The Gallery (11 page)

Chapter

T
he next day the bands and buttons and stumpers had disappeared, replaced by tired, deflated people pulling their coat lapels together as they trudged to work or to their local speak. Hoover had won. Their mayor had failed; America was still the heartland, and New York was still an island.

And Mr. Sewell was right: His story counted more than any other.

Especially in this house.

So according to him, Rose was mad. Mad enough to lock herself away. But that I knew wasn't true, whatever he claimed.
He
was locking her away. But was he hiding away Rose because of her madness? Or was he driving her mad by hiding her away?

It was a chicken-egg scenario which made a crazy omelette, however you scrambled it.

A few days later I was dusting in one of the front parlors where, judging from the number of cigarette lighters and an untouched bar cart, the Pritchards had once entertained afternoon callers. On one of the bookshelves flanking the fireplace, I came across a row of scrapbooks. Mrs. Sewell must have kept them back when she was Miss Rose and enamored of her press coverage. I pulled one off the shelf; it was stuffed with clippings from every newspaper in the city and not a few abroad.

NEW TO THE SOCIETY SET:

—

Introducing Miss Rose Pritchard of Charleston, West Virginia

BY INVITATION ONLY:

—

Extraordinary Art Collection Hosted Today by Miss Rose Pritchard

DEBUT WITHOUT A DEBUTANTE:

—

Miss Pritchard Trades Own Party for Cabaret Spotlight

PRAY FOR A BREEZE, BOYS! . . .

—

Another Hemline Gasper from Rose Pritchard!

MONEY CAN'T BUY CLASS:

—

Another Shameful Display by Miss Rose Pritchard

PRICELESS “PICASSO” SOLD AT AUCTION REVEALED TO BE PRODUCT OF ROSE PRITCHARD'S FEET!

OUR HERO!: MISS ROSE PRITCHARD

—

“Luxe Lemonade Stand” Said to Have Raised “Thousands” for War Effort

RAILROAD HEIRESS JOINS UNION PICKET LINES AGAINST OWN FATHER'S FACTORY

OUR ROSE TRADES NEWPORT SEASON FOR TOUR BY CARGO SHIP

—

Packing List: “Rouge and a Rucksack”

—

Sightings Rumored in Marrakech, Bombay, Shanghai

“WILD ROSE”—OR ROTTEN ONE?

—

Why Today's Generation Is Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know

MISS PRITCHARD ENGAGED AT LAST!

—

Wedding of the Year Predicted

—

Newspaper Scion Announced to Be Heiress's Choice (Good Luck, Archie!)

That's where the clippings ended.

And they did nothing to clear up any questions. In fact, Rose was like one of those headshrinker tests—the kind where what you saw said more about you than her.

Depending on the paper or the writer or even the day, Rose could be called wild, wise, bold, spoiled, modern, brazen, thrilling, or treacherous. And she didn't seem to care what you called her. From what she'd pasted in that scrapbook, she relished condemnation and celebration equally.

To this day, Mr. Sewell said she was ill, unmanageable, possibly dangerous.

Ma said whatever Mr. Sewell said.

The doctor said she was hysterical, unfeminine, just needed rest.

And Alphonse said as little as possible.

There was only one way to figure her out. I had to see the Wild Rose for myself.

A squeaking escaped from the butler's pantry down the hall: the sound of Mrs. Sewell's breakfast tray being sent down to the kitchen via the dumbwaiter to be cleared and traded for lunch. Another door to the dumbwaiter lay hidden here on the first floor, in this small room where a butler and team of footman once removed some other chef's platters
and trays and delivered them across the hall, still steaming hot, to a dining room full of socialites and dignitaries.

No visitors were expected today—at least, not until Mr. Sewell's latest late-night fire drill. In fact, it was almost time for the servants to head down to the basement dining hall for their own midday meal. For the next hour, everyone would be at lunch.

Well, almost everyone. McCagg was never invited to this luncheon. He remained at his hall post, with a lunch tray Ma brought up ahead of time.

I tiptoed over to the small room. Opened the door to the dumbwaiter. Peeked down the shaft, where Mrs. Sewell's breakfast plates rattled as they made their rough landing. Another small door downstairs clicked open, Bridie's capable hands clearing the leftovers out, preparing to load the next cargo in.

I had an idea.

—

“Bridie, my girl,” I said a little too brightly, “what's that delicious smell?”

“Well, hello, Martha!” Her face was open and guileless, illuminated by the one ray of sunshine that struggled in through the street-level window. “How do you like this lunch tray, I wonder?”

Where I had usually smushed some butter on scraped-off toast, Bridie had arranged golden triangles of buttery goodness on a pretty Wedgwood plate.

“There's three different kinds of preserves—the gooseberry is my own Gran's recipe!—and I thought, with doctor's permission, she might like a soft-cooked egg.”

Chef nodded approvingly at Bridie and then pointedly at me. I scowled back. No one ever solved a mystery with soft-cooked eggs.

“Well, Mrs. Sewell is lucky to get it,” I said, backing away to the door as Bridie lifted the tray into the dumbwaiter.

I heard the click of the dumbwaiter door as I sprinted up the back stairs to the ground floor, rounding the corner to the butler's pantry. With a last look over my shoulder, I opened the square-shaped door, just in time to see Bridie's lunch tray rise into view. As soon as the rising box lined up with the door frame, I pushed hard down on the box, causing it to stop momentarily, and climbed in, pulling the door just to—but not closed—behind me.

I heard Bridie's voice through the shaft below. “It's stuck. Chef, the dumbwaiter's stuck!” Then the box jerked upward, Chef's brawny, Cordon Bleu–trained arms surely giving the pulley rope a strong tug.

I rose and rose, held tight in that moving coffin, until I came to a jerky stop. A small bell rang with my stop to alert the mistress of her delivery.

Curled up, my knees to my nose, I waited.

I felt my bum sink into the gooseberry jam. I waited some more.

Just as I began to wonder how much oxygen you got in a standard dumbwaiter, I heard heavy breathing on the other side of the door.

Finally, with a click, it opened.

—

I had thought she might scream and was ready to jump out and put my hand over her mouth if necessary. But Mrs. Sewell only looked at me hazily, unsteady on her feet, her long loose hair and blotchy face mussed with too much sleep.

After a minute of staring, she licked her dry lips and said thickly: “The pomegranate.”

“Yes. That was me.” By instinct, I spoke slowly. Made no sudden movements. “A pomegranate for . . . Proserpina?”

She nodded to herself and staggered to a nearby chair, settling herself with a thud.

Despite her fancy, lacy nightgown, and despite being only in her thirties by my calculations, she looked like the old rag woman who sometimes drank
rum and fell asleep on our stoop. She was thin, drawn, with gray skin, a stark contrast to the paintings that hung from every corner of the room, with their fat goddesses and radiant pink-cheeked cupids.

I immediately felt terrible about sitting on her lunch. “Here, Mrs. Sewell,” I jumped out and peeled the slices of toast off my skirts, “eat. You look peaked.”

“It's Rose,” she muttered, more to herself than to me. “Not Mrs. Sewell. Never Mrs. Sewell. Never Mrs. Sewell.” At the sight of the squashed toast, she closed her eyes and groaned slightly, then peered at me through squinty lids. “Is there tea?”

I went back to the dumbwaiter and found the teapot, luckily still upright, and poured her out a cup with milk. She took it, sighing to embrace the warmth in her hands, and took a sip.

“Salty,” she sighed.

I'd seen Bridie add the sugar myself.

I wasn't quite sure where to begin. Are you all right? Are you being mistreated? Do you want to escape?

And how do you ask: Are you crazy?

But, looking at the staggering, muttering heap in the armchair, I wasn't sure I needed to anymore.

“Look, Mrs. Sewell, I mean Rose—” As I moved swiftly to crouch at her feet, I triggered a bundle
of paintings leaning against the wall. The whole lot tipped over like dominoes, a half-dozen frames clattering to the floor.

“Mizzus Sewell?” came a gravelly voice just outside the door.

McCagg.

“Mizzus, what you up to in there?” The squeak of a chair pushed back by a large man's backside rang out. A ring of keys jangled.

For the first time, I saw alarm—no, fear—in Rose's dead eyes. “Go!” she hissed, pushing me toward the dumbwaiter with what little strength her bony arms had.

I ran to the square door, stuffing myself inside and closing myself in, as I heard McCagg open up the room.

“What's the fuss this time? Toast not the right shade of brown?” I heard him grumble.

But that was all I heard, because the opening and closing of the dumbwaiter door had set off a bell in the kitchen, and Bridie, assuming her mistress had loaded her dirty dishes, began to work at the pulley again, and I descended.

—

When I emerged from the butler's pantry, it wasn't long before I found Ma hunting for me, annoyed by
my abandoned carpet sweeper in the parlor. I dutifully returned to working the Bissell over the carpet by longitude and latitude.

There was no one to rescue, I stewed with disappointment, no adventure to be had. There was just a loony woman in the attic, an embarrassment to her big-shot husband, who could lock her up and garner no more than a shrug from the servants just grateful to have a job. And just one day after another, polishing a lifeless tomb.

But later that afternoon, I saw Ma gesture to Alphonse, and after conferring for a few moments, Ma flung open the gallery doors for him.

“Miss Rose has started up again,” Ma said with a sigh as Alphonse carried the four paintings, one by one, up the stairs and back to Rose's room. And brought one back down, wrapped again in a sheet.

Once he was done hanging it, he left, refusing to meet my eye. Ma closed the doors behind him.

Proserpina was just the beginning of the story, I thought. And now she's sent down the next chapter.

Chapter

I
had the doors open before Ma's feet hit the last step on the servants' stairs.

And I heard Alphonse's footsteps behind me before I could set a foot in.

He helped me pull back the sheet, and he whistled to see it again.

“A Rembrandt, this one,” he said, stepping back for a better view. “It is outside belief the collection she has up there. Like locking the Louvre in an attic.”

Eh, I thought. I didn't like this one so much.

A rich lady with flushed cheeks and a double chin leaned with one hand braced against a table. Her other hand lay at the bottom of her rib cage in what I guessed was a graceful gesture but looked more like a heartburn attack. Her stance seemed heavy,
but her face was serene, and given the posh velvets and pearls that surrounded her, I wasn't surprised. Like the still lifes she'd replaced, she summoned you to peep at her wealth: shiny paisley silks, furs around her shoulders. A young girl, a maid, I supposed, brought her a drink in a bejeweled seashell.

Sophonisba,
the plaque on the frame read. “Who the—?” I asked aloud.

“Sophonisba, a queen of Carthage. She lived during the Second Punic War—”

“Are you a teacher or something?” I couldn't help but break in. “How do you
know
all this anyway?”

Alphonse looked taken aback. I was beginning to see that while he'd gladly natter about art, books, mythology, even his employers, his own story was one to be approached delicately. He walked away from the painting, pacing a bit in the echoing gallery, considering something. Finally he responded, “Yes, I was a teacher, in my old country,” as if he were confiding something of great importance and discretion, and I burst out laughing at his somber expression.

“Is that so hard to believe?” He seemed hurt and set about tidying up his suit, as if his footman's uniform were to blame.

“Not at all,” I chuckled. “It explains everything.” It explained what a scolding know-it-all he was and
why I always felt as if he were going to chide me for not finishing my reading.

“I taught in a school, Greek and Latin. I taught boys like you.”

“I'm not a boy,” I retorted.

“No, that is true. Girls do not study Greek or Latin. But you are like them. You want only for me to give you the answers, do none of the study yourself.”

“Girls can so study Greek and Latin!” I flashed.

“I did not say that they couldn't.” He bowed slightly. “I say that, as a rule, they do not.” And he smiled, waiting for me to disprove him.

“So what happened?” I sidestepped. “How did you end up here?”

He paused again before speaking. “My parents had a café. They made—how do you say—
pasticcini
?”

“Pasta? Like noodles?”

“No, like
cannoli
—”

“Oh, pastry!”

“Yes,” he pointed at me lightly, “this is it. We would work in the shop with them, my older brother and I. Long, long hours. Seven days a week, only an afternoon off every two Sundays.

“My brother and I hated this work. We loved books. He says, okay, he will help with the shop if I can go to school. And then he will go to school
next. So that is what we did: I went to school with my fingers in books, and he stayed with his fingers in the pastry. I studied Greek, Latin, even English.” He cleared his throat. “Also Italian. I speak some Italian.

“I started teaching. This, I love. Even with the students who were not so good; when I would share these stories,” and here he gestured to the painting, “I would see their eyes . . . how do you say? Lighten? Light up? How incredible, I thought. To share the same stories that speak to the imagination for thousands of years, right here, today.”

“But why aren't you a teacher anymore?”

“My brother also had dreams. He wanted a new life in America. When my mother died, he cannot bear to stay any longer. He worked so many years for me. So I came with him.”

“No,” I said frustrated. “Why aren't you a teacher here?”

Alphonse shook his head. “You Americans—you are more interested in making new stories than hearing the old stories. Not so much interested in the classics, and not so many teacher jobs for foreigners.” He flapped the lapels of his footman uniform again. “But always many jobs for servants. It is the land of opportunity, after all. For some,” and he
looked around the room, with its silk wallpaper and ceiling like a cathedral. And back to the lady in the painting, with her own display of luxury.

“And what new life did your brother discover in America?” I asked.

He seemed to return to himself, assuming a businesslike manner. “None at all,” he said. “He's dead.”

I flushed. “Oh, I'm sorry.”

“Now this painting.” He moved on. “Sophonisba. A great woman hero of Roman literature—Petrarch? Yes, Petrarch. But the cup . . . perhaps this is why Mrs. Sewell chose it.”

I looked at the painting again. At the young maid bringing her mistress that drink. Perhaps a nice hot cup of tea, just as I had brought Rose this morning.

“Oh,” Alphonse reached into his jacket pocket, “also. When I get the painting,” he said, “the lady also give me this book. To return downstairs.” But instead of returning it to the library, he handed it to me: a small leather-bound volume, with gilt-edged pages. I opened it to the first page, which read:
Great Heroines of Antiquity
.

—

For the rest of the day, I sneaked looks between making tracks with the carpet sweeper. Waiting for Ma to pass from room to room, I hid behind sofas
I was supposed to be plumping and paged through the chapters with dusty fingers.

Sophonisba . . . well, quite honestly, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. First she married one fellow, then some other one. One or another got defeated by the Romans in a war. The Romans wanted to parade Sophonisba around like some kind of victory trophy, and her husband said death would be preferable to this (which I guess was easy for him to say). So he sent her a cup of poison, and she drank it.

I scuttled back to the gallery like a mouse, staying close to the walls.

The drape was still off, forgotten on the floor. And on the canvas, the young maid still had her back to me, as she offered the seashell cup of poison to her mistress, sent by the husband.

Her husband sent a cup of poison. Her maid gave it to her. She drank it.

I pictured Rose again from this morning. Pale. Unsteady. Blotchy. Not well.

Could she really believe her husband was poisoning her? And that her servants—even me?—were the messengers?

If this is what Rose suspected, I thought with a shiver down my spine, then she was either crazier
than I thought . . . or in more danger than I could imagine.

—

It didn't take me long to suspect just what mysterious substance was in that cup.

And it didn't take much to distract Bridie with a concocted task or to wait for Chef to sneak into the pantry for a nip of cooking wine.

I ruled out Mrs. Sewell's tea quickly enough—its packaging was fancier than necessary, to be sure, but its smell and its small, flaky, black leaves were like any tea I'd ever seen.

Then there was that
special sugar
, secured by Mr. Sewell from some exotic location. A sugar that, when I put a bit on my tongue, actually tasted salty, just as Mrs. Sewell said, with a slightly metallic aftertaste.

This couldn't be some juvenile trick of Mr. Sewell's, I thought, the way I used to put sugar in the salt cellar for April Fools'. Surely there was something in this salty-sugar or sugary-salt that was poisoning Rose.

I tied a spoonful in my handkerchief. There was only one way to find out.