The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb - Melanie Benjamin [88]
It makes no mention, for example, of how slowly, almost reluctantly, I walked down the aisle toward my groom, who was very handsome and dignified in full black dress suit. Minnie, in the sweetest white silk, a crown of rosebuds in her hair, smiled so happily at me. I remember blinking at her in surprise; she was so poised, she had so eagerly participated in all the festivities, that I almost didn’t recognize her.
The article also does not relate how mechanical, how tinny, my voice sounded to me, despite having rehearsed the responses until I no longer had to think of them, until they were like lines in a play.
It does not describe how proud Mr. Barnum was, like the grandest, most successful parent of them all—like Adam himself. The father of us all. He beamed, he shook hands, he poured champagne at the reception; he slapped Charles on the back and gave me a paternal kiss, the only time he had ever kissed me, and it felt wrong. Awkward, forced—unlike anything that had ever passed between the two of us.
The biggest omission of all, however, is what took place after the reporters left to file their stories, after Charles and I retired to our honeymoon suite. There, we encountered an enormous bed the size of a boat, sprinkled with rose petals. I almost laughed at the absurdity of it; did the Metropolitan not realize whose wedding reception it had hosted? Although a set of velvet steps had been thoughtfully placed beside it—a very nice touch, indeed.
A table had been laid for us, with two slices of our wedding cake, a bottle of champagne, and a lovely roast quail. But the bottle was simply too big and unwieldy for Charles; he tried to pop the cork, huffing and grunting; he suffered not a little loss of pride upon not being able to manage it, and I felt for him. Discreetly, I turned away from him during his exertions but finally summoned a porter to do this chore, reassuring my husband, “A groom should not do anything as ordinary as open a bottle of champagne on his wedding night.”
I believe Charles was mollified, for he relaxed over dinner, and we managed to chat about the odd little details that stood out to us after this very long, endlessly ceremonial day—the comical things, such as when the minister called him “Charlie” instead of “Charles”; how Mrs. Astor, in all her diamond-encrusted finery, actually elbowed Mrs. Belmont out of the way in her excitement to greet us first.
As we began to talk, I realized we hadn’t truly spoken to each other at all until that moment. How odd, on our wedding day!
Eventually we exhausted trivial conversation, and we both simply stared at each other. Mr. Barnum was not here to wink and cajole and suggest; it was up to us now—alone. Finally my mind—which had been clenched all day, as if holding a line of defense against some onslaught of memory or feeling—relaxed. And a memory did assault me, paralyzing me, leaving me to stare at my new husband in horror.
“Oh, it would be dreadful, impossible,” I heard my mother’s stricken voice, from long ago. “Don’t you remember the little cow on Uncle’s farm who …”
I felt my stomach lurch, my skin turn clammy, beads of moisture pop out along my forehead. The room started to sway, and I had to run to the lavatory, reaching a chamber pot just in time. Wedding cake, quail, it all came up—along with the fear that I had carried with me ever since that day I had eavesdropped upon Mama and Delia, talking about the birds and the bees and the perils of childbirth for little cows. And little women.
A fear that was now terrifyingly real, as was my life; no longer was I playacting. The curtain had fallen at last; the crowds, for the moment, dispersed. Suddenly, I had real decisions to make, decisions that would have consequences not just for me but for the person pounding on the door as I hovered over the pot, my stomach still heaving, asking me what was wrong. The person I must now, and forever more, call my husband.
Just as he was reasonably expecting to call me his wife.
INTERMISSION