She half turned her face away in disgust. "I don't want to talk about him! I'm thankful to say I've neither spoken his name nor heard it mentioned until now since leaving home. Aletta did write that he had bought another of Father's paintings, but that was an unwelcome reminder of someone I want to forget."

"That may never be possible if your father has promised that you will marry him!"

She stared at him incredulously. "Whyever should you suppose such an outrageous possibility? It could never happen. Father knows my views on marriage."

"He also knew of your love of liberty and independence, but has he respected that?"

Becoming very still, she looked searchingly into his face. "What have you heard?"

He led her across to a cushioned bench, where they sat down together, he continuing to hold her hands. He proceeded to tell her all that Aletta had told him of Neeltje's warning. Since he had given his word to Hendrick never to let her know of her father's dire straits, linked as it was with his own secret payment of her apprenticeship fees, he could not reveal his conviction that it was Ludolf to whom Hendrick owed a huge debt. During various conversations he had had with Aletta, she had all unwittingly revealed that the friendship between her father and his patron, which had started with card playing and visits, had cooled most noticeably. It had not been hard to deduce after Neeltje's comments that it was this debt that could give Ludolf such a hold over Hendrick that anything could be demanded by the man. He saw Francesca's cheeks color when he spoke of Neeltje's timely arrival in the library.

"That was a hateful experience," she exclaimed grimly. "I was foolish to have let him catch me unawares, because I had long since judged him to be the man he proved to be. I told n.o.body about it, because it was pointless to cause a breach between my father and his patron when I was going away in any case, never-I hoped-to see Ludolf again. But my father would never value any man's patronage above the well-being and happiness of his daughters. I feel you are placing too much importance on Neeltje's words."

"I choose to believe otherwise. I wanted to put you on your guard. Should such an arrangement be made for you I'll get you away to Italy by the first ship. I'd take you to your aunt in Florence out of harm's way."

"You would do all that for me?" she said wonderingly.

"I'd do anything for you!" he declared vehemently.

"But Ludolf could follow me to Italy."

"It would be a wasted journey for him, because by the time he arrived I would have married you with your aunt's permission. Dutch laws do not apply in Italy."

She gave him a long, steady look. "We agreed on friendship."

His smile was serious, as were his eyes. "Lovers are fortunate when they are friends as well. I'd leave you to study in Italy until such time as you wished to come home to me."

She could tell that uppermost in his mind was the certainty that once they had shared a marriage bed she would never be able to stay away from him, however much she might try. Her heart was opening to him like a rose unfolding its petals to the sunshine, all the love she had suppressed released at last to blossom fully. She spoke in a whisper. "Then what would happen?"

"We would live together in marital harmony, you with your work and I with mine. Maybe we could entice Neeltje into our home to take charge of household duties and relieve you of all domestic ch.o.r.es. If not, we'd find somebody else."

She uttered a soft laugh at the manner in which he was knocking all obstacles aside. He grinned, releasing her hands to put his arms about her and catch her close to his chest. She put her hand fondly against the side of his face.

"Have you forgotten what else I listed in my case against marriage?"

"No," he said, serious again, "but if we have a family while we're young and guard against it spreading out indefinitely, you'll have years and years in which to paint when the children have flown the nest and we're on our own again."

"And in the meantime?"

"Surely you'd let a nursemaid take charge for some hours of every day."

He looked at her in such despairing appeal that she smiled, stroking the frown away from his forehead. "You're finding ways to overcome all my arguments. You were not so adamant the first time we discussed this matter."

"I did not know then if you would ever love me. When two people love each other any difficulties can be overcome."

"I believe that too, and I do love you, Pieter."

His mouth took hers with such pa.s.sion that she was lost to everything except the pressure of his lips, the strength of his embrace and her own sweeping desire. His whole physical presence seemed to be in her breathing and in her blood. When he caressed her breast she strained against him, wishing she could tear away the fabric that made a barrier between her flesh and his touch. She sank against him when their kiss ended, her head on his shoulder, her heart beating so hard that she was sure he must hear it. He pa.s.sed a stroking hand over her hair and she felt that she arched like a cat straining for more fondling. He put his fingertips under her chin and raised her face to his.

"I'll come to see you as often as possible," he promised. "All the time Vrouw Wolff doesn't know who I am, I can come and go in Delft quite easily."

"But you must never be seen with me!"

"Don't be afraid. I'll act wisely. If Master Vermeer allows me to meet you here that will solve everything."

She sat up and away from him, although she kept a hand resting on his wrist. "If he or Catharina should suggest it, that would be wonderful, but I can't ask them. It wouldn't be right for me to see you during studio hours, and later, when normally I should be back at the house in Kromstraat, would be dangerous. If Vrouw Wolff became suspicious she might well find some means of discovering the truth by questioning the children or the maidservant, and she would cause trouble for the Vermeers all over Delft. I know, Pieter, as do Jan and Catharina, that she is a dangerous woman."

"I understand that. Do you ever go sketching alone?"

"I'm going out into the countryside tomorrow, but Catharina and the children will be with me as on previous occasions and we're taking a picnic." She leaned toward him. "Perhaps another time I could arrange to be on my own."

He took her face between his hands and kissed her lips softly. "Somehow I'll have to find a means by which to let you know when I'll be in Delft again."

"You can't write to me here at the Mechelin Huis. Any letter bearing my name would go straight to Geetruyd Wolff, whatever the address."

"Maybe I can find a messenger to send one to you during your studio hours."

"That would be the only way."

Francesca felt it was time she returned to the party, having been half an hour or longer away from it, and after all she was a guest. In the gallery she reminded Pieter of their original agreement as he held her in his arms once more.

"After all we've said to each other an amendment is needed," she said.

"What would that be?"

"It has become a loving friendship."

His smile broadened. "I've no objection to that." Then he kissed her hard before leaving by the gallery door into the side street.

It was to be quite a time before he was able to find someone he felt able to trust to deliver letters to Francesca at the Mechelin Huis and to bring him hers in return. Then an old friend from childhood, Gerard Meverden, happened to call in at the farmhouse while he was in his office.

"Business is expanding all the time," Gerard said to Pieter after preliminary conversation. He dealt in potash, which was used in the bleaching of linen, and had recently bought a large house in Haarlem, having previously lived next to his warehouse. "I've opened up some outlets in Delft now."

"Shall you be traveling there often?"

"About once every six weeks, I expect. Why?"

"You're just the one I can ask to do me a favor."

"Ask away! What is it?" As soon as Gerard heard what was requested of him, a grin spread across his amiable face with its broad nose and heavy chin. "So I'm to play Cupid, am I? That's a new role for me. Give me your letters, old friend. I'll deliver them with pleasure."

When he returned from his first visit to Delft, he reported on how well he had been received by Catharina Vermeer, who had happened to open the door to him.

"Did you see Francesca?" Pieter demanded impatiently.

"Indeed I did. She had a letter in readiness in case of an opportunity arising, and I gave her a little time to add a few lines to bring it up to date before I left again." He took it from his pocket and handed it over, his laughter-crinkled eyes bright. "She's a beauty. You're a lucky man. If any other purpose had taken me to the house, I'd be after her myself!"

NORMALLY GRIET WOULD never have disturbed Hendrick when he was at work in his studio, but she felt that this caller at the door should be made known to him.

"Pardon my interrupting you, master, but there's somebody asking for Juffrouw Anna Veldhuis."

Hendrick jerked his head toward her. To hear his wife's maiden name again had been like an arrow shot through him. "Did you ask this person in?"

"No, master, because it's not the late mistress whom she wants to see, but an artist of the same name."

Puzzled, Hendrick went to the door himself. He was wondering if a long-ago acquaintance of Anna's had come with some muddled memory of her. He found a woman of middle age, wearing the modest black clothes of an artisan's wife, her linen cap as crisp as her collar.

"It's a young woman I wish to see," she explained. "Juffrouw Veldhuis painted a fine family portrait at the home of my son and wife during the winter. Now that their new baby is four months old and somewhat delicate they would like him put in the group now instead of waiting until later."

It was not unusual for successive children to be added to a family portrait over the years, often making it appear that the parents had a dozen or more offspring around the same age, frequently in the same clothes when good garments had been handed down. Hendrick sympathized for the need for haste in this case, but he could think of no artist other than himself in this particular vicinity. It must be an amateur for whom the woman was searching.

"What made you think the young woman lived here?" he questioned, still curious about the coincidence of the name.

"I'd been told she was seen going into a house in this street. When I asked a pa.s.serby where I might find an artist he pointed to your door."

"I fear you're on a wild-goose chase here, ma'am."

She bobbed politely. "I'm truly sorry to have troubled you."

Hendrick closed the door and returned to his work. Veldhuis was not a particularly uncommon name, but it was a strange coincidence that it should have been spoken again on the threshold of his home.

He could not be sure why the incident of the woman calling at the house should have stayed with him, but every now and again in the days that followed he thought of it. He supposed it was the aftermath of a flicker of hope he had experienced in thinking he was to see someone who had known Anna in days gone by. Those who had never been harshly bereaved had no realization of what a comfort it was to engage in talk of the one who had gone. Too often people refrained from talk from misplaced good intent, not knowing that whenever he heard Anna's name spoken she lived for a few seconds again.

He was in the process of a self-portrait. A mirror had been placed at the right height by his easel and he glanced in it as he painted. He was in a rich-looking costume from one of the atelier chests with a velvet hat on which a long feather was fastened with a jeweled clasp in the style of a hundred years earlier. To be thus grandly dressed was to emphasize his standing as a successful artist, which Rembrandt had done in his heyday. To Hendrick it was an act of defiance against his hated patron as if it might show that he was not dependent on any one man's munificence. Aletta should have been in the studio to paint him in these robes while the opportunity was hers instead of sketching scenes of the city to paint afterward in that room upstairs.

His brush suddenly hovered between palette and canvas as a twinge of suspicion dawned. A young woman painter! Aletta could fit that description. Then there were the names-Anna Veldhuis and Aletta Visser-linked by the same initials. There was also a witness to a young artist coming into a house that might, or might not, have been his. He wanted to dismiss out of hand a growing conviction that there was some connection between his daughter and the family portrait that had been mentioned, but it persisted. Finally, his concentration shattered, he went from the studio to mount the stairs at an increasing pace until he reached the bedchamber that his two younger daughters shared. The door into the studio-parlor was locked, but with a hefty shove from his broad shoulders it swung inward with a crash.

For a few moments he stood glaring around at the paintings propped against the walls. He picked up the first one, which was painted on oak that was not from his supplies. His eyes threatened to start from his head when he saw it was signed "A.V." How dare Aletta sign her work without his authority! All doubts began to fall away and the hot color surged up his neck to flood his face, rage making his hands shake. He threw the painting down to s.n.a.t.c.h up the next within range. Then he went from one to another, certain now that his daughter and the young painter who had been inquired about were one and the same. These roughly executed works, showing a talent debased by speed, careless perspective and too hasty use of color, were all in the east and south of the city, where craftsmen and ordinary traders lived, none in the west, where the wealthy burghers and merchants had their grand residences. A half-finished painting on the easel of a family grouped in a simply furnished room was the final, conclusive evidence in his eyes. All the anxiety and misery he had endured, his whole mental torment of the past months since that disastrous card game, finally took its toll. Something seemed to snap. All self-control vanished.

With a thundering roar of rage he dashed to the window and threw it wide. Then he gathered up the paintings, breaking some across his knees, and hurled them down into the courtyard. Maria, sitting outside in the sun sh.e.l.ling peas, gave a cry of alarm as the paintings descended to smash and splinter on the cobbles. She was out of harm's way, but fright made her start in her chair, causing the bowl to slip from her lap and all the green peas went bouncing and dancing away.

"What's happening?" she cried out in a quavering voice. "Has Aletta gone mad?"

Griet had come running to see what was happening and she put a rea.s.suring hand on Maria's shoulder. "It can only be the master! Juffrouw Aletta went out a while ago."

The last painting had descended. Griet moved forward cautiously to look up at the third-floor window, but Hendrick was already on his way downstairs. He appeared in the back doorway. Out of the setting of the studio he was an incongruous figure in his fanciful robes and feathered hat.

"Where's Aletta?" he demanded loudly.

Griet, stooping over the mess of painted wood to see if any picture had survived, straightened quickly. "Out for the day at her sketching, master!"

Maria, outraged by what had happened, had hauled herself out of her chair. "You can't expect Aletta to paint as well as you!" she hissed, totally misinterpreting his destruction of the paintings. "When did you last give her any tuition? Have you no conscience about what you have done to her work?"

He glared at her, his eyes narrowed and glinting dangerously. "I've put it where it belongs, old woman! Ready as fuel for the fire." Then he pointed an authoritative finger at Griet. "You will burn every sc.r.a.p of the rubbish strewn about this courtyard! There must be only ashes when I return home. Where can I find Aletta?"

"I've no idea. She doesn't tell me where she's going."

He turned his demanding gaze on Maria, but her face set stubbornly. "If I knew I wouldn't tell you when you're in this mood!"

"Then I'll find her for myself!" He swung back into the house, pulling the velvet hat from his head and shedding the brilliant robes, leaving them in a trail behind him. Clad in only his shirt and breeches, he hastened back to the studio, took his hat from a peg and s.n.a.t.c.hed up his jacket to plunge his arms into it as he went from the house, taking swift strides.

He made first for those streets and corners that he had recognized in Aletta's work. It was not hard to deduce that she had been painting to sell, not only to individuals who had commissioned work from her, but in the case of views of Dam Square, the Town Hall, the various churches and the harbor, to offer for sale generally. He looked in every picture shop as he went by, but saw nothing of hers and neither did he expect to, for a girl offering her work would have to be an exceptional artist if she was to be given serious consideration. That only left the market or a fair for output.

He came into Dam Square from a street that opened into it from the opposite side to where the market stalls were cl.u.s.tered. He shouldered his way through the crowds and when he reached the stalls he wound his way in and out, ignoring those selling fruit and vegetables, pottery, stacked cheeses, clogs and old clothes. At each picture stall he scanned through the work there with such thoroughness that he was taken as a potential customer and forced himself to voice the question that was abhorrent to him.

"Have you anything painted by-Anna Veldhuis? She signs her work with her initials."

The answer was always in the negative, which was a tremendous relief each time. It was doubtful whether he would have seen that there were paintings at the end of a flower stall if he had not caught sight of a face he recognized. It was that of Griet's married sister, Helena, who had come often to his home to give a helping hand domestically whenever it was needed. It crossed his mind she might have seen Aletta that morning and there was no harm in asking. As he drew nearer he saw she was a.s.sisting at the stall from which he had bought tulip bulbs, long before its owner had become known to him. With all flowers being expensive, it was one of only two stalls selling them, but there was a fine show and well-dressed folk were making purchases.

To his astonishment Helena was at the far end of the extended stall on which was arrayed a number of paintings. Even from where he was he recognized the work. So Pieter van Doorne and Helena and Aletta were all in a conspiracy together! He thought he would explode with fury. Purposefully he charged to the end of the stall. When Helena saw him standing in front of the paintings she turned a guilty scarlet.

"Master Visser," she stammered. "It's a fine day, is it not?"

His bellow made heads turn several stalls away and with a sweep of his powerful hand he sent his daughter's pictures crashing to the cobbles. People stared in amazement to see him s.n.a.t.c.h up those that remained to hurl them after the rest. Then he leaned across the stall to seize Helena by the shoulders and shake her in his temper.

"Who put you up to this? Was it Aletta? Or van Doorne? I want the truth!"

The two stall women selling the flowers had come dashing to Helena's aid. "Let her go!" one of them shouted angrily. "What do you think you're doing?"

"See the mess you've made!" shrieked the other, throwing up her hands at the strewn pictures.

He ignored them. "Answer my question, Helena!"

She was badly frightened, for his congested face was only inches from her own and his fierce grip on her shoulders was bruising her. "Ask your daughter! Not me! I'm only working here. There's nothing wrong in that!"

"There is when you're selling work with an unauthorized signature!"

"You're hurting me!" In her struggling to be free of his grasp she caused the stall to shake. The section on which the pictures had been lying knocked against the main one and the vibration caused a tub of roses to topple. Both stall women cried out in dismay.

"Help! There's a madman here!" they shouted as they tried to save other tubs from disaster.

Spectators, drawn to the scene, moved back as three burly men left their own stalls to grab Hendrick by the arms. "Leave that woman alone, you!"

Hendrick was jerked back, his hold on Helena broken. In his blind rage he swung about to give one man a full punch in the face while a second man received a thrust in the chest that sent him staggering back against some bystanders, adding to the confusion. Before the third man could seize him, Hendrick took hold of the picture section of the stall to send it hurtling onto its side and out of his path. Helena began to scream hysterically as he came lunging through at her, but those whom he had struck aside had recovered their balance and with the third man they leapt forward to grab him. He whirled out again with his fists and in the resulting melee the main stall tilted and fell, causing the cobbles to become slippery underfoot from water and crushed flowers as he fought to free himself of those attempting to restrain him. A shout had gone up for the Civil Guard to be fetched.

ALETTA, WHO HAD completed a full day's work, arrived home at five o'clock to be met by grave faces, filling her with a rush of apprehension. Willem was there and he broke the news to her.

"Prepare yourself, Aletta. Your father has been arrested and charged with causing a breach of the peace."

"Oh no! What happened?"

Before Willem could reply, Sybylla, who was red-eyed from tears, cried out accusingly, "You may well ask! It was all through your wretched paintings! He smashed them up here and at the market stall!"

Aletta did not hear Sybylla burst into further sobs, for shock had caused her to faint. She would have fallen on the marble-tiled floor if Willem had not caught her in time.

HENDRICK LANGUISHED for six weeks in a prison cellar in one of the city's oldest gatehouses. He, who loved freedom of the spirit, body and mind, thought he would soon lose his reason and die. Weight fell away from him. He shared his dismal confines, the only light coming through a small barred window, with twenty other men awaiting trial for various offenses. He had nothing for his comfort except a thin layer of straw. Food had to be purchased from the guards. It was of poor quality and, as he had no appet.i.te, he would hand it on, after a couple of mouthfuls, to poorer prisoners, who gobbled it up. When his purse was empty, food continued to come to him, which meant that his family, or perhaps Willem, was paying for it. He hoped it was not Ludolf, for that would have turned what little he did eat to ashes in his mouth. He thought constantly of the chained goldfinch in the Fabritius painting that Francesca had described, but he no longer saw her as the captive, for it was he who was learning the true meaning of the word. She was still able to paint each day while he sat on the straw-strewn floor, chained at the ankle, his hands dangling from his updrawn knees. He no longer had pity for anyone except himself.

It was no consolation that Pieter had not pressed charges for the damage done at the stall, for it was enough that the three stall holders had accused him of a.s.sault and battery, which could combine with the new harshness of the law against rioters to earn him a ghastly punishment. He might be exposed in a pillory in front of the Town Hall for all Amsterdam to see with his head sticking out of a wooden bell and his misdemeanor emblazoned on a placard. Or he might be paraded through the streets with a smashed painting around his neck or in a ludicrous flowered hat as a symbol of his wrongdoing. There was no telling what humiliation and degradation he would have to face. He might even receive a long prison sentence as well. If that happened madness would be his fate. He was so full of dread he was in an almost permanent state of nausea.