The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb (50 page)

“That farm,” he said, a great tear rolling down his face.

“What?”

“That farm. She always wanted that farm up in Albany. ‘Sylvester,’ she said, but never in a scolding way—oh, no! ‘I surely would like to have that little farm.’ But I never gave it to her. I’m the one with the show blood in my veins, not her. But she never once complained, she always followed me, and now—”

“Shhh,” I said, for I believed Mrs. Bleeker could hear us, even if she couldn’t speak. “You’ll give her that farm, I know it. You’ll have all the time in the world.”

“Do you think so, Vinnie?”

I looked at him; his eyes were round with both hope and fear.

“I do,” I lied, as all at once, two men and a stretcher made their way through the crowd toward us. Much too roughly, they
loaded Mrs. Bleeker upon it and trotted off toward a hospital wagon; Mr. Bleeker had to sprint to catch up, shouting, “Where are you taking her?” It all happened so fast, I didn’t get to say goodbye—to either of them.

I continued to pass out blankets until the sun rose high in the sky; it must have been noon before I realized I was still in my nightgown. But then, so were many other people. Eventually, policemen rounded everyone up and directed them to other hotels; we were told not to leave Milwaukee for at least two days, as they needed to take down statements from us all.

Somehow, I managed to get Charles more or less upright and moving again, and at my urging, over the next few days we gave two benefit performances for the victims of the fire. And we dedicated each performance to our good friends Julia and Sylvester Bleeker. It was the first time we had performed without them, and it felt wrong; neither of our hearts was in it, but we were happy to help a good many people, a number of whom feared being stranded now that all their money was in ashes.

After the benefits, Charles and I left for home, this time for good; there was no question of continuing the tour. And so, after traveling the globe, crossing the country countless times, traversing up and down and through rivers, deserts, and mountains, the General Tom Thumb Company came to its sad end in the ashes of a hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Minnie was gone; Nutt had died in 1881 of Bright’s disease.

And now, too, was Mrs. Bleeker taken from us; she died twelve days later from her injuries. After staying in Milwaukee to give testimony at one of the inquests, Mr. Bleeker retired to a niece’s home in Brooklyn—still agonized because he had not been able to get to Charles and me.

Although, oddly, many news reports and articles began to surface saying that he had—that he had saved Charles and me
from the flames himself, depicting him as a grieving, but heroic, husband and friend.

And while I don’t know exactly how that rumor began, I could not help but suspect that an old friend of ours might have had something to do with it.

INTERMISSION
 

From the
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
, June 11, 1883

It is not open to dispute that the Brooklyn Bridge is the most wonderful work of its kind on the globe.… There is no instance in the world save that afforded by the Brooklyn Bridge of a span of nearly 1,600 feet sustained entirely by cables.

From
The New York Times
, December 27, 1884

A B
RILLIANT
C
HRISTMAS
T
REE
—H
OW AN
E
LECTRICIAN
A
MUSED
H
IS
C
HILDREN

A pretty as well as novel Christmas tree was shown to a few friends by Mr. E. H. Johnson, President of the Edison Company for Electric Lighting, last evening in his residence, No. 189 East Thirty-sixth-street. The tree was lighted by electricity, and children never beheld a brighter tree or one more highly colored than the children of Mr. Johnson when the current was turned and the tree began to revolve. Mr. Johnson has been experimenting with house lighting by electricity for some time past, and he determined that his children should have a novel Christmas tree.

[ NINETEEN ]
 
Finale, or—the Curtain Comes Down

A
ND NOW IT WAS JUST THE TWO OF US
—G
ENERAL AND
Mrs. Tom Thumb, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Stratton. The perfect couple, a love story in miniature, the sweethearts of a country torn apart by war but united in good wishes for our happiness: we were never supposed to end up like this. Diminished, unnerved, hiding in the house I had been so determined to leave all those years ago.

Quite bluntly, Charles was never the same after the fire. Shaken to the core by his inability to save himself, humiliated by the manner in which he was saved, he refused to ever again appear in front of an audience.

“Charles, you’re being ridiculous,” I told him, time and again. “Can’t you just be grateful that we survived?”

“No.” He shook his head, his breathing even more labored these days, his body not merely large but puffy, his skin clammy
to the touch. “I can’t forget the fireman hauling me down the ladder like that. I couldn’t do a thing to help myself, Vinnie! You don’t understand. You don’t know what that’s like!”

I pressed my lips together and shook my head. I did know what that was like—but now our roles were reversed. My husband was not inclined to look into my eyes for understanding or recognition. He was not inclined to look into anyone’s eyes, lest they see him for what he believed he was—a coward.

He was only forty-five, but until that night, he had never faced any real physical danger. The worst was probably the time when he was a child and Queen Victoria’s dog had tried to bite him, a story he told over and over to anyone who would listen. And his pride had suffered; this was the man who had stomped around with a tiny pistol in the West, confident he could slay any number of Indians with it. He had laughed along with everyone else at the notion, but deep down, I knew that he thought he could. He may have been imitating people all his life, but what made Charles such a gifted mimic was his conviction; he believed in every single role he had ever played—including that of husband.

And now he thought he had failed in that as well; suddenly he could not meet my gaze or even enjoy being in the same room with me. I didn’t have the courage to tell him that he was wrong; he had never been given the chance to succeed in that role. For hadn’t I made sure of that, long ago?

So he holed himself up in Mama’s parlor, where he read over old newspaper clippings and hauled out tarnished medals and yellowing citations, reliving his past instead of facing the future. Charles had been a Mason for years, attending elaborately secret meetings (I knew they were secret because he always made a point of telling me they were); soon after we were married he had been made a Knight Templar in the Bridgeport order. And now I often found him looking over all his various hats and plumes and swords
from that organization; it meant a great deal to him these days. I think he felt it bestowed the last measure of dignity he had left.

We both slept badly after the fire; we moved from my old upstairs room to one on the first floor, and could not go to sleep unless one or both of us checked to make sure the windows and doors were unlocked, and there was a bucket of water close at hand.

And never again did I reach for him in bed, as I had that night; my desire had been quenched, along with the flames.

“Charles, I’m taking the train down to New York to see Mr. Bleeker,” I told him one morning in July. “Would you like to join me? I’m sure it would do him good to see you.”

“No, no.” My husband waved a plump hand in the air, as if brushing the very notion away.

“Charles, why won’t you see him?” I sat in one of our little chairs; we had moved what pieces of our miniature furniture that we didn’t sell into this house when we let out our own. It looked as if there were whole families of furniture living together, mother and father chairs spawning baby chairs.

“I just—I just can’t, Vinnie. That’s all.” Charles, who was seated upon the floor, paging through an old scrapbook, looked up at me; even that small effort seemed to tax him. His breathing was so rapid, I could hear it across the room.

“You don’t blame him for the fire, do you?” This suspicion had crossed my mind, as Charles refused to even write a sympathy letter to his old friend.

“No,” Charles said, too quickly.

“That’s absurd. Mr. Bleeker tried to come to our aid—remember, I told you? But for pity’s sake, Charles, he had his own life to save, and that of his wife! We were not Mr. Bleeker’s responsibility, you know. Why can’t you be glad that we’re alive?” Suddenly furious with him—as I was so often these days; I suppose
he was not the only one changed by the tragedy—I ran to him and took his hands in mine. “We must get out of this house—we must get back to work! If we don’t, we’ll—we’ll—we’ll simply rot! We don’t know any other life, the two of us. It’s all we have.”

“Vinnie, I just can’t. I can’t face anyone.” Charles pulled his hands away; he wouldn’t meet my gaze.

I sighed. There was only one other thing I could think of to try; there was only one person I could think of who might be able to talk some sense into him.

“I might stop in Bridgeport on the way back,” I said, keeping my voice casual. “To see Mr. Barnum. Wouldn’t you like to come with me, then?”

Charles hesitated; I could see the struggle in his once-merry eyes. But then he shook his head violently. “No.”

“Well, why don’t I stop to see if he would like to come to you, then? It’s been such a long time since he’s been to Middleborough.”

Again, that hesitation; again, his negative response. “No, no—why won’t you leave me alone, Vinnie? For pity’s sake, that’s all I want—to be left alone, finally! All my life I’ve been surrounded by people! Leave me in peace, for once!”

I sighed, then rose—stiffly, my right hip uncooperative. “Well, maybe I’ll just stop in on my own!”

“Do whatever you want.” Charles shrugged. “Take your time. Enjoy yourself.”

“I’ll give Mr. Bleeker your love. And Mr. Barnum, too—that is, if I do decide to stop in Bridgeport. I haven’t made up my mind.”

I turned to go, but Charles abruptly cried, “Vinnie!” before I could leave.

“What? What is it?” I spun around in alarm. He had jumped
up, his arm full of clippings, a morose figure in his dressing gown and worn slippers. The shades were drawn, but I could still see the stumps of cigars in every ashtray, the papers and photographs and citations and ribbons and, above all, memories; remnants of memories, threadbare, worn almost to shreds from a lifetime of use, lying in tatters at his feet. The room smelled like sadness, like stale breath and cheap cigars and musty papers that hadn’t seen light in decades. It reminded me of a deserted, desolate circus tent long after the crowd had gone.

“You’re not mad at me, are you?” He looked so pathetic, his soft brown eyes almost quivering with tears.

How easy it would be to tell him I was not—I considered it, for a tempting moment. My approval was the one thing left that I could bestow upon him without guilt. But then I realized that approval would do him no good this time; indeed, it would probably harm him. He needed to be shocked out of his torpor. He needed to be reminded that he was lucky he wasn’t dead, so that he could get back to living.