At Martinmas in November, Hendrick took his three daughters to see Amsterdam's great sailing event of the year on the river Ij. Aletta had made her usual excuses about work, but Hendrick had swept them aside.

"This is a day for families to be together and enjoy themselves," he insisted. "Everything else must take second place to the racing at this time of year."

She had no choice but to obey and then gladly joined in the spirit of the occasion, realizing how long it was since she had allowed herself any relaxation. Enormous crowds ma.s.sed along the banks, but by arriving early the Visser family secured good places at the front near one of the winning posts, the distance varying according to the type of race. The day was cold, but the girls were wrapped in warm cloaks and their hoods protected them. The wide brim of Hendrick's hat flapped in the wind, but he had jammed it on well before leaving home. It was a splendid sight to see the hundreds of little sailboats and rowboats gathering for the various compet.i.tions. Everyone was in a merry mood and peddlers did good business in selling sweetmeats and fairings and sticks with streamers to wave. Sporting rivalry was intense among the compet.i.tors and this gave spice to the atmosphere. All were excited and there was plenty of wagering among the spectators.

A pistol shot started the first race. Cheers roared out as a host of brown, yellow and cream sails billowed in the lively wind and the light craft went skimming along the water, the bows veiled in spray.

Pieter van Doorne was among the compet.i.tors, but he did not see the Visser family until a couple of hours later when he and a friend entered a rowing race and took their craft first past the finishing post. As they leaned over their oars, gasping breath into their blown lungs, he happened to glance up through a tangle of his hair and saw the family cheering and applauding him. Francesca's vivacious face, framed by her hood, was full of laughter, her cheeks nipped pink by the cold air, and he felt the same attraction that he had experienced when he had first seen her in her home, and again that day when she had paid his bill. She was making it clear that she and those with her were rejoicing over his win, her clapping hands raised to signal her congratulations. He was too far away to hear what she was saying, and in any case it would have been impossible in the din, but he could tell she was calling, "Well done!"

Francesca had told Aletta who he was and then forgot him, for another race had already started and she strained forward with everyone else to see who was in the lead. Yet the sight of him must have stayed with her, for the next morning she awoke remembering it was high time she put the usual mats of straw over the beds of tulip bulbs to protect them against the heavy frosts that had begun to sparkle the ground each morning. As she carried out her task she thought of him again. His eyes had seemed to pierce right into her.

Two days before the Feast of St. Nicholaes the first snow came and all blemishes in the city were masked. In the Visser household there was much jollity as final baking was done and the last gifts purchased or, if they were home-sewn, placed into bags of linen. Aletta and Sybylla had their final rehearsal together for the concert they would give on the evening of the saint's day. Playing the virginal by candlelight after sunset, when it was impossible to paint, had become Aletta's only relaxation. As children, she and her sisters had believed it was St. Nicholaes who filled their clogs with sweetmeats and novelties. Now that they were grown they themselves prepared a pair of large wooden clogs, which were painted with the saint's emblem and into which they put crystallized fruit and other dainties for all the household to enjoy.

The awaited day dawned with a new layer of powdery snow. After gifts had been exchanged, the Visser family, with Maria and Griet, all went to see the street puppet shows, the stalls selling dolls and effigy candles and the jugglers and tumblers and the strolling players that entertained the crowds, all to the cheerful noise of lutes and drums and flutes and singing voices. Then Francesca and Griet returned home ahead of the rest to have the special dinner ready for the family.

Afterward there were the last-minute preparations for the party to be given that evening. When the time came to dress, Francesca chose a currant-red velvet gown, the rich color setting off her hair, which she wore in the style that fashion dictated. It was drawn smoothly back from her brow into a coil at the back of her head, leaving the neck prettily bare with falling curls over her ears. This evening she wound a string of small, bright beads into the coil, which gave a glittering effect.

At seven o'clock Hendrick stood ready to welcome guests in to Maria's homemade wine and a barrel of beer. They began to arrive in a flood, but fortunately there were plenty of sweet cakes and other delicacies. Best of all was a long roll of almond paste shaped into an "S" for St. Nicholaes, baked within a crust of light pastry and served cut into short lengths.

The reception hall and the drawing room opening out of it presented a merry scene. All were in their best velvets or silks and sat chatting together or stood in small groups, the buzz of cheerful noise punctuated by the clink of gla.s.ses and tankards. Every sconce was alight and the central bronze chandelier, suspended from the cross-beamed white plastered ceiling, blazed with thirty candles.

When everybody who was expected had been in the house for an hour or more, there came another knock on the front door. Griet, giggly with wine, went to answer it. To her astonishment it was someone she had never thought to see again. Forgetting her training, she shouted back over her shoulder to make herself heard above the general conversation. "It's the tulip grower from Haarlem! Heer van Doorne!"

Hendrick, always hospitable, boomed out a welcome to the young man on the stoop in the snow. "Come in, mijnheer! Griet, hold the door wider. n.o.body stands on the threshold on the Feast of St. Nicholaes!"

All looked toward the door. Francesca smiled in wonderment at this unexpected surprise. Then Pieter made an unwittingly dramatic entrance in a flurry of snowflakes, stepping onto the strip of Persian carpet that had been laid down by the doorway for the evening. He seemed to loom into the room, for his big black hat, powdered with snow, added to his fine height. More snowflakes clung to his plum-colored cloak, which reached to the ankles of his white knee hose, his shoes silver-buckled. As Griet swiftly closed the door behind him to keep out the cold, he doffed his hat to bow first to Hendrick and then to the company, his keen eyes locating Francesca where she sat.

"My greetings, Heer Visser," he said to Hendrick, "and to all here."

Hendrick, who had heaved himself out of his chair at the arrival of each guest, had done the same now and gone across to him. "On behalf of all present I give you ours in return and bid you welcome to my house."

Then Pieter took from under his cloak, which Griet was waiting to take from him, a Delft pot filled with dark earth from which was sprouting a tall and strong-looking shiny green shoot. "As you are a new customer," he said to Hendrick, "I'm taking the opportunity on this Feast of St. Nicholaes to bring a hyacinth to this house. It should bloom for Christmas."

There were exclamations on all sides, those in the drawing room crowding in to see the plant, many startled by this aberration of nature. n.o.body thought of witchcraft or knew fear. It was just that the hyacinth belonged to spring and had no place thus out of order. In any case, what could be expected of this shoot, healthy though it appeared, at a time when bulbs should be dormant?

But Hendrick always appreciated a good surprise. He held the potted plant high for everyone to see.

"Look at this miracle, my friends! The seasons are being reversed!"

Aletta nodded appreciatively and Sybylla darted to him, clapping her hands at such a gift. Francesca, who remained sitting on the bench, could feel that Pieter was as aware of her presence as she was of his. Incredulously for her, it was as if a fuse had been lit and was sizzling silently and invisibly between them.

He stood with a smile in his eyes and on his lips as he surveyed the room. His long green jacket fitted him well across his broad shoulders, while his hair, the curls too unruly to submit much to any comb, glinted with spangles of melted snow.

"Now you must meet everyone, my friend," Hendrick declared, turning back to him. Still parading the plant, he led Pieter up and down the long room, making the presentations. Then they reached Francesca and suddenly she and Pieter were face to face as he took her hand and bowed over it.

"I'm honored to meet you again, Juffrouw Visser," he said formally, although there was nothing stilted in his smile or in the look of pleasure that he gave her.

"May your time in this house be blessed," she replied in the same formal tones, "and I thank you most sincerely for the gift you have brought us." The color had risen to her cheeks, for she was momentarily unnerved by the forceful contact that seemed to exist between them, but she thought he would not notice anything amiss. There were so many people already pink-cheeked from the wine and the heat generated by so large a company. Hendrick was already drawing him away and out of the corner of her eye she watched him complete his tour of the room. A married couple who were present knew him already and, having met everybody else, he entered into conversation with them. Why then, Francesca asked herself, did she still feel that he was sending out invisible rays from his mind and his body toward her?

There came a tap on her shoulder to draw her attention and Sybylla bent her head to whisper in her ear. "What fun this should happen! I believe Pieter van Doorne has come to see you again more than anything else."

"What nonsense!" Francesca replied forcibly.

"Not at all. I saw the way he looked at you in the sporting cart and again on the river." With a laugh Sybylla went off with a swing of her hips to present her platter of almond delicacies to the newcomer and the two guests with him. All three of them took a piece and Pieter looked amused at whatever she said to him, making some riposte in return that obviously delighted her. It was clear there were to be no barriers in their getting to know each other. Francesca turned on her seat and joined in talk about lace making with the two women at her left-hand side. It was dull enough to be an antidote to Sybylla's ridiculous suppositions.

As a result she failed to see Pieter return to her until he spoke, causing her to look up quickly. He was holding the plant. "Your father just gave me this back again to hand on to you. As with the bulbs, he says you're the one with green fingers and you should take care of such a rarity."

"I'll do my best," she said, taking the Delft pot from him. As she had expected, he sat down at her right side, where there was a vacant place.

"It's always enjoyable to talk to a fellow gardener," he said, although by the way he was smiling he appeared to have anything but gardening on his mind.

"I wouldn't cla.s.s myself in your category. Our garden consists of a few flower beds."

"I know. I saw them when I delivered the bulbs at the beginning of October. But lack of s.p.a.ce doesn't mean that the flower beds there can't produce in minor quant.i.ties anything as fine as I grow."

"I'd like to think that. Gardening is a hobby of mine," she admitted, "and I like producing flowers to paint."

"You're an artist too?"

"So is my sister Aletta. There are three painters under this roof, but only one master."

He gave her an encouraging nod. "Perhaps one day there'll be three masters."

"That's what Aletta and I hope for most of all."

"With all sincerity I wish you both well."

"I thank you." She thought he meant what he said. "I shall paint the hyacinth when it blossoms."

He looked pleased. "What an honor for it!"

Aletta's voice broke in as she came with a silver-lidded flagon of wine in one hand and a gla.s.s for him in the other. "There is beer if you prefer it."

"I thank you, but I'll take the wine."

He had risen to his feet to hold the gla.s.s as she poured. "It's quite potent," she warned him seriously.

"I'll remember that, Juffrouw Aletta."

She looked directly at him as he spoke her name and she returned his smile. Sybylla had conjured up her own reason for his visit, which she had already divulged to Aletta. Whether there was any truth in it or not did not matter to Aletta since she was not the one singled out for his interest. It was always Francesca or Sybylla who magnetized men's eyes, and that suited her. Yet she liked this man for his friendly air. He had been particularly courteous when Hendrick had presented him, but it had been natural to her that she should add her thanks for the gift he had brought to her home.

"I'll be back when your gla.s.s needs refilling," she promised.

"That's most obliging of you."

Aletta held her flagon up questioningly at Francesca, who indicated she had a full gla.s.s on the shelf behind her. As Aletta left again Francesca would have twisted round to lift the gla.s.s, but Pieter reached for it and handed it to her as he sat down again. He raised his own gla.s.s to her, the wine ruby red, the gla.s.s sparkling.

"To you, mejuffrouw."

On her visit to his Haarlem home he had seen with satisfaction that at close quarters her eyes were green and l.u.s.trous. The currant-red dress she was wearing this evening echoed dramatically the glints in her coppery hair. In her lobes were gold earbobs that shone against her milk-white skin. She put both her fine-looking sisters in the shade, although the youngest was so ripe for plucking that at a touch she would be off the branch.

"Your good health," Francesca said in reply to his toast.

"It was most hospitable of your father to invite me to stay this evening." He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at a loud burst of laughter that followed a joking remark made on the other side of the room.

"Did you celebrate earlier today with your own family?" she asked.

He frowned somberly. "I regret to say I have no close family now. I had two younger brothers, but they died with my parents within four days of one another."

"What a terrible tragedy!" Her voice was full of deep compa.s.sion.

His jaw flexed. "The plague took them all. That was seven years ago. I was at university at the time."

"Did you continue your studies?"

He shook his head. "That was impossible. I had been bequeathed the family home and the farm, which I ran for a few weeks while I formulated my plans and settled my future. Botany had been my source of study at the university and horticulture my interest from boyhood. My father had always allowed me to have an orangery. Gradually I changed the layout of the land and converted farm buildings into greenhouses as well as erecting new ones. I also built the new orangery, which you saw the day you came there."

"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 quant.i.ties."

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 entree 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 amus.e.m.e.nt. "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 with 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.