I Am Rembrandt's Daughter (22 page)

Her pretty face clouds. “Maybe I ought not to tell you.”

“Please do. You must!”

“It’s just that, well, Carel’s vader does not approve.”

My gut turns to stone. “He does not approve of my vader.”

“No, actually he respects your vader. Your vader is actually quite famous, you know. Everyone still speaks with wonder of
The Company of Banning Cocq
, odd as that painting was with all the commotion in it. What in the world was a girl with a
chicken
doing in the middle of a company of shooters?” She shakes her silvered ringlets in amusement. “Regardless, it is common knowledge your vader has been sought out by princes from both here and abroad.”

I find I am starved for her words of praise about Vader. “Princes?”

“The Stadholder himself, for one, and just last year, the Florentine prince, Cosimo de Medici.”

I remember a group of men in slashed sleeves and feathered hats appearing at our door last December, but as they had left without purchasing one of Vader’s pictures, I had put them out of my mind. Could it truly have been a prince and his men? If only it were true that Vader was not a laughingstock! I could hold my head high and claim my place with Carel.

“Now, to be sure, everyone thinks your vader is the tiniest bit odd, but that is the artist’s lot, is it not? Part and parcel with the lifestyle. There’s a new young artist in Delft, Jan Vermeer, who paints his wife, daughters, and maid, all doing absolutely nothing. It is like painting dust gathering! Titus thinks his work great, but I find him quite mad. This is why I won’t have my little Jan take up the brush—too many oddbodies in the trade. But the problem with Mijnheer Bruyningh does not lie with your vader.”

I look at her.

She smiles sadly, as if she is most sorry for me. “You should never listen to what people say. I understand your moeder was very sweet.”

The meaning slowly sinks in. “You mean, Carel’s vader does not approve of my moeder?”

She waves her hand. “Put it out of your mind.”

But I cannot. I feel the sting of it during our visit to the lace-maker, a grandmotherly woman from Bruges whose kind attempt to show me different lace patterns does nothing to shake the sick feeling in my gut. Soon we are off with a large bundle of lace—much too much for a baby’s gown—and though I feel badly for the lacemaker, at least we are going home, where I can hide and lick my wounds. But instead of turning for home, Magdalena leads us toward the Kloveniersburgwal.

“Where are we going?” I ask in a panic.

“I would like to drop in on Johanna,” she says.

“Johanna de Geer?” Just down the street from Carel’s house? “But—I am not dressed properly!”

“Is that dress I had made for you not to your liking?”

I look down on my plain dark garb. “I love it, but—”

“Wor-ry Bird!” Magdalena says. “Do not fear seeing Carel or his vader. We shall duck into Johanna’s without anyone being the wiser. Who are those Bruyninghs to us, anyway?”

We continue toward the Trippenhuis. I try to slow my step but Magdalena only sails ahead faster, a slim, sleek craft cutting through the choppy sea of fellow Amsterdammers. I remember my red beads, still hidden under my collar, and pull them out, my only way of bettering my appearance. By the time we arrive at the Trips, I am almost faint with fear.

Chapter
30

There are two front doors to the Trippenhuis. Magdalena marches to the wide carved door on the left and raps on a panel. “The brother of Johanna’s husband lives there,” Magdalena explains. She nods to the other door as she straightens her peach silk bodice. “I have met him on several occasions—he is quite a good friend. He calls me ‘the Canary’ because I am always twittering. Isn’t that dear?”

I nod, keeping my face pointed forward. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the fine marble steps of Nicolaes Bruyningh’s stoop to my right. If I strain my side vision to the limit, I can see the brass railing of Carel’s stoop just beyond.

A stout maid answers the door, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Hallo, Truida,” Magdalena says. “It is just I.”

The maid glances over her rounded shoulder, revealing the cap strings that cut into her fleshy neck. “Mevrouw cannot receive visitors now,” she says tersely.

Magdalena smiles. “But I am a friend.”

The laughter of women comes from somewhere inside.

Magdalena cranes her delicate neck to peer into the house. “Has Johanna company?”

“Mevrouw, if you could please return at—”

“Who is here? I am certain Johanna would want me to enter.”

“Mevrouw, please—”

“I recognize that voice! Eva Susanna Pellicorne is here!
She
would want to see me, I am sure.”

“Mevrouw—”

Magdalena slips past the maid, who gasps and bustles after her, leaving me standing on the shining marble slab of the doorstep.

Nervously, I toy with my beads. Let Magdalena come out soon. Let us go, before I am seen.

“Cornelia?”

I turn as would a cornered mouse. My knees sag at the sight of Nicolaes Bruyningh, carrying an ebony cane as he walks briskly down the street.

He draws near. “Hallo, Cornelia. I thought that was you, though I could not be sure, as tightly as you hug that door.”

I dip my head. “I am waiting for my sister, mijnheer. She visits with the wife of Mijnheer Trip.”

“I see.” His gaze goes to my beads as he takes off his hat. After a moment, he lifts his pale blue eyes to mine. “Lovely necklace.”

I glance down at it. “It was my moeder’s, mijnheer.”

He nods. “Coral, isn’t it?”

“I think so, mijnheer.”

“Do you know the significance of coral to the wearer, my dear?”

I shake my head.

“Coral protects the wearer against evil. No harm can come to the person who wears it. It is quite a powerful charm.”

“I did not know, mijnheer.”

He taps his cane on a brick. “It is the kind of gift one gives to someone very dear to them.”

When will he leave me alone? “My vader gave it to her, I expect.”

Stray filaments of gold catch the sunlight as he raises his brows. “Really?”

Just then Magdalena comes rushing out, her pretty face misshapen in a sob. “Come, Cornelia!”

She pushes past Mijnheer Bruyningh. I have but time to give him a quick nod, which he returns with an ice-blue gaze.

“I thought she would be glad to see me,” Magdalena says as I run after her. “She didn’t have to make me feel like I was barging in.
I
did not know she was having a party. You know my condition—I cannot take upsets like this now.”

I glance over my shoulder. Mijnheer Bruyningh is still watching.

“Will you accompany me to my home, Cornelia?” Magdalena asks. “I cannot bear being alone.” She frowns at me trailing behind her. “If you do, you may take some refreshment before you go.”

“Yes, sister,” I say, as if a slice of cheese is sufficient reward for remaining in her company. I take a deep breath. What will Mijnheer Bruyningh report to his brother? That the bastard child of the woman Rembrandt van Rijn would not marry has been lurking about? Yet, he is a nice man, according to Carel. He has made a place for Carel to paint in his attic, and has told Carel, at least Carel says, that he is fond of me. Why would he say such a thing and talk so pleasantly to a nobody like me? It makes no sense.

Magdalena and I speak little more as we make our way down crowded streets. At last we cross the drawbridge over the Singel and duck through the door of the House of the Gilded Scales. “There is cheese in the kitchen,” Magdalena says. “Help yourself.” She climbs the stairs, hand to her belly. “Titus? Titus, where are you?”

In the kitchen, I cut myself a portion from a yellow wheel of Gouda, and eat it standing next to a spotless marbletopped preparation table. I am gazing at the hanging row of gleaming pots and wondering if Nicolaes Bruyningh will tell Carel that he saw me, when I hear Magdalena scream.

Chapter
31

Titus lies on the four-poster bed, his pale face dwarfed by the fat pillows surrounding him. Though the air coming through the open window is warm and thick, his featherbag is pulled up to his chin.

“Bird,” he says when I come in. “I am sorry.”

“Shhh! What have you to be sorry for?” I glance in the direction of the door. Downstairs, Magdalena weeps loudly.

He swallows with difficulty. “To worry you and Magdalena.”

“I am not worried!” My gaze goes to the pink cherry-sized swelling forming just below his ear.

My scalp tingles with fear.

When he sees me looking, he covers it with his hand. “They just arose.”

“‘They’?”

“Bird, they’re in my armpits, too.”

The burning poison of terror seeps into my gut. “You can have swellings for lots of reasons.”

“I saw your moeder die of the plague, Bird. I know what the tokens look like.”

I take a shuddering breath. “This is not the plague! It is the sweating sickness. The ague! Something!” I grab the cup of water on the floor next to his bed and put it to his lips. The heat of his skin fires my panic. “Just drink!”

He takes a sip, then falls back. “Help Magdalena, Bird. She’s frightened.”

I turn away. She is frightened? I am to be brave when the person that is everything to me has the sickness?

I clutch my beads, combing my brain for what I should do. With a start I remember—coral has power.

I fumble to untie the strand. With clumsy hands, I start to tie it around his neck. He moans when I brush the swelling under his ear.

“Sorry!” I pull back, hugging the beads. “This is coral. It protects you from harm. You must wear it.”

He squints at the necklace. “Your moeder’s red beads?”

How did he know? “Yes. I’ll put them on you. I shall be careful.”

He shakes his head against the pillow. “They didn’t help your moeder.”

Tears singe my lids. “Don’t say that.”

Downstairs, the front door slams.

“WHERE IS MY SON?” Vader roars.

My hands shaking, I hold the beads over him. “You’ve got to believe, Titus. Let me put them on you.”

Vader’s steps pound on the stairs. “TITUS! TITUS, LAD!”

I’ve no time to put them on him. With a glance over my shoulder, I lift the featherbag and dart the beads under Titus’s back.

Vader storms into the room. “Son!” He drops down by Titus and grabs his hand. “My son.”

I stumble out of the room and wander downstairs, where Neel stands in the hall.

“I came when I heard,” he says.

Just seeing the pity in his face makes tears spring to my eyes. “It is nothing,” I say hoarsely. “He will be fine. You should go home.”

Neel nods, but does not leave.

Four days pass, enough for August to melt into September, though when the mornings end and the evenings begin, I cannot say. We have not been locked in—there are not enough cases in town for the authorities to demand it—yet I have remained at Magdalena’s house to minister to Titus. Such a black passage of days. Though I have never lived among such luxury, any pleasure I would have taken in it has become like ashes in my mouth. What do I care for silky sheets, meals taken on china, and the soothing chimes of the golden clock that sits upon the sideboard, when my brother’s swellings grow and his strength lessens? Beyond keeping the coral beads tucked safely beneath him, I have tried everything Magdalena’s moeder suggests—sponging Titus in vinegar, wrapping him in red flannel, calling the physician to cup his buboes—while Magdalena alternately wails and sleeps in her moeder’s arms. Now Vader, stunned by the fear that grips us all, sits like a rock by Titus’s bed, as the physician, wearing leather goggles and a beak filled with protective herbs, applies the heated glass to Titus’s tokens. Titus hisses in pain. I stumble from the room.

I am downstairs slumped against the wall of the entrance hall when Neel comes from the kitchen with a plate of cheese. He leads me to a chair in the front room, then puts the plate in my lap.

“Eat, Cornelia.”

I gaze up at him through a fog of weariness. “Why are you here? Why don’t you go home?”

“I cannot rest while”—he looks at me, then away—” my master suffers.”

Sighing makes me wince. Even my lungs ache with exhaustion.

“Cornelia, you must eat. What good will it do for you to take sick, too?”

I inch my incredulous gaze up at him. Does he really think I care to live if Titus does not?

“Rest,” Neel says. “I will go up with Titus.”

I close my eyes and rock my head against the back of the chair. “No. He needs me.”

I open my eyes with a thought. “Neel, you said once that your moeder nursed many with the sickness during the last contagion.”

His face clouds.

I sit up. “Can you send for her? I know she’s in Dordrecht, but I’ll—I’ll pay. Maybe she knows some treatments we have not tried.”

He shakes his head.

“I know I haven’t much to offer,” I say, “but Magdalena has money—”

“Cornelia, it’s not the money.”

I sag. “I guess it wasn’t fair to ask. It’s just that I am—”

“Cornelia, my moeder is dead.”

I flinch.

“She died during the contagion,” he says gently. “The strain of all the nursing was too much for her.” His look is at once tender and sad. “That is why you must eat. I know what can come of exhaustion.”

A burning lump swells in my throat. I had chided him once about his happy life at home, and now I find out he has endured great sorrow. Yet, after this and so many slights, he treats me with kindness. I do not deserve it.

“I will not move until you take a bite,” Neel says.

I put the cheese to my mouth. It is dust upon my tongue.

Vader glances up from the edge of the bed when I enter, then back down at Titus, who groans softly. Magdalena whimpers as she burrows her face into her moeder’s neck while her moeder croons and smoothes her damp brow. Over by the fireplace, the physician strokes the burning sod, then holds the cupping glass to the reddened embers with his tongs. He looks up with his terrible leather beak, a vulture come to feed on my brother, then back into the flames.