Read Online The Golden Tulip by Rosalind Laker - Free Book Online Page B

of the Visser house, Pieter van Doorne decided he must try the back and went to the slatted wooden door at the side. Painted blue like the shutters and the main door of the house, it opened as he lifted the latch. His footsteps rang along the flags of the passageway within. The back door of the house was not the correct place to hand over the bulbs of a beautiful new tulip he had grown himself, they being worthy of a little ceremony, but there seemed no alternative. Normally he did not deliver his own wares, being far too busy and not through any sense of inflated pride, for he had built up his horticultural business the hard way and there was no humble task he had not carried out himself to establish it and ensure its success. It had happened today that he had found the staff on his market stall shorthanded due to illness and he had decided to do the delivery himself.
    From the passageway he emerged into a sizeable and pleasant courtyard with trees, a trellis-shaded alcove for summer eating at a table, benches set by it, and borders of well-tended flowers. A broom propped against the table and the piles of swept-up leaves suggested that someone had left the task to go indoors and would shortly return. The back door stood slightly ajar. Going across to it, he intended this time to give a shout, since knocking had failed to bring any response. The door swung back easily on its much-used hinges to reveal a long shadowy corridor, doors and archways on each side, which ran the considerable length of the house to a room at the front. Within the frame of an open doorway, he could see a rostrum draped with a Persian rug, showing that it was Master Visser’s studio. Illumined by its windows, it held the look of a stage set for a performance. All this he took in at a second and then in the next moment a slender girl with flowers in her copper-bright hair, her green satin skirts swirling, came into sight from another part of the room. The curious acoustics of the long corridor funneled her clear voice to him as she addressed somebody else in the room whom he could not see.
    “Aunt Janetje’s letter arrived only ten minutes ago. I knew you’d enjoy reading it. How far have you got? Oh yes, you’ve come to the last part, where she describes a reception at the Pitti Palace. One day I’m going to visit her and see the splendors of Florence for myself!”
    She flung back her head in ecstasy at the prospect, hugging her arms with her back arched. Pieter caught his breath at her unconsciously sensuous stance. He hoped she would look down the corridor and see him at the door. Instead she responded to some quip made by a man with a deep voice, whom Pieter guessed to be Master Visser himself. The girl’s laugh was full-throated and merry. Twirling round, she stepped lightly up onto the rostrum, picking up a foliage-trimmed staff and a bunch of flowers lying there, and then stood in a graceful pose. “I’m ready, Father,” she said, her gaze directed toward another part of the studio. Then, to his disappointment, the door of the studio swung closed, shutting off his sight of her as if her father had given it a push from where he stood by his easel.
    Pieter grinned, shaking his head that he should have remained standing on this spot as if he had lost his power of speech at the tantalizing glimpse of that delicious girl. He did not think she would have been the one sweeping the courtyard and he would try his luck again.
    “Hey!” he shouted, rapping the back door with his knuckles at the same time. “I’ve some bulbs here that I don’t intend to leave on the doorstep!”
    Down in the cellar, Griet, hunting for a sack in which to pack the leaves she had swept up in the courtyard, paused. Sighing with exasperation at the interruption, she shouted in reply as she mounted the stairs, “All right! I’ve heard you!”
    Her irritability melted away as soon as she saw him. It was not often that anyone as personable came to the back door and