The Naturalist of Amsterdam

by Melissa Ashley

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Amsterdam, at the turn of the 18th century. For as long as she can remember, Dorothea Graff has lived in service to her mother, Maria Sibyilla Merian, one of the greatest naturalists in Europe. But as she collects insects and colours illustrations for Maria's world-famous publications, Dorothea longs for a life that is truly her own.
When Maria becomes entranced by the plant and insect life of Suriname, she is determined to record it for herself, taking Dorothea with her. All the family's savings are ploughed into the dangerous expedition, but greatness is never achieved without sacrifice. The Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname will be Maria's masterpiece, but ensuring its legacy – and her own survival – will become her daughter's burden. When offered a chance of happiness, will Dorothea have the courage to take it, and risk everything her mother built?
From the jungles of South America to the bustling artists' studios of Amsterdam, The Naturalist of Amsterdam gives voice to the long-ignored women who shaped our understanding of the natural world – both the artists and those who made their work possible.

Release date: October 10, 2023

Publisher: Affirm Press

Print pages: 400

Sample

Chapter One

Autumn, 1686

The great oak doors parted with a loud creak and in rushed my parents’ voices. Startled, I glanced at the print of the merman, with his lion’s face and devil’s horns, his fishtail and webbed fins. I shut Aldrovandi’s Monstrorum Historia. I needed somewhere to hide in the vast library, with its floor-to-ceiling shelving, its dark-wooded curiosity cabinets and sumptuous settee and tables. The stuffed Siberian bear near the window, frozen in a pose of attack up on its hind legs, claws and teeth bared, seemed a likely cover. Quickly, I slipped behind it, stowing the heavy book under my skirt.

Walking in step, my parents entered the draughty room. Papa had laid aside his silk breeches and jacket for the Labadists’ plain attire, which enabled work in the fields, the iron forge or dairy; Ma wore the dress of the sect’s women: black woollen habit, bos-roc cap, heavy dull black shoes.

‘You needn’t have come,’ said Ma.

‘Why won’t you believe me?’ replied Papa. The pleading in his voice made my stomach twist.

‘It’s not me you must convince.’

‘But you have sway,’ protested Papa.

Ma was sitting on the edge of a settee, as if sinking into its cushiony depths might soften her will. Lips drawn into a line, she studied Papa as if he were one of her caterpillars: she was distant and all-seeing, though I knew it was an act. He sat in the opposite armchair, right boot propped on his knee. His left foot shook ever so slightly. Peeping from around the side of the bear’s furry haunch, I saw the apprehension in his features and, underneath, a wild desperation.

‘You know our rules,’ said Ma, level-voiced. ‘You must demonstrate your commitment.’

Papa slowly breathed out. He picked at a stray thread near the button on his knee; ran his precise and sensitive draughtsman’s fingers through his hair. ‘I have. I’ve lugged stones, carded wool. I’ve hoed and watered. Isn’t that enough?’

‘You know very well what I mean.’

Papa placed his boots on the floor and leaned forward, closer to Ma. I glanced at the door, pulse ticking in my neck. Like me, my parents were not supposed to be here. To meet like this. Papa did not live in Walta Schloss with the other members of the elect. He resided in a tiny cottage, one of the many outbuildings dotting the estate, alongside every other individual and family who longed to be accepted as one of the Labadist elites. Unless he was welcomed into the community, he was not permitted to eat or take shelter in the grand manor.

‘I know what you’re doing, Maria. Hiding behind all this piety.’

‘This is about your conscience and God,’ replied Ma. ‘It has nothing to do with me. If you wish to remain a part of our family, to join our people—’

Papa interrupted her, a tremor in his voice. ‘I hardly recognise you. What happened to my strong-willed wife? Where has your defiance gone? Why are you so …’ He stumbled for the right word. ‘Hidebound?’

For a long time my mother didn’t respond. When she finally did, her voice was strained. ‘Do not make this my mistake. You made your choice.’

‘But you are the brothers’ agent. Won’t you persuade them?’

Why can’t you let him stay? I silently begged Ma, long ago having taken Papa’s side in my parents’ disputes. Where did you disappear to, Ma? I felt like shaking her by the shoulders. I could not fathom her inability to accept Papa as he was. As he had always been. How could she not miss sitting with him of an evening and listening to the stories he made up? His soft, deep voice like the purr of a cat. I used to snuggle next to him, feel the comforting weight of his arm around my shoulder, weave my fingers around his and know I was safe.

‘Why must you punish me? Is this worth it?’ He opened his palms, gestured at their surrounds. ‘Don’t you care what happens to our daughters? How can the brothers’ preaching be righteous when it splits our family in two?’

‘It’s too late,’ said Ma, voice a whisper.

Papa spluttered, furious. ‘I won’t confess that my most natural actions, my very thoughts, are sins! I’ve demonstrated my repentance. Oh, I am not lofty like you. I’m but a man. But you …’ He paused. ‘It pains me if this is what’s become of your spirit.’

‘Don’t,’ whispered Ma, tightening her lips.

Papa continued. ‘I’ll tell you what I renounce! I renounce the Labadists’ insistence that earthly life’s a dreary misery to be endured and not enjoyed. I reject all notion we live only to prepare for the afterlife. What of beauty? What of art? How can you turn your back on your very history?’

‘You give yourself away,’ said Ma. ‘You chose worldly pleasures over your family. Over God. It’s no mystery.’

I clenched my teeth. I’d not heard my parents quarrel with such finality. So much distance and desperation, as if something irreversible had come between them. Each set against the other, to be swayed no more.

As if to confirm my suspicion, Ma rose from the settee, straightening the cuffs of her sleeves. Papa followed. Briefly they each met the other’s gaze, looked away. Papa asked if there was any outstanding business she wished to discuss with him. Ma simply cleared her throat. Shoulders low, Papa shuffled towards the double doors, holding them open for Ma to pass through. Attempting to make my mother see sense, expressing his frustrations about the Labadists’ many rules, seemed to have drained his very lifeforce.

I felt unwell. The end of my nose tickled and I rubbed it hard. Remaining behind the bear, I waited for the doors to close before daring to move. Safe, I crept out into the enormous room. I looked longingly at the thick volume one last time and slid it carefully back into its secret nook.



Oma, Ma, my sister, Johanna, and I had joined the Labadists at Walta Schloss only two seasons ago and I knew already they did not like children. The Labadists preached that parents should not grow too attached to their daughters and sons, lest it make them weak. Children were to be raised by the whole community. We ate in our own dining hall and attended chapel at a separate time to the adults. Night-time was hardest. It was difficult to sleep in a draughty dormitory with the smells and sounds of a score of girls my own age. Most of us were frightened by the least little mouse, the shadowy flicker of a candle, a harsh reprimand, the threatened switch. A terrible hunger in all of our bellies.

I suppose we were lucky to live with the elect inside the castle complex, surrounded by a gated moat, unlike many in the community. The estate was a former medieval fort, known for centuries as the house of Walta, and I would never forget my first encounter with its grandeur, the castle at the end of an avenue fringed with stately lindens. Though at close quarters the estate wasn’t quite so splendid. As we were travelling from Frankfurt, Ma had told us that the van Sommelsdijks – the richest family in all of Friesland – had purchased the manor several generations earlier, repairing and refurbishing the dilapidated dwellings.

‘I don’t care!’ I had replied, sour-voiced.

Ma had glanced at me and frowned. But rather than reprimand my behaviour, she turned a page of the book she was reading. My older sister, Hanna, drew her eyes from the window – she had been studying the farms and paddocks of the Dutch Republic – to offer me a consolatory smile. I was feeling confused and on edge, my stomach twisted in knots.

I glanced down at our feet, the tips of our boots poking out beneath our dark woollen travelling cloaks. Oma had playfully knocked her toe against mine. Each time one of the coach’s wheels encountered a pothole or rock I would wince. Wonder how Ma’s trunks of vellums and pigments and brushes, her jars and nets for insect collecting, were faring as they lurched and jostled behind us in their separate coach. Were the rest of my family not troubled, relocating to a new country? Perhaps it was just me; after all, I was only eight years of age.

When I began to sniff, Oma had taken my gloved hand in hers. ‘There, there, child,’ she said, touching my chin, turning my face towards hers. I gazed into her kind, green-blue eyes, studied the texture of her soft cheeks, the crinkles around the corners of her mouth, the wispy silver curls escaping her cap, and attempted to smile. Oma had nudged her shoulder into mine, urged me to cheer up. We were embarking upon a grand adventure, she said, could I not see it?

An inventive storyteller, she’d amused me all the way to Friesland with tales of armoured princes and bejewelled princesses, so that when we arrived at the schloss’s medieval drawbridge my frayed nerves were wholly smoothed. Indeed, I was almost excited to begin our new life. But, oh, what disappointment when I discovered the conditions under which it would be lived.



Later that evening, after supper and confession in the children’s room, I had an idea. Perhaps, when it came to my papa, I was not as helpless as I imagined. Just as the elect were expected to draw their own conclusions from the Holy Bible, I, too, might think for myself. Although Sisters Henrietta and Elsa walked between our dormitory beds, chiding us to be quiet, tapping our shoulders with sticks to stiffen our spines while we prayed, making sure our candles were snuffed, they did not linger in the children’s wing. They seemed impatient to return to the main house’s better lit and better warmed rooms. Instead, one of the maids, a sect member but of the outer circle, was sent to guard us through the night.

Carefully removing the cloak from the peg near my bed, I crept out into the hall. Checking up and down the wood-panelled corridor, I tiptoed along the carpeted floorboards, the occasional wall-torch lighting my way. As I hoped, the maid had dropped off to sleep at her station; she was curled up on one of the upholstered chaises and, every now and again, emitted a bear-growl of a snore. The bottom-floor kitchen was quiet, the low fire making strange shapes of the bowls and pots and forks on the enormous worktable. I skirted around the cook’s cupboard bed – I could not chance waking her – and slipped out through the service doors. It was almost a full moon, and I was able to pick my way past the long buildings of the stables and outhouses towards the cluster of dwellings and Papa’s cottage.

He opened the door to my knock, glancing around before pulling me inside. ‘What are you doing?’

I smiled and raised my shoulders. ‘Shall I leave?’

‘Dear Doda!’ he said, shaking his head and laughing. He had me sit at the table in the centre of the room where he had been working. There were pencils, a knife and scraper, measuring rules. Papa had ground and stretched a whole calf’s vellum, on which a map was being drawn. Like Ma, Papa was an artist. Where Ma was brilliant with colour, Papa possessed enormous skill with detail, sketching under the magnification of custom-made lenses. While Ma excelled in miniatures, Papa’s speciality was the panorama of a stork’s or pelican’s eye.

‘Why are you drawing the estate?’ I asked.

‘Why not?’ replied Papa, raising his shoulders and winking, as if he kept a secret from me. ‘You must tell me what I’ve missed.’

‘There’s a fountain in the middle of the courtyard,’ I offered.

‘So there is.’

Ma’s stepfather, Opa Marrel, who’d been responsible for her artistic training, had also apprenticed Papa – and Albertus Mignon too – in his Frankfurt studio. Opa Marrel himself had learned from the best painters of the day: Georg Flegel, Jan Davidsz de Heem. Although Papa could draw floral still lifes, he honed his skills in fine ink drawings, cathedral interiors and townscapes, which were etched and engraved into prints. Early in their marriage, he had helped Ma with the background detail and copperplate for the volumes she published on caterpillars and flowers.

‘What about Rabbit Island?’ Unless you counted the moat and drawbridge, Rabbit Island was the estate’s most interesting feature. Along with the pond, it had a tumbledown maze, the hedges overgrown.

‘I was leaving that for you.’

His plan, he explained, was to curry the favour of Brothers Yvonn and Copper with a meticulous map of the estate’s grounds, which he could help them print on their presses. The Labadists already published materials about the community, distributing pamphlets and treatises written by their founder, the late Jean de Labadie, as well as one of their most famous adherents, the brilliant artist and wordsmith Anna Maria van Schurman.

‘Don’t forget the apple trees,’ I said, pointing to the left of the granary stores, where the orchard was planted.

‘Would you like to draw them?’ He handed me a pencil.

There was much to add to the sketch’s rudimentary beginnings. Walta Schloss sold the productions of its industries throughout Friesland and beyond. Papa must not forget the buttery, the mills, the tannery, foundry and brewery, the kitchen gardens, the chapel and pastures, and of course the rows of linden trees surrounding the entire complex.

I drew a cluster of apple trees. There were also peach, apricot and plum to be added in, all of which made me aware of the tightness in my belly. I could almost see a bowl of fruit glistening in the centre of the table. ‘I’m so hungry, Papa.’

Papa put his pencil down and looked at me. ‘I have something. From Nuremberg.’ He drew open a cupboard, taking out a bottle of herrings, another of apricots in honey. My mouth watered as he buttered what remained of the bread. The Labadists practised self-discipline as a pathway to God and we were told to relish our empty stomachs. I could not recall the last time I had felt full.

Jamming the honey-bread into my mouth, I scanned my eyes over the simple interior of the cottage. I had never lived in such small lodgings. The lime-plastered walls and heavy low beams of the room made it appear unfinished. There were just two cabinets, one of food and another for the meagre items Papa had been permitted to keep. The room’s only decorations were the two small paintings he had packed inside his trunk and hung either side of the fireplace: a still life of roses, beetles and tulips by Opa Marrel and a vellum watercolour of a dandelion and tussock moth in all its stages of metamorphosis painted by my mother.

‘I have something else for you,’ said Papa, disappearing into the alcove where he slept. Ever curious, I hopped down from my chair and inspected the kitchen. In the tiny larder a turnip and gourd, an onion, a half-eaten sausage, herbs, a near-empty milk jug. My thoughts strayed to my father’s immense belongings: the equipment for his printing business, his art collection, his house full of heavy furniture, his chests of clothing. I could only hope he had not sold them like Ma had done with ours, presenting the proceeds to the community to be divided amongst the worshippers.

‘I made it for you.’ Sitting on his palm, a walnut shell. Inside, a wooden girl – so small and fine.

‘It’s lovely, Papa.’ I did my best to not cry. I took the figurine and put it on the table near my pencil to look at.

‘Careful,’ said Papa, as I drew another fruit tree. ‘Not too many.’

A rap sounded on the door. Startled, I glanced up, meeting my father’s eyes. It had grown late. All of a sudden, I felt frightened to return to the girls’ hall.

‘Dort,’ whispered a young woman’s voice. Hanna, my sister.

‘You’d best go with her,’ said Papa, opening the door.

Hanna, ten years older than me, was dressed head to toe in black, except for the white bib of her habit, its collar buttoned at her throat so as to cover every inch of her chest from prying eyes. She wore a black cloak around her neck and had twisted her hair into a simple bun. The bos-roc cap was secured atop, making her unrecognisable from the fair young Frankfurter woman she’d been, who would never step outside our house without first intricately dressing her hair. Impressed speechless, I would resolve to copy each and every one of her tricks just as soon as I was old enough. But time spent on one’s appearance was considered a vanity by the Labadists and Hanna had given it away for God.

Standing in the doorway in the lantern’s dim light, my sister’s silhouette could easily have passed for Ma’s. They had the same broad cheekbones, flaxen hair and deep, dark blue eyes; their heart-shaped faces finished with a charmingly cleft chin. The two were of similar build, possessed of no greater height than a middling German woman and naturally slender. Dark-haired and pale rather than golden-skinned, I’d been told many times about my resemblance to Papa; I had inherited his blue-green eyes and upturned nose, his high forehead and wide mouth. With my square shoulders and long fingers it was assumed that I would one day grow tall and sleek and slim, just as he was.

‘How did you know I was here?’ I ventured, alarmed.

‘You’ll get us into trouble!’ Hanna whispered, curling her fingers to beckon me. She caught me by the shoulder, guiding me outside, as if claiming me back from Papa. For the briefest moment I met his eyes. I glanced at Hanna and saw the wavering in her will, as if, face to face with the physical presence of our father, the firm resolve she professed to Ma began to falter. But then, as if tearing apart a cobweb in her path, the conviction returned to her eyes and she turned away from him. Wordlessly, she steered me down the side of the cottage, her lantern flickering shadows on the pebbled path all the way back to the schloss.



Several days later, I was supposed to be in the laboratory with Ma, but instead of turning towards the apothecary buildings, I skirted along the west wing of the manor, over the service bridge, down the laneway that led to the saddlery buildings, and continued south past the kitchen gardens. I jogged between the avenue of linden trees, taking the long way towards the canal. Honed my eagle eyes, so that I might identify any passengers walking towards the Leeuwarden trekschuit, the horse-drawn ferry to Wieuwerd and beyond. Brother Groote, for instance, gentleman devotee, in his peaked, wide-brimmed hat and plain black coat and breeches, standing on the pier stretching his arms. His wife, Sister Gerit, obediently waiting beside him. But I did not care a whit for these folk.

I moved as close to the canal as I dared, concealing myself in the shade of my favourite linden tree. Pressing hunks of stolen bread into my mouth and studying the travellers dressed in town clothes. Walta Schloss had its share of visitors from the outside: intellectuals, philosophers, religious men of renown. Brother Yvonn, like Father Jean de Labadie before him, travelled regularly to Amsterdam to give lectures about the community, inviting especially interested parties to tour the grounds. But the trekschuit also transported less illustrious persons, many of whom would join the three hundred souls who worked the estate, in hope of being granted full membership.

His flat-topped, narrow-brimmed hat. His velvet ribbon, the switch of dark brown hair between his shoulders. The heavy green doublet with its deep coattails. Papa? I felt my chest tighten. Gripping the tree’s rough trunk, I forced myself to stay still. All I wanted to do was break out of my hiding place and run down the avenue of trees, push into the row of passengers wending their way towards the gate and its twin guards, where they waited to be granted permission to leave. To throw myself in front of Papa, to wrap my arms around him, to stop him with all my strength from leaving. But I knew the punishment for such behaviour and did not dare.

I looked closer. No, it was not just a feeling I’d had, a foreboding prickling. It really was Papa. I recognised the valise he always packed – clothing, ledger, contact list, drawing supplies – when he left home in Frankfurt am Main for business in Nuremberg.

‘What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at your lesson?’

I glanced up, heart in my throat, my fingers tingling. ‘Leave me alone!’ I said, fierce-eyed.

‘What did you say?’ asked Sister Josephine, the sun behind her bos-roc cap like a halo, the thick dyed wool of her habit’s hem scratching the grass.

‘I said leave me be!’ I repeated, my voice a whisper, almost a dare.

Sister Josephine’s dry, bony hands under my armpits. A jerk as I was hoisted to stand, shoved by the shoulder, made to turn, her hand grasped firmly around my elbow. I wiped at a tear, bit hard on my trembling lip.

I felt myself being urged forward but planted my feet. I would not make it easy for her to humiliate me. She pulled at me, rough, and I surrendered, moving my feet, step by step, as she dragged me up the rise, towards the schloss.

We entered the building from the back, through the kitchen doorway, Sister Josephine’s arm on my shoulder, marching me past the scullery maid, her wide eyes tracking our passage across the flagstones, down a narrow set of stairs.

‘Wait there!’ commanded Sister Josephine.

I straightened my skirt and wiped my eyes, bravely awaiting my fate. Before I had a chance to rue not saying a proper goodbye to Papa – I should have cried out to him – she had returned, Brother Baas in tow.

‘Hold still, girl!’ she said.

I bit the right side of my tongue. Drew my breath in like a knife. The boards of the desk had been polished smooth by a hundred hands. My fingernail scratched a black deposit, the resin curling. My grip before the strike like holding tight the reins while horse-riding. Knees against the flagstones, stockings and habit thin. Smack! My body slid forward, tensed in every muscle. Slipped back, a rocking-horse now. Fingers clenched the writing table, thumbs found new purchase. Brother Baas’s pitch-dark stockings and heeled shoes, a buckle clipped above the toes like the one on his pilgrim’s hat. Back and forwards he paced. Ranting. Three steps, three brisk clops on the flagstones to each beat of Sister Josephine’s cane. I wanted the pain to stop. His shoes drew sketches, centuries of footsteps and boot-prints beneath him.

As if I had invoked it, Brother Baas paused. ‘Dorothea Graff, you have brought disgrace upon yourself. Upon our Blessed Community.’

Thwack. I cried out, my bones and flesh loosened by his words. Tricked. Hot tears stung my eyes. Brother Baas asked me again to confess my wrongdoing. Perhaps, if my tongue could unroll, could stop biting back its fear, I would do so. In my thoughts I held fast to the wooden girl Papa made me. I turned it about, inspecting her face, her jacket and apron and cap, her tiny hands. My papa, bewitcher in precious things. I closed my mind, tightened my stomach and grew small. I would give them nothing. Let them do their worst.

My silence seemed to confuse Brother Baas. At an instruction I could not see, Sister Josephine put down the striking board. Hauled me to my feet, took me by the armpit and dragged me to stand before my punisher.

‘I ask you once more to confess to your sin.’

Perhaps if Sister Agnes had not crushed the wood-girl underfoot – unthinkingly, I’d sat it beside my soup bowl the previous night – I might have been more reasonable. The point of a switch under my chin, gently lifting my tucked-in head, forced me to raise my eyes.

‘The wolf in you is strong,’ accused Brother Baas. ‘This is not Frankfurt. We have rules here. We strive to feed the sheep inside a child. To bring him to the fore, to banish that which is wayward and weak.’

What else had they hidden inside their deep-buttoned cloaks to harm me with? They could not bring more pain than I already felt. I was not sorry for rushing into the prayer room, for throwing my arms around my mother, for calling my sister mean and cruel. I did not regret my visit to Papa. But they would not soften. They had me stand in the middle of the children’s hall with a plaque around my neck. At Sunday’s grand assembly they gave me a list of crimes to read aloud, which I had screwed into a ball and tossed away. I had been sent to the cellar to contemplate my misdoings. One meal left on the packed-dirt floor each afternoon.

‘What do you say?’

Sister Josephine stood behind Brother Baas, wide and tall in her severe dress.

I bowed my head. Fetched my most remorseful tone of speech. ‘I renounce my sins.’

‘What did you say, Dorothea? I did not hear you.’

I began to sway and wobble. Sister Josephine started forwards, catching me as I was about to drop. Though I was not faint. I did not care if I struck my forehead on the stone floor. I only wanted it to stop.

‘Take her to the dormitory,’ commanded Brother Baas. ‘She can think about her wrongdoing.’

I’d had enough of their humiliation. With the cane hung back on its hook I only felt tired. Tired enough to crawl into bed for the remainder of the day. To not look at anyone, to not reach for anything, to not think, to not protest. To curl like a moth inside its date-pit, to flip the sides of a leaf and join its ends together with my sticky silk. To sleep. To sleep.



Ignoring the dull ache in my shoulders the morning after my beating, at rooster’s caw I was awake, reaching for the bundle of clothing piled at the end of my dormitory bed. Ma was waiting for me in the courtyard, her hood drawn over her cap, her winter jacket buttoned to her neck. Tut-tutting, she straightened my collar and then handed me a wicker basket and butterfly net. We followed the line of early-morning travellers across the courtyard and towards the drawbridge, through the medieval gate. At the dock we climbed onto the first trekschuit to Wieuwerd, remaining onboard as those with business in the town stepped off.

Ma had scoured the orchards, pastures and gardens of Walta Schloss for specimens, encouraged to discover species she had not encountered in Frankfurt or Nuremberg. But she had grown restless. All her life, she told me, she had been confined in her collecting to the gardens and parks of busy cities. On occasion she had been invited to explore the ornamental landscapes of countryside estates, where she had been quick to spy any novel creatures to cage in her jars. It was only since settling in Friesland that she realised how little time she had spent in places untouched by industry, commerce, people.

We continued along the canal, the trekschuit stopping to take on cargo of milk, cheese and butter, until we arrived at the barge’s final stop at the last windmill. A farmer waited politely, perhaps bemused, for us to climb out, before loading his grain sacks into the vessel.

Breath escaped my lips like fog. The sun at the horizon made a pale yellow puddle through the low cloud and again I filled my lungs, the air at my nostrils fresh, crisp. I was warm, I was alive. My fingers tingled cold inside my gloves and the skin of my knees stung ever so slightly. I needed to keep moving. Swiping at reeds and grasses, holding my hands out to part them like hair, I hurried behind Ma.

‘You’re too fast,’ I called, wincing. My toes curled inside my clogs like the suckers on a frog’s foot, lest the ground catch one with a thirsty squelch. Here, surrounded by fens, I could almost forget Sister Josephine and Brother Baas. There were worse things, I told myself. I did not want to add to Ma’s burdens and vowed to keep their punishment of me secret.

Inside the dark cloak Ma’s shoulders stilled. She swivelled her head, waiting.

Prickles pinched the undersides of my wrists. I was almost running now, my lungs hot, checking the ground for ducks’ nests. Yesterday I had crushed one, a small pile of sticks tucked beside the rushes. A drake emerged from behind a stand of grasses, honking and flapping, struggling above the marsh for height, striving for the sky. There were pockets of mist above each watery puddle; to the north, a long, blurred cloud above the canal.

‘Please, Ma, can you slow down?’ My basket clanked against my knees, empty but heavy, too large for the strength of my eight years. Ma had got too far ahead of me. But then I was lucky, for she had spied something’s tiny clutch. Bent over, her fingers scoured each leaf, inspecting the undersides; her eyes slid over bumps and runnels, brown imperfections, searching for the telltale lacy leavings of a larva. She homed in on another plant with a pink, weedy-looking flower, a nurse searching for nits.

‘Quickly, Doortje, quickly. What is the matter with you today?’

Sister Josephine beat me, I wanted to say, to yell across the fens, but did not dare. What if Ma didn’t believe me? She was in thrall to the brothers’ teachings – why, she had expelled Papa – Papa! – for not adhering to their catalogue of rules, and I could not bear if she turned against me too. Perhaps she would agree with Sister Josephine’s action of punishing me for sneaking around the grounds without a chaperone, for searching out my father, who had been spurned by the elect and cast out. Insist just like the rest of them that I submit to the Labadists’ discipline like a lamb to its shepherd.

Smudging a tear, I took one of the boxes from her basket and opened it, turned away as she dropped in a whole bush, the cord-like roots dripping earth. She had found a cluster of pearl-white insect eggs beneath one of its leaves. I stood still while she stripped clean more bushes, red-nosed, basket held out. Once she finished, I followed her deeper into the fen. I opened boxes and flasks, passed over t