Chapter Twenty-Two
GRIETE HOUSE, ANTWERP, 1623
Clara and Adela sat side by side in the coach, exclaiming at the familiar scenery of polder and windmills, travelling along the bank of the Scheldt, waiting for Griete House to come into view. Adela had seen it last before leaving for Amsterdam, after its sale six years before. For Clara it had been even longer. Yet so much of her life had taken place there. So many memories were made against its backdrop. Her childhood with Henri and falling in love with him. Osias awakening her talent. And her mother’s death, which in many ways had brought about the life she now led, with all its gains and losses.
The coach lurched as the track left the riverbank, turning sharply inland running north, parallel to the stone wall surrounding the estate on t
