The Gallery by Laura Marx Fitzgerald

Author:Laura Marx Fitzgerald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2016-06-01T14:49:30+00:00

Chapter

15

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.

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