Light of Her Own Read online

  Maria took a step forward, then stopped. “It’s kind of you, but I’m fasting today.” She gave an apologetic smile. “Thank you.”

  Judith looked away and tucked the bread into the waist of her skirt. “Is it a saint’s day?” she asked without lifting her gaze.

  Maria shook her head. “No.” She did not know how to explain the pleasure of hunger’s sharp knife cleaving her body. “Are you starting now?”

  Judith pushed a strand of chestnut hair back under her white cap, rubbed her hands to warm them, and walked over to the long table of painting supports. Six wooden boards lay there, drying after receiving the first layer of chalk and glue grounding, and ready for the second layer of lead-white and ocher. Above the table, rising almost to the ceiling, a window glowed with the timid light.

  “Yes, I’ve got to finish these today.” Judith’s tone was neutral, but Maria knew she hated the work. The drudgery of preparing the wooden surfaces irked her, not because she thought herself above it, though Maria suspected perhaps she did, but because the task fell to Judith regardless of who else was in the workshop. Even the youngest of the apprentices who had cycled through the workshop over the years mostly bypassed that work. Boys, all of them. Judith never complained, and Maria loved her the more for it.

  “Will you show me the painting you’re working on?” Judith asked as she pulled on her long-sleeved smock. “It’s obviously important to you. I’d love to see what it is.”

  Maria bit her lip and dug her fingernails into the easel’s wood. Judith waited.

  The two other apprentices barreled into the workshop and filled it with laughter and the scratch of their new men’s voices. Judith remained looking at Maria with her eyebrows raised for another breath, then she shrugged and turned to her work.

  Maria’s father, Frans de Grebber, entered and sat on the stool in front of his easel. He had curly gray hair cropped above his ears, and a beard that was more silver than brown. After a moment of dabbing at his portrait of a spice merchant, he looked up.

  “Judith, I’ll need you to sit with Herold this afternoon to supervise his sketch of the new client we’re doing the portrait for. The wine-seller.”

  Judith frowned, but she nodded in agreement. Herold, the younger apprentice, flashed the other boy a triumphant smile. Taking the first sketch was a prestigious prize.

  Frans de Grebber shifted in his chair and then adjusted his easel to better catch the light. The light always seemed insufficient during winter.

  “Maria, this painting of yours. You’ll have to show it to me soon, so I can discuss it with potential buyers.” Frans ran a thumb down his silver beard, still seasoned with brown like sparse wood dust on a tile floor. “Soon.” He narrowed his eyes, and then returned his gaze to his own work.

  Maria wanted to argue, but it was easier to say nothing. She couldn’t show the painting to him, and she certainly could not let him think he was going to be able to sell it. He wouldn’t understand. Once, after her mother died, Maria had asked her father if she could join a convent. She wanted to spend her hours walking through ancient stone hallways and kneeling in prayer to the Holy Trinity. But there were no religious orders in the United Provinces, and her father laughed when she asked if she might travel to the Spanish Low Countries to find a sisterhood there. He needed her help, he said, and insisted she would grow bored with such an isolated life. He was wrong, but she would not defy him.

  The midday meal brought the household together around the large table. Maria ate nothing, and no one remarked upon it. Across the rough-hewn tabletop, Judith picked at her plate of stewed duck and vegetables, and then stood and begged Frans de Grebber’s pardon for departing early. Maria sought some explanation in Judith’s expression, but the other woman’s face was a mask. She said she would return for the afternoon’s work, then turned and left.

  “Where’s she going?” asked the oldest apprentice, the son of a United East India Company official who was taking advantage of his newfound wealth by sending his scion to dabble in painting.

  Maria waited to hear the others’ speculation before she realized he was addressing her. The boy, some six years younger than her, had both elbows propped on the table and was leaning toward her, his full-lipped mouth slightly open while he waited.

  “I don’t know.”

  The other apprentice, Herold, laughed. He brushed his fingers over the linen piping decorating the seam of his doublet. “Of course you do. We know you girls share all your secrets up in that room, whispering into the night.” He was young but had never shown any fear of Maria, even though at twenty-five she was old enough to have her own household. She turned to give him a sharp retort, but what came to mind was too embarrassing to say. She didn’t know because she and Judith didn’t talk much now. Their exhausted exchanges now were nothing like when Judith had first joined the household, when she was thirteen and Maria fifteen, and they could talk until the night seemed endless. Then, the young, skinny Judith whispered with such fierce passion about her dreams of being independent that her eyes seemed to glow in the dark. And when the strain of missing her family grew too great, Judith would crawl into Maria’s bed and beg the older girl to tell her stories. With their hands intertwined, Maria would tell tales from the Bible, or gossip she had heard from the servants, or, when the night stretched so long that it seemed the two girls were the only ones left in Haarlem, she would make up her own stories about two friends whose love was so sound they might give their lives for each other. Always, Judith held her hand and whispered, “One more, Maria. Tell me just one more.”

  Herold laughed again.

  “I don’t know,” she repeated, keeping her voice even.

  Maria’s father interrupted with a cough. Meals were typically quiet, and he rarely got involved in any apprentice chatter. He sat at the end of the table, where he used his fingers to peel the duck flesh away from the bone. He looked at each of them, gave another shallow cough, and returned his gaze to his plate.

  When he was not looking, Maria dipped her thumb into her beer flagon and ferried a drop of the weak brew to her lips. The drink did not count as breaking her fast, and it gave her something to consume so as not to draw attention to herself while everyone ate. She loved quenching her thirst drop by bright drop. It was yet another secret pleasure, and of course the secrecy enriched her delight. Like the painting. Or like the clandestine Mass that she and her father attended, along with the handful of other Catholic families who refused to join the Reformed Church. There was a visiting priest in town this weekend, and when he held Mass in this week’s secret house, Maria would taste the consecrated Host, the actual Body of Christ. She closed her eyes and savored the anticipation. When she looked up, her father was still intent upon his duck, and she dipped her thumb again.

  After a few minutes, Maria wiped her hands on a napkin, the purchase of which was a rare concession by her father to her deceased mother’s French-influenced tastes, and she stood. The household was still lounging around the table, and she had time to look at her painting.

  Alone in the workshop she uncovered the portrait. She sighed. The flat images held nothing of the sublime she aimed for, nothing of the deep and physical joy she had hoped to capture, the way a sail catches and harnesses a salty sea breeze. Here, on her painted panel, the woman’s eyes did not gaze at the flame held in her hands, but rather at a spot to the side of the candle. And Maria had only outlined the woman’s dress, which needed to fold softly over her arms and waist and display both the woman and her light. It had taken Maria four weeks to get this far in stolen moments and rare bits of solitude, and now only the two weeks before Lent remained to perfect her painting. She could not let herself fail, not with this chance to atone for how she had failed her mother, grown distant from Judith, and somehow misled Samuel into affection. She heard footsteps and swung the cloth back over her work.

  Chapter 3

  JUDITH HAD LITTLE TIME TO herself that afternoon. She hurried down
Korte Barteljorisstraat, just off the broad main square, to the three-story brick linenwares shop between the bakery and a cobbler’s house. The street was rather wide here, enough for two small carts to pass each other, and she examined the way the low sun’s rays struck the windows of the upper floors, while behind her the musical tap from the cobbler’s hammer skittered across the air. She stood shivering in the cold outside, just beyond the wooden awning at the front of the house, and waited for the linen-seller to finish with the customer blocking his doorstep, a stern woman in saffron-colored skirts and dark fur with fine lace peeping out at the cuffs. The cobbler’s sound reminded her of driving nails into a coffin, and she shuddered. This room might be her only chance. Rooms in this part of town, a safe neighborhood with handsome brick frontages where she could invite customers, rarely came on the market. Most deals were made between friends and acquaintances, men who already knew one another and would never think to advertise publicly. But Judith knew no one. She was alone and, worse, a woman. She stood up straighter. It didn’t matter that she lacked connections, or that her family’s name was disgraced by her parents’ behavior. That didn’t mean she was worthless. She squeezed her palms shut, relaxed her fingers, and looked up at the window again. The paint was peeling from the black shutters.

  She stepped closer. Linen the color of fallow fields lay piled under the wooden awning, but the craftsman kept his finer pieces inside the house’s dark entryway. Beyond, as was customary, lay the man’s living space. The linen-seller was raven-haired and thin, with an uneven gait, yet still he reminded her of her father: a thick, sixty-some-year-old man. Or so he was the last time she had seen him, five years ago. Her father was once a linen small worker. He’d created delicate pieces for years, and there was something about the trade that infused the manners of its practitioners. Maybe it was how they turned their wrists, ready to flick a shuttle between fine threads.

  The customer walked out, and Judith laid down the fold of cloth she had been examining to pass the time and distract her thoughts. She took a deep breath and lifted her chin.

  “I’m about to close for midday, but I can help you if it’s quick,” said the proprietor.

  “I’m Judith Leyster,” she said. Her hands began to shake, and she clutched them together. “I sent you a note. About the workshop.”

  “Judith?” He let his mouth fall open for a moment, and then closed it before he might be accused of being rude. “I had assumed the J stood for Jan. Or something. Like the other applicant.”

  “It stands for Judith. Not that it makes a difference, I assume.” She paused, and he said nothing. “Women can rent spaces too. Catharijne Cuijpers has her linenwares shop the block over.” She knew she sounded defensive, but she couldn’t help it.

  “Yes, fine work she does too. But she’s a widow. I hadn’t thought . . .”

  “I’m not a widow. But I’m entitled all the same. My master, Frans de Grebber, will hear of it, if you don’t give me a fair chance.” She did not want to tell Frans she hoped to rent her own workshop, but the painter was well known. An empty threat, but it was all she could think of. She dug her fingernails deep into her palms.

  He pressed his lips together, and resistance began to cloud his face.

  “Please?” She held her palms out, open, and prayed the crimson half-moons from her nails wouldn’t show. “I’m honorable. I want to rent the space for my painting.”

  The linen-seller brushed his hands against his trousers and thought for a moment. He coughed. “It’s no matter, I suppose. Tenants are tenants, and you’re right, women do run businesses. I hadn’t expected . . . but, no, you’re right. Would you like to see the space?” He walked to his front door and closed it.

  “Yes, of course.” Judith tried to smooth her expression and conceal her anxiety about his mention of another applicant. With other interested renters in the market, she would have a difficult time negotiating any reduction in rent. And Jan—Jan who? They passed the linen-seller’s living quarters, and then she followed him to climb a creaking staircase. The shopkeeper introduced himself as Chrispijn de Mildt. From her vantage point a few steps below him, Judith appraised his well-made but worn leather boots and hoped he needed a renter at any price. Which Jan, though? Which of the many aspiring young artists could he be? And men, all of them, that was certain. A tremor of nerves coursed through her stomach.

  At the top of the stairs, Chrispijn de Mildt pulled a set of brass keys from his waist pocket and unlocked a door. The hinges creaked as he opened it, and a wall of stale air rushed out.

  They entered the room, and Chrispijn stood at the entrance with his hands clasped together near his waist. Judith walked across the dusty floorboards to the two wide windows facing the street. Below, the street was quiet, even though the main square was half a block away. The brick frontages and whitewashed doorways of the neighbors’ shops were not as close as she had feared. She took a deep breath before turning to face the wall to her left. There, she ran her fingers over the bone-white plaster. Already she wanted the place so badly her voice grew weightless.

  “I’d be able to hang items on the wall? Props, supplies?” She kept her fingers to the cold plaster but chanced a glance over her shoulder at him. He had touched a thumb to his nose in thought.

  “What would you use to hang them?”

  “Nails.” What else could he be thinking of? The plaster was rough beneath her fingertips, and she raised her hand to her nose to sniff them, but she could only detect the sharp bite of linseed oil and pigment permanently infused in her skin.

  “Nails. I suppose nails would be fine. I might need to charge you some for it, though.”

  She turned to face him. “How much?”

  “We’ll discuss that in a bit. Downstairs, after you’ve finished your look around.”

  Judith nodded, as if money were of secondary importance, and as if she had not heard the peremptory tone to his voice. She reached into her pocket, the pouch hung from her waist, and took out a handful of buttons. It was a habit of hers to carry around the components of a painting so she could consider them, learn their curves and secrets, whenever she had a free moment. She crouched down to place the buttons on the floor. It was the best way to examine the light.

  Her skirts circled around her as she knelt in front of the small collection. The sunlight washed over the buttons, and they seemed to grow in response, losing their boundaries in the lustrous sheen of their colors. One, a shell button, swirled like the light had unlocked an ocean hidden within. The light was perfect. She had to have this space.

  “The light is dim,” she said with a frown. This was how people negotiated, or so she guessed from seeing Frans de Grebber with his customers. She scooped up the buttons and dropped them back into her pocket bag. “And the noise isn’t ideal for working conditions.”

  Chrispijn de Mildt clasped his hands together again. “I would have thought it was ideal, but the other fellow also . . . Well, that doesn’t mean much. Look at this. It’s a great space. Where else in Haarlem can you find a whole room available?”

  Judith shrugged. “Plenty of places.” Of course, that wasn’t true. She blushed and fingered the buttons through the cloth of her pocket. “What are you asking for it?”

  “No, no, not here.” He waved for her to follow him out of the room. “Business downstairs, where we can sit, be comfortable. You artists. I swear.”

  Judith frowned as they descended. This Jan, then, had also gotten so far as to discuss the rent. But he must not have signed an agreement, since Chrispijn was still offering the place. The linen-seller might even be leading her on, intending for her to think she had competition. The thought gave her hope.

  Twenty minutes later Judith exited the linen shop, and she had to press her lips together firmly to keep a smile from escaping. The rent was enormous, beyond what she could even in her most optimistic scenarios hope to earn in a month, but he needed a tenant. She could tell. He had held his breath, fo
r an instant, after he told her the price. As if he needed her approval. And he did not, in the end, seem to mind she was a woman. Outside in the cold street, she sidestepped a frosted mud puddle. All she needed was to save a little more, to pay the first few months in advance, and then negotiate with him after she had signed. The other artist who had looked at the place did not have the resources to rent. Though, neither did she. Not yet.

  Chapter 4

  STILL SMILING, JUDITH WALKED SOUTH through the winding streets, toward the weaving district. She crossed a bridge over one of the smaller canals, and at the other side, she stopped.

  A funeral procession turned from a narrow lane toward the bridge. The silent mourners wore the customary black robes, and the coffin was draped in a black cloth ornamented with the mallet insignia of the Masonry Guild. Tears wet the pallbearers’ cheeks. A few wilted daffodils were scattered on top of the coffin, the flowers indicating the youth of the deceased. Judith stood still and watched. Would the St. Luke’s Guild someday be responsible for burying her? A number of the mourners trailing after the coffin had pale, wasted faces. She couldn’t tell if they were contending with grief or illness. Maybe both. She clasped her hands together and waited for the small procession to pass.

  She continued walking, past smaller houses and through the mud-coated streets. Outside the inn where the illegal auction had been held, the boards covering the gutters that ran along the sides of the street were bowed and filthy, and she hesitated to step on them. In the faded light two nights ago she had not noticed their poor condition. She lifted her skirts, bringing a rush of cold air against her legs, and stepped over the little bridge to push the battered door open.

  Inside, the place was warm and surprisingly bright. An amber fire hummed in the hearth to her right, and men clustered around the handful of occupied tables. A large man in an apron carried a crate over his head and set it down by the rear door with a clatter.