The Gallery (19 page)

Chapter

M
r. Sewell sputtered his way out of his shock.

“McCagg! This is outrageous! Why is Mrs. Sewell out of her room? For heaven's sakes, man, get her—”

“Uh, sorry, sir.” McCagg stared at his feet—coward, I thought—and put his hands protectively on his new employer's chair back. “The missus says I'm not on your payroll anymore.”

I couldn't understand what was happening. Why Ma and Rose were sitting calmly on a silk-and-gilded sofa—Rose with her hands folded genteelly on her lap, pale, drawn, but no longer rashy. And why Alphonse and McCagg were standing at attention behind them.

It looked like a bizarre family photo. But it was
actually the very picture of four people in complete control.

And the look of utter panic on Mr. Sewell's face showed that he saw it, too.

“Not on my payr—” He decided to try his luck with Ma. “Mrs. O'Doyle, frankly I'm shocked. What doomed scheme has this riffraff sweet-talked you into.” His voice turned from scolding to wheedling. “You know you've always been my best and most trusted teammate. An angel, really, sent from heaven. For Rose and,” he ducked his head in imitation of a bashful schoolboy, “and for me.”

Ma's composure was steel and stone, as if it were the twins before her swearing no knowledge of the candy wrappers in their schoolbags.

“Come, Martha.” Ma ignored Mr. Sewell's little speech and patted a spot on the sofa. “You belong over here.”

I willed my feet to take me to the winning team, like a very tense game of Red Rover.

When I sat down, Ma put her hand—that warm, toughened hand—on mine.

Mr. Sewell turned to Alphonse next. I thought it was telling that, while a man his size could easily have commandeered Rose and dragged her back to her rooms, he was powerless without the servants to
do his dirty work. I wondered next who would make his bed and rub the black spots out of the floor.

“I suppose this is all your scheme, then. I figured you out, you know—before Mrs. O'Doyle could send you away. You're an
Italian
, correct?” Mr. Sewell spat the words out, as if being born in that country was its own character flaw. “And I'm right that you're related to that Vanzetti somehow, aren't I? Well, out with it. Name your ransom then, and let's get this over with.”

Alphonse just gave a little smile, quiet as usual, and turned the stage over to the real star of the show.

Rose.

She cleared her throat, and though her voice was scratchy to start, weak from years of isolation, she was determined to be heard.

“As of this afternoon,” she said, her voice thin but growing in strength, “you have nothing with which to threaten McCagg, or me, or any of us. Because with the collapse of the market this morning, I'm guessing your money is gone. And your newspaper is next to go.”

Panic crossed Mr. Sewell's eyes although he forced a laugh. “My dear, you really are not well. I've been telling you . . .” And then more seriously: “What would you possibly know about it?”

Rose opened up the scrapbook that I noticed had been sitting on her lap, much like the one I'd found ages ago in the front parlor. But instead of regaling us with tales of her debutante days, she began reading what sounded like excerpts from the
Daily Standard
business section:

“‘
F
ED
R
UMORED TO
A
PPROVE
G
ULF-
N
ORTHERN
D
EAL'”

She looked up, searching Mr. Sewell's face for a glimmer of recognition. Finding it, she returned to the scrapbook.

“
‘
A S
MOKELESS
C
IGARETTE?
S
IR
W
ALTER
T
OBACCO
S
AYS
Y
ES.'”

“
‘
U
NITEDCO
M
ANUFACTURING
E
XPECTED
TO
A
NNOUNCE
T
ECHNOL
OGY
B
REAKTHROUGH'”

“These are just from the last month, although I'm sure there have been hundreds more over the years. The stories are quite the headline grabbers, wouldn't you say?” The small crowd around her all nodded in agreement. “One might even say . . . incredible.”

Mr. Sewell looked sick.

“And look here,” she flipped to the back of her scrapbook, where (I peeked over Ma's shoulder) another section held clippings from the stock report. “Each of these companies have jumped—indeed, danced to your tune—in the days following your
reports. And yet no other newspaper has carried any report of such earth-shattering discoveries. Is the
Daily Standard
really such a beacon of investigative reporting? How
did
you manage all these—‘scoops,' I believe they're called?”

I thought of Mr. Sewell's dinners by the cloak of night and those mystery guests: tipsters, shysters, and collaborators.

And
Yodel
reporters being fed incriminating stories about Rose.

“My guess is that you've made money on every front. Payments from the swindlers who got you to plant their questionable ‘breakthroughs' on the front page. And, of course, money on the back end, when the stock you'd bought ahead of time suddenly skyrocketed.”

As I watched this extraordinary performance, I realized I was finally seeing the
real
Rose—not the sedated Rose, or the panicked Rose, or the rashy, imprisoned Rose. The Rose who had kept her father guessing with her schemes and intrigues and keen business sense. But in the end was only entrusted with fancy paintings, while a nephew got the company and drove it into the ground.

“Well,” Rose closed the scrapbook now, “all good things come to an end. But surely you've
seen it coming. The signs have been everywhere—the Federal Reserve's warning last week, the Dow-Jones falling steadily. . . . A wise investor like yourself would have moved most of his funds out of the stock market.” She smiled at Mr. Sewell's panicked expression. “No? Well then, your portfolio will have been wiped out by,” she looked to the grandfather clock in the corner, its hands reaching four o'clock, “right about now.”

Mr. Sewell had been stunned into silence all through Rose's speech, but now tried weakly to protest. Rose stopped him with her hand.

“And if not by the end of the day, they will be by the end of the year, when the readers and investors you've duped realize your treachery. By which point you've lost not only your money, but your newspaper's credibility. With one word to the authorities, you'll be out of circulation by Monday. You'll have nothing: not the money your father left you, not the money you conjured in the market, not the machine by which you made it.”

Rose let the grim scenario settle over her husband while she folded her hands primly again.

“Unless.”

Many years later, a guy at the flea market told me
the secret to negotiating. “Whoever speaks first,” he claimed, “loses.” I thought of Rose and Mr. Sewell immediately, facing off, with that word—“Unless”—dangling between them.

Mr. Sewell finally cleared his throat, although he tried to disguise it as a guffaw. “Unless what?”

“Unless you accept our generous offer.”

“Generous?” he said. “Is that what you call blackmail? My God, I've always known you were—”

“I'd call it generous, seeing as how we've arranged a lovely vacation for you.” All the adults nodded together, murmuring at their largesse. “Unless you'd prefer a life of poverty and prison?”

“A vacation?” Mr. Sewell sputtered, looking from face to face around the room, searching for someone who shared his disbelief “That's really—a vacation?”

“Of sorts. There's just one clause in this contract. You have to leave right away.” Rose glanced at the clock again. “Right now, in fact.”

The absurdity of the situation finally hit Mr. Sewell with full force, and he began to pace and rant around the room, hoping that the full force of his words could push through a loophole.

While the master raged, Ma tut-tutted. “I was at
a performance once,” she turned to Rose, “where they gave away a trip to Niagara Falls, so long as you left straightaway from the theater. I must say, the winners were quite delighted with their good fortune, and they weren't even outrunning a national scandal.”

Rose shrugged. “Well, you can lead a horse to water . . .”

“Fine. Fine.” Mr. Sewell finally paced his way back to the group. “Let's say I go along with this. I'm leaving now, eh? I'll just grab a few things.” He turned toward his office.

But Alphonse came around the back of the sofa with a small suitcase.

“We've taken the liberty,” Rose interrupted, “of packing a few necessities for you, including some traveling funds. You can buy whatever else you need at your destination.” Alphonse handed the case to Mr. Sewell, who looked confused; he'd never carried his own bags before. Alphonse placed the handle in Mr. Sewell's hand and wrapped his master's fingers around it. In Mr. Sewell's other hand, he placed a ticket.

“My destination?” Mr. Sewell looked down at the suitcase in his hand, as if confused by how it got there. “Wait, where am I—”

Rose ignored this as Alphonse left to fetch coats and hats. “Oh, and just one other thing. You'll need to go by the name Alfonso Vanzetti.”

“What, on the ship?” His attention shifted to the ticket, and he inspected it, as if it laid out Rose's secret plan.

“Yes. And, well, forever. As of this evening, J. Archer Sewell is no more.”

“Now, wait just a—”

“Yes, yes,” Rose dismissed his questions with an imperial wave of her hand, “It's all very confusing, I understand. Alphonse will explain it on the way to the docks. And Alphonse, dear,”—he was back, a hand under his master's elbow steering him to the door—“teach Mr. Sewell a few words of Italian, won't you? To help him muddle through the third-class queues?”

And that was the last anyone saw of J. Archer Sewell. By the end of the evening, he was safely installed on the S.S.
Garibaldi
, in a lower-deck cabin shared with five other travelers in bunk beds. In a couple of weeks, he'd be disembarking in Naples, Italy.

Out at sea, he would learn too late that the market's tumble was slowed by some of his wealthy cronies, who propped up the drooping market with vast infusions of cash. But it was a futile effort, and
by October twenty-ninth of the same year—Black Tuesday—it was all over. A man like Mr. Sewell, with his net worth strewn all over the market like a roulette wheel, would be wiped out.

But he could begin again, if he liked, in a sleepy Italian seaside village, under the name Alfonso Vanzetti.

—

But if Mr. Sewell was now Alfonso Vanzetti, who was Alphonse?

“I am already Alphonse Dupont,” he told me, handing off a swaddled Rembrandt as part of our makeshift bucket brigade. McCagg, Alphonse, Ma, and I manned various points along the stairs and by the dumbwaiter, as Rose's entire collection of paintings was moved from her room, down the stairs, to the basement hallway, just outside the kitchen.

Each painting was wrapped in whatever sheets, quilts, and fine silk blankets we could pilfer from the Sewell linen closets. I didn't know why. I didn't ask why.

But I stayed close to Alphonse and to Ma, who each exuded calm in the midst of this bewildering afternoon.

“I made this name after my brother's death, to get a job without the prejudice.” Alphonse moved past me, tucking what looked to be the Picasso pomegranate under his arm. “It has worked for me
so far. So I will continue with it. Mr. Sewell can have my old name.”

I handed him another small frame. “Ma—did she know you were . . . Alfonso . . . when she hired you?”

Ma's voice came muffled from behind a large canvas she carried, wrapped in a feather duvet. “I didn't know until you did. With all the photos of Mr. Vanzetti in the paper.” She put the bundle down and caught her breath while Alphonse took it over. “It's why I sent Alphonse away. I knew Mr. Sewell would have him turned over to the authorities. And by then, I needed him for,” Ma glanced at the hallway operation, “this.”

I looked back nervously at Alphonse. “So you are an—an—?”

“An anarchist?” Alphonse looked annoyed, either with me or with the stacked frames that threatened to tumble like dominoes. “Are you a film star because you go to the picture show? Yes, I attended meetings. I attended rallies. I heard different opinions and plans and ideas. I gained knowledge. Knowledge does not change who you are.”

“But”—I turned to Alphonse—“the bomb on the front steps . . .”

Alphonse laughed. “That little
scorreggia
? Mr. Sewell make me to patch that together with rubber
cement and firecrackers and leave it there. He knew it would attract the attention of the reporters and let him make his little speech.”