The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [84]
“Now, Minnie, once you get settled we’ll need to rush right over to the dressmaker’s for a fitting. You, too, Mama; I picked out the loveliest gray watered silk for your gown. Now, Mama, you have to remember you’re in a hotel. Everything is done for you—you don’t have to lift a finger! You don’t have to make your own bed or even scrub out the chamber pot; someone will come every morning and do that for you. Mrs. Astor has asked, expressly, to meet you, so she would like very much to throw a reception for us on Monday before the wedding. I still have to do a few levees at the Museum, and I can’t wait for Minnie to see the sights! Mr. Barnum has arranged it so that you all can have a private hour or so seeing everything on Saturday. Oh, and Minnie, we’re going to have our photograph taken! Can you imagine?”
“My photograph? I don’t know—will it hurt very much?”
“No, darling, it doesn’t hurt a bit. Mr. Brady is the nicest man, and while it’s rather tedious and you have to stand absolutely still, it’s over very quickly. Can you do that?”
“Of course, if you’re there with me, Vinnie.”
“I will be, I promise. I won’t let you out of my sight. Here we are!” And I motioned for the porter, who had been following respectfully behind with the luggage, to open the door to their suite. I ran ahead so that I could see their faces as they took it all in; I was so happy, so thrilled, to show them this side of life. Oh, how they deserved the finer things!
“Oh, Vinnie,” Mama breathed as she fingered the fine velvet portieres, draped ceiling to floor, covering the windows. “How on earth do they clean them? You can’t wash velvet!”
“I don’t know, Mama.” I laughed, for it had never before occurred to me to wonder. “I’ll have to ask someone.”
“Vinnie, they don’t leave these lights on all the time, do they?” Papa, who had been studying one of the hissing gaslights jutting out from the wall, turned to me with a frown. “Think of the expense! How much do they get for a room like this, anyway? I’m not sure I like that Barnum fellow paying my way, after all. I’d like to give him something for all this—do you think he needs a milk cow for his place in Connecticut?”
“I doubt it, Papa. But I’ll ask, just for you.”
“Well, I’d appreciate it.” And my father went back to studying the gaslight, passing his hand over the top of the globe, checking to see how hot it was.
“Oh, Vinnie, look!” Minnie came running out of her bedroom clutching the beautiful gift that I had placed on her bed. It was a Jumeau doll, from France, an exquisite creature with a china face, real black curls, and the most sumptuous dress of blue silk, with lace petticoats and pantalets, and even satin slippers. I had chosen it because I thought it looked like Minnie, with those curls; as my sister cradled the doll in her arm reverently, smoothing her ringlets, I was satisfied that I had been right.
“Do you like it, Pumpkin?”
“Oh, more than anything I’ve ever seen! Even more than my new kitten back home. Thank you so much, Vinnie!”
And the light in my sister’s eyes as she sat carefully upon a small stool, cradling the new doll as if it were her own child, made me smile; it made my heart warm and expand so that I felt, in that moment, as full of love as any bride. For it was Charles who had bought the doll for Minnie; he had taken me shopping for it, insisting that he wanted to make her a present, and quite gravely asking my advice on the matter.
“Thank Charles, your new brother. He was the one who bought it. You can thank him tonight, at dinner. We’re dining with Mr. Barnum at Delmonico’s on East Fourteenth Street—ladies can only dine there in a private room—and oh, just wait until you all see it!” I was Father Christmas at that moment, showering my family with unknown delights. “It’s all crystal and marble and the finest silver and china, and waiters who whisk away your plate