“What mess?”
“Between Nutt and Stratton. Although Nutt is the worst. That boy is so maddening with his looks and sighs.”
“So you’ve made your mind up?”
“What do you mean?”
“Between the two. You’ve settled on Charles?”
“I’ve done no such thing!” I turned my head and, perched upon two velvet cushions as if I was an expensive bauble, gazed out the carriage window. We were rumbling over the cobblestones of Fifth Avenue, whose tall, imposing buildings were all dark and looming, while the round streetlights shone bright pools of light upon the clean sidewalks (relatively clean, that is, compared to the sidewalks in less desirable parts of town). The streets were quieter this time of night, but of course they were never completely free of carriages and wagons and carts; the rumbling of wheels upon cobblestones never ceased.
“Ah, Vinnie, what are you waiting for?” Mr. Barnum removed his spectacles and massaged the red indentation on the bridge of his nose; he looked weary, especially in the grainy shadows of the carriage. Weary and older, somehow; he was only in his early fifties, but he had lived more than one lifetime. Successes, bankruptcies, more successes: He had built palaces only to see them burnt to the ground. In the 1850s, he even temporarily lost ownership of his American Museum. It was then that Charles Stratton had volunteered to go out on tour again, bringing in enough money that Mr. Barnum was able to buy it back.
I often forgot this part of his life, this rocky, unsettled business of buying and selling and betting on the taste of the public. He put on such a good face, even to me. But sometimes he dropped that mask to reveal his uncertainty and weariness; those were the moments I most cherished.
I frowned; he did not look at all well. “Are you eating properly? Getting exercise?”
“Yes, m’dear, I am.”
“I don’t believe you. Is Charity taking care of you? How is she these days?” I still had not met his wife.
“She is as usual. You realize I have three daughters to fuss and fidget over me; I don’t need a fourth, Vinnie.” He said it kindly, but there was a hint of frost in his voice, in his gaze; it was a warning.
“I assure you, I have no desire to be thought of as one of your daughters,” I replied with my own chilly attitude.
There was an uncomfortable pause, which he broke first; he always did. Mr. Barnum could not long stand silence.
“All right, then. Now, about your future—”
“What about it? You’re not thinking of kicking me out of the Museum already, are you?”
“Heavens, no—the very idea! Tell me, Vinnie, how old are you? Twenty-one?” Now he sounded very much like a father, and I did not like it. But I nodded, my cheeks burning, as any lady’s would at the mention of her age.
“I know things seem as if they’ve just begun for you, and of course you want to enjoy them, but you cannot ignore the fact that you have two highly eligible suitors vying for your hand. It’s cruel to allow them to go on in this way.”
I shook my head, closed my eyes, and sank against the plush cushioned seat; how romantic, how sweet—how very ordinary—it sounded when put that way! How unlike my life, the life with which I was so acquainted, the life that Mama had wept over, late at night, as I lay sleeping with my sister.
“They are simply two ridiculous, spoiled boys playing a game, and I happen to be the prize. Yet no one has asked what I want.” I opened my eyes, considering Mr. Barnum. He was my confidante, my mentor; he was the person I thought of when I went to bed, and the person I looked forward to seeing when I opened my eyes, eager to begin the day. How quickly he had assumed that place in my life!
“What do you want, Vinnie?” He smiled down at me; in the carriage, we could not sit knee to knee.
“I—I want—” What did I want? Oh, so many things; what didn’t I want? What didn’t I desire? It was because I wanted that I had left home in the first place, shunning the simple life my family so happily led.
Yet there was one thing—one simple, ordinary thing—that I did desire; I hadn’t known it until recently.
I wanted, to my great astonishment, to be loved. I wanted to be cared for, desired, not desiring; I wanted to be cherished not for my size, not for anything other than for my heart, my mind—just like any woman.
But I wanted these things not from any man; I wanted them from a great man, a man worthy of me. And this was the one thing I knew that I could never have—a great love. I must settle for something else—someone less, in every way. I must settle for a love in miniature. I did not quite know how to do that—settle; it was not a lesson I had ever bothered to learn.
“You’ve orchestrated this whole thing!” I burst out, tears suddenly in my eyes, my anger at what I could not have lashing out at the one thing I wanted. “You brought Charles Stratton to New York, filling his head with that business nonsense! You egged on poor Nutt. You’ve thrown me in the company of these two time and again, encouraged them both, planted items in the paper—oh, don’t try to pretend that you haven’t! And you’ve played with us, as if we were your own personal set of marionettes. You know,” I said, struggling to sort through my various emotions, all jumbled up like a ball of twine, “I was once nearly sold to a man. In New Orleans. Colonel Wood was offered five hundred dollars to give me to him. So he could do whatever he pleased with me. Whatever! It did not matter to him; I did not matter! Only the money that he could receive for it mattered to him.”
“Vinnie, that’s—that’s—”
But I would not listen to his protests. “That’s what? Appalling? Immoral? Illegal? Yet what you are proposing isn’t that very far off, is it? Is it?” I wrapped my arms about my shoulders, rocking myself, suddenly desperate for an answer, and not just any answer. The correct answer. I needed to know he was not like Colonel Wood, after all.
“Vinnie, excuse me for speaking plainly, but I sometimes forget that you have a heart. Now, don’t take offense!” Mr. Barnum raised his hand, anticipating my horrified protest. “I mean that as a compliment. Your mind is so sharp, you’re so terrifyingly intelligent and driven—well, you’re a lot like me, I like to think, which is why we get along so well. So please accept my apology, for I have no wish to cause you distress or pain; I’m not like that cousin of yours, who ought to be taken out and shot for the scoundrel that he is. We’ll not discuss the matter further. I truly believed you were enjoying the situation, the attention.”
Sniffing—trying to dab the cursed tears from my eyes, for, perversely, I had an intense desire for him not to see me as just another woman—I turned and stared out the window. He did the same thing, and we rode along in silence for a few minutes.
“I’ve seen it, too, you know,” I said at last, my voice thick with swallowed tears—and pride.
“Seen what?”
“I’ve seen the way people look at me when I’m with those two. I’ve seen the glances, heard the whispers, the ridiculous romantic sighs. Individually, we will all do well. But matched up, there is the possibility of something beyond what any of us have ever imagined. I’m not wrong, am I?” Finally I turned to face him, once again feeling composed, rational—just like him.
Mr. Barnum regarded me levelly. “No, Vinnie, you are not wrong. I’m very glad you understand this. I don’t believe either of the other two does, however, and that’s not a bad thing. They are both truly smitten with you; please don’t forget that—please don’t forget that you have a great deal of feminine charm. I may be good at selling, but I have yet to find a way to sell the heart on something it truly doesn’t want. I wish to goodness I had,” he grumbled, a sudden sadness in his voice. And I knew he was thinking of someone else; I knew, too, whom that someone was. I’d only ever seen him look so appealingly sad at one other person—
Jenny Lind, whose portrait he kept in his library, whose photograph he kept on his desk at the Museum. I turned away, sickened by my insight; oh, what good was a brain like mine if it didn’t allow me to have any illus
ions? For I knew he would never, ever look at me in this way. Yet—
Charles Stratton did.
“Charles and Nutt are smitten with me because neither has ever seen an attractive woman his own size before,” I muttered sourly.
“Again, Vinnie, don’t disparage yourself. Could it possibly be that they both simply enjoy being with you—as do I?” Mr. Barnum smiled at me, but there was no trace of longing or regret in it, and I decided, right then, never to look for that trace again. I was a busy woman; I had no time to keep looking for something I would never find.
“Very few people marry whom they truly want, do they?” I looked at him levelly. He did not contradict me.
Instead, he asked, “And so you do wish to marry?”
“I can see the benefits of a marriage like this, for a life such as I have chosen. It is a difficult life for a woman alone, even under your management.” I thought of how it had felt to have someone beside me as I signed my photographs and met notable strangers; I had felt a measure of safety that I had never experienced before. Also a measure of respectability: I would never again have to fear the likes of the anonymous man in New Orleans, if I were a married woman. “I think I could make it work,” I continued boldly, but couldn’t bring myself to look at him. “We all have to settle for something—less, eventually. Don’t we?”
There was a silence. A long, ponderous silence that told me all I needed to hear.
“So.” I cleared my throat and nodded decisively. “We compensate with other things. I will expect the biggest wedding New York has ever seen. And I choose Charles Stratton, for your information. Nutt is a posturing little boy, but that is all.”
Mr. Barnum had laughed when I mentioned my ambitions for the wedding, but he turned very serious when he heard my choice. “Vinnie, I feel I must ask if you are at least fond of him. For Charlie is my friend. I’ll not have you hurting him by being cruel or indifferent.”
“Have you asked him the same thing about me?”
“No. But Charlie isn’t like us; he’s all heart, and he needs genuine affection. As smitten as he is with you, I give you my word—I’ll not condone this thing if I think, for one moment, that you’ll be cruel to him.” Mr. Barnum spoke so quietly, so plainly, that I was startled; I hadn’t realized how devoted he was to Charles. It touched me; it touched my heart, which was in danger of icing over, so much was I determined to neglect it for other, more practical matters.
“I needed to hear that,” I admitted, returning the compliment of honesty. “I needed to be reminded of that. You have my word, I’ll be kindness itself. I cannot promise to love him. But I can promise to care for him. I do have that capacity, although I’m not entirely sure you believe me.”
“Vinnie, Vinnie, my dear girl. I believe anything you tell me; I believe in you. More than I can adequately express.”
We smiled at each other, and then he leaned forward and for a moment—oh, such a brief, precious moment—he placed his hand upon my face, gentle as a sigh. It was the first time he had touched me like this; indeed, it was the first time any man had touched me so reverently, tenderly. I shut my eyes, hoping to memorize his touch; I knew it would have to last me a long time. A lifetime.
Then I looked up at him with a bright, capable smile upon my face; continuing to discuss the matter, we both swore we would never repeat our conversation to anyone. We both knew the value of romance as a marketing tool; we also knew we did not want to hurt Charles.
Should you care to read further about the details of my engagement to Charles Stratton, or General Tom Thumb, Mr. Barnum’s autobiography provides a very interesting, entertaining account. It was the story that the world—and Charles himself—came to believe. It was the story that both Mr. Barnum and I told him, individually and together, through our actions and our words; you would be hard-pressed to find better actors than Phineas Taylor Barnum and Lavinia Warren, working together.
It was a story of a bashful maiden reluctant, at first, to all overtures on the part of the dashing, beloved hero, a story of a benevolent friend who slyly arranged to help the hero overcome all obstacles and win the fair maiden’s hand.
It was a romantic story, a true fairy tale; Charles always did enjoy those. He never lost his little boy’s eagerness for happily-ever-after endings. Neither did Presidents, Queens, newspaper magnates, shopgirls, Vanderbilts, and Astors.
Neither did a world sickened and weary of war, we were all soon to discover.
INTERMISSION
An advertisement in The New York Times, January 18, 1863—
BARNUM’S AMERICAN MUSEUM—
Now or Never! The wedding is positively fixed for TUESDAY, Feb. 10th, on which the world-renowned Chas. S. Stratton, known as TOM THUMB, will be married to little MISS LAVINIA WARREN THE QUEEN OF BEAUTY, who has been visited and admired by over TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE, every one of whom pronounced her THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MODEL OF A WOMAN … see her NOW OR NEVER as her engagement ends with her NUPTIAL CEREMONY …
[ ELEVEN ]
In Which Our Heroine Finds True Love at Last
MY DEAR FRIEND DID NOT HESITATE A MOMENT BEFORE capitalizing on our engagement; as soon as Charles placed the ring upon my finger, the unbelieving grin upon his face thawing my increasingly icy heart a fraction, he was appearing with me at the Museum. Between my levees, we both appeared in the Great Hall, selling our individual cartes de visites—and reminding everyone that, soon, there would be photographs of us together to purchase. The crowds were endless, the excitement palpable; never had I experienced anything like it. Policemen had to be called in to keep the crowds at bay as we entered the hall, and to keep the lines for our photographs orderly.
There were moments when I paused and looked around, trying to absorb the scene, the frenzy, trying to make sense of it all. How was it that just a month ago, I was excitedly preparing for my little reception at the St. Nicholas Hotel?
Now everywhere I looked I saw faces, happy shining faces, smiling down at me, calling my name; even in my dreams I saw outstretched hands, all wanting to shake mine, clamoring for my signature, clutching my photograph. The noise, the chatter, was incessant, and at night, when I was blessedly alone in my hotel room, my ears still rang from it. My neck ached alarmingly, as there were simply so many more people to see. It was as if Charles and I were one pebble, tossed into a pond, staring up in astonishment at the ever-widening ripples caused by our presence.
I had always looked up, of course; that was my natural position, just as a flamingo stands on one leg or an otter swims on its back. But for the first time, I was so acutely aware of the strain it put on me—my muscles always knotted, both at the base of my skull and where my neck met my shoulders. And my hand, my tiny, delicate hand! I thought it had ached before! Now, so crushed it felt at the end of the day, I finally decided to carry a nosegay, so that my hands might be occupied and thus not available for shaking.
And through it all, through this outpouring of joy and heartfelt wishes for our future—even then, I knew that our union had struck a chord in a nation heartsick of casualty lists—a stranger was by my side. A man who tucked his arm in mine to escort me wherever we went; a man who sat beside me while we signed photos, our elbows often bumping, my skirts often draped over his knee; a man who, in the rare moments we were alone, sighed and whispered my name, brushed his lips against my cheek, held me in a clumsy embrace. Very tentatively, as if he were seeking permission, which he was.
And it was up to me to bestow it; it was up to me to put him at ease, to blushingly return his shy affection, his timid glances. I had to pretend to be thrilled by his trembling, fumbling caresses, so thrilled that I might desire to return them myself, one day. One far-off day, a day I could not yet bring myself to imagine. And because I could not, I concentrated solely on the now; telling myself that at least we had this astonishing experience to bond us together, and hoping that perhaps it would be enough of a foundation to build a believable marriage. Believable to him, to my family,
to my public.
For myself, I did not hold out such hope.
Marriage. I truly could not comprehend it. Right now, it was just the curtain that would soon fall upon a very elaborate, precisely plotted play. What happened after the principals retired backstage, I simply could not imagine.
I don’t believe Charles could, either, and this somehow gave me courage. He was such a creature of the public; he had grown up knowing no other life. I suspected he viewed everything as a performance, even the act of brushing his teeth or combing his hair. So that his idea of marriage was no more real than mine; we had that, at least, to unite us.
And so I continued my part in this elaborate play and, little by little, day by day, I began to enjoy myself; perhaps, like Charles, I even began to believe it was real. I started each morning hungrily scouring the newspapers for articles and illustrations about us, and I was never disappointed. The Civil War was still raging, but you would not know it by looking at the front pages of the New York newspapers; body counts and war maneuvers were displaced by articles about my upcoming nuptials. When I went to Madame Demorest to be fitted for my wedding gown, I was accompanied by two lady reporters who enthusiastically described my bridal finery. (Oh, it was beautiful; an exquisite concoction of white satin and lace with a flowing train, decorated with pearls and beads!) I also modestly released such details of the rest of my trousseau as Mr. Barnum felt necessary, as well as illustrations of my jewels. Mr. Barnum took care of releasing the details of everything else.
He, of course, oversaw the entire operation; it was his gift to us—and to himself.
“Vinnie, Charlie, now, who are you going to have as your wedding party?” Mr. Barnum asked us one evening, after the Museum had closed. We were in his office, both of us exhausted; Charles was too tired even to hold my hand, as he did, much like Minnie, whenever he was near me. In fact, I was beginning to think of him in much the same way as I did my beloved sister: someone just a little more delicate, just a little more innocent, than I was. Someone in need of my constant protection, perhaps more in need of protection than he was of my love.