While Blanche is preoccupied in the kitchen overseeing the packing of the best china plates, Anna hurriedly sews a secret pocket inside her mother’s silk dress. She uses the thread she brought with her all the way from Amsterdam – it once fell into a bucket of caustic lye and Lijsbeth fished it out, exclaiming at Anna’s carelessness. Now the red thread feels like it is binding her old life to her new one. She squeezes the Dutch tears into the opening then stitches the corners tightly shut. When Blanche returns a few moments later, the tears are safe and Anna plasters on a smile to match her new mistress’ enthusiasm, although she can still feel the tears cocooned in their tiny, silk world, a grief she cannot forget.

It has been decided that she and Blanche will travel to Texel by boat and then take a larger vessel to the east. Urgent business will keep Maarten in The Hague a little longer but he has promised to join them at the next port.

The morning of their departure, Blanche comes to see her.

‘How are you feeling?’ she says, squeezing Anna’s hand.

‘A little unwell,’ Anna says. She had to tell Blanche about the child. Blanche has agreed to raise the child as her own.

A small ship carries the women out to Texel, depositing them at the anchorage on a bitterly grey afternoon.

A storm is brewing on the horizon, dark clouds skimming along the water, reflected in its glassy surface. Blanche accompanies Anna along the beach that runs alongside the anchorage. The sand is gritty and dark and stings Anna’s eyes as the two women walk across the dunes. Although the wind is unpleasant, it is at least cool. Anna cannot stand the close quarters of the inn where they are staying for the night. An oarsman from La Dragon will row them out the next morning.

As they walk along the narrow rocky ledge, Anna sees a group of children tramping after an old figure in a tattered dress. The children stop to let them pass first. Although they look hungrier than the saddest dogs she has seen skulking in Amsterdam’s backstreets, they smile at Anna and Blanche. Blanche asks Anna to procure their packed lunch and hand the bread to the children. The children look to the old woman for permission and, when she nods her blessing, they break it into seven equal pieces – enough for all of them to share.

‘How kind you are,’ the old woman says to them. ‘These are Texel’s orphans. They will cherish your goodness for years to come. May God’s blessing find you.’

A fierce wind whips the woman’s dress. Anna thinks she looks like a storm crow, a weathered portent of fortune, of change. Rain begins to fall, lightning forks the sky.