Jenny and Barnum

by Roderick Thorp

  “So there’ll be no chance of fraud,” Barnum said, “we’ll have the old razors collected and secured during the second half of the demonstration. There’ll be no possibility of criticism.” He stood up. “There’s no reason for further delay. Let’s begin.”

  The crew was ready. While the women and children passengers watched from the sides of the dining room, stewards covered four tables with fresh linen, and brought out bowls for hot water, and mirrors on stands.

  “Are these all the razors aboard?” Barnum asked loudly, over the pile of instruments brought before him. “There can be no possibility that another razor can slip in when we get to the second half of the test.”

  “That’s it, Mr. Barnum, sir,” the second mate said.

  If any of the crew was suspicious, Barnum did not see him—not that he wanted to: he was so close to achieving the effect he wanted that it was everything he could do to keep from laughing out loud.

  Barnum marveled at his timing. The shaving tables were ready just as the boat slid through the babbling whirlpools of Hell Gate. He set the stewards to getting the women and children out of the dining room and up on deck while the ministers removed their jackets and began lathering up.

  It was May, the morning crisp. Weatherbeaten squatters’ shacks encrusting Manhattan’s distant shore line glided in and out of the Paquet boat’s polished brass ports. Here and there a rude fire burned, translucent blue wood smoke rushing upward. The dining room was forward of the boat’s paddles, and the water was smooth as it rushed past, wheeling on the axis of the shore line.

  Smooth—but, happily, not smooth enough. With each slapping wave one or another of the ministers would cut himself, three or four of them quite badly; only the holiness of their calling kept the air from being turned as blue as the shore line smoke with their curses. Because of their silence, they did not know how much the whole group was suffering—a good thing, too, because, by odd coincidence, all the razors were in poor condition, prone to nick and cut. Except for an occasional encouraging comment, Barnum kept out of it. One fool was shaving the right side of his face. Barnum wanted them to consume all the time they could. Through the ports on the other side of the boat he could see Blackwells Island sliding into view.

  “Let’s wait until everybody’s done, gentlemen,” he announced when most, in fact, had finished. They looked at each other, full-bearded on one side, nicked, cut, and raw on the other, and started to point fingers and laugh aloud. Barnum hadn’t thought of this: if anything, their reactions to each other would get them thinking much too soon. He grabbed one of the tablecloths.

  “Pass the razors here,” he trumpeted. “Come on, let’s hurry. Let’s have every one.” The razors clinked in the improvised sack. Barnum turned to the young minister, who was bleeding liberally from the chin. “Take a good look, my good man. Do I have all the razors?”

  He scouted every table. “All!”

  “Then let me get these out of here so there can be no question about the second part of this demonstration!” He rushed up the companionway to the bright daylight on deck, where at last his triumph broke through on his face. He shook the bundle of razors and let out a whoop.

  “What’s in the sack, Barnum?” a youth asked.

  “The pomposity of the self-anointed, my boy!” Barnum shouted, and swung the tablecloth out over the railing, where all the razors on the boat flew out like so many glittering fish returning to the river. The tablecloth lay on the surface of the water, twisted like a banner of defeat. Barnum turned to the crowd on deck and flung out his arms. “Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please! I’m P. T. Barnum, if you don’t know me, professional humbug and hoodwink, exhibitor of Joice Heth, bogus mammy of George Washington, exploiter of vulnerable General Tom Thumb, a mere child, smallest human being ever to draw a breath. People will tell you, if they haven’t already, that I’m villain and charlatan, a buccaneer and freebooter, with nothing to contribute to the welfare or culture of mankind. Why, as recently as last night, I stood in the docks, as it were, while my accusers tried and convicted me for low motives and lower morals. I was accused of doing the work of—the Devil!”

  He was striding about the deck, his hands clasped behind him. “The truth of the matter is that my motives are the shallowest ever devised and morals absolutely non-existent. Some of you are smiling—that’s all I’m after! I am a humbug! I freely proclaim it. Amusing you gives me pleasure—and, to that end, as a demonstration of my sincerity—but not any seriousness, I promise you that—I offer for your delectation today a twenty-fold demonstration of the vast stupidity of our gibbering species. Down in the salon, from which they will have to emerge eventually, are twenty baboons and chimpanzees who have allowed themselves to be tricked into showing their true countenances to those whose lives they have brought low all these many years, all in the name of the perfect love they understand no better than common sense, as you shall see.”

  They were south of Blackwells Island now, and around the bend Corlear’s Hook was coming into view through the forest of masts rising from the gleaming river. To the south and west, the city dominated the view, church spires by the hundreds rising above the rooftops. On the other side of the water lay the mostly wooden towns of Long Island and Greenpoint, the latter part of, but not connected to, the city of Brooklyn. The Paquet boat, paddles chuffing, borne by the current, was making wonderful time. It would be tying up at South Street in less than an hour, too little time for the vulnerable to succumb to attacks of conscience.

  “Barnum!” called a voice at the bottom of the companionway.

  Barnum put his finger to his lips to hush the crowd, now rambunctious and gathering around closely. He leaned into the companionway. “Yes?”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m on deck.”

  “Where’s the razor?”

  “You’d better come above. We have a problem.”

  The half-shaven young minister poked his head into view—and the crowd screamed! He gaped back at them a moment, not realizing why they were laughing, and then suddenly he touched his chin with both hands, lost his balance, and fell back into the darkness. The crowd screamed louder and rushed forward for a better look.

  “Get back! They have to come up sooner or later!”

  “Are they all like that?”

  “All! Now you see them for what they are!”

  “Two-faced!” came a shout.

  Barnum pointed. “There’s a bright lad!”

  “Let’s get them up here before they get shaved!” the same kid said.

  “I just threw all the razors overboard!” Barnum yelled.

  “One was mine!” a man shouted, and was drowned out by laughter.

  “You’ll get five dollars!” Barnum cried. “So will every other man on the stewards’ list!”

  People cheered.

  “Anybody who comes to their aid will have to swim to shore,” Barnum warned mock-seriously.

  Boys and men cheered, whistled, and hooted.

  “Barnum!” the young minister shouted from the salon, and now the noise of the crowd was louder than ever. Men working on passing boats looked to see what was happening.

  “Kid,” Barnum called to the boy, “let them know what’s going on.” With a glance, Barnum told the boy he was going to get paid.

  “Barnum!” came the voice from below, now a bellow.

  The crowd cheered again.

  “Should I go below?” Barnum asked them. “Daniel descended into the lion’s den, didn’t he? I will descend,” he announced portentously. “I will risk martyrdom.”

  More hoots and jeers.

  “St. Barnum the Humbug!” a man shouted.

  Barnum bowed low and swung into the companionway. The twenty ministers, beards hanging from half their faces, were gathered in the shadows like lepers.

  “What’s the meaning of this, Barnum?”

  “I’ve had a terrible accident. Up on deck, I stumbled, and the razors I had gathered in the tab
lecloth went over the side. They’re at the bottom.”

  “What about the other, the perfect steel razor?”

  “That was among them, I’m afraid. You saw that it was undistinguishable from ordinary razors. I made the simple mistake of mixing it up with the others.”

  “There was no perfect steel razor!” one of the ministers cried. “It was all a hoax!”

  “You saw it!” Barnum shouted. “My mistake is my loss. That was the only one of its kind—the only razor in the world that could have been your salvation, I swear it. This could have been the opportunity of a lifetime for me! You’ve lost nothing!”

  “What about our faces?”

  “You’ve lost nothing but some hair! It will be growing back before the end of the week!”

  “We can’t go up on deck like this!”

  “Why not?”

  “You heard the laughter, you madman! You did this deliberately!”

  Barnum’s eyes narrowed. “There may not be a penalty for bearing false witness, but there is for libel. I know—I went to jail for it. You didn’t know that about me, did you?”

  “I heard what you were telling people up there,” the young one said.

  “Bring us a razor!” another demanded imperiously.

  Barnum was headed up the companionway. “There aren’t any aboard. You’ll shave when you get ashore. It’s only a minor inconvenience.”

  “You’re holding us up to public ridicule!” the young one shouted.

  “Show them a little forgiveness,” Barnum sneered. “That’s your stock in trade, isn’t it?”

  On the river, small pilot cutters had swung alongside, the men aboard craning their necks to see what the kid was shouting about and was causing the crowd on the deck to raise such a ruckus. When Barnum reappeared, the crowd cheered him. From the distance across the water a man on one of the cutters recognized him, and people began shouting his name. On deck, a brave soul pushed past him to clamber down the companion-way to eye the ministers for himself. His whoop seemed to carry for miles, and he returned to the deck in a hysterical state, screaming at the top of his lungs.

  More boats followed the steamer down to South Street, and a crowd gathered quickly on the dock, with people running from all directions. The ministers remained hiding below, even after their luggage was put ashore and the story of what had happened to them spread through the crowd. People were leaning out of windows, and boys were climbing to rooftops and ledges. Someone yelled Barnum’s name, then someone else, and a chant went up. Barnum stayed on deck, talking with passengers unwilling to disembark before getting a good look at the ministers. The noise became deafening, and soon enough the captain was conferring with his superiors from the Paquet Line offices. Then the three of them trooped over to Barnum.

  “You caused this!” the captain shouted. “You make it stop!”

  Barnum stepped out on the gangplank, waved the crowd quiet, held its attention a moment—and kept on going. The crowd cheered. As he pushed his way through to South Street, people grabbed at his lapels and demanded to be told what was happening. He smiled and disengaged himself. Behind him, people were shouting and laughing louder than ever. When he reached the fringe of the crowd, a great roar shook the air. Barnum knew what it meant, but almost against his will, like Lot’s wife, he looked back to see the ministers running the gauntlet through the mob, collars up to conceal their foolishness.

  Now that the joke was done, Barnum almost felt sorry for them.

  By nightfall, Barnum again was the talk of New York.

  In St. Petersburg Tom Thumb came down with a grippe, and the remainder of the tour, already a nightmare, was canceled. It was ten days before the little General dared travel again, and then the weather turned foul with spring storms. If the troupe found itself marooned in Russia for another month, Tom Thumb would not have been surprised. Nothing would have surprised him.

  Barnum had extended the tour too far, asked too much of his little friend. Barnum could not have known about Joe Gallagher’s broken arm, of course, or that Gallagher would have to be left behind in London. All that that had meant was added work on the stage for Tom Thumb, who had originated most of Gallagher’s roles anyway. No, the draining agony in the situation came from what Barnum must have foreseen, the competition between Gallagher and Tom Thumb for Lavinia Warren. In his present state of mind, Tom Thumb completely believed that Barnum had foreseen every bit of it. Lavinia had not spoken civilly to Tom Thumb since the storm at sea, and his feeling for her had turned from love to livid hatred. She had written to Gallagher every day the troupe was away from London, and there was no doubt in Tom Thumb’s mind of what she had planned for Gallagher and herself as soon as she was in his presence—that is, if that event had not happened already. Tom Thumb would not have been surprised by that, either. He brooded on it, wondering if Gallagher and Lavinia had been together. Tom Thumb knew he would not be the first man to be so stupid as to think he knew a woman better than he really did. It didn’t matter anyway, because it was going to happen. Tom Thumb knew Lavinia that well, at least. She had a look in her eyes as obvious as an unmade bed.

  His own mood was murderous. Was he supposed to laugh or cry? He was twenty-seven pounds of rage—who could fail to appreciate the comedy of it? Had Barnum seen this in advance, too? Had he seen the spectacle, for instance, of his little friend showing his anger in front of strangers? Or had Barnum been able to see that a midget had no choice but to hide his full-sized feelings?

  All the thoughts of a murderous man, Tom Thumb knew, but he was incapable of getting himself under control. As clearly as he was able to see what had happened to him, just as clearly he could not rein in fantasies of revenge, or fateful justice, or outright perversion. He kept away from people, even arranging the troupe’s transportation back to England to gain maximum privacy for himself. Barnum was paying the bill, Tom Thumb kept reminding himself.

  After Lavinia, Gallagher, and Barnum, Tom Thumb focused on Jenny Lind, and in his wilder moments he wondered just how directly she had contributed to his troubles. Barnum had fallen victim to some mass hypnosis, and had given her the opportunity to clean him out—which opportunity she had seized, to be sure! Barnum was crazy now, Tom Thumb was sure. As Tom Thumb understood Barnum’s finances, the old humbug didn’t have the money to rent the halls for Jenny Lind’s performances. What the hell was he going to do?

  At least the situation gave Tom Thumb an opportunity to square accounts with Barnum—in a small way, of course, as always. Tom Thumb had an idea of just how big a jerk Lind and Co. thought Barnum was. Tom Thumb could remember how she had laughed loudly in Vienna at the idea of a man Barnum’s age writing his autobiography. According to Wilton—who had heard it from Judge Munthe—Lind hadn’t even looked at the book. She’d sent it to Munthe directly, unopened. She didn’t give a damn about Barnum, America, or anything else. She was going to make her money as quickly as possible and clear out.

  She was already resting for the trip across the Atlantic. As soon as Munthe had his claws on the $187,500, she’d changed her schedule to give herself a full three weeks’ rest before the late April crossing. By contrast, if the Russian tour had gone to its originally scheduled conclusion, the troupe would have sailed from Liverpool after only three days in England. The deal was exactly the way she wanted, Wilton told Tom Thumb. Wilton was thrilled about the whole thing—another one over the side, as far as Tom Thumb was concerned. Wilton said that in London they called it “Lindomania”—England had gone wild when she had decided to make her home in London.

  So: no more than six songs per performance, no performances on consecutive nights, no operatic performances, fees for a conductor and a tenor—both of whom had to be featured at every performance (she had chosen her Italian tenor, the one in love with her; the story was that the conductor was in no better shape—backstage was going to be interesting, to say the least)—wages for her maid, the valet, a secretary, all transportation, reasonable expenses, and on and on. She
had gotten Barnum and Wilton to agree to everthing but the golden barge. It was a wonder that she deigned to work at all.

  But Tom Thumb really understood what was going on, and in his rare moments of sanity he could see his jealousy of Jenny Lind and his self-pity beyond. He had heard the same story everywhere in Europe, that she was the greatest of artists, a miracle beyond all imagining. Her throat was sensitive; she needed rest. Right now she was taking it—the matter was that simple. She understood herself and her needs and she was in a position to care for herself. As an entertainer, Tom Thumb understood it all. Having to save himself for his own singing and dancing had taught him the meaning of limits and what was required to stay within them.

  The difference was that she was an artist. That he was an entertainer had nothing to do with his size. His wildest dreams—which included dreams of being full-sized—did not take him as far as Jenny Lind had traveled thus far in reality. Tom Thumb could not imagine so much for himself. For all the venom in him, he could not resist the truth about her, what he had been hearing about her over and over ever since Barnum first mentioned her name.

  She thrilled people! Crowds burst into tears when she sang! In a century blossoming with genius of every kind, without doubt Jenny Lind was the greatest performing artist, possessor of what could be the most beautiful singing voice in the history of the world.

  All the same, that did not mean she was not something of a witch. She needed a conductor and a tenor, to be sure, but did they have to be tormented fools in love with her? Tom Thumb believed his own experience gave him special understanding here. He liked being surrounded by people who agreed with him, who didn’t upset him emotionally, who flattered his ego. Jenny Lind was taking it one more step—one large, selfish step. Tom Thumb thought he saw a clue in her sending Barnum’s autobiography to Judge Munthe. Barnum might be a rare character and a genius in his own right, but Jenny Lind was making it clear that she didn’t have to be bothered with him. She had his money. It was his job to arrange her performances. After that, he had no importance to her.