Cornelia scurries up the kitchen stairs. Nella’s heart is climbing out of her body. She wants to grip Cornelia’s hands and form a ring around this man, to keep both him and her hammering heart under control. I should have told Marin, she thinks, the air vibrating around her as Meermans’ fury builds. Marin already had her suspicions, but if I’d confirmed that the sugar was untouched, that Frans had already been to see it, maybe she could have stopped all this. She’s the only one who brings into any order.
On the staircase, Marin shrinks as Meermans advances, the opposite of a romantic vision or any tender love. As he stares her down, two images of their old story shimmer in Nella’s mind, the gift of the salted piglet and Frans’ beautiful note, hidden in a book. Let Frans be kind to her, she prays.
‘We saw him,’ Meermans says, his voice low and hypnotic in its intensity. ‘We saw his devilry.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Marin says. ‘What devilry?’
‘I expect you’ve always known it,’ he says. ‘How he spends his time up against the warehouse walls. And such a thing you cannot unsee.’
‘No,’ Marin says.
‘Yes,’ says Meermans, drawing himself up and turning to Nella. ‘The world will have to know, Madame, how your disgusting husband took his pleasure – with a boy.’
Nella closes her eyes as if to stop Meermans’ words entering her. But it’s too late. When she opens them again, Meermans looks grotesquely pleased. Oh, you are not the first to bring me this revelation, she thinks, unable to meet his gaze. My husband gave me that, at least.
None of the women seem able to speak and Meermans seems irritated by their muteness. ‘Johannes Brandt is a degenerate,’ he says as if to prod their terrified stupefaction. ‘A worm in the fruit of this city. And I will do my duty as a godly citizen.’
‘There must be a mistake,’ Marin whispers.
‘No mistake. And what’s more, the boy claims Johannes attacked him.’
‘What?’ says Nella.
‘You’re his friend.’ Marin’s voice is breathless, her hand slipping from the banister. ‘Don’t seek this punishment when you know where it will end.’
‘My friendship with that man died years ago.’
‘Then why did you ask him to sell your sugar? Out of all the merchants – why did you pick my brother?’
‘It was Agnes who insisted,’ he says, pushing his hat roughly onto his head.
‘But you agreed, Frans. Why would you agree if there was not some affection there still?’
Meermans holds his hand up to stop her speaking. ‘Our sugar is as abandoned as his soul. And when I saw what blasphemy he was committing, it was like Beelzebub himself had burst from the skies.’
‘Beelzebub will burst on all of us, Frans, if you carry on like this! You speak of doing your duty to God but I think it’s for your guilders. Money, wealth – you never used to be like this.’
It has to be Jack, Nella thinks, up against the warehouse wall. She almost wants it to be him – some constancy at least, some love perhaps, in the changing shades of this disaster. She wonders if Johannes is still there at the warehouse, unaware that he has been discovered. He needs to know, she thinks. He needs to get away.
‘Did you speak to my husband?’ she asks.
Meermans turns to her with a sneer. ‘Certainly not,’ he says. ‘Agnes was – it became imperative for us to leave the scene. She is not yet quite recovered.’
‘Don’t seek this triumph, Frans,’ Marin begs. ‘You’ll ruin us all. We can come to an arrangement—’
‘Arrangement? Don’t you dare talk to me about an arrangement, Madame. Johannes has arranged enough in my life.’
‘Frans, we’ll sell your sugar, and let that be an end—’
‘No, Marin,’ he says, wrenching open the door. ‘I am a different man now, and I will not stem the tide.’
Escape
As Frans Meermans storms out into the freezing day, Marin’s legs give way. It is disturbing to watch, like the collapse of a particularly beautiful tree. Cornelia rushes to her, trying to prop her up. ‘I can’t believe it,’ Marin says, staring at Nella. ‘Can it be true? Can he really have been such a fool?’
‘To bed, Madame,’ Cornelia says, trying to lift Marin up in a desperate effort. She bows under Marin’s weight and her mistress shakes her off, sitting down on the hall stairs.
‘Frans will go to the burgomasters,’ Marin says. The words bruise the tender atmosphere Meermans has left behind. It is chilling how she looks – dead-eyed, limp, her voice bereft of any spirit. ‘He didn’t come here first to offer us clemency. He just came to crow.’
‘Then we must take advantage of his self-importance,’ Nella says. ‘Johannes doesn’t know that he was seen. He only has a few hours in which to escape.’
‘The Seigneur too?’ Cornelia says. ‘But we cannot live here just the three of us.’
‘Can you think of something better?’ Nella asks.
The hallway falls very quiet. Irritated with her own bad mood, Nella worries Dhana’s silky ears through her fingers, thinking about Agnes’ blackened loaf upstairs, wondering where Johannes is. The sugar has made Meermans angry, angrier perhaps than seeing Johannes enjoying forbidden fruit. Several thousand guilders might neutralize this rage against the Brandts.
‘I don’t know how, but we have to sell the sugar,’ she says. ‘Meermans is looking for payment.’
Marin looks up at her. ‘He said some of it was paste.’
‘Exactly. Some of it. He’s probably exaggerating. He likes to lie. And he might stay silent if we sell his stock.’
‘Nothing will keep that man silent. Believe me. And what are you proposing? Do you know all the buyers in Europe and beyond, Petronella – the London cooks, the Milanese pastry-men, the duchesses and marquises and sultans? Do you speak five languages?’
‘I am searching for the light, Marin. In the middle of all this murk.’