Tales
In the working kitchen, the maid hands Nella a kandeel of hot spiced wine, pouring one for herself. ‘Peace at last,’ she says.
‘I don’t want peace, Cornelia. I’d rather have a husband.’
‘My pasties will be ready,’ the maid replies, wiping her hands on her apron as a log in the fire breaks open with a shower of glowing sparks. Nella lays her kandeel down on the oiled surface of the little chopping table by her knee. I will not hurt you, Petronella, was Johannes’ promise, made in the barge on their way towards the Guild of Silversmiths. She has always thought that kindness was an active thing. But the not doing of something, an act of restraint – could that be kindness too?
She was taught that sodomy was a crime against nature. In that respect, there is little difference between the doctrine of an Amsterdam preacher and a childhood priest in Assendelft. But how right is it to kill a man for something that is in his soul? If Marin is right, and it cannot be removed, then what is the point of all that pain? Nella takes a sip from the kandeel and lets the taste of hot spices carry her away from the awful image of Johannes under a cold black sea.
‘I put dried peas in them too. A new idea,’ Cornelia says as heat rushes out of the stove door, filling the room. She puts the pasty on a plate, drizzling it in grape juice, mutton-stock and butter before handing it over to Nella.
‘Cornelia, was there someone Marin once loved?’
‘Loved?’
‘That’s what I said.’
Cornelia’s fingers tighten on the plate. ‘Madame says love is best a phantom than reality, better in the chase than caught.’
The flames of the fire arch and disappear. ‘She might say that, Cornelia. But – I found something. A note. A love note, hidden in her room.’
The colour drains from Cornelia’s face. Nella hesitates, then takes the risk. ‘Did Frans Meermans write it?’ she whispers.
‘Oh, by all the angels,’ Cornelia breathes. ‘It can’t possibly – they never—’
‘Cornelia – you want me to stay, don’t you? You don’t want me to make a fuss?’
The maid tips up her chin and peers at Nella down her nose. ‘Are you bargaining with me, Madame?’
‘Perhaps I am.’
Cornelia wavers, then pulls a stool near and places her hand on Nella’s heart.
‘Do you swear, Madame? Do you swear not to speak of this to a soul?’
‘I swear.’
‘Then I’ll tell you now,’ the maid says, lowering her voice. ‘Agnes Meermans has always been a cat to hide her claws. All those airs and graces – but look closer, Madame. Look at the worry in the middle of her eye. She can’t ever hide her feelings about Marin – because Marin stole her husband’s heart.’
‘What?’
Cornelia stands up. ‘I can’t tell you all this without having something to keep my hands busy. I’ll make some olie-koecken.’ She gathers together a bowl of almonds, a handful of cloves and a cinnamon jar. As she starts crushing the nuts and cloves, the maid’s whispering, her air of secrecy and conviction tastes more delicious to Nella than the pasty on her plate.
Cornelia checks the stairs to see no one is coming. ‘Madame Marin was a lot younger than you when she first met Meermans,’ she says. ‘He was the Seigneur’s friend when they worked as clerks at the treasury. The Seigneur was eighteen, and Madame Marin must have been about eleven.’
Nella tries to imagine Marin as a child, but Agnes had it right; it is impossible. Marin is who she surely always was. Something rises in Nella’s mind, a jarring note. ‘But Agnes said that Frans and Johannes met at the VOC when they were twenty-two.’
‘Well, she was making that up – or else Meermans lied to her. He never worked at the VOC. He met the Seigneur at the Amsterdam treasury and ended up making laws at the Stadhuis. Not very impressive, is it – to stay in the office when your friend is out at sea with the republic’s greatest company. He gets seasick, Madame. Can you imagine a seasick Dutchman?’
‘Well, I prefer horses to ships,’ Nella says.
Cornelia shrugs. ‘And both can throw you out the saddle. Anyway, Meermans first met Madame Marin on the feast of St Nicholas. Music filled the place, citterns, horns and viols – and Madame Marin danced with Meermans more than once. She thought he was a prince, so handsome. He eats too much now, but he was everyone’s favourite then.’
‘But how do you even know this, Cornelia? Were you even born?’
Cornelia frowns, dropping in her wheat-flour and ginger, thickening her batter with a whisk. ‘I was a baby in the orphanage then. But I’ve put it together, haven’t I? Keyholes’ she whispers, fixing her blue eyes on Nella with a knowing look. ‘I’ve worked her out.’ She draws a small bowl of apples close, peeling each one with a single rotation of her knife. ‘There’s something about Madame Marin. She’s a knot we all want to untie.’
But Nella wonders if there are any fingers sharp or deft enough to pick at Madame Marin. With her moodiness, her moments of shy generosity dashed by an unkind comment, Marin is the most tightly bound of them all.
As Cornelia resumes her whisking, Nella’s heart feels as if it’s swelling in her ribs. This girl came to Johannes’ office to save me, she thinks. And if that is true, then she’s the first real friend I’ve ever had. Nella can hardly bear it – any moment she’s going to stand up and throw her arms round this strange child from the orphanage, whose talent with food has given her the power to console.
‘The Seigneur and Meermans were good friends,’ Cornelia says. ‘So he would often be calling at the house to play a game of verkerspeel. Love came into it later – what did Madame Marin know of love, at eleven years old?’
‘I’m nearly nineteen, and a married woman, Cornelia. And yet I can make no more claim on love than if I were a child.’
Cornelia blushes. Growing older, Nella realizes, does not seem to make you more certain. It simply presents you with more reasons for doubt.
‘Their parents died when Madame Marin was fourteen, and the Seigneur left the treasury to join the VOC,’ Cornelia continues. ‘Meermans moved to the Stadhuis.’
‘How did their parents die?’
‘Their mother was always sickly, and weakened by her labours. She barely survived after Madame Marin was born. There were more babies than just the Seigneur and Madame Marin, of course – but none of them lived. A year after their mother died, their father went of the fever, and the Seigneur took his first VOC ship out to Batavia. Madame Marin turned fifteen. Frans Meermans was working in the Stadhuis, but without a chaperone, she couldn’t meet him.’
Nella pictures her husband under boiled blue skies, upon hot sands laced with tinkling shells and shed blood. Piracy and adventure, whilst Frans and Marin were marooned amidst the mahogany furniture and smothering tapestries, the sluggish canals and the peal of bells to worship.
‘The Seigneur tried to encourage him into the VOC. Told him to seize the opportunity. “Don’t criticize Frans,” Madame Marin said. “Not everyone has had your chances, Johannes, and you like it that way.” ’
Cornelia swirls a bowl of soaked raisins with the end of her wooden spoon. ‘Problem was, Meermans couldn’t match the Seigneur. Couldn’t open the right doors, didn’t inspire the men – had only modest success, while the Seigneur got very rich. And then five years later, when Marin was twenty, Meermans called by without her knowing. He’d saved his money up and asked the Seigneur if he could have her hand in marriage.’
‘He waited five years? And what did Johannes say?’
‘The Seigneur said no.’
‘What? Five years waiting to be given a no – but why? Meermans didn’t have a bad reputation, did he? And he must have truly loved her.’
‘The Seigneur never does anything without good reason,’ Cornelia says defensively, dropping her first strip of batter into a pan of sizzling oil.
‘Yes, but –’
‘Meermans was handsome, if you like that type,’ Cornelia says, ‘but he didn’t have the best of reputations.’ She pauses. ‘He had a temper on him, he always wanted better than what he had. And after that snub, he never came back. Until now.’
She draws out the new doughnut and lays it gently on the tray of prepared sugar. ‘I shaved the top of Agnes’ sugar cone,’ she adds, a little sly.
‘Perhaps Johannes wanted to keep Marin where he needed her,’ Nella says. ‘A puppet wife – and look! Now he has two.’ Cornelia makes a face. ‘Oh, Cornelia. She’s still mistress of this household. You see how strict she is, keeping us all in order. That’s supposed to be my job. Although – have you noticed how distracted she can seem?’
Cornelia is silent for a moment. ‘I’ve noticed no difference, Madame,’ she says.
‘Did Marin find out what Johannes had done?’
‘Eventually, but by then Meermans had gone and married one of Madame Marin’s friends. Agnes Vynke.’ Cornelia enunciates the name like the parts of a wasp. ‘Agnes’ father worked with the West India Company and had got rich in the New World. He’d forbidden her from marrying any man not wealthy enough. He was a monster, Seigneur Vynke – trying to sire sons at eighty to make sure she didn’t inherit! Agnes’ marriage to Meermans was her first and last rebellion. She adores Frans like a sickness. She turned the other guild wives against Madame Marin, just to be sure that chapter was closed. Agnes wanted a little power, but then her father died and left her all those fields.’
Nella remembers the ladies Cornelia described, visiting the house, putting songbirds in Otto’s hair – was Agnes Vynke one of them, ordered by Marin never to return?
‘It was a huge wedding feast,’ Cornelia goes on, ‘paid for by Frans with all the guilders he’d borrowed, no doubt. Always in debt, that one. The party lasted three days. But you know what they say about big weddings. They cover up a lack of appetite.’