Still Life

Chapter 5

Chapter Five

AMSTERDAM, 1611

On the quayside, Clara gazed up at tall hulls with masts and furled sails rising high above them, and beyond to the array of great ships coming and going on the IJ. All around were the cries of sailors and cargo-hands and the cracking of rigging and pennants worried at by a brisk wind. She breathed deeply, savouring the scents of spices, fish, and hot tar. All part of the jostling pandemonium that was the docks. ‘Amsterdam.’ She grinned. ‘This is where I’m meant to be.’

Osias smiled, gesturing around him. ‘Amsterdam.’

He took her arm to guide her through the crush of people crowding the labyrinth of alleyways between sheds and warehouses. At the Amstel side of the quay, he helped her down into a waiting passenger boat. With gulls wheeling and screeching overhead, they were soon moving along the choppy glittering water of the Singel. Boats were poled deftly avoiding collisions in the bustle. Farm produce shifted. Milk churns rattled. Casks of beer tilted precariously. Fists were raised. Voices echoed, shouting greetings across the canal.

Despite the constant churn, patches of sky still found the water. And what a sky it was, full of towering clouds and shafts of sunlight like c****s in the walls of heaven … if Clara believed such a place existed. And, all the while, their boatman poled them on between rows of tall narrow canal houses with their step-gabled roofs, until he turned off into a dark waterway between high windowless walls, plunging them into gloom. Osias’s silence informed her this was not a mistake.

Clara held her nose. The channel, missing out on much of the purge-water pumped through the canal system to keep them from stagnating, looked and smelled like the sewer it most likely was. Even the hollow sound of the pole entering and leaving the water had changed. After the boat was tied up at a short flight of crumbling mossy steps, Clara refused the boatman’s offer of a grimy hand to assist her up. When she turned to look at Osias, who nodded encouragement, her elation at arriving in the city began to dissipate rapidly.

He led her down a sunless alleyway so narrow she could touch both sides with fingertips, the walls dripping with water and green slime, stinking of vegetal decay. The passage ended in a gloomy cobbled court with a pump and stone trough at its centre and four doorways spaced unevenly around it. It was through one of these Osias guided her.

When her eyes grew accustomed to the shadowy room, lit by tallow candles cowering on a single wooden chandelier, the first thing Clara noticed was its cleanliness. The few pieces of heavy dark furniture were waxed to a dull sheen and the chipped floor-tiles were spotless, exposing the footmarks she had left behind her. She saw then that Osias had replaced his boots with leather slippers at the door.

A raw-boned woman with small eyes and a sour expression, dressed in servant’s homespun, arrived at his side. ‘This be her?’

‘Ah, Leskens. Here you are. Yes. Yes, this is Clara … Mademoiselle Peeters.’

‘Mademoiselle, is it? Not in this house. Fetch her a rag, Husband. She can clean up them footprints herself.’ Leskens turned her attention to the fire-shelf where a steaming pot was heating over the flames.

The smell of herring, though strong, was made appetising by the aniseed sweetness of fennel and Clara, despite alarm at her surroundings – nothing of which remotely matched her expectations – found herself faint with hunger.

At the trestle set below a window overlooking the canal, Clara was introduced to the other members of the household who had gathered to eat. Leskens’ nine-year-old daughter, Rosele, with dark wisps of hair escaping her coif was politely welcoming though her narrow-eyed stare belied her words.

Seated beside her was seventeen-year-old Nico Cavello, whom Osias had told her of. The younger of Osias’s two apprentices, he was small and slender, his dark eyes watchful in a swarthy face saved from girlish prettiness by the directness of his gaze. He had appeared with a cloth to wipe away her footmarks while Leskens stirred the stew and instructed Rosele about setting out the dishes. She dared to hope he might, indeed, become an ally in this outlandish place. Beside Nico sat the other apprentice, Talis Leyster. At twenty, tall and brawny with reddish-gold hair, he too made a show of welcoming Clara but, again, she detected hostility.

As Leskens said grace, Clara met Nico’s appraising stare whilst all other eyes remained piously closed for prayer. Leskens spooned the fish stew into brown earthenware bowls, which were passed around together with chunks of coarse bread still warm from the oven. They drank the flavourful liquid straight from the bowl, using the bread to mop up the creamy herring and soft vegetables remaining. The meal was hearty and delicious, and Clara ate it with relish. Leskens was a skilled cook which, as far as she could tell on such early acquaintance, seemed her single redeeming quality. How could Osias have suggested her as a suitable companion? Indeed, how could he ever have married her? Merde.

‘Her appetite belies her stature, Husband. I trust you took a proper fee?’

Clara looked up. ‘You’re mistaken–’

‘Clara,’ Osias said. ‘I b-beg you–’

‘You took no fee for me. Why does she think otherwise? You told Papa–’

Leskens rapped her knuckles on the table. ‘She is Mistress Beerts to you. And you’d not be in my house without a fee.’

‘Madame … Mistress, my father paid no fee for me.’ Her words landed on a web of unfriendly stares. Yet, she knew them to be the truth.

Leskens’s face darkened. ‘Husband?’

Osias sighed. ‘All her paintings are sold and will sell just as readily in future. No fee is needed.’

‘Pah. She’s here to learn from you, just as the lads are. If one like her must be here at all.’

Osias stood. ‘She’s nothing more to l-learn from me but how to please a patron. Come, Leskens, we should speak privately.’ He marched to the staircase and waited there, giving her little choice but to follow.

All eyes were on Clara.

‘Mother will make you leave,’ Rosele said. ‘You be too hoity for here.’

‘I’d clear them dishes, Pet,’ Nico said. ‘You know you’ll get a beating if you don’t.’ He turned to Clara. ‘Your breakfast pieces be very fine.’

Talis pushed his chair back from the table. ‘Her work’s sold with the studio’s mark, not hers. Nay, I’ll wager it be another kind of work she’ll do to please a patron.’

Clara stood, her face flaming. Why had Osias brought her here? She feared she had made a terrible mistake.

Nico rose beside her, placing a gentle hand on her arm. ‘And I think our master would find them words filthy.’

Talis laughed and looked mockingly around the room. ‘You see him here, Gypsy? For I does not, myself.’

‘Mistress Peeters, your boxes be already delivered to the storeroom,’ Nico said. ‘I’ll show you where.’

They left to the sound of Talis’s laughter and the clattering of dishes as Rosele hurriedly gathered them up, whilst Clara considered how quickly she might return home.

Somehow, she stayed. She had been angry with Osias at first, accusing him of deliberately misleading her … even of fetching her to Amsterdam for monetary gain. After all, her paintings were easy to sell. Though, seeing his honest bewilderment at such a suggestion had quickly made her contrite. For him, anything could be endured for the sake of his art and he had assumed it the same for her. And, gradually … very gradually, she found it was as she watched her work blossom again under his guidance and began to understand how he lived here despite Leskens’s grim presence.

It had not taken her long to involve Clara in domestic tasks. The first time she had instructed her to help Rosele prepare vegetables for the evening meal, Rosele had kicked her ankle under the table to stop her admitting she had no knowledge of such things. Rosele taught her all she needed to know, though not without much scolding. What would the Griete House servants think to see her wield a paring knife? Papa and Fabiana would be outraged.

Clara pitied Rosele who, though only a little older than Adela, was often called upon to help Karin with the heavy work. Karin was lazy and insolent behind Leskens’s back, and regularly blamed Rosele for her own failures. Clara would help her to prevent Leskens beating her, which she did often and with relish. They had now formed a bond, despite their uncertain beginnings.

Osias had argued that Clara’s value lay in the studio and not the scullery but Leskens had firm ideas about a woman’s place, just as most men did. Osias had long given up. They had both decided it was better for everyone if she just complied. Clara sensed a connection between Leskens’s over-zealous punishment of Rosele and her own move outside the domestic realm. This was another reason why she felt obligated to her.

The quiet times spent with Osias and Nico, all working companionably in the studio were enough, she found. Oasis would often send Talis away on errands and she soon understood these occasions spent alone were pleasing to them also. Nico had a comfortable rapport with Osias, which she quickly became a part of. Sometimes, much to her surprise, she even discovered she was happy.