Crispijn catches her fingers and kisses them lightly. ‘Me, too. But Jan Wijck says the new lenses need adjusting and he cannot be responsible for that side of the business. His children have been ill, his wife, too. He’s had to care for them and work on the telescope around his commitments to the eye clinic.’

‘I will pray for your safe return,’ she says.

They jump apart as Catharina enters the hallway. Anna blushes, waits for her to say something. Every night, she and Crispijn have been together, but he insists that they should wait to get married until Catharina has grieved Griet’s departure to France. It is not so bad as before – she has not given up her painting this time, but still she is quiet and distracted. She often walks outside, even when it’s bitterly cold, and returns home shivering, her lips pale. Anna sits with her beside the fire until she warms up and Crispijn, despite his own health troubles, sends for tonics and restoratives for her and stands over her, making sure she gulps them down.

‘We won’t be married until the summer,’ Crispijn had told Anna one night as they lay secretly together inside the attic bedroom. ‘The church is too cold. We don’t want any of our guests freezing to their pews while we say our vows.’

Anna always smiles. She is content to wait. She has never felt so happy or safe, so far removed from her father’s curse. She plans to be married in her mother’s dress. It will be an omen of good fortune, a way of casting off the old Anna Tesseltje and inhabiting the new. She has sponged the dress since its adventure to the convent and replaced it in the dresser.

‘Travel safely,’ Catharina says vaguely, kissing her brother’s cheek.

‘Anna will look after you,’ he says, as Henrick appears. He picks up his bag and doffs his hat. Anna and Catharina wave him goodbye, but as he is walking down the stairs to the waiting horse, a shadow falls and Anna squints up at the sky. Just a cloud, she thinks. Shaped like an anchor.

When she looks back, the horse has already reached the end of the drive.

Later that day, a forceful knock at the door makes Catharina and Anna look up. They are in the studio – Catharina working on a series of engravings while Anna daydreams and cleans paintbrushes in jars of linseed oil. A man’s voice echoes in the hall. A few moments later, Mrs Hartog appears in the doorway, a tall dark figure lurking behind.

‘I’m sorry, Madam,’ she says, looking worried. ‘But he insisted.’

Maarten Horst doesn’t wait for her to finish speaking. Brushing past her, he strides into the studio, not bothering to remove his hat.