Jenny and Barnum

by Roderick Thorp

  When the agents reported, they had Charlie and Gallagher in separate carriages around by the stage door, through which Barnum could hear an occasional squawked curse. It sounded like somebody chasing a parrot around a kitchen with a cleaver.

  “What do we do with them, sir?”

  “Run them back to the museum. I’ll be up there right after the show.”

  Jenny came out from her dressing room. “That’s Charlie out there. What’s going on?”

  “It’s an American courtship ritual, my dear. We’re trying to keep them from burning down half the city.” They had made plans for later in the evening, supper at the Astor House. “I’m going to have to go up to the museum to see if I can sort this out.”

  “Wait, and I’ll go with you.”

  By the end of her performance, Barnum had more information about the ruckus. In the confusion of the last twenty-four hours, Lavinia had forgotten all about Gallagher—that he had tickets to Jenny’s third performance. Barnum had already heard from Charlie of the night-long conversation between Lavinia and him, the tears and inevitable reconciliation. By God, love was in the air! Barnum was trying to get out of hock and make a living, and here he was in the thick of romance! And Jenny wanted to ride up to the museum, while he wanted to get her in one of the private booths in the rear dining room of the Astor House. Love! In the carriage their breathing was so heavy they could not hear the creaking of the wheels—but they could hear the commotion inside the museum all the way out on the sidewalk.

  Barnum’s men had put Charlie up on the second floor, keeping Gallagher on the street level. Lavinia was on the top floor, in Barnum’s apartment, nearly hysterical. There was no one to tend to her. Even if Anna Swan could have come out of her room instead of cowering behind the door, Lavinia would not have wanted to see her. Or Jenny. Barnum knew what had gone on among the women aboard the Great Western, but he had not thought the situation would ever require his attention. It still didn’t; the women had kept away from each other. It was the men who were out of control. As usual.

  “I’m going to kill the son-of-a-bitch, Barnum!” Charlie cried from the top of the stairs. “Give me a gun, I’ll blow his damned head off!”

  “You’re not big enough to hold a gun, stupid!” Gallagher shouted from below. The stairs between them were empty, with Barnum’s men blocking the way at both the top and the bottom.

  “I want him out of here!” Charlie yelled. “Either he goes or I go. I don’t want to have to set eyes on him again!”

  “Hold it right there!” Barnum roared. “Don’t tell me how to run my business. He’s under contract and so are you. If he doesn’t work, he’s going to sue me; if you don’t work, I’m going to sue you.”

  “You didn’t hear what he said about Lavinia!”

  Barnum was climbing the stairs. “And I don’t want to, either! Don’t repeat it!”

  “I’m going to kill him!” Charlie screamed. “I’m going to kill him!”

  Charlie was more violent than Barnum had ever seen him. He looked back down the stairs toward the door, where Jenny stood in the shadows. He couldn’t see her expression, and he wondered—with some anxiety—how she understood all this. Surrounding the two tiny combatants and Barnum’s black-suited centurions were the misshapen denizens of the museum, jabbering and muttering among themselves. They were all here, Chang and Eng, Zip, the Wild Men, Jo-Jo, the Man with No Chin. Only an outbreak of the plague could yield more terrifying sights.

  “Quiet, my lovelies!” Barnum boomed.

  “He insulted my fiancée!” Charlie yelled. “Lavinia and I are going to get married!”

  “Not if you kill him, squirt! They’ll hang you for sure, even if they have to use the hitching post on the corner!”

  Everybody laughed.

  “Lay off, Barnum! I gotta settle with this scum! You didn’t hear what he said about Lavinia! He hit me a Sunday punch on the ship coming back—!”

  “You broke my arm!”

  “That was an accident, you drunken scum, not that I ain’t glad it happened to you! Scum, that’s what you are!”

  “Tell him to quit calling me that, Barnum.”

  “We have free speech in this country, Joe.”

  “Scum! That’s what you are, Nutt—and that’s the right name for you, too. Scum Nutt!” He tried to get past Barnum’s men, one of them grabbed the back of his belt. In trying to get down the stairs, Charlie swung outward and upward, until the man brought him in a great arc back to the landing. “Let me go! I want to kill him!”

  “Charlie, you’re out of control.”

  “That’s right, and I’m going to stay out of control until I settle with Scum Nutt!”

  It had gone too far. Charlie had gone too far to be able to retreat with honor. “If I tell him to let you go, who’s going to take the responsibility for what happens?”

  “I will.”

  Barnum looked around. “What do you say, Joe?”

  “Is this going to cost me my job?”

  “It’s not my business.”

  “No!” Jenny cried.

  Barnum raised his hand to quiet her.

  “You’re insane!” she shouted. “Stop this!”

  “Make a circle,” Barnum called to Jo-Jo.

  “A fight!” somebody shouted. “There’s going to be a midget fight!”

  “It’s going to be short, that’s for sure,” announced Eng, and for once, Chang led the laughter.

  “Who’s going to be referee?” asked Zip, forming the words slowly.

  “Why, yours truly, of course,” Barnum said.

  “You madman, they’re going to hurt each other!”

  “Jenny, that is the object of a fight.”

  Joe Gallagher was getting his jacket off.

  “Charlie, you come down when you’re ready.”

  He wanted to take his jacket off, too, Barnum noted gleefully. He had known Charlie for more than twenty years, and if Charlie had ever been in a fight, Barnum did not know it. Barnum planned to pull the combatants apart just as soon as a decisive blow was struck. Charlie was going to lose, surely, but he had left Barnum with no other way out that did not also strip Charlie of his dignity. Business was business, and a Charlie who was contented and working put food on Barnum’s table.

  Now Charlie started down the stairs. The noise of the spectators rose. Jenny moved toward the door, but it was locked now and one of Barnum’s agents blocked the way. It was no time for Barnum to take his eyes off Charlie and Gallagher, who was watching Charlie slowly, deliberately, descend the stairs. Charlie did not want to show fear. Lavinia appeared behind him, at the top of the stairs.

  “Don’t fight him, honey! You’re only going to get hurt!”

  “Stay where you are! You didn’t hear what he said about you!”

  “Of course I heard, I was standing right there. I don’t care about that—Barnum! Do something!”

  “I am. It’s going to be a good, clean fight.”

  “And short,” Eng said, repeating his joke. “Who wants to put money on the General? I’ll take Commodore Nutt.”

  “No betting,” Barnum commanded.

  Gallagher had been in fights before, for he was staying well back from the staircase, poised but not tense. He was a shrewd little customer, and Barnum would have difficulty replacing a dwarf so knowledgeable in the ways in the world. Charlie had told Barnum enough of what had gone on between Gallagher and Lavinia, whom Charlie had taken for granted too long and too often. She and Gallagher had exchanged their sad tales, Gallagher commiserating with her and then capitalizing on her feelings of neglect. In telling her his story, he stretched a fact here and invented a new anecdote there—a very shrewd customer, and charming too, apparently. But selfish, demanding, manipulative, and finally, a drunk. The world was full of men like him, large and small. By the time Lavinia could clearly see the future, she had already seen all the best of Gallagher’s tricks, and they weren’t worth the price of joining him in his long slide toward obl
ivion. Barnum’s mother had taught him that there were only two kinds of women, those built for speed and those for comfort, and her wisdom seemed applicable to men—in this case, even men who had not grown up to her apron strings.

  Charlie ran down the last few steps and leaped for Gallagher, who evaded him and pushed him down. People shouted encouragingly, enthusiastically. Gallagher backed away as Charlie got to his feet and stormed him again. Gallagher raised his arms to ward off Charlie’s flailing blows. It was true, Charlie had never been in a fight before. The crowd cheered him on, or urged Gallagher to retaliate. Gallagher stood a head taller than Charlie and outweighed him by at least a dozen pounds. He was biding his time, and not incidentally, allowing all to see who was the aggressor.

  Now he struck, stepping toward Charlie and to his own left, putting his weight behind his right arm, which lashed out with stunning swiftness. His fist caught Charlie flush on the nose—Charlie’s arms were wide apart and it was possible to see his face, his pain, and his chagrin. His fight was over and he knew it. Gallagher banged the side of Charlie’s head with a clanging left and Charlie went down as blood appeared from his nostrils. He looked like he was five years old again, and as Barnum rushed in and pushed Gallagher aside, Charlie, down on his backside, reached up for Barnum exactly the way a child reaches for a parent. Barnum scooped him up as the blood really began to flow, but he looked over to the door, where Jenny was taking advantage of the guard’s distraction to unlock the door and let herself out to the street.

  “It’s broke, Barnum,” somebody said. “His nose is broke.”

  A handkerchief came up and Barnum wiped some of the blood away. “You’re a jerk, Charlie.”

  “I had to do it, Barnum,” came the bubbly reply, “I ain’t sorry.”

  He still wanted to be tough. Barnum handed him to one of his men. “Get to a hospital. Pay any amount.”

  Gallagher was pulling at Barnum’s trouser leg. “He walked right into it. I didn’t hit him that hard.”

  “Yes, you did, but I can’t blame you. You go about your business and you won’t have any trouble from me.”

  From Barnum’s tone, Gallagher could understand that very little was being promised—one misstep, and he was through. Well, perhaps not, for Barnum was wondering if there was any money to be made with a dwarf who could throw a perfect punch. He decided to get Gallagher out of town until tempers cooled—he would attend to the details later.

  Now Lavinia appeared before him. “Since you’re not coming to the hospital with your number one star, maybe you ought to chase down the street after your latest flame.”

  “Last Friday, Lavinia, you would have had trouble making the same decision yourself.”

  “Well, just remember that she played a part in all this.”

  Anna had told him: Jenny called the World’s Most Beautiful Midget, as Barnum billed her, and which was probably true, “Little Miss Lascivious.” A bad pun, and now, even worse history. “We all did, and the only one who could be sorrier about it than me is you.”

  She didn’t like it; too bad, because he did not think he could have been more honest. “Barnum,” she said, “Charlie and I are going to be married.”

  “In due time, my dear, in due time.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  He patted her head. “Follow your man, Lavinia, he’s more in love with you than he knows how to say. Tomorrow, when you have time, read your contract.”

  He left her, and shouldered through the crowd. Either direction he took—he wasn’t thinking of which way Jenny Lind had fled—he was making a mistake. Charlie was his biggest moneymaker over the long run; Jenny, for all he knew, had already decided that she had had enough of Barnum and his absurd enterprises. He needed her to get him out of the debt into which securing her services had put him. But there was so much more: she was—magic! Was it possible that she still misunderstood him? At this point, he was more willing to believe that she did not want to understand him.

  He had to look up and down and up Broadway again before he saw her, on the other side of the street, at the next intersection, hurrying away.

  “Jenny!”

  She looked back, but kept going. He started after her. When he was half a block behind her, he called her again, and she stopped and waited for him. She was in tears.

  “That was the worst thing I ever saw in my life,” she sobbed. “They wanted to gamble on who would win the fight.”

  “Men always gamble on fights. Men gamble on everything.”

  “They aren’t men,” she said.

  “Don’t say that. You know better. What made them seem less than human tonight was the fact that they were behaving like everybody else, and that included Charlie—”

  “You always have an answer!”

  “Including Charlie! He was in a rage tonight. No one could have controlled him, except by force.”

  “Why didn’t you use it?”

  “Because I wasn’t going to strip him of his dignity. Even now, when his size inconveniences people, they pick him up and carry him—”

  “He likes it! I’ve seen him!”

  “Most of the time he can make his peace with it. But not tonight, not in the frame of mind he was in.”

  “He could have been killed.”

  “No, I don’t think so. Gallagher is a selfish drunk, but he’s not crazy.”

  She started walking away again. He ran after her.

  “I can’t keep chasing after you,” he said.

  “Then don’t.” She stopped. “What did Gallagher say to Charlie?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  “Surely it could not have been so bad.”

  “Charlie’s a midget, in perfect proportion. So is Lavinia. Joe Gallagher is a dwarf. Some parts of his body are small; some, like his head, are the size of a normal man’s; and still others—I have this on good authority—are somewhat larger than normal—”

  She sneered. “You are disgusting. You revel in knowing disgusting things. I cannot accept what you said about Hans Andersen.”

  “You turned it away with a joke, but I knew you didn’t like it. I haven’t said anything about it since, have I?”

  She started walking again. “Always an answer. What do you want of me, Barnum?”

  “I’m not thinking like that.”

  She stopped and glared at him. “Can you? Can you think about leaving your wife?”

  “I am thinking about that. Before I met you, I didn’t know if I was capable of what I feel for you now, this very minute. I’m in love with you, I know I am.”

  “Then why can’t you understand me? Why don’t you even try to undertand me?”

  “I am trying. In fact, I think I understand you better than you understand me—”

  “You only think so! You frighten mel Don’t you understand that? You frighten me!” Now she ran off, and he had to puff after her.

  “Please don’t do this!”

  She turned again, and saw the torment on his face. “I love you, Barnum. I never loved anybody the way I love you!”

  “I love you, too, Jenny.”

  They kissed, and then she said, “At least there will be one wedding. When will Charlie and Lavinia be married?”

  “Next year.”

  “Why do they want to wait so long?”

  “I don’t know if they want to or not, but they’re going to. I can’t give their wedding proper attention while we’re on tour, and then it would have to compete for the public’s attention with the election. Better to wait until after the first of the year. It will be a better draw.”

  “You mean it’s just another attraction to you?”

  He shrugged. “They’re under contract.”

  “Barnum, marriage is one of God’s holy sacraments! You don’t try to make money from it!”

  “Everybody will want to see the ceremony. As for the sacramental business, Charlie and Lavinia have been enjoying that part of it for a long time now.”


  “You make a mockery of everything!” And she was running again—and he was chasing her.

  And the next morning, because he had not been around to deal with the press, the newspapers had the story of Charlie’s fistfight and the juicy cause of it all right up there on page one—where the scandal would drive Jenny Lind right out of the public’s imagination.

  15.

  Receipts for the fourth New York concert were better than those for the third, more than fourteen thousand dollars against twelve thousand dollars. The fifth concert drew twelve thousand dollars, and the sixth, the last of the first New York series, grossed more than sixteen thousand dollars. Wisely Barnum had determined to leave New York and return after Jenny’s national celebrity was assured. After four performances in Boston, one in Providence, three more in Boston, and three in Philadelphia, she would be back in New York for fifteen dates—more than five weeks—after which she would return to Philadelphia for four dates, move on to Baltimore for four, and then continue south to Washington, Richmond, Charleston, and finally Havana, Cuba.