The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [142]
“It’s nonsense. He doesn’t know what he means,” I replied, trying to keep my voice even and pleasant, returning to my maps as if I wasn’t seething on the inside. Seething and longing, both—how dare he put Charles in the middle of our quarrel! Yet my fingers also itched to tear the letter away from Charles, pick up my pen, and answer it immediately, restoring our friendship, speaking my mind. Perhaps even locating my heart, if I could recall where I had placed it—probably in the trunk with all of Minnie’s things.
Minnie. Oh, how could I even think of going back to him, to the way things were before? Minnie might still be here if it wasn’t for him, and I knew that were I to be alone with him for just two minutes, he would make me forget that. He would sell me a new memory, for that was what he did. With P. T. Barnum, memories and dreams were available for only a quarter—unless you were smart enough to find your way to the Egress.
I must not have succeeded in hiding my turmoil, for Charles dropped the letter, wringing his hands in worry. “Oh, why are you two quarreling? I don’t understand! No one tells me anything, not you, not him! I miss him, Vinnie. Let’s go up to Bridgeport tonight and surprise him!”
“You can if you wish, dear.” Frowning, I drew a big circle around Middleborough; then I began to trace the rail lines leading away from it. “I’m busy.”
“You know I can’t go without you,” Charles said, pouting. “I don’t want to go without you!”
I sighed, dropping my pencil upon my desk; I would get nothing done as long as he was standing here. “Do you want me to read to you, then? You’re getting agitated. See what Mr. Barnum does to you? That man!”
“Oh, would you read to me?” And just as quickly as a summer storm moving across the countryside, my husband forgot about any quarrel. Together, we walked to one of the small library tables in the study, where he happily echoed the titles that I suggested to him—Black Beauty, The Water Babies, Through the Looking Glass. In the end, we settled on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, recently published.
It was such a charming book. It reminded me so much of my days upon the river, when I could wake up every day to a new town. And I was quite fond of the character of Tom, who was such a smooth talker, able to get all the children to whitewash the fence for him—even eavesdropping at his own funeral! I felt I knew him intimately, even if he was just a character in a novel.
MORE JEWELS WERE SOLD, ALONG WITH THE YACHT AND THE cabin, as we told friends that we simply didn’t have the time to put them to good use. Yet when we were in New York, we stayed at the finest hotels and dined with our dear friends the Astors, the Vanderbilts, and the Fisks, although sometimes it took them several days to realize we were in town. The newspapers did not always trumpet our appearances as they once did, so often I had to drop a note informing them of our presence.
The younger generation, the children of dear Caroline and dear Julia and dear Mittie, were no longer the admiring little boys and girls who shyly hid from their parents so that they might steal a peek at us. They were now young men and ladies swept up in a new frenzy of balls and parties and dinners, all part of what Mr. Twain had named the Gilded Age. Charles and I were not part of this crowd; rather, I sensed these young people viewed us as relics, odd pets of their parents, leftovers from a simpler, less smart time.
Once I overheard Mrs. Astor’s youngest daughter, also called Caroline, whisper to her dinner partner about how “amusing it was when I was a child, when Mother used to dress little Mrs.