The Miniaturist(37)
Her hard boast melts to a raw fib, pooling between the silent women. Each of them examines the material of her dress, unable to look up. ‘Whom did you pay to furnish yours?’ Agnes finally asks.
Nella falters. The thought of Agnes going to the Kalverstraat, of her having a connection with that woman, of her knowing she even exists, feels insupportable. It would feel as if her secret knowledge had been plucked, its best bits pecked away.
As if she senses weakness, Agnes leans forward. ‘Well?’
‘I—’
‘My mother left me some childhood pieces. Petronella has been using those,’ Marin says.
‘What, Marin?’ says Agnes. ‘You had a childhood?’
‘I must fetch the Rhenish wine,’ Marin adds, ignoring both this and the gratitude which beams from Nella’s face. ‘Otto has failed to put it out.’
Marin disappears from the room, calling Otto’s name. Agnes watches her exit, leaning back against her chair. ‘Poor thing,’ she breathes. ‘Poor thing.’ She turns to Nella, concern etched on her face. ‘I don’t know why she’s so unhappy.’ She leans ever closer, scooping Nella’s hand in both of hers. Her fingers are damp, like a pond-pulled frog. ‘Our husbands, Nella, used to be such good friends.’ She squeezes tight, the stones of her twisted rings indenting Nella’s palm. ‘They made it through some of the worst storms the North Sea has ever seen.’
‘You are too interested in the past, my darling,’ her husband calls from the window. ‘Is not today more interesting?’
Agnes laughs. ‘Oh, Frans. Nella, your husband must have told you, they met when they were twenty-two, working in the VOC ships? Over the Equator they went – missing the Carib storms because the north-east trade wind was pushing them on.’ Agnes recites it like a fairy tale, learned by years of repetition.
‘My dear—’
‘They were so talented, working for the glory of the republic! Of course, Frans found his calling at the Stadhuis in the end, but the brick walls of Amsterdam could never hold Brandt.’
When her husband stops at the door, Agnes’ gaze follows him like a hawk. ‘Has Brandt told you his tales of Batavia?’ she asks Nella.
‘No.’
‘He sold his stock and quadrupled the money he went with. He practically talked the guilders into his pocket and came back with a crew of his own.’
Agnes’ admiration, laced with an indefinable scorn, is hypnotic. Although this information seems to cause Meermans some discomfort, Nella is eager for more.
‘That was seventeen years ago, Agnes,’ says Meermans, his voice forcefully hearty. ‘These days he’s happier down on the Eastern Islands stuffing himself with potatoes.’
He walks out of the room as if he lives here and knows where he’s going. She hears the pause of his heavy clump across the hallway and imagines him sitting in one of the hall chairs, seeking a moment of relief – but from what exactly, she cannot tell.
He’s right about one thing, though – Agnes is the only person Nella has met who likes to bring up the past. It pained her mother, it made her father weep. The rest of Amsterdam seems to want to move forward, building ever upwards despite the boggy land that might well sink them all.
Agnes looks breathless, slightly wild. Opening her hands with a shrug, she picks absently at an invisible mote of dust on her skirt. ‘Men are men,’ she says, oblique and adult once again.
‘Of course,’ Nella replies, thinking that two men couldn’t be more different than Frans Meermans and Johannes Brandt.
‘I’ve given a loaf of our sugar to your maid,’ says Agnes. ‘Frans said we’ll try it after dinner. Do you think Marin will have a spoonful?’ She closes her eyes. ‘All those perfect loaves! Frans has been – wonderful. The refining process has gone very smoothly.’
‘It was your sole inheritance, am I correct?’
Agnes blinks. ‘In the act of submission, Madame Brandt,’ she murmurs, ‘one always gains much more.’
Nella instinctively rejects this offered confidence. Disappointed by the curdling silence between them, Agnes straightens up. ‘Although there may be more sugar to come, it is important your husband does well by us,’ she says. ‘The weather is not always kind to Surinam, and foreigners are constantly attacking my father’s – that is to say, our land. This crop could be our only fortune for many a year.’
‘Yes, Madame. We are highly honoured you have selected us.’
Agnes visibly softens a little. ‘Have you ever been to your husband’s office?’ she asks.
‘Never, Madame.’
‘I go quite frequently to the Stadhuis. It is pleasant for Frans when I pay him visits. Such a thrill to see his achievements in regulating this republic. He is an exceptional man. But tell me,’ Agnes continues. ‘Has Marin made you eat her herring dinners, those culinary massacres of self-improvement?’
‘We—’
‘One-herring dinners and plain black gowns!’ Agnes places a hand on her heart, closing her eyes again. ‘But in here, Madame, God sees our truest deeds.’
‘I—’
‘Do you think Marin looks unwell?’ Agnes snaps her eyes open, adopting her previous pose of concern.
Nella doesn’t know what to say, exhausted by the woman’s mercurial conversation. Unhappiness seems to roll off Agnes in uneven waves, and yet, she can be so convincingly confident that it makes for such confusion. She hungers for something, and Nella cannot sate her.