The Miniaturist(74)

‘So that’s what you were doing in the cellar. I thought you were cleaning them.’

‘You saw what you wanted to see.’

Nella closes her eyes, conjuring Marin in the cellar with her reddened hands aloft. Such lengths she has gone to in the name of her secret; preparing her ghostly menstruation, keeping up the appearance that her body is just the same. Marin’s profound convex is mesmerizing. She has duplicated herself – two hearts, two heads, four arms, four legs – like a monster to be recorded in a ship’s log, annotated on one of Johannes’ stolen maps. She’s hidden it so well.

How many times has it happened, the snatched chances out of sight of Agnes, Johannes, the whole city? It is shocking, and the fact that it’s Marin’s deed even more so. Fornication, skin on skin, throwing the Bible out the window. But this is love, Nella thinks. This is what it makes you do.

Marin lowers her head into her hands. ‘Frans,’ she says, his name enough to convey all that she has hidden, the truth that could ruin her life.

‘He was just angry about the sugar, Marin. He loves you.’ Marin looks up, an expression of surprise blooming on her exhausted face. ‘Tell him about the child. Once he knows, he won’t hurt Johannes because such action will endanger you.’

‘No, Petronella,’ Marin says. ‘This isn’t one of Cornelia’s stories.’

They sit in silence for a moment. Nella remembers Meermans’ ugly aggression, his look of triumph when he broke the news of what he and Agnes had seen.

‘People needn’t know about this, Marin. We’re good at hiding things.’

Marin rubs her eyes. ‘I’m not so sure.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘If he survives, this child will be stained.’

‘Stained?’

‘By his mother’s sin, his father’s sin—’

‘It’s a baby, Marin, not a devil. We can go away,’ Nella says more gently. ‘Take you to the countryside.’

‘There’s nothing to do in the countryside.’

Nella bites her tongue and absorbs the barb. ‘Well, exactly. No prying eyes.’

‘Do you know what the word pregnant is in French, Nella? Enceinte.’

Nella is irritated – Marin is so like her brother, diverting the path of conversation with her foreign tongues, blanketing you with worldly overtones.

‘Do you know what else it means?’ Marin persists, and now Nella hears the faint note of panic in her voice. ‘A surround. A wall. A trap.’

Nella kneels down in front of her. ‘How far are you gone?’ she says, wanting to be practical.

Marin exhales, resting her arms on the top of her belly. ‘Seven months or so.’

‘Seven months? I would never have known. My mother’s been pregnant four times since I can remember, but I couldn’t tell with you.’

‘You weren’t looking, Nella. I let my skirts out and bound my breasts.’

Nella cannot help smiling – even in this extraordinary situation, the act of tamping herself down, of sliding her truth away from all their gazes, makes Marin proud. ‘But these days I’m finding it hard to walk. It’s like bending over a globe.’

‘You’ll show soon. However many skirts and shawls you wear.’

‘I’m tall at least. I shall just look like a glutton, the embodiment of my sin.’

Nella glances at the glass. This preparation could easily have killed her. Preparation – named as if it is the beginning of something, when really it is the end. A girl in Assendelft died from drinking a preparation of hellebore and pennyroyal. Her brother’s friends had forced themselves upon her and one of them had ‘hooked in his child’ as the saying went. Her father made the mixture, and something went wrong, for they buried her the next morning.

Most countryside people can tell a poisonous mushroom, a fatal shrub. Seven months is far too late; after so much careful concealment, Marin would have perished too. Does Marin know this or not? Both possibilities disturb.

‘Where did you get the poison from?’

‘A book,’ says Marin. ‘The ingredients came from three separate apothecaries. Johannes thinks I stole all my seeds and leaves from him, but in fact half of them come from quacks in Amsterdam.’

‘But why tonight? Had you never wondered before now what you were going to do?’ Marin looks away, refusing to answer. ‘Marin, these preparations are very dangerous if you don’t drink them early enough,’ Nella persists, but Marin stays silent.

‘Marin, did you want this child to live?’

Marin touches her stomach, and still she doesn’t speak, staring into an infinity Nella cannot see. Nella’s eye moves to the stack of books. One title now stands out, Children’s Diseases by Stephanus Blankaart, and she cannot believe she didn’t consider its presence the last time she was here.

Marin focuses on the book too, and she looks frightened and strangely young. Nella takes her hand, a little pulse passing from palm to palm. ‘I remember you reaching for my fingers the first day I arrived.’

‘No. That isn’t true.’

‘Marin, I recall it quite clearly.’

‘You gave me your hand as if it were a gift. You were so . . . confident.’

‘I was not. And you proffered yours as if you were pointing me back outside. You said I had strong bones for seventeen.’