The Miniaturist(4)

‘No. No.’

‘Good. Second-best in this house still means new paint and a cabin lined in Bengal silk. Johannes is using the other one.’

Nella wonders where her husband is, on his best barge, not back in time to greet her. She thinks about Peebo, alone in the kitchen, near the fire, near the pans. ‘You only have two servants?’ she asks.

‘It’s enough,’ says Marin. ‘We’re merchants, not layabouts. The Bible tells us a man should never flaunt his wealth.’

‘No. Of course.’

‘That is, if he has any left to flaunt’ Marin stares at her and Nella looks away. The light in the room is beginning to fade, and Marin sets a taper on the candles. They are tallow and cheap, and Nella had hoped for more fragrant beeswax. The choice of this meat-smelling, smoky variety surprises her. ‘Cornelia seems to have sewn your new name on everything,’ Marin says over her shoulder.

Indeed, thinks Nella, remembering Cornelia’s baleful scrutiny. Her fingers will be red ribbons, and who will she punish for that?

‘When is Johannes coming – why is he not here?’ she asks.

‘Your mother said you were keen to begin your life as a wife in Amsterdam,’ Marin says. ‘Are you?’

‘Yes. But one needs a husband in order to do so.’

In the frost-tipped silence that follows, Nella wonders where Marin’s husband is. Maybe she’s hidden him in the cellar. She smothers her desperate impulse to laugh by smiling at one of the cushions. ‘This is all so beautiful,’ she says. ‘You didn’t have to.’

‘Cornelia did it all. I am no use with my hands.’

‘I’m sure that is not true.’

‘I’ve taken my paintings down. I thought these might be more to your taste.’ Marin gestures to the wall where a brace of game-birds has been captured in oil, hanging from a hook, all feather and claw. Further along the wall is a portrait of a strung-up hare, a hunter’s prize. Next to it a painted slew of oysters are piled on a Chinese patterned plate, shadowed by a spilt wineglass and a bowl of over-ripened fruit. There is something unsettling about the oysters, their exposed openness. In her old home, Nella’s mother covered the walls in landscapes and scenes from the Bible. ‘These belong to my brother,’ Marin observes, pointing at a brimming vase of flowers, harder than life, coloured in excess, half a pomegranate waiting at the bottom of the frame.

‘Thank you.’ Nella wonders how long it will take her to turn them to the wall before she goes to sleep.

‘You’ll want to eat up here tonight,’ says Marin. ‘You’ve been travelling for hours.’

‘I have, yes. I would be grateful.’ Nella shudders inwardly at the birds’ bloodied beaks, their glassy eyes, promising flesh puckering away. At the sight of them, she is taken by the desire for something sweet. ‘Do you have any marzipan?’

‘No. Sugar is – not something we take much of. It makes people’s souls grow sick.’

‘My mother used to roll it into shapes.’ There was always marzipan in the pantry, the only predilection for indulgence in which Mrs Oortman echoed her husband. Mermaids, ships and necklaces of sugared jewels, that almond doughiness melting in their mouths. I no longer belong to my mother, Nella thinks. One day I will roll sugar shapes for other little clammy hands, voices baying for treats.

‘I will ask Cornelia to bring you some herenbrood and Gouda,’ Marin says, drawing Nella out of her thoughts. ‘And a glass of Rhenish.’

‘Thank you. Do you have an idea of when Johannes will arrive?’

Marin tips her nose into the air. ‘What is that smell?’

Instinctively, Nella’s hands fly to her collarbone. ‘Is it me?’

‘Is it you?’

‘My mother bought me a perfume. Oil of Lilies. Is that what you smell?’

Marin nods. ‘It is,’ she says. ‘It’s lily.’ She coughs gently. ‘You know what they say about lilies.’

‘No?’

‘Early to ripe, early to rot.’

With that, Marin shuts the door.





Cloak


At four o’clock the next morning, Nella is still unable to sleep. The oddness of her new surroundings, gleaming and embroidered, wreathed with the smell of smoking tallow, forbids her to be easy. The paintings in their frames remain exposed, for she had not the courage to switch them to the wall. Lying there, she lets the events that have led to this moment swirl through her exhausted head.

When he died two years ago, they said in Assendelft that Seigneur Oortman had been a man who fathered breweries. Though Nella loathed the suggestion that her papa was nothing more than a sozzled Priapus, it proved depressingly true. Her father tied them up with his knot of debts – the soup thinned, the meat got scraggier, the servants fell away. He’d never built an ark, as all Dutchmen were supposed to, fighting the rising sea. ‘You need to marry a man who can keep a guilder in his purse,’ her mother said, taking up her pen.

‘But I have nothing to give in return,’ Nella replied.

Her mother tutted. ‘Look at you. What else do we women have?’

The statement had stunned Nella. To be reduced by her own mother caused her a new sort of distress, and grief for her father was replaced by a sort of grief for herself. Her younger siblings, Carel and Arabella, were allowed to continue outside, playing at cannibals or pirates.