The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [85]
Mama and Papa exchanged an odd glance. Then Mama turned to me, her gentle eyes filling with tears, and she said, “Vinnie, dear, we need to discuss something with you.”
“What? What is it—are the boys all right? Benjamin? Nothing happened to them, did it?” Oh, how stupid of me—it was so easy to forget about the War, with all that was happening to me, especially here in New York. Despite it being the most prominent northern town, a great many citizens were very sympathetic to the Confederacy. So much of the commerce and manufacturing had depended upon the cotton from the South, and with the blockades, business was slowing down. And there were so many immigrants; were the slaves truly to be freed, the immigrants were fearful that their jobs would be taken away. And then, of course, there were rumors of an impending military draft, which did not sit well with the Copperheads, the name by which the Rebel sympathizers called themselves.
All that was but a faint, nagging buzzing, like an insect circling about my head, easily swatted away by the more immediate, personal demands upon my time and attention these days. But Mama and Papa, of course, did not have such pleasant distraction; they lived every day in fear for their soldier sons.
“The boys are all right, aren’t they?” I repeated, anxiously, when they did not reply.
“Yes, dear, as far as we know, they’re fine.” Mama tried to reassure me, but the lines around her mouth deepened, as if from the effort of holding in her constant worry.
“Then what is it? Why do you look so strangely at me? Papa?” I turned to my father. He could not meet my gaze; he sidled back to the gaslight, to further inspect its construction.
“Vinnie, dear, it’s just that—it’s just that we don’t feel entirely comfortable with all—this.” Mama gestured around at the ornate room. But her suddenly furtive eyes betrayed her; I knew instantly that their accommodations were not what she was talking about.
“What do you mean, ‘all this’?”
“I mean, dear, that Papa and I have decided not to stay for the wedding. We came up to bring Minnie, and entrust her to your care. But we have tickets for the train home tomorrow.”
“Oh.” I decided to examine the portiere nearest me; I pulled it to the side and, standing on tiptoe, surveyed the street below, concentrating on the smallest details—the way the Negro man in front of the hotel doorway stood with his heels pressed together, his feet splayed out in a V, like duck feet. I observed how a basket of some kind of fruit—apples, they must be—fell off a wagon as it rounded a corner, and was immediately set upon by a pack of feral children who appeared as if conjured up, for they had not been visible a moment ago. I studied how the filth that gathered between the cobblestones was covered in a filmy sheet of gray ice, and how this dressed it up, made it appear not as it was—a sludge of horse manure, sewage, rotting produce, and who knew what else—but rather like the icing on top of a cinnamon bun.
“You do understand, don’t you, Vinnie?” My mother’s voice was very gentle, as if she was afraid it might break.
“No,” I said, baldly. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
“It’s just that—it’s not that we don’t believe we won’t grow to like Charles, and look at him as our own. It’s not that we don’t truly believe you know what is best for you, for you always have, and you’ve never let us down. But this is all so grand—my heavens, Astors and Vanderbilts, you say!—and we’re so simple. We’re not comfortable with all this, not the way you are, and, well—”
“It’s not as if this is just a performance, Mama.” Finally I turned away from the window, anger doing its best to smother the hurt. “It’s not as if Mr. Barnum is selling tickets to my wedding.” (I did not reveal that at one point, I was afraid that he was—and had to ask him, flat out, not to. He claimed that it never crossed his mind, but I was