Murder in Stained Glass. Armstrong Margaret

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      He glared at me. “Those young persons,” he said haughtily, “are the Three Holy Children, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, in the burning fiery turnace of King Nebuchadnezzar, singing the hymn known as ‘Benedicite.’ This is a Benedicite window.”

      “Of course!” I cried. “I always liked those three, so plucky of them to go on praising ‘all the works of the Lord’ in such uncomfortable circumstances. Although, of course, singers will insist on singing in the most . . .” I broke off—he was glowering worse than ever—and went on hastily: “You have given them the most beautiful faces. As for the ‘works of the Lord,’ the intricate way they go weaving in and out of the border is marvelous. And the coloring! And the pattern! Why, it’s as fine as Chartres!”

      I had hit the right note at last! He smiled with an unaffected satisfaction I found rather engaging.

      “Glad you approve,” he purred. “And you, Phyllis?” He broke off, turned sharply. Phyllis and Leo had moved to a far corner of the room. “I see,” he remarked grimly. “She prefers the society of my young Leonardo!”

      “She’ll be back in a minute,” Charlotte put in. “Leo wanted her to look at his painting.”

      “Painting! Good God!” Ullathorne snorted, and turned to me. “That boy of mine has no talent whatever, Miss Trumbull. But I have trained him to help me with some of the mechanical parts, inscriptions, quarries, grisaille, all that sort of thing.”

      “He poses for you, I believe?” Charlotte ventured.

      “Oh, yes; ever since he was born,” Ullathorne laughed. “At first he sat for my cherubs and bambinos, infant Samuels and young angels, and then for full grown saints and prophets and martyrs. You’ll find my Leonardo in nearly every window I have ever built. By the time he was five, he knew what to expect if he so much as batted an eyelash while he was on the model stand.”

      “He is a beautiful creature,” I remarked. “The figure of a young Greek athlete.”

      “All my doing. Regular setting-up exercises, plain food and not much of it, no sweets, no dissipation. I weigh him once a week, and if he gains a pound he doesn’t eat until he’s lost it. A fine young animal, my Leonardo. But no brains. We’ll have a look at what he calls his ‘painting’ before you go. Shall I take you around the workroom? The process of making stained glass is decidedly interesting.”

      We made the rounds. Half a dozen men were at work. They stood at long tables on three sides of the room. One was cutting paper patterns, another clipping colored sheets of glass with a diamond into odd shapes like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Several were fitting flexible strips of lead around the edges of fragments already shaped. We moved from table to table. Ullathorne explained each step of the process: how the leads served to bind the separate pieces of glass into one design; how the joints were soldered and the whole became a solid mosaic. Then Clarence, the boy we had seen downstairs, would give a final touch of cementing and polishing and the window would be finished, ready to ship to its destination.

      Ullathorne talked well. The workmen seemed to me remarkably intelligent. I liked to see their skillful hands manipulating the various materials so surely, as the diamond bit, the discarded scraps of glass fell tinkling to the floor, the lead bent obediently, the solder hissed and a stained glass window came into being under our eyes. The atmosphere of the studio suited the scene; all four walls were papered with cartoons, and a galaxy of archangels, cherubs, prophets and virgin martyrs gazed down at us with serene condescension. I felt that I knew what a medieval workshop must have looked like.

      “You have seen everything now, Miss Trumbull,” Ullathorne said at length, “except the firing. The kiln is downstairs. We’ll take a look at Leo’s work first.”

      We crossed the room. Phyllis and Leo were talking in low voices. Leo looked up with a start, dropped his brush, picked it up hurriedly and went on with his work. He was painting an inscription in Gothic lettering on a strip of glass with, it seemed to me, remarkable skill and swiftness.

      We watched him for a moment, then Mr. Ullathorne laughed. Leo’s hand shook and stopped moving. His eyes went to his father’s face and back to the inscription.

      Ullathorne laughed again and louder. “As usual, a mistake, my dear Leonardo! ‘In loving Memmory.’ The word unfortunately requires only two m’s. Too bad! You’ll have to repaint the whole line, figlio mio.” He bent and with his thumb obliterated a dozen words, then gave Phyllis a malicious glance. “Your fault, young lady. How could any man work properly with an angel breathing sweet nothings into his ear?”

      He turned abruptly. “We’ll go downstairs now,” he said. “Tear yourself away, Phyllis. Get back to work, Leo. No holiday for you this afternoon.”

      Leo had risen. He slumped back on his stool. Phyllis gave him a despairing glance, hesitated, and followed us.

      At the top of the stairs I paused for a last look at the rose window.

      “Is there anything in it you don’t like?” Ullathorne asked.

      “Well, I’ve been wondering,” I said slowly, “why you used such a strong shade of red in the background of the ‘sun and moon’ panel. It dims the glow of the fiery furnace.”

      “You’re right,” he said emphatically, and called to a workman, a handsome young Irishman, at the nearest table.

      “Jake, do you hear what the lady says?”

      Jake nodded sulkily without speaking.

      “A bad mistake that,” Ullathorne said to me. “The sort of thing that happens whenever I’m away. I gave Jake Murphy the right glass and he broke it and substituted some red ‘flash’—the trade name for a kind of glass I seldom use—thinking I wouldn’t notice the difference, damn him! I didn’t realize it until the window was up. It will have to be altered, of course.”

      He gave Jake Murphy an angry glance, Jake returned it fourfold. I had seen that white rage in an Irish face before now, and I didn’t like it. We went downstairs.

      In front of the kiln Ullathorne resumed his lecture. Firing was a delicate process and an important part of the work. The heads and hands—“what we call the ‘flesh,’ ” he said—and various other portions, were painted and then fired; that is, baked in an oven to make the color permanent.

      “Like china painting,” I said.

      “Just so. And it’s a risky business. If the heat isn’t right the glass breaks or the paint fades out. Only yesterday Jake, clumsy fool, broke a head that had taken me two weeks to paint. I pretty nearly killed him. He swore there was a flaw in the glass, but I knew he had let it cool too quickly. He’d have got the sack then and there if I hadn’t been short of men. Well, Miss Trumbull, you’ve seen the process now from alpha to omega. I hope you’ve enjoyed my little lecture?”

      I told him, truly, that I had. He urged me to come again—I hadn’t seen his studio yet. After a few more politenesses we started for home.

      Our walk was rather silent. Human reactions interest me—I have been accused of the sin Browning forbade, “groping in heartstrings.” My hour in the glass shop had given me food for reflection. Phyllis and Leo were in love; that was obvious and probably nice. But what about Frederick Ullathorne? Was he jealous? Or merely selfish? Selfish because the boy was useful to him? Or jealous because he himself was attracted by Phyllis? СКАЧАТЬ