The Miniaturist(83)

‘Stop,’ Marin utters.

‘If we don’t—’

‘Why must you torture me? You know I cannot go and see him!’

‘But I need your help. Two respectable witnesses, Marin. Frans and Agnes. Think what that means.’

Marin becomes very still. ‘I knew what it meant the moment Frans came to our door.’

‘Then speak to Frans, Marin. Tell him about his child.’

Marin lays the dice down very carefully upon the verkeerspel board. She looks winded, furrowing her eyebrows, twisting her mouth smaller. ‘You make such a conversation sound easy,’ she says. ‘You know nothing of what you speak.’

‘I know more than you think.’ Nella stops herself, trying to collect her bad temper and shove it away up her sleeve. ‘Meermans is a man,’ she adds more gently. ‘He can do something.’

‘Trust me, he can do very little.’

‘He has no heir, Marin—’

‘What? Are you now proposing I barter my child? How do you think Agnes would greet such a piece of news?’ Marin stands abruptly and begins to pace the small room. ‘It would give her even more reason to bury us. You are always meddling—’

‘It isn’t meddling. It’s survival.’

‘You know nothing of survival—’

‘I know what happened, Marin,’ Nella blurts. ‘Cornelia told me.’

‘Happened?’

‘I know you and Frans were in love, and Johannes stopped your marriage.’

Marin puts her hand against the wall to steady herself and curves her other arm underneath her unborn child. ‘What?’ Her voice is extraordinary, a ferocious hiss.

‘I know Frans married Agnes to spite you – how even Agnes knows that’s true. I’ve seen the way Frans looks at you – I know about the salted piglet, the love note in your book. You keep telling me I don’t see, but I do.’

‘The salted piglet,’ echoes Marin. She pauses, as if looking on some long-submerged memory reappearing into her mind. ‘And Cornelia dared to tell you this?’

Nella glances at the door. ‘Don’t be angry with her. I made her tell, I had to know. It was important.’

Marin says nothing for a moment. She exhales heavily, and lowers herself into her chair. ‘Frans loves his wife,’ she says. When Nella starts to protest, she holds up her hand. ‘You don’t know what love looks like, Petronella. Twelve years together should never be underestimated.’

‘But—’

‘And the rest of it is a good story, patched together from listening at doors. It’s more elaborate than I could have made up myself. I should have given Cornelia more chores.’

‘It’s not a story—’

‘I come out of it well, don’t I? My brother less so. However, the truth is somewhat different.’ Nella notices how Marin’s hands are shaking. ‘Johannes did refuse Frans Meermans’ proposal,’ Marin says, her voice now heavy.

‘I knew it—’

‘Because that was what I wanted.’

Nella stares at the pieces of the verkeerspel board. They slide before her eyes. What she’s hearing doesn’t make sense. Marin’s revelation spikes her, her certainty now misplaced.

‘I did love Frans,’ Marin says, her statement stiff. ‘When I was thirteen years old. But I never wanted to marry him.’

Though she looks ineffably sad, another emotion rises up like a pale sun through Marin’s face. It is, she senses, the bittersweet relief of confession.

And yet, Nella still cannot understand. The scenery and actors are familiar, but in roles they’re not supposed to play. I did something to make Frans Meermans very unhappy, Johannes said in his Stadhuis cell. Why did he say nothing to Nella then – why has he never expiated himself – what is this cord of loyalty tying Marin and him together, a rope so slippery that Nella has no hope to grasp?

‘By the time I was sixteen, I didn’t want to give up who I was and what I had,’ Marin says quietly. ‘I had a household already. When Johannes was away, I was the head.’

Her tears are coming now, welling up in her grey eyes. She opens her arms wide like wings, a familiar gesture, indicating the room in which they sit. ‘No woman had that, unless she was a widow. Then came Cornelia and Otto. “The bars on our cage are of our own making,” Johannes said. He promised I could be free. For such a long time, I believed him. I truly thought I was.’ Her hands fly towards her stomach.

‘Marin, you’re carrying Meermans’ child—’

‘And whatever his imperfections, my brother has always let me be. Alas, he cannot say the same of me.’

Marin presses her fingers under her eyes as if to do so will stop the tears. It is a futile gesture, for down they come, even as she starts to sob. ‘I have taken things from Johannes that were not mine to take,’ she says.

‘Marin, what do you mean?’

But Marin is struggling for her words. She draws her slender hands down her face, taking a long breath. ‘When Frans proposed, I didn’t know how to say no. It was not a situation I had prepared for. I thought it better for him to hear I was forbidden, rather than discovering this . . . reluctance I felt. So I asked my brother to take the blame.’ Her eyes are wild with distress. ‘And he did it. Johannes lied, for me. I was young – we all were! I never thought it would twist—’ Marin puts her hand to her mouth, unable to stop her cry. ‘All friendship gone’ she says. ‘All understanding. Because I couldn’t tolerate being a wife.’