“I am not an animal,” Amelia said. “And I won’t stay in the tank all day, even if it means climbing out naked in front of all your precious ticket holders.”
“You can’t climb out if someone takes your jar of sand away,” Barnum said.
Levi started toward Barnum. He didn’t know what he was going to do—hit him? Levi wasn’t practiced in violence, but he’d never felt the impulse to it so strongly. Caroline’s voice drew him up before he could do something he might regret.
“That’s a terrible thing to say, Papa.”
The little girl’s eyes were enormous and so full of disappointment that Levi thought they must pierce the cash register Barnum had in place of a heart.
“Caroline, this is not business for you to hear,” Barnum said. “Charity, I told you to take her away.”
“No, Papa,” Caroline said, and ran to Amelia’s side. “Amelia is a mermaid. She’s not an animal, and you can’t treat her like one. If you do, she’ll run away, and I will, too.”
“Caroline, enough of this nonsense—”
“And so will I,” Charity said. “I will take the children and I will leave you.”
Barnum stared at Charity. “You can’t divorce me. You have no grounds.”
“I didn’t say I would divorce you. I said I would leave you.” Charity’s voice trembled and so did her hands, but she would not drop her eyes.
“Over this?” Barnum said, pointing to Amelia. He seemed barely able to speak, choking on his astonishment. “Over a mermaid?”
“Can’t you see she’s something wonderful, Taylor?” Charity said. “Can’t you see that she’s not a thing to be bought and sold? I know you want this museum to be a success. I know how hard you have worked your whole life to this end. But Amelia is not yours. She came here for her own reasons, and she will leave for her own reasons. Until then, you need to respect her as a partner, as a being who has her own will. You can’t put her in the tank and leave her there just because you want to sell more tickets.”
“And you agreed to her terms, Barnum,” Levi said. “I witnessed it.”
Barnum looked from Charity to Amelia to Levi to Caroline. He threw his hands into the air. “Let the lady have what she wants then. She wants a sign, I’ll make a sign.”
He left the exhibit without another word.
Levi wondered when his friend had become a newspaper cartoon, when Barnum’s love of money had overcome his humanity and his common sense. He’d always thought of Barnum’s avarice as a small part of his personality, something to laugh about but not truly characteristic. But it had become apparent that the mermaid had made him mad.
Charity crossed to Amelia and put her arms around her. Levi saw surprise, then joy, then a strange kind of sorrow on the mermaid’s face. She returned Charity’s embrace, her eyes closed, as Charity wept into her shoulder and said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over and Amelia murmured, “It’s all right, don’t cry now.”
Caroline wrapped her little arms around Charity’s and Amelia’s legs and pressed her face into her mother’s skirt and the three of them seemed so far away, so enmeshed in one another, that Levi had to leave the room. They didn’t notice him go.
* * *
• • •
They were all against him, Barnum thought. All of them! They all sided with the mermaid no matter what he did. He wished Moses were there. He could talk to Moses about his troubles, but Moses was back in Boston running his own museum.
He used to be able to talk to Levi, once upon a time. The boy had been his glad co-conspirator, full of mischief. He’d enjoyed pulling one over on the public with Joice Heth, at least at first.
Then the woman started saying she wanted peace, that she wanted to die. Levi hadn’t ever really forgiven him for not letting the woman go, or for charging an entrance fee to see Joice’s autopsy. He had extracted a promise from Barnum that it would never happen again.
And yet here they were, Barnum mused. He’d gone too far, just as he had with Joice Heth, and Levi was angry with him again.
He’d never seen Charity like that, either.
She would leave me—threaten to leave me—over a mermaid! When she never says boo to a goose most of the time. It had shocked him to see her like that, it truly had.
Couldn’t she see that he was only trying to make a good life for her and the children?
Still, perhaps it was unreasonable to expect the mermaid to perform all day. As she herself had pointed out, he didn’t expect it of his other performers.
But it was difficult, so difficult, to reconcile that thought with the money he imagined he would lose.
Do you want to lose your wife and children instead? The thought, unbidden, emerged from somewhere in the depths of his mind.
No, he didn’t want to lose them. There was nothing more embarrassing than a man whose wife left him, and the newspapers would surely get wind of it.
He felt something tight in his stomach unclench then. He would have to let the mermaid have her way. He couldn’t be at loggerheads with her and the others for the duration. He would just have to think of a way to make up the lost income while she was lounging about. Keepsakes, perhaps. Mermaid dolls? Or books about the mermaid?
Barnum felt a slow smile cross his face. Yes, he could still profit by her even if the mermaid wasn’t swimming in the tank. And her contract didn’t say anything about souvenirs. He wouldn’t have to share a cent with her.
CHAPTER 11
Three weeks later
The man had been watching her for too long.
Amelia usually avoided catching the eye of any one person in the crowd. The number of faces quickly became overwhelming, so she’d developed a technique of passing just over their heads with her gaze.
This gave the sense that she was looking at them, and perhaps even had looked directly at one person (she’d heard more than one delighted squeal of “She looked right at me!” even through the suppressing blanket of the water). The only exception was for children.
She made a special point of waving at them, doing tricks for them, and generally trying to convince them that she was not as frightening as she looked.
She didn’t want the children to be afraid of her. She wanted them to wonder at her, like Caroline did.
The man who’d stared too long stood just to the left of the front of the tank and far enough back that he hadn’t attracted the attention of the two guards. He was not very tall but he was extremely thin—his shoulders could hardly hold up the sleeves of his jacket. His face had the sharp angles of near-starvation.
Amelia could tell, even with her limited knowledge of such things, that the man’s coat was of good quality, so it was not poverty that kept the food from his mouth. His face was expressionless, but his eyes burned—burned with a passion that she thought she’d seen before.
There was a traveling preacher who’d passed by her cottage one day, a long time ago, and had tried to tell her of the Lord and the sinfulness of women and repentance and other things that sounded like nonsense to her and she’d told him so. His eyes had burned the same way the staring man’s did, lit by fire and righteousness.
The preacher wouldn’t stop shouting at her, so she’d gone inside her cottage and locked the door and made tea until he’d gone away to find some other woman to shout at.
This man wasn’t shouting, but he looked as though it might be a natural state for him. He looked as though he might share that traveling preacher’s ideas on the sinfulness of women and the need to repent.
Amelia glared at him and showed her teeth. Several people gasped at the sight, but the man appeared unaffected. Amelia decided it was best to ignore him as she had done with that preacher.
The saloon will be cleared soon, in any event, she thought. He’ll be shooed out with the crowd and that will be the end of that.
But whe
n she returned to the tank after her rest and a much-needed pot of tea, she discovered the man had returned also. He took up his spot again, staring at her, letting the crowd eddy around him. A few people looked at him askance, but for the most part he was invisible. Everyone was looking at the mermaid, and so no one noticed or cared about one strange individual who seemed fixated on the very being they wanted to see.
It was the same after every break for the remainder of the day. The staring man would be removed; when the crowd returned, so did he. As the day dragged on, Amelia found it difficult to pretend she didn’t see him there, and her eyes strayed more frequently to his corner.
I shall speak to Levi about him, she thought.
Levi had been released from his two-week isolation after “Dr. Griffin’s” return to London. The removal of the beard and the return of Levi’s American accent and plain dress seemed to be enough to convince everyone they were not the same person. Amelia understood now why people were so easily fooled by Barnum’s humbugs. No one observed closely enough to see the truth.
Since his return to the museum, Levi had been certain to stop and see Amelia throughout the day. Sometimes it was just a wave from the back of the moving throngs; sometimes he came in to see that she had enough food or drink or blankets when she was resting. He always waited for her at the end of the day, whistling outside the curtain while she labored into her clothes, and then escorted her to Barnum’s for dinner.
Since the day Charity had seen Amelia’s true self, Charity couldn’t do without her at the dinner table and for many hours after. Amelia was happy to be there with her, for now that the other woman had thawed, they spent many a happy evening side by side on the sofa in the parlor, playing games or whispering to each other like schoolgirls, with Caroline often their third conspirator.
Yes, she would tell Levi about the man. Levi could arrange to have the guards keep watch for him. There was little Amelia could do from inside the tank, especially since they were still maintaining the fiction that she could not speak.
Amelia was dressing at the end of the day when Levi called out to her.
“Nearly ready?” he asked.
Amelia hurriedly tucked her damp hair into a braid and emerged from behind the curtain.
Levi smiled when he saw her, but before he could ask about her day (a thing he liked to do, even though nearly every day was the same as the last and she said so) she told him about the staring man.
Levi frowned. “He was here all day? You’re certain?”
“Of course I am,” she said. “One could hardly miss him.”
“Well, the guards obviously did,” Levi said. “If he was standing there all day, then he must have kept circling around to the front and paying the entrance fee over and over. It’s not easy to return to this saloon—the flow of people means you can’t really double back, and surely it would have caused a noticeable fuss if he kept pushing against the crowd.”
“Why would anyone want to pay to stare at me all day?” Amelia asked.
“I have some ideas,” Levi said. “I’ve been half expecting something like this to happen. Although I thought there would be some editorials first, or demonstrating in the street while women wailed and men read from the Bible.”
“I thought he reminded me of that preacher,” Amelia murmured. “His eyes burned.”
“When we first proposed the exhibit, I was worried about the church ladies,” Levi said. “There’s a fair bunch of folks always concerned about indecency. Even if you are clearly not human when in the water I thought they might object to . . .”
He trailed off, then gestured awkwardly in the direction of his own chest.
“You thought they might object to my bare breasts?” Amelia said, her lips curving at his discomfort. “That might be true, but I think most people who see me just don’t think of me as human, or even half human. Especially the ones who have only seen me here at the museum. At the Concert Hall the audience saw me walk across the stage first. They were aware that part of me was human. Here they only see me as a—”
She stopped, because she hadn’t really considered this before, and now that she had, it bothered her.
“As a what?” Levi asked.
“As an animal in a cage,” Amelia said. She shook her head. “Barnum was right about that.”
Levi looked shocked. “You’re no animal, Amelia. Barnum was wrong.”
“I know I’m not,” she said. “It’s not that my feelings are hurt over it. But he was correct in that people would—and do—view me that way. That’s why you haven’t seen those ‘church ladies,’ as you call them. They’re not worried about the corruption of children. They just think I’m a clever fish who can do tricks.”
He frowned, obviously unhappy with her characterization of herself, but he didn’t pursue it. “I’m going to talk to Barnum about those guards of his. They’re perfectly fine at thumping heads, but they clearly can’t see trouble when it’s right in front of them. Describe this man to me and I will stay all day tomorrow. When I see him, I’ll have the guards remove him under some pretext.”
“Perhaps he won’t return tomorrow,” Amelia said, though without conviction. The staring man didn’t seem the type to go away without being told to do so.
Levi didn’t bother to contradict her.
Amelia did her best to be cheerful at dinner, but Charity glanced at her several times with a little frown and Amelia knew she hadn’t succeeded. Barnum’s wife waited until Caroline had left the table—attendance at the museum had tripled since Amelia’s arrival, which meant Charity was finally able to hire a nanny to help with the children—and then asked Amelia what was wrong.
“There was a man at the museum today. He was behaving in a very strange manner,” Amelia said carefully. She didn’t want Charity to worry, but she didn’t want Barnum to dismiss her concerns.
“What do you mean by ‘strange’?” Charity asked.
“He kept returning throughout the day, after every one of my resting periods,” Amelia said.
Barnum, who’d been perusing the evening papers in search of mentions of the museum, looked up at that. “Was he coming back into the saloon from the egress? I put those signs in the museum so that wouldn’t happen.”
He referred to the large signs posted near the exit of the last few saloons that read This way to the Egress. Barnum knew most folk didn’t know the meaning of the word and thought they were being led to a wonderful new exhibit. Instead they found themselves outside the museum with the new knowledge that egress meant exit.
Amelia shook her head. “No, he was following in with the first crowd every time the exhibit reopened. Then he would stand there for the duration until the doors closed.”
“He must have been paying the entrance fee every time he reentered,” Barnum said. He didn’t seem remotely concerned about the man’s behavior. If anything, he appeared pleased that one person would pay the ticket fee repeatedly.
“Barnum, why didn’t your guards notice this fellow?” Levi asked. “I thought you wanted them there to keep Amelia safe.”
Barnum appeared discomfited. “Of course. That is why I hired them. But it doesn’t appear that her safety was in danger. He didn’t approach the glass or threaten you in any way, correct?”
“No,” Amelia said. “I don’t think his behavior could be considered normal, though. His stare was quite uncomfortable.”
Barnum waved that away. “I can’t have a paying customer removed because he made you uncomfortable.”
The unsaid phrase was especially not one who is willing to pay for the privilege multiple times.
“Taylor,” Charity said with a glance at Amelia. “The man might be disturbed. If you won’t have him removed, then at least you might warn the guards about him.”
“Warn them about what?” Barnum said. “That he’s staring too long at the mermaid?”
<
br /> Amelia had been afraid of this: that Barnum wouldn’t take her seriously. He wouldn’t understand unless he saw the man’s eyes. His eyes were burning.
“I’m going to speak to the guards tomorrow,” Levi said, and said it in a way that brooked no further discussion.
“Be careful,” Barnum said. “I don’t want you drawing the attention of any of the crowd. Someone might remember you as Dr. Griffin.”
“There’s no worry about that,” Levi said. “We’ve said Dr. Griffin has returned to London, and anyway everyone is too busy looking at Amelia to care about me.”
“Just be cautious,” Barnum said. “Perhaps I should be the one to have a word with the guards. What did you say this man looked like?”
Amelia described the staring man (the burning man), though it was clear that Barnum was more concerned that someone might discover Levi was Dr. Griffin than about any danger the man might present to her.
“Taylor, perhaps Amelia should stay with us again,” Charity said. “I don’t like the idea of her alone at the hotel, especially now that Levi isn’t there any longer.”
“She’s got to stay there!” Barnum said. “Every day the reporters wait to see her, and then I have a chance to talk about the museum.”
Barnum had taken to walking Amelia from the hotel to the museum every morning. There were many fewer reporters now than there were three weeks ago; perhaps the newspapers no longer saw the value of a Barnum quote.
In any case, while the mermaid was still popular among the public, her attraction was dwindling for the reporters. There were only so many times one could describe her clothes, Amelia reflected, and since she would not talk, they had nothing else to write about.
Every day one or two out-of-town reporters appeared, but their remits were not indefinite. They stayed for a day or two, observed the exhibit, talked with the determined few who stuck it out in the hotel, and then left for their hometowns.
The Mermaid Page 17
