LITMIR.BIZ

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were more than fifty in all, though the number varied over time as he traded and sold them.

      ‘Come now, no need to idle and gape.’ The woman hurried down a lengthy hallway, which ran along one side of the house all the way to the back. I followed as she turned abruptly into a room on the left. On the wall directly opposite hung a painting that was larger than me. It was of Christ on the Cross, surrounded by the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene and St John. I tried not to stare but I was amazed by its size and subject. ‘Catholics are not so different from us,’ my father had said. But we did not have such pictures in our houses, or our churches, or anywhere. Now I would see this painting every day.

      I was always to think of that room as the Crucifixion room. I was never comfortable in it.

      The painting surprised me so much that I did not notice the woman in the corner until she spoke. ‘Well, girl,’ she said, ‘that is something new for you to see.’ She sat in a comfortable chair, smoking a pipe. Her teeth gripping the stem had gone brown, and her fingers were stained with ink. The rest of her was spotless – her black dress, lace collar, stiff white cap. Though her lined face was stern her light brown eyes seemed amused.

      She was the kind of old woman who looked as if she would outlive everyone.

      She is Catharina’s mother, I thought suddenly. It was not just the colour of her eyes and the wisp of grey curl that escaped her cap in the same way as her daughter’s. She had the manner of someone used to looking after those less able than she – of looking after Catharina. I understood now why I had been brought to her rather than her daughter.

      Though she seemed to look at me casually, her gaze was watchful. When she narrowed her eyes I realised she knew everything I was thinking. I turned my head so that my cap hid my face.

      Maria Thins puffed on her pipe and chuckled. ‘That’s right, girl. You keep your thoughts to yourself here. So, you’re to work for my daughter. She’s out now, at the shops. Tanneke here will show you around and explain your duties.’

      I nodded. ‘Yes, madam.’

      Tanneke, who had been standing at the old woman’s side, pushed past me. I followed, Maria Thins’ eyes branding my back. I heard her chuckling again.

      Tanneke took me first to the back of the house, where there were cooking and washing kitchens and two storage rooms. The washing kitchen led out to a tiny courtyard full of drying white laundry.

      ‘This needs ironing, for a start,’ Tanneke said. I said nothing, though it looked as if the laundry had not yet been bleached properly by the midday sun.

      She led me back inside and pointed to a hole in the floor of one of the storage rooms, a ladder leading down into it. ‘You’re to sleep there,’ she announced. ‘Drop your things there now and you can sort yourself out later.’

      I reluctantly let my bundle drop into the dim hole, thinking of the stones Agnes and Frans and I had thrown into the canal to seek out the monsters. My things thudded on to the dirt floor. I felt like an apple tree losing its fruit.

      I followed Tanneke back along the hallway, which all the rooms opened off – many more rooms than in our house. Next to the Crucifixion room where Maria Thins sat, towards the front of the house, was a smaller room with children’s beds, chamberpots, small chairs and a table, on it various earthenware, candlesticks, snuffers and clothing, all in a jumble.

      ‘The girls sleep here,’ Tanneke mumbled, perhaps embarrassed by the mess.

      She turned up the hallway again and opened a door into a large room, where light streamed in from the front windows and across the red and grey tiled floor. ‘The great hall,’ she muttered. ‘Master and mistress sleep here.’

      Their bed was hung with green silk curtains. There was other furniture in the room – a large cupboard inlaid with ebony, a whitewood table pushed up to the windows with several Spanish leather chairs arranged around it. But again it was the paintings that struck me. More hung in this room than anywhere else. I counted to nineteen silently. Most were portraits – they appeared to be members of both families. There was also a painting of the Virgin Mary, and one of the three kings worshipping the Christ Child. I gazed at both uneasily.

      ‘Now, upstairs.’ Tanneke went first up the steep stairs, then put a finger to her lips. I climbed as quietly as I could. At the top I looked around and saw the closed door. Behind it was a silence that I knew was him.

      I stood, my eyes fixed on the door, not daring to move in case it opened and he came out.

      Tanneke leaned towards me and whispered, ‘You’ll be cleaning in there, which the young mistress will explain to you later. And these rooms—’ she pointed to doors towards the back of the house ‘—are my mistress’ rooms. Only I go in there to clean.’

      We crept downstairs again. When we were back in the washing kitchen Tanneke said, ‘You’re to take on the laundry for the house.’ She pointed to a great mound of clothes – they had fallen far behind with their washing. I would struggle to catch up. ‘There’s a cistern in the cooking kitchen but you’d best get your water for washing from the canal – it’s clean enough in this part of town.’

      ‘Tanneke,’ I said in a low voice, ‘have you been doing all this yourself? The cooking and cleaning and washing for the house?’

      I had chosen the right words. ‘And some of the shopping.’ Tanneke puffed up with pride at her own industry. ‘Young mistress does most of it, of course, but she goes off raw meat and fish when she’s carrying a child. And that’s often,’ she added in a whisper. ‘You’re to go to the Meat Hall and the fish stalls too. That will be another of your duties.’

      With that she left me to the laundry. Including me there were ten of us now in the house, one a baby who would dirty more clothes than the rest. I would be laundering every day, my hands chapped and cracked from the soap and water, my face red from standing over the steam, my back aching from lifting wet cloth, my arms burned by the iron. But I was new and I was young – it was to be expected I would have the hardest tasks.

      The laundry needed to soak for a day before I could wash it. In the storage room that led down to the cellar I found two pewter waterpots and a copper kettle. I took the pots with me and walked up the long hallway to the front door.

      The girls were still sitting on the bench. Now Lisbeth had the bubble blower while Maertge fed baby Johannes bread softened with milk. Cornelia and Aleydis were chasing bubbles. When I appeared they all stopped what they were doing and looked at me expectantly.

      ‘You’re the new maid,’ the girl with the bright red hair declared.

      ‘Yes, Cornelia.’

      Cornelia picked up a pebble and threw it across the road into the canal. There were long scratches up and down her arm – she must have been bothering the house cat.

      ‘Where will you sleep?’ Maertge asked, wiping mushy fingers on her apron.

      ‘In the cellar.’

      ‘We like it down there,’ Cornelia said. ‘Let’s go and play there now!’

      She darted inside but did not go far. When no one followed her she came back out, her face cross.

      ‘Aleydis,’ I said, extending my hand to the youngest girl, ‘will you show me where to get water from the canal?’

      She took my hand and looked up at me. Her eyes were like two shiny grey coins. We crossed the street, Cornelia and Lisbeth following. Aleydis led me to stairs that descended to the water. As we peeked over I tightened my grip on her hand, as I had done years before with Frans and Agnes whenever we stood next to water.

      ‘You stand back from the edge,’ I ordered. Aleydis obediently took a step back. But Cornelia followed close behind me as I carried the pots down the steps.

      ‘Cornelia, are you going to help me carry the water? If not, go back up to your sisters.’

      She looked at me, and then she did

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