The Miniaturist(76)

Marin in miniature stares up at both women, her mouth set firm, her grey eyes unwavering. Cornelia runs her hand down the seam of her mistress’s skirt, the soft black wool a voluminous pleasure to touch. She holds her up in the candlelight. ‘Be safe, Madame,’ she whispers, clutching the doll in both hands. As Cornelia’s lips meet the miniature stomach to give it a kiss, she pulls away with a jerk.

‘What’s wrong? Cornelia, what is it?’

‘I can feel something.’

Nella snatches the doll back, lifting the skirts and then the underskirt, peeling away each layer until she reaches Marin’s body of stuffed linen. When her fingers touch Cornelia’s discovery, her excitement sickens. The miniaturist has beaten them again.

Unmistakeable, Marin’s diminutive body holds the curve of an unborn child. A nub, a walnut, a nothing-yet, but soon-to-be. The doll appears weighed down like the woman along the corridor, full-bellied with time.

Cornelia is horrified. ‘You ordered a doll of Madame Marin, carrying a child?’ As the maid’s cornflower-blue eyes shine at her with accusation, Nella’s own body feels unwieldy. ‘How could you betray us like this?’

‘No, no,’ Nella pleads. The slipping has begun, the loose brick, the hole in the dam.

‘You know how rumour spreads—’

‘I – I – didn’t order it, Cornelia.’

‘Then who did?’ Cornelia looks aghast.

‘I was sent it – I asked for nothing but a lute, and—’

‘Then who is spying on us?’ The maid spins round the room, brandishing the doll like a shield.

‘The miniaturist isn’t a spy, Cornelia. She’s more than that—’

‘She? I thought all those notes were going to a craftsman?’

‘She’s a prophetess – look at Marin’s stomach! She sees our lives – she’s trying to help, to warn us—’

Cornelia pulls out doll after doll, pressing their bodies for more clues, dropping them one by one to the floor. ‘Warn us? Who is this woman, this somebody? What is this miniaturist?’ She grips her own doll in her fist, staring at it in horror. ‘Sweet Jesu, I’ve lived carefully, Madame, I’ve been obedient. But ever since this cabinet arrived, so many doors have opened that I’ve always managed to keep shut.’

‘But is that such a bad thing?’

Cornelia looks at her as if she’s mad. ‘The Seigneur is in prison, Otto’s gone and Madame Marin carries a secret shame with the man who is this household’s enemy! Our world has fallen apart – and this – miniaturist – has been watching all this time? How has she warned us, how has she helped?’

‘I’m sorry, Cornelia, I’m so sorry. Please don’t tell Marin. The miniaturist has the answers.’

‘She’s nothing but a snooper,’ Cornelia fumes. ‘No one pulls my strings but God above.’

‘But if we didn’t know about Marin, then how did she, Cornelia?’

‘We would have found out. We did find out. We didn’t need her to tell us.’

‘And look at this.’ Nella shows her Agnes’ blackened sugar loaf. ‘It was white when it first arrived.’

‘It’s soot from the fire.’

‘It doesn’t rub off. And Rezeki had a mark on her head, just where Jack killed her.’

Cornelia backs away from the cabinet. ‘Who is this witch?’ she hisses.

‘She isn’t a witch, Cornelia. She’s a woman from Norway.’

‘A Norwegian witch turned Amsterdam spy! How dare she send you these evil things—’

‘They’re not evil.’

Cornelia’s bile burns through Nella’s heart. She feels as if she is being dissected as much as her secret miniaturist, her one possession cut apart and its innards doled out.

‘I had nothing in this city, Cornelia. Nothing. And she took an interest. I don’t understand why she’s picked me, I don’t always understand the messages she sends, but I’m trying—’

‘What else does she know? What is she going to do?’

‘I don’t know. Please believe me – I asked her to stop, but she didn’t. It was like she understood my unhappiness, and carried on.’

Cornelia frowns. ‘But I tried to make it happy for you. I was here—’

‘I know you were. And all I’ve discovered is that she was apprenticed to a clockmaker in Bruges. I’ve written to him, but he is as silent as her.’ Nella can hear her voice pressing down into a sob, the hot tears threatening to break into her eyes. ‘But what was it that Pellicorne preached? There’s nothing hidden that will not be revealed.’

‘No woman can be an apprentice,’ Cornelia snaps. ‘No man is keen to train a woman. No guild except the seamstresses or stinking peat-carriers would have her. And what would be the point? Men are the makers of this world.’

‘She made minutes and seconds, Cornelia. She created time.’

‘If I wasn’t boiling your sturgeons, spicing your pies and cleaning your windows, I could have made time. I could have made evil puppets and spied on people—’

‘You do spy on people. In that way, you’re just like her.’

Hot and breathless, Cornelia purses her lips and shoves the doll of herself back in the cabinet. ‘I am nothing like her.’