Jenny and Barnum

by Roderick Thorp

  “See here, Barnum, I want to know what you’re going to pay me for looking after the troupe.”

  The crowd guffawed; people thought it was part of the show. Barnum eyed them slowly and then took hold of his coat lapels, like a politician. “Why, I thought I’d pay you the regular rate.” He didn’t know what Tom Thumb had on his mind. If the little General wanted to play it as a comic turn, Barnum, as always, was willing to go along.

  “Well, I suppose I should be grateful,” Tom Thumb said loudly, playing to the audience. “Given my size, I thought you were going to offer me half the regular wages.”

  Barnum waited for the laughter to subside. “If that’s the way you want it, General, it certainly can be arranged.”

  “No, sir! Knowing what a cheapskate you are, that’s what I was afraid of. No, if I’m going to do the job of a full-sized man, I’m going to have to work twice as hard as he would—and I think you ought to pay me accordingly, and I make that to be double!”

  The crowd cheered, whistled, and hooted. Tom Thumb stepped back and performed a sweeping bow.

  “Pay him!” they shouted. “Pay his price!”

  “I thought we were partners, you little field mouse,” Barnum growled through his teeth.

  “We are partners,” Tom Thumb said for everyone to hear, “and this minority partner votes to pay the little fellow what he demands.”

  “Pay, Barnum!” the crowd shouted. “Pay!”

  People started to clap rhythmically, and Barnum raised his hands. “I give up. For once, boys, I’ve been outsmarted!” They cheered, and hats were thrown in the air. Barnum leaned close to Tom Thumb. “As for you, you human canapé, your next appearances will be before the Apache and Comanche Indians.”

  “Don’t kid me, you fat tub,” Tom Thumb whispered. “Paying me double wages will save you twice as much as you would have spent on a traveling secretary’s expenses.”

  “The Jenny Lind proposition is going to put me in a bad way!”

  “Stop your bellyaching. The only reason you take such chances is to avoid an honest day’s work.”

  Barnum smiled. Tom Thumb smiled. They shook hands and the crowd cheered again. It was a grand time, and everybody thought it was part of the show. The cheering went on, spreading down the gangplanks to the pier, where people cheered, too, although not knowing why. But they cheered all the same.

  Whatever the contents of Jenny Lind’s letter in his pocket, Tom Thumb felt in a similarly expansive mood this morning. Last night had been good—the show had been good, Emperor Franz-what’s-his-name had greeted them warmly. Best of all, Tom Thumb had had Lavinia to himself, Joe Gallagher ducking out of the reception early, once again seeing that the star of the show, wherever in the world it played, was the smallest man in the world, Tom Thumb.

  The little General had his other suspicions about Joe Gallagher, his activities, and what his sudden departures actually meant. So far there was no proof, but if Gallagher was debauching himself in brothels all over Europe as Tom Thumb suspected, then he was a menace to the reputations of them all and a candidate for a one-way ticket back to San Francisco. No matter. Last night Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren had been together—alone—for hours. Like any other successful lover, Tom Thumb felt on top of the world—drained by the process, naturally, and a little guilty, but happy to the point of giggling nevertheless.

  He was dressed for travel, in black walking shoes, white spats, pearl gray trousers, a gray Chesterfield, and a black silk top hat—taken together, a tiny fraction of the custom wardrobe that cost many thousands of dollars every year to maintain. The hotel dining room was open but still empty, the gaslights on as if prepared for dinner instead of breakfast. The Barnum troupe had its own specially prepared large table in the corner, the General’s chair built up with his own custom designed, firm, square cushions. Hotel dining room people all over Europe were now so accustomed to the troupe that they could handle all its unusual requirements with aplomb. Such professionalism, when it appeared, was one of Tom Thumb’s few comforts when he was touring Europe.

  The captain steadied Tom Thumb’s chair as the tiny man climbed up. “Coffee at once, sir?”

  For a moment Tom Thumb forgot where he was, and thought the man meant American coffee. But no. Tom Thumb nodded. “Let me have half a scrambled egg, half a slice of toast, and one slice of bacon, too.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  At twenty-seven, Tom Thumb had reached the time of his life when even a little overeating resulted in added weight. Staying trim made him look smaller, of course, but now he had another reason for eating lightly—Lavinia, who liked him trim.

  The sky was beginning to glow. Too much of Europe left Tom Thumb feeling on edge and unhappy, from the shorter winter days to all the languages, customs, kings, queens, and emperors. The only way to understand such a complicated and uncomfortable setup was to remember that it had taken hundreds, even thousands, of years to evolve.

  That didn’t make it any easier to bear, however. On a travel day like this Tom Thumb would have a dozen stupid misunderstandings before the troupe reached its destination. What if Chang and Eng’s clothing disappeared? Their jackets, trousers, and coats were all different from clothes for ordinary people, and the original patterns were at their tailor in New York. The General, Lavinia, and Gallagher had irreplaceable equipment, from scaled-down props and musical instruments to cunningly constructed lightweight ladders and stools for use in their hotel rooms. And Anna Swan’s mattress was a full ten feet long, in case anyone wanted to challenge her height by surreptitiously measuring the length of her mattress.

  Tom Thumb ate his breakfast slowly, relishing his memories of last night. Whatever Jenny Lind had to say could continue to wait. Last night Lavinia had been willing to talk a little about what she had been going through since Joe Gallagher’s appearance in their lives. For the first time she had been able to say that she had taken a fancy to the slick, up-from-the-streets San Franciscan, with his stories of his scuffle for existence. Tom Thumb was not hurt or shocked, for the situation was one he had seen for himself months ago—that was when he had felt pain and anger. When Gallagher had disappeared from last night’s reception and Tom Thumb had seen his opportunity with Lavinia, he had promised himself not to press her or become demanding. He had been through that when Lavinia first started paying attention to Gallagher, driving her crazy and closer to Gallagher in the bargain.

  It wasn’t any wonder that Gallagher thought Tom Thumb a clown. For months he had behaved like one in spite of himself, and last night had been the first time he had been able to keep to his resolve to act the man he had been for Lavinia before Gallagher had come on the scene. Even so, she had been far too sensitive and wary, jumping to misunderstandings of his remarks two or three times. But they were lovers again, that was the important thing. He really loved her, as the Gallagher episode had taught him. And after last night, Tom Thumb was sure that Gallagher had never touched her.

  Now Tom Thumb read Jenny Lind’s letter.

  My dear General,

  Thank you so much for your promptness and consideration this afternoon. I enjoyed your company and admired your brief performance. It is easy to understand how you have become the most famous man in America. You deserve your fame!

  I have given Mr. Barnum’s proposal careful consideration and have weighed it against other opportunities I have been offered, here nearer Sweden, my native land, and England, my new home. I am sure you understand that business considerations must come before any other, under the circumstances.

  I would be grateful to you if you informed Mr. Barnum that the basic form of his proposal is acceptable; that is, a concert tour of 150 performances in the United States. I am sure he will be pleased with this acceptance.

  However, I am obliged to tell you, and ask you to tell Mr. Barnum, that my fee will have to be no less than $1,000 (American) for each performance, plus additional funds for my entourage, consisting of a conductor, a tenor, a traveling secre
tary, a maid for me, a valet for the men, all of my own choosing. Because of the problems we discussed during our meeting, it will be necessary for all such funds to be deposited with my guardian, Judge Munthe, prior to my embarkation for the United States. In addition, it must be understood that I do not sing any two nights in succession, as it is necessary for me to rest my voice, and that I require the best accommodations the various cities on the tour are able to provide.

  As I am eager for a quick resolution to these negotiations, I trust that you will communicate the above conditions of my agreement to Mr. Barnum as quickly as circumstances allow.

  Yours faithfully,

  (Miss) Jenny Lind

  Why, the moon-faced bitch! Not only had she deduced the highest price Barnum was willing to pay, she had also made it seem as if that incredible sum ($1,000 per night times 150 nights equaled $150,000—the highest fee offered any performer in history, Tom Thumb knew), plus wages and expenses for a royal entourage, was her just and reasonable reward!

  Tom Thumb was obliged to transmit her response to Barnum without comment or addendum. While Tom Thumb was an investor, he was also an agent, and bound by his promises to his employer. Now the sun broke over the rooftop, spilling a rosy light on the grim gray stone of Vienna. Tom Thumb supposed he was to regard it as an omen. Perhaps—but only if the color of the sun could be taken for blood—blood running out of Tom Thumb’s wallet!

  4.

  Barnum’s weighty reply to Jenny Lind’s counteroffer reached the little General in Antwerp, where the troupe was playing its last engagement on the Continent before returning to Britian for another six weeks’ round of performances through England, Scotland, and Wales. Seven weeks had passed since Tom Thumb carried Jenny Lind’s letter down to the Vienna railroad station and put it on the afternoon train to Paris, thinking, an afternoon wasted, wondering if the letter would not reach Barnum sooner if he took it south to Genoa and got it on the first Italian ship sailing for New York.

  That day, mailing the letter in Vienna and riding southward on the train, Genoa had all but faded from Tom Thumb’s mind when Barnum’s answer finally caught up with him. Barnum’s letter, almost as thick as a newspaper, had been forwarded through Madrid, Barcelona, Bordeaux, and Cherbourg, wasting another precious ten days. Barnum had told Tom Thumb in New York that time was critical because of the events unfolding in America, ominous signs for America’s social and political processes. A decision on the issue of slavery could be postponed no longer; the coming political campaign threatened to divide the country. Barnum judged the possibility of civil war remote—a whole series of events would have to occur before the question of war was even raised. Tom Thumb was not interested in politics; he had no idea of what was going to happen. While he wasn’t exactly willing to accept Barnum’s assessment of things, what frightened him was a man of Barnum’s age and understanding thinking that civil war was possible.

  But Barnum’s last words on the subject before Tom Thumb left for Europe were to the effect that slavery and the issue of the federal government versus the states were rapidly becoming excuses not so much for sectional hatred as pure-and-simple sectional belligerence. “War fever,” Barnum had called it.

  “What is going through people’s minds,” he said, “and more and more as time passes, is that war will shower them with romance, glory, and heroism. Charlie, people love to have pretty thoughts, these wonderful thoughts. It’s the same stupidity that lets someone like me make a living exhibiting the Feegee Mermaid. You’d think that even the worst barefoot farmboy moron would see the upper half of a monkey sewed to the lower half of a fish, but you’ve heard the customers arguing among themselves, trying to find explanations for the damned thing. They want to believe so much they can’t think straight. The suckers will agree to anything that draws them out of the routine of their lives. That normally harmless stupidity now draws us all toward another slaughter of the innocent.”

  Barnum thought he could make a fortune with Jenny Lind. Nothing like her—or her reputation—had ever been seen in America. “She’s the most famous woman in Europe after Queen Victoria, Charlie, and only because of the way she sings. But if a war starts, or gets too close, her singing won’t be worth a fart in a hurricane.”

  Tom Thumb could only stare. Barnum wanted to clean up quickly with Jenny Lind because he thought war was going to put him out of business altogether. He wanted to be able to lay up for a while. It was hard to imagine a war in New York, but if Barnum could imagine it so vividly that he was willing to take this incredible risk, then it was in Tom Thumb’s interest to pay closer attention to Barnum. The wonderful thing about Barnum was his imagination. He trusted and used it. “Our true sixth sense, Charlie,” he said. “Imagination. Don’t ever forget it.”

  But Tom Thumb did. He forgot often. Hefting Barnum’s envelope, realizing again how well Barnum knew the world, Tom Thumb found himself wondering how much Barnum had seen beforehand of the trouble this European tour would cause for his oldest pal and number one moneymaker, Charlie Stratton. For Tom Thumb in Antwerp, this tour had been an object lesson in just how much the desire to believe could cloud a man’s capacity for judgment. Even the worst barefoot farmboy moron would see the upper half of a monkey sewed to the lower half of a fish.

  After that last night in Vienna, Tom Thumb had stopped using his imagination. His desire to believe had left him as defenseless as the greenest rube wandering bug-eyed through Barnum’s American Museum. But wondering about Barnum’s insight into the situation only avoided Tom Thumb’s central problem.

  Lavinia remained just as intrigued with Joe Gallagher as ever, but for the last seven weeks or even since Vienna, she had been dishonest with Tom Thumb about it.

  Worse than that, she was still being dishonest with herself.

  Tom Thumb knew he could only blame himself as the principal architect—or, more aptly, conniver—of the situation. Casting about for someone else to blame, like Barnum, or even Lavinia herself, was the activity of a dope. Barnum had had something to say about that, too, around the time he quit drinking. “When you get a little older, Charlie, you’ll realize you’ve made most of your troubles. Youth ends when you see everything around you in ruins. Inexperience, stupidity, arrogance, whatever the reason, you’re the one responsible.”

  No whatever the reason in Tom Thumb’s case; it had been arrogance—oh, most surely. From Barnum’s first tentative words about having found a young, perfectly formed, very pretty woman midget in Ohio, Tom Thumb had assumed that she would succumb to him.

  Lavinia Warren. “I’m not going to change her name, Charlie,” Barnum had said. “It has a lovely warm sound to it now.” Tom Thumb was ready for weeks before she came to New York, so filled with his own ego even his English butler, Oliver, reacted to it, Oliver’s backbone twanging like a snapped sapling to the impatient, quarrelsome, whining commands of his master. After all, Tom Thumb was not only the first man in her life her size (well, a little shorter; in fact: Tom Thumb really was the smallest man ever) but also the richest, most successful, and most famous. It was going to be easy—and fun, too, because she was pretty, according to Barnum’s agents. Tom Thumb quizzed them about that, so much that word got back to Barnum, who gave Tom Thumb a kidding about it.

  The truth of the matter was that Lavinia turned out to be more difficult to seduce than Tom Thumb had imagined. It took months and months, ending at the Washington Hotel, in Louisville, Kentucky, with him tiptoeing down the corridor to her room after midnight, after the gaslights in the halls had been turned down to nothing more than tiny, flickering points of light.

  She was waiting for him in the darkness, wearing the costume in which she had closed the show less than two hours earlier. She was sitting on the sofa, motionless in her uncomprehending trust, having agreed to this, her feet barely reaching the forward end of the seat cushion. She was twenty-six years old, dressed as Little Bo Peep. He was in his dressing gown—he had thought that would impress her more. She let him kis
s her, having never really been kissed before. He had to teach her everything. As for him, he had been with many normal-sized women over the years—not all of them paid for, either. Years ago, when he had been seventeen or eighteen, and everybody thought he was twenty-two or twenty-three, Barnum started taking him to the very best, most discreet places. After he had learned his way around, Tom Thumb discovered that many normal-sized women were interested in slipping up to his room when no one was looking. As small as he was, he became so adept at passing his room key to young women that he could do it in a theater full of people, when he was moving among the audience and saying hello to people after a show.

  He had been with women his own size as well, but he had never been taken with any of them. Sad as it was, none had ever been so developed as a person as he was. They thought of themselves as freaks, or cursed, and after the first few experiences, the faintest hint of self-pity had him heading for the door. He was a star, known to everyone in the country; and he wasn’t going to put up with mewling and weeping from anybody. He got enough of it from the likes of Anna Swan and Chang and Eng.

  He knew how inexperienced she was, calculating that in his strategy; in fact, he was absolutely heartless about it, but not cold, because down deep he wanted her to love him. This was serious, he knew; he believed he was entering a new phase of his life, with her, because of her, through her. But now he understood that he believed he could have all of that—a whole new world—without involving his own emotions. Like the fools of whom Barnum spoke, his head was full of pretty thoughts, wonderful thoughts.