieved mourning attire, even to plain black buckles on his shoes.
“It is most courteous of you to see me on such a sorrowful day,” Hendrick said after uttering conventional condolences in the sepulchral tones reserved for such times. He had taken the seat that had been offered him, although Ludolf chose to remain standing, resting a hand against the rose marble canopy of the Delft-tiled fireplace, as if showing from the start he intended to dominate this interview.
“There are matters to be talked out that can’t be delayed,” he began without preamble. “I want to marry Francesca.”
Shock and disgust shook through Hendrick. “You dare to stand there in the raiments of bereavement with your late wife barely cold—”
“This is no time for sentiment,” Ludolf broke in, his expression hard. “I have set my period of mourning for the minimum six months. After that I shall court her.”
“You take a great deal for granted!” Hendrick snorted, outraged.
Ludolf continued as if there had been no interruption. “During those first months I’ll not see her at all, except when she is at home on a visit, and then you will invite me there at all times to enable me to start my courtship without giving rise to public gossip.”
“That won’t be often,” Hendrick retorted with grim satisfaction. “Apprentices are only allowed to visit their families at Christmastide or in an emergency.”
Ludolf snapped his fingers contemptuously as if those conditions could easily be overcome. “I’ll not interrupt her apprenticeship, knowing how important it is to her, and my one aim is her happiness, but at the end of it she shall become my wife.”
“I’ll not give my consent!”
Ludolf regarded him with mild surprise, much as if a tiny gnat had dared to sting him. “What is your objection? Is she promised to someone else?”
“No.”
“Has she spoken of wishing to be anybody else’s wife?”
“No. Quite the reverse.”
“Well, then?”
Hendrick rubbed his hands uneasily over the arm ends of his chair. “She doesn’t want to stay in Holland once she has been granted membership of the Guild of St. Luke. She aims to go to Italy.”
“I’ll take her.”
Hendrick shook his head stubbornly, finding this whole interview far more difficult than the one conducted with Pieter, which had been without selfish deman
ds. Neither had he come prepared for this sudden development. The sooner it was nipped in the bud, the better, because he had come to talk over his debts and he wanted to get on with that quickly. “Francesca is set against marriage. She wants to be an artist first and foremost with no hindrances, emotional or otherwise, to hold her back.”
Ludolf left the fireplace and strolled across to the nearest window and stood looking out into the street. “Would you prefer that I make her my mistress?”
Hendrick sprang from his seat with a huge, vibrating roar, shaking his fist. “You dare to say that to me! Her own father!”
Ludolf moved to lean back leisurely against the windowsill and folded his arms. “To whom else should I make my intentions known? They are honorable, are they not? I was simply pointing out that I intend to have her either way.”
“Damnation to you! I’m going!” Hendrick started for the door, but he did not reach it, for Ludolf had drawn the promissory notes from his sleeve.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Ludolf inquired drily, flicking them to and fro in the air.
Hendrick’s heightened color took on a grayish hue. “That’s a different matter altogether,” he spluttered. “My debts are between the two of us. Nobody else comes into them.”
“That’s not entirely correct. I’ll remind you that you said on oath that I could have any collateral that I required and I’ve chosen Francesca.”
Hendrick became desperate. “You surely didn’t imagine I had included my own daughter?”
“Why should I suppose otherwise? Women are men’s chattels. You have every legal right to dictate whom your daughters should marry.”
“But I have never held that attitude toward them. I’m a freedom-loving man myself and when Anna was first pregnant she and I decided that our sons and daughters should be brought up on an equal footing. We had no boys, except the stillborn infant who cost her life, but our girls have grown up with independent spirits and been encouraged to have opinions of their own!”
“But Francesca will obey your will.”
The Golden Tulip Page 28