The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [147]
“What is?”
“We all thought you were going to be famous, Vinnie, and you are! Do you ever talk to any of the old company?”
“No, not really—I write to Sylvia; she’s in Maine. She gives spiritual readings, and seems quite happy. But that’s all.”
“Me either. Billy’s still performing around with his minstrels; I hear of them now and again. Colonel Wood, remember him? What a mean man! I always worried about you and him, Vinnie. I never liked the way he looked at you.”
“Yes, well, he was an awful man.” And still haunting me, in so many ways, I didn’t add. “I need to fetch my husband, Carlotta, as we have a performance. You should come by our car one night, and I’ll introduce you to him.”
“That’s mighty nice of you, Vinnie! I will!” Carlotta—I had such a difficult time reconciling the name with this matronly, staid-looking woman—rose to her knees with some difficulty. “But before you go, I wanted to introduce you to these two. They didn’t believe me when I said I knew you, but see?” She turned to them, a triumphant smile creasing her leathery face. “I do! I told you!”
“Oh.” I stared at the two women, uncertain how to react to them. For I had seen them before—and done my best to avoid them.
They were part of a troupe of other small people that performed with the clowns. Almost from the first day we joined the circus, I had seen them hanging about wherever we went, trailing Charles and me like shadows, whispering and pointing. But they weren’t like us. They had large heads on small, barrel-chested bodies, oddly proportioned arms and legs. They truly looked like the pictures of dwarves in fairy tales—like Rumpelstiltskin, like jesters. They were tossed around by the larger clowns, mute and wild-eyed. They looked simple, in their heads.
They made me uneasy; they made me ashamed, for how the audience howled with laughter whenever they jumped up and down, flapping their grotesque arms, rolling their bulging eyes! I did not wish to make their acquaintance.
“This one here is Miss Humphries, and the other one is Miss Mary,” Carlotta told me, nudging them. They each curtsied, still staring at me with round eyes, taking in my silk dress, tightly drawn up over a bustle, in the latest fashion. Both were clad in rough homespun shifts that dropped straight to the ground. Then Miss Humphries extended her hand.
It was odd, ugly, disfigured, with short stumps for fingers and a very fleshy palm. I placed my own delicate, perfectly formed hand—my nails buffed a pretty pink—in hers.
“How—how very nice to make your acquaintance,” I said with a smile that I hoped hid my shudder.
“Yes, Ma’am,” Miss Humphries said, and stepped back behind Carlotta.
“Have you been with the circus long?”
“All my life, me and my sister both,” she said.
“Oh, you’re sisters?” They did look alike, upon closer examination. “How nice. I have—I used to travel with my sister, too.”
“We know,” the younger one piped up. “We’ve read all about you.”
“Oh? Well, isn’t that nice! You’ve read about me, you say? Isn’t that wonderful!”
“Yes.” The older one scowled at me. “We can read.”
“Of course, of course, I didn’t mean—well, naturally!”
“I thought you all might get along.” Carlotta beamed down at us, lumping me with those two—two—oddities, to my horror. Did she not see how wrong she was? Did she not see that I was nothing like these two?
And nothing like the others, the other grotesque, misshapen little people who found themselves all under the same sweeping circus tent. I had done my best to ignore their existence. Dressed up like pygmies, some were used in the flame thrower’s act; others were dressed up like ugly babies and rolled around in rickety prams as part of another clown routine. They all traveled together in a car far, far down the line from ours. There was no need for me to ever utter one word to any of them, and I hadn’t. Until now.
“I really need to find Mr. Stratton,” I repeated to Carlotta, desperately; the challenging, slightly