Unfinished Portraits Part 23

Seventy-five guldens to account. It atoned a little for the loss of the Christ.

III

The large drawing-room was vacant. The blinds had been drawn to shut out the glare, and a soft coolness filled the room. In the dim light of half-opened shutters the ma.s.sive furniture loomed large and dark, and from the wall huge paintings looked down mistily. Gilt frames gleamed vaguely in the cool gloom. Above the fireplace hung a large canvas, and out of its depths sombre, waiting eyes looked down upon the vacant room.

The door opened. An old woman had entered. She held in her hand a stout cane. She walked stiffly across to the window and threw back a shutter.

The window opened into the soft greenness of a Munich garden. She stood for a minute looking into it. Then she came over to the fireplace and looked up to the pictured face. Her head nodded slowly.

"It must be," she muttered, "it must be. No one else could have done it.

But four hundred years!"--she sighed softly. "Who can tell?"

Her glance wandered with a dissatisfied air to the other canvases. "I would give them all--all of them--twice over--to know--" She spoke under her breath as she hobbled stiffly to a huge chair.

The door swung softly back and forth behind a young girl who had entered. She came in lightly, looking down at a packet of papers in her hand.

The old woman started forward.

"What have ye found?" she demanded. She was leaning on the stout cane.

She peered out of her cavernous eyes.

The girl crossed to the window and seated herself in the green light.

Shadows of a climbing vine fell on her hair and shoulders as she bent over the papers in her hand. She opened one of them and ran her eye over it before she spoke.

"They were in the north room," she said slowly. "In the big _escritoire_--that big, clumsy one--I've looked there before, but I never found them. I've been trying all day to make them out."

"What are they?" demanded the old woman.

"Papers, grandmamma," returned the girl absently; "letters and a sort of journal." Her eyes were on the closely written page.

"Read it," said the old woman sharply.

"I can't read it, grandmamma." She shook back the soft curls with a little sigh. "It's queer and old, and funny--some of the words. And the writing is blurred and yellow. Look." She held up the open sheet.

The keen old eyes darted at it. "Work on it," she said brusquely.

"I have, grandmamma."

"Well--what did ye find?"

"It's a man--Will--Willi"--she turned to the bottom of the last page--"Willibald! That's it." She laughed softly. "Willibald Pirkheimer.

Who was he?" she asked.

"One of your ancestors." The old mouth waited grimly.

"One of mamma's?"

"Your father's."

"He must have been a nice man," said the girl slowly. "But some of it is rather--queer."

The old woman leaned forward with a quick gesture. She straightened herself. "Nonsense!" she muttered. "Read it," she said aloud.

"This is written to Albrecht Durer," said the girl, studying it, "in Italy."

The old woman reached out a knotted hand. "Give it to me," she said.

The girl came across and laid it in her hand. The knotted fingers smoothed it. The old eyes were on the picture above the mantel. "Will it tell?" she muttered.

"There are others, grandmamma." The girl held up the packet in her hand.

"What have ye made out?" The old hand closed upon them.

"He was Durer's friend," said the girl. "There are letters to him--five or six. And he tells about a picture--in the journal--a picture Albrecht Durer gave to him." She glanced down at the wrinkled, working face. "It was unsigned, grandmamma--and it was the head of the Saviour."

The old woman's throat moved loosely. Her hands grasped the stout cane.

With a half sigh, she rose to her feet and tottered across the room.

"Fool--fool--" she muttered, looking up to the mystical, waiting face.

"To leave no mark--no sign--but that!" She shook the yellow papers in her hand.

A question shot into the old eyes. She held out the papers.

"What was it dated, Marie?--that place in the journal--look and see."

The girl took the papers and moved again to the window. She opened one and smoothed it thoughtfully, running her eye along the page. She shook her head slowly. "There is no date, grandmamma," she said. "But it must be after Durer's death. He speaks of Frau Durer"--a smile shaded her lips--"he doesn't like her very well, I think. When did Durer die, grandmamma?" She looked up from the paper.

"April 6, 1528," said the old woman promptly.

The girl's eyes grew round and misty. "Four hundred years ago--almost,"

she murmured softly. She looked down, a little awed, at the paper in her hand.

"It is very old," she said.

The old woman nodded sharply. Her eyes were on the papers. "Take good care of them," she croaked; "they may tell it to us yet."

She straightened her bent figure and glanced toward the door.

A wooden butler was bowing himself to the floor. "The Herr Professor Doctor Polonius Holtzenschuer," he announced grandly.

A dapper young man with trim mustaches and spotless boots advanced into the room.

The girl by the window swayed a breath. The clear color had mounted in her cheek.

The old woman waited, immovable. Her hands were clasped above the stout cane and her bead-like eyes surveyed the advancing figure.