The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [125]
But I did not need them right now; I was content to give them away. I was content to simply be—with another. With Mr. Barnum.
We sat like that for a long while, as the carriage indeed took the long way around Bridgeport, swaying rhythmically, hypnotically. The clap of the horses’ hooves against the hard, frozen streets was muffled by the sound of my own heartbeat, Mr. Barnum’s breathing, the faint tick of his pocket watch hidden beneath layers of fur, wool, and understanding. It would be all right, I thought drowsily; Minnie would be all right. I had someone to help me, someone who understood.
Someone who didn’t need me to be strong. This was such a novel sensation, I didn’t quite know what to do with it. But given time, I thought, as I nestled farther into Mr. Barnum’s welcoming arms, I could learn.
I WAITED OUTSIDE MINNIE’S ROOM; DR. FEINWAY WAS THROUGH examining her and had stepped out onto one of the balconies with a cigar. I had held Minnie’s hand as she bravely allowed him to measure her abdomen, her hips; as he listened to her heart, felt her pulse, put a strange tubelike contraption against her stomach, which had distended alarmingly in just the last couple of weeks, since my return from Bridgeport.
In that short time she had changed from a slender, delicate reed to a puffy, swollen thing. Her ankles and wrists were no longer separate, defined entities but rather ugly extensions of her arms and legs. Her body was already stretching to absorb this child, and to my unpracticed yet worried eyes, it looked as if it couldn’t stretch much more.
But she was happy, despite her obvious physical discomfort. She smiled all the time, when she wasn’t retching over a chamber pot or falling into a deep, exhausted sleep in the middle of the day.
“Mrs. Stratton.” Dr. Feinway beckoned to me from the other end of the hall; I slid off my chair and followed him.
Charles suddenly popped out of his room, blocking my path. He held a stick of wood in one hand, a miniature carving tool in another. “Vinnie, I’m making a spinning top for the baby, do you want to see? Your father showed me how to carve it!”
“Later, dear.” I patted his arm. “I’ll look at it later. Right now I need to discuss something with the doctor.”
“Oh.” His face, which had been smooth and happy with his accomplishment, clouded over just a bit, which wasn’t much. A lifetime of pleasing the public had ironed out most of the muscles necessary to frown. “Minnie is all right, isn’t she?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll tell you all about it later.” I gently nudged him aside and joined the doctor, leading him down the stairs and into the library, which Charles had designed in almost perfect imitation of Mr. Barnum’s own. Once the doors were closed, Dr. Feinway refused my offer of a seat; he was obviously agitated, so I could do nothing but remain standing, looking up at him with my neck at an uncomfortable angle. But he did not appear to notice how awkward this was for me.
“Where is Mr. Newell?” he asked abruptly.
Evading his piercing gaze, I busied myself with straightening a doily upon a table. “He is up in Boston for the day, on business.” I did not reveal that I had sent him there; I fully intended to discuss the situation with him after I had all the facts from the doctor. But Edward believed everything Minnie told him—if she had said the sky was yellow, he would have accepted it as fact; his head, not to mention his heart, was not steady enough to hear or speak plainly.
“Well, I would have preferred to have him here. But there is no time, not even for delicacy, so forgive me, Mrs. Stratton. Your sister appears to me to be carrying a normal-size child; according to her calculations, it’s still early,