"Perhaps it's in a neighboring room."

Aletta shook her head. "Nothing would make him go outside that sanctuary he has created for himself. Some of his friends-those with whom he used to hunt and race and sail-come regularly in twos and threes, hoping to see him. They climb onto the gates, enraging Josephus and the dogs, while they cup their hands around their mouths and shout to Constantijn to stop being a hermit and so forth. He doesn't hear them, because his apartment is on the park side of the house, and it wouldn't make any difference if he did. He gets irrational fears. One is that the most staunch and determined of his friends will one day get together and make a concentrated sortie on the house to get through to him."

"Is this likely?"

"No. They would have done it already if that had been their motive. I think they come only to cheer him and to show that as far as they are concerned nothing has changed, hoping that eventually he will overcome his needless shame of his handicap."

"I like their att.i.tude."

"So do I, although he is always ill at ease when he knows they've been at the gates. He sits with a spygla.s.s to his eye like a seaman, scanning the park from the window. One night he roused the whole household with his shouting and ringing of his bell. When we arrived in his room he said his friends were coming with lanterns through the distant trees, but of course there was nothing to see. He's done that twice since. Now I've told Sara to stay in her bed and only Josephus and I go to him."

"Is it when he has been drinking?"

"It wasn't the first time, but probably on the second and third occasions."

They had reached the kitchen. Sara had gone shopping in Delft and they could talk on their own. Aletta poured milk into two gla.s.ses and they ate a slice each of a newly baked open tart of dried apricots, raisins and apples with a topping of carameled almonds. Francesca handed over the gold bracelet from Aunt Janetje, and Aletta, delighted with it, tried it on at once.

"It's beautiful!" She held out her arm to admire it on her wrist. "Is yours the same?"

"No." Francesca displayed hers. "All three had different designs."

Aletta sighed with pleasure. "Aunt Janetje has always sent us lovely gifts." Carefully she removed the bracelet from her wrist and put it away in its little casket. "I can't wear it when I'm working."

"Is there ever a time in this house when you're not working?"

Aletta gave a little laugh. "Only when I'm sleeping. Now tell me all about home."

Francesca was uncertain whether or not to tell Aletta the whole wretched story when she had so many difficulties of her own to contend with, but her sister must know sooner or later and this was a time when they could be sure of being alone. She began with the good news that there was no deterioration in Hendrick's hands and a description of Griet's wedding, following with an account of the disastrous dinner party in Ludolf's house, the revelation of the hold that evil man held over their father, the marriage contract Hendrick had been forced to sign and finally her reasons for not attending the betrothal party.

Aletta's shock and distress were severe. She exclaimed over such misfortune happening to both her father and her sister. "But-Pieter," she said finally, "you-and-Pieter. Can't he do something?"

"I spent five wonderful days with him at Haarlem Huis," Francesca told her, "and he has plans as to how this terrible situation can be averted." She did not mention Italy. Aletta was so badly shaken it would have been cruel to add to her anxiety and grief by any suggestion they might be separated from each other for many years.

When Constantijn's bell rang, Aletta rose automatically from where she was sitting. "I'll be back in a second," she promised as she went from the kitchen.

On her way to Constantijn's room she could hear him playing the lute. Recently they had begun impromptu concerts together, she playing the clavichord in the anteroom and Constantijn the viol or the lute, both of which he played quite well. He also had a good singing voice, but so far he had only sung in her hearing when drunk.

"Sit down and listen," he said cheerfully as soon as she entered the room. "I've composed a new melody and I've jotted it down on paper. You can copy it out neatly later."

"My sister is here and I can't leave her, but if I left both doors of the apartment open she could listen from the stairs while I am here." She had said it all in one breath to stop any interruption.

He frowned, not pleased. "How long is she staying?"

"About another two hours."

There was a pause before he spoke again. "She must remain at the bottom of the flight."

"I'll tell her."

In the reception hall Francesca stood by the newel post, hoping the music was proving a distraction to her sister, as the notes of the melody floated pleasingly down to her. When the last note was played she heard Aletta pick up the melody again on the clavichord and then the lute struck up once more in accompaniment through to the end.

Upstairs Aletta rose from her seat at the clavichord and applauded Constantijn's composition with enthusiasm. "Why not write some lyrics too?" she suggested eagerly. "The melody is ideal for a love song."

"Is it?" he said bitterly. Before she could stop him he tore up the sheet of music he had written and crumpled the pieces into a ball, which he tossed fiercely out of the window.

"I'm going downstairs to my sister," she said quietly.

Francesca saw at once by her face that something had happened. "Was I the cause?" she asked anxiously.

Aletta shook her head. "No. There are a thousand ways to hurt him and I seem to blunder in on most of them. He threw his composition into the garden and I'm going outside to find it."

"I'll come with you."

"No, wait here. I can judge whereabouts to look."

She found the pieces scattered in a rose bed and knelt on the earth until she had retrieved every one. She returned to the kitchen and talked quietly with Francesca until Weintje returned. Later, in her own room before going to bed, she put the sc.r.a.ps together painstakingly and copied out the music onto a fresh sheet of paper. When the ink was dry she put it away in a drawer with the bracelet from Aunt Janetje and a few other things she treasured.

In spite of the shock and distress she had suffered so recently, sleep came soon, her last conscious thoughts being that Pieter van Doorne with his love and determination would surely save her sister from the life of misery with which she was threatened.

Chapter 20.

WHEN THE DAY OF HEER AND VROUW DE VEERE'S VISIT ARRIVED, Constantijn insisted that Aletta stay in the room after admitting them. He had been morose ever since he had thrown his music out of the window, unpredictable in his whims and demands.

"But they will want to talk to you privately," she protested.

"I want you to be present. Is that understood?"

She had hoped to give his parents a little tactful advice when they arrived, but she had no chance. His mother rushed into the house and up to his apartment. There she promptly burst into tears at the sight of him, crying out that he was her poor helpless boy. As if that were not enough, her husband, obviously primed by her, tried to persuade him to come and live at their country house where he could receive the full care that he deserved.

"We've had a waist-high, pulpit-shaped screen made," his mother told him proudly, "and then you can be present at all social functions at our house without the least embarra.s.sment about-anything."

"About the loss of my legs, Mother?" Constantijn said woodenly. "Is that what you mean?"

"Well, yes. Don't you think that's a splendid idea?"

Aletta despaired privately at such a demoralizing item being made and contrasted it in her own mind with the gift she had commissioned Josephus to make for him. She watched Constantijn becoming whiter and more wild-eyed as the visit dragged on. His face became desperate when his father said that two of the coach servants would be coming upstairs at any minute to carry him down to the waiting equipage.

"I've chosen where I want to live and there's an end to it!" Constantijn was afraid he was to be removed by well-intentioned force. Then he saw that Aletta had moved in front of the door as if to show she would never allow it and he became calmer. His parents left the apartment soon afterward, disappointed and subdued. Aletta, following to show them out, was deeply saddened that the two people closest to Constantijn should have the least understanding of his mental torment. As they were about to go from the house she made a suggestion.

"There is something you can do for your son."

"What is that?" Vrouw de Veere implored, her eyes wet, for she had shed tears again when her son had kissed her farewell.

"We'll do anything," her husband endorsed.

"Last week I asked Josephus if he would make in his workshop two wooden stump legs with straps for your son and he was pleased to take on the task. He will attach two wooden feet and I have given him a pair of your son's shoes so that the feet can be of the right size and shape to be covered by his hose and footwear. I'm sewing the soft padding for the thigh cups, but perhaps you would like to provide a pair of crutches?"

Vrouw de Veere looked alarmed. "I've seen men manage with one stump leg but never with two." She pressed a hand against her chest in frantic anxiety, shaking her head. "Josephus must be stopped in that task at once! My son would fall! Perhaps kill himself if he fell against anything sharp! Oh no!"

But Heer de Veere was looking intently at Aletta. "He shall have those crutches. When will the stump legs be ready?"

"Quite soon." Aletta knew that Josephus also had the wood prepared for the crutches, but it was better for Constantijn, as well as his parents, if they contributed to the gift. "But I can't say the same for your son. He needs more time yet. I'll not give him the legs until I know the moment is right."

Even as she spoke she wondered how Heer de Veere would accept her taking charge, but he did not query her authoritative tones. "We'll leave the matter to your discretion and in the meantime I'll see that the best crutches I can have made are delivered here. What are the measurements?"

"I have them here." She took a piece of paper from her pocket and handed it to him. He thanked her and then put a comforting arm about his wife's shoulders as he escorted her, still weeping, to their coach.

Constantijn drank himself into a stupor that night and was ill for two days afterward. Irritable and gloomy, his parents' visit having set him back into a state of lethargy, he had no patience for either cards or backgammon. A half-finished game of chess on the table beside him was knocked to the floor when she suggested that they play it through. She could see he had withdrawn into himself again and was virtually back where he had started as far as taking an interest in anything was concerned. It would be doubly hard this time to draw him into life again, even to the point that he had reached before, but she was never going to give in.

As the balmy spring lengthened into summer her hopes of getting him to go out into the gardens came to nothing. He would sit on the balcony, but that was all, too sunk into shame over his helplessness to risk even a gardener seeing him from a distance. All that held his attention was the newspapers and Josephus had to buy a number of publications for him every week. Aletta, who read them when Constantijn had finished with them, discussed and argued political affairs with him.

It was a summer of unrest with many demonstrations throughout Holland in favor of the Prince of Orange being given leadership, a move that Constantijn supported. Being young himself, he wanted to see youth at the helm, and Aletta was in agreement. The fact that they were both Orangists created one bridge between them. But in the ancient Parliament buildings in The Hague, de Witt and the other politicians were resisting public pressure, more concerned with how to meet peaceably Louis XIV's exorbitant demands than listening to the voice of the people.

Since Aletta never went into town she had to get Josephus to make a purchase for her at an artist's supplier. Then she set to work to make a sketch pad as she had been taught long ago in her childhood days in her father's studio. When it was done she took it the next morning with a selection of reed pens and some colored inks to Constantijn's apartment. He was always bathed and dressed before he breakfasted and he was still at the table when she entered after leaving what she had brought with her in the anteroom. They talked as she cleared the table and he was in quite an amiable mood.

"I've made something that should interest you," she said, carrying the tray out to the anteroom. Then she returned to him with the sketching materials and set them down in front of him. "I know you appreciate art and have an eye for perspective and so I thought you might like to create a few sketches of your own."

He put his head on one side and regarded her with faint amus.e.m.e.nt. "That's most kind. You never tire in trying to chase my boredom away. I welcome your gift. You shall teach me to draw."

She was alarmed, for that had not been her intention at all. "You told me once that you used to sketch at school and so you've had some tuition. You don't need mine."

"But I do. You are the expert."

"What do you mean?" She was fl.u.s.tered.

"On your first day here you boasted to me that on one occasion in your father's studio you had been set to draw a beggar without legs. Am I to believe that wasn't in some routine of lessons in the technique of drawing and painting that you received? It certainly wasn't a subject plucked at random, was it?"

"Well, no," she admitted reluctantly. He had probed into her home background many times during their conversations, but she had never let him know of her once cherished aim to be an artist herself. Often when they had had these talks she had had a restless night afterward, dreaming that she was painting again, only to awake to the plain walls of her room and her servant life with old wounds reopened. "But you forget I have no time for teaching. It cannot be hurried and I can't leave Sara to the heavier ch.o.r.es."

He saw she had seized on the only excuse available. "Will you at least give me advice and criticism?"

"I'll do that. Why not start with the view from the balcony?" She opened the gla.s.s doors wide.

"Yes, I will." His chair was already facing the view, as he liked to eat looking out across the park. He chose one of the pens, uncorked a bottle of ink and then gazed at the open sketchbook in front of him. "A blank s.p.a.ce is daunting."

"That's why artists in their training like to get a ground onto their canvas as quickly as possible. Start with the horizon. Choose to make it high or low, but not straight across the middle."

She left him to his new pastime. By noon he had made a pa.s.sable sketch that showed he was more able than he made out. From that time onward, except when a bleak mood was on him and he would do nothing, he sketched quite regularly, she setting up still-life arrangements for him. When time permitted, Sara and Josephus took turns with her in sitting for him. At first it was emotionally painful for her to correct or demonstrate his mistakes, for it meant taking a pen into her own hand, but gradually that eased away and she managed to keep detached from his work since never once did he ask her to make a sketch of her own. It made her wonder if for all his quarreling and taunting he was more sensitive to her feelings than he ever showed.

FRANCESCA HAD NOT seen Pieter since they had parted at Geetruyd's door after her return from Haarlem with him. It was now late August and Ludolf was presently staying in Delft, his third visit since June, and she knew he would be waiting to escort her back to Kromstraat when she had finished her day's work. He would be taking Weintje's place as escort, for Clara's ankle had never come to rights again, showing that the original injury had been more than a sprain, and she walked with a limp, only able to go short distances without pain.

Jan had been painting beside Francesca that afternoon, and it was he who reminded her she had been working long past her time. "You started at seven-thirty this morning and ten hours is more than enough for one day."

"I stopped at noon to eat," she replied, "and a drink of tea twice."

"Anybody would think you didn't want to go back to Kromstraat," he joked, knowing how she disliked the company of the arrogant individual who had tried to buy off her apprenticeship.

She made an amused grimace. "Ludolf goes back to Amsterdam in the morning."

"So you'll be at our musical evening tomorrow?"

"I will! I shall be feeling free as a bird again!"

Outside she found Ludolf pacing up and down, for he would not step into premises where he considered he had been insulted by an ignorant artist. "You're late today, Francesca."

"I forget everything when I'm working."

"Naturally," he amended quickly. "That is to be commended. In any case it is a pleasure to wait for you."

She fumed inwardly. Why did he have to be so ingratiating? She found it unnatural and sickening. Crushing down her exasperation, she reminded him she still had much to learn during the next nine months. "I shall be submitting my work to the Guild at a sitting of the Committee, which will probably be held in April. I hope to receive my membership next May when I have completed my two-year apprenticeship with Jan Vermeer."

He began expressing his certainty that she would gain her membership easily, although he had seen nothing of her work since her portrait of him. On these walks it was impossible to have a reasonable conversation with him. He seemed to be intoxicated by being with her. She had never lied to him or made any false promises to ease her own escape from him, and neither would she do so now, but it was puzzling that he should be so infatuated that he seemed unaware of anything but his own desires when he was in her company. Once he had asked her why she had never told Geetruyd about the marriage contract.

"I can't speak easily about a matter that is abhorrent to my whole concept of freedom." Her truthful reply had not pleased him, but he appeared satisfied with her reticence.

She sighed inwardly as he began pressing her again for a marriage date. "No, Ludolf. I've told you several times that I won't discuss anything that lies beyond what I need to achieve from my time in Delft. Even after I've gained my Guild membership I shall need some time in Amsterdam with my father before I can arrange the changes that are to take place in the future."

"Very well. You're teaching me a lesson in patience that I've never had to learn before."

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. Such a mild reply would never have come from him in the past, but he had become increasingly weak in his obsession for her, which would make him many times more dangerous if he should realize that he was going to lose her. Sometimes he reminded her of a cowed dog groveling for a t.i.tbit from the table when he looked at her, hungry for a love she could never give. Having secured her as his wife-to-be, as he believed, it was no longer enough for him and probably never had been, and throughout his summer visits she had seen this gradual change in him. Not that he did not show his displeasure when his temper flared. If it were possible to prefer him in any mood it was better when he was his normal, arrogant self.

As they came to Geetruyd's house she knew that once again he would be attentive to the woman just as he was to her. After what Clara had said about Geetruyd hoping to marry him, Francesca had been able to see that, for some obscure reason of his own, he was stringing the woman along with compliments and deep conversations as if she alone held his interest. Quite apart from Geetruyd's persistent chaperonage, Francesca felt she had a second shield against Ludolf through this front he was keeping up with the woman. She was certain that he intended Geetruyd should know nothing of the marriage contract until the wedding he was antic.i.p.ating was about to take place.

That evening two regents and a regentess called unexpectedly to see Geetruyd on some urgent matter. Showing them into another parlor, she thought that Clara, who was limping along the corridor, was about to join Francesca and Ludolf in the room she had just left. Instead, Ludolf having swiftly closed the door, Clara limped past to the small parlor that was still her bedchamber, wanting to rest her ankle.

Francesca had risen quickly to her feet, for Ludolf was advancing on her. "I think Clara is supposed to be here. I'll call her."

"Let her be. I thought we were never going to have a minute to ourselves!" His expression alarmed her, for he looked almost ill with pa.s.sion.

She moved swiftly, but he was quicker, reaching out an arm to hook her about the waist and hurl her into his embrace. Then his mouth was on hers, forcing open her lips, his tongue threatening to choke her. She felt as if she were being eaten alive, helpless as a doll in his grip, and her abhorrence of him soared as he thrust his hand into her bodice to squeeze her breast until she thought she would faint with the pain. He seemed totally out of his mind, months of restraint released into this awful encounter. She flailed her arms wildly, hoping to seize something within reach with which to strike him. The back of her hand hit against a glazed surface. The next second there was a resounding crash as a Delft pot smashed into smithereens on the floor.

He let her go as if he had been shot. A few yards away a door opened at once and Geetruyd's footsteps came hurrying toward the parlor as he drew back from Francesca, an elated expression on his face. The obsessional look in his eyes terrified her. He did not seem sane.

"I can't wait for you any longer! Come back with me to Amsterdam!"

Geetruyd had reached the door and she flung it open. She had not heard what he had said, but she took in the situation at a glance. "What happened to one of my best pots?" she exclaimed almost hysterically.

Her voice had a sobering effect on him. "My fault entirely," he said carelessly. "I'll buy you another."

"But it was an antique and I was particularly fond of it." Geetruyd was determined to make the most of the situation. He should pay her far more than the measly pot was worth to get on the right side of her again. She looked calmly at Francesca's taut face as if she did not notice the crooked neckline and the crumbled collar. "Go and chat with my guests, would you? I must clear this mess up at once, because I had thought to serve tea for them and the three of us here quite shortly."