The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [21]
“Why won’t you at least put a flower in your hair?” I asked her.
“Why? They’d never notice it.”
“How do you know that? People notice performers’ costumes; it’s why they go to the theater!”
“ ‘Theater’?” Sylvia chuckled, so low and throaty that the vibration tickled my ears. “Where do you think we are? Who do you think comes aboard? Why do you think—” But she broke off, and complimented me on my dress again.
After two weeks, I was growing used to the vagaries of life upon a river. While there was something quite soothing about going to bed at night rocked to sleep by the movement of the water, the days were a frenzy of chaos and activity, of men casting off ropes, ramps pulled and lowered, scenery hammered, wood thrown into the boiler. All this activity was very exciting to me, so used to the stultifying sameness of life in Middleborough. While I was in constant peril of being stepped upon or swept overboard by deckhands and performers who had never before encountered anyone my size, I soon learned to shout out my presence whenever I turned a corner or entered a room. There was little privacy and even less decorum, but I enjoyed the easy camaraderie among the company, the way people moved in and out of one another’s rooms without knocking, the impromptu “hen parties” that the ladies held late at night while we pinned up our hair and stitched up our stockings, paying no heed to the clinking of glasses just down the hall in one of the gentlemen’s rooms. Some of the men even drank spirits on Sunday! I found this awfully thrilling, although I did not mention that particular detail in my letters home.
Thrilling as it was, my new life was perhaps not as glamorous as I had imagined. Colonel Wood did not consider things like clean linens and regularly scrubbed chamber pots necessities but rather luxuries, and, as he was fond of reminding me, he was not contractually obligated to provide me with any of those. And the dampness that I had first noticed soon revealed itself to be all-pervasive, as my clothes never felt completely dry and my hair developed a frizz it had never before exhibited.
Some wayward curls had escaped, I saw, as I took one last glimpse of myself in the cracked hand mirror Sylvia held up for me (a full-length mirror proving to be one of those luxuries Colonel Wood did not feel obligated to provide). But there was nothing to do but pat my curls, as Colonel Wood stuck his head inside the door and bellowed, “The ramp is down, the crowd’s a comin’; get your asses down to the stage, for I think we can get in three shows today, at least!”
Sylvia rolled her eyes at him but did not take offense at his language, as I very much did.
“I cannot believe how differently he acts now, compared to when he visited me at home! If he had ever dared talk like that in front of my parents—why, I can’t imagine!”
“We’ve all been wondering why someone like you agreed to come along with the likes of him,” Sylvia said with a shake of her head. “That explains it some.”
“He was very proper at home.” I tried to ignore the growing gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach that had presented itself ever since we’d arrived on the Banjo. Once he’d crossed the gangplank, Colonel Wood had shown a different—coarser—side to his personality. It was almost as if he were two different people on and off the water.
“Now, Vinnie, don’t be nervous,” Sylvia reminded me once more as we left the stateroom, which opened to the exterior of the boat. Even as slowly as she walked along the slippery deck, I had to hurry to catch up with her, taking at least five steps to her every one. My head barely reached past her knees, and her