As for Levi, he drifted off into a restless sleep and dreamed not of money but of Amelia.
He stood on the shore of a sea he’d never seen before, the water stretching out blue and clear into the far horizon. His boots were covered by water, and the water rose and rose to his ankles and shins and knees, but still he stood and waited. The water was at his waist, and then his chest, and then finally she was there.
She emerged from the depths, grasped him in her arms, and pulled him down, down, down. He couldn’t breathe, and it was no longer clear and blue and beautiful but cold and dark. All he could see was the steady gleam of her eyes and her sharp, sharp teeth.
He woke covered in sweat, gasping for air, imagining he could still feel the seawater filling up his lungs. After a few moments he settled down again but couldn’t shake the dream enough to sleep.
He could tell by Barnum’s breathing that the other man was also awake, but neither of them spoke to the other for the rest of the night, though they both knew of whom they were thinking.
CHAPTER 6
The crowd gathered outside the New York Concert Hall murmured and swelled and shifted the way large groups of people do, almost as if they were one giant being instead of many smaller ones. Every minute brought another addition, until the gathering was so large there was surely no way for everyone outside to fit inside the hall.
There was an occasional bark of masculine laughter and the answering trill of a feminine voice, but mostly everyone seemed to be in a state of tense excitement. The doors were to open precisely at noon, and as the appointed time approached, there was much rustling of coats and consulting of pocket watches.
The exterior of the hall boasted an eight-foot-high transparency of a beautiful, bare-breasted woman with the caption SEE THE FEEJEE MERMAID hung over it.
For weeks everyone in New York who could read a newspaper had heard about Dr. Griffin, late of London’s Lyceum of Natural History, and the mermaid he’d discovered while on an expedition in Fiji.
By late July, everyone in the city was positively inflamed with mermaid fever. That, of course, was exactly as Barnum intended.
Once they returned from Rhode Island, Barnum got to work. He wrote several letters about Dr. Griffin and his mermaid and arranged to have them sent from all over the country to assorted New York newspapers. His name, of course, was not associated with the letters or the mermaid. It was vitally important that no one think this a humbug like Joice Heth.
These letters seemed to trouble Amelia. “But he didn’t catch me, and I don’t know where Fiji is.”
“Don’t tell any reporters that,” Barnum said. “As far as the paying public is concerned, you’re an exotic creature from a tropical island.”
Amelia frowned. “That’s a lie.”
Barnum waved a hand at Levi in frustration. “You explain.”
Levi thought it unfair that Barnum left it up to him to elucidate the difference between a lie and showmanship. Before he could collect his thoughts on the subject, Amelia asked, “And who is Dr. Griffin?”
“That would be, er, me,” Levi said.
She stared at him. She didn’t say that this was also a lie. Her look told him that it was and she knew very well that he knew this and she wanted to know why Barnum was spreading such an absurd tale.
“It’s not a good idea for us to present you as an, uh, associate of Barnum’s. At least not at first.”
“Why?”
The shadow of Joice Heth filled the space between Barnum and Levi. Levi wasn’t sure what to say, but then Barnum spoke.
“Because almost everyone thinks I’m a liar,” Barnum said. “There was another woman who . . . performed for me, and I’m not saying she wasn’t a humbug, but I was just as humbugged as everyone else and I certainly wouldn’t have said what I did if I hadn’t been fooled in the first place.”
Amelia’s brow creased in consternation at this outburst, and she looked to Levi for clarification.
For his part, Levi had never realized Barnum was so sensitive about the topic. Barnum tended to be dismissive of any allegations in that case. Levi had thought Barnum just didn’t care what folk thought of him. He certainly behaved that way most of the time.
Amelia was still looking at him expectantly, so Levi said he would explain another time.
“I still don’t understand why we have to tell so many lies.”
“They aren’t lies. Not really,” Levi said. “Think of it as you’re telling a story. In this story, I’m a naturalist from London and you’re a mermaid from Fiji. It makes everything more interesting if we tell people I caught you in a net in a faraway place and brought you here.”
“I’m not a fish, Mr. Lyman,” she said with the first spark of temper. “I’m not an animal. And your story isn’t true, so why should anyone believe it?”
“Because we’re going to make them believe it,” Barnum said impatiently. “Take the girl to a play so she’ll understand.”
Levi was happy to do this, as it meant he would have plenty of opportunities to hold Amelia’s arm and fetch her a lemonade and hopefully have a conversation with her that didn’t end with him feeling like a fool.
But Charity nixed any idea of Levi and Amelia going out alone. The fact that Amelia was a widow and not a maiden did not feature in Charity’s eyes.
Though Charity still viewed Amelia with suspicion, she had also developed a contradictory feeling of propriety regarding the mermaid.
In Charity’s view, Amelia was a guest in her home and therefore in her care. “Therefore, Levi Lyman, you won’t be going about with this young woman unescorted.”
They were in the Barnums’ parlor when this edict was handed down. Amelia had allowed Caroline to teach her cribbage, which the little girl most definitely did not know how to play. The cards were in a jumble on the table, and Caroline seemed to score according to some arcane rules of her own.
Amelia had looked up at the sharp tone in Charity’s voice and said, in her calm and unhurried way, “I’m not a young woman.”
“What do you mean? You’re not yet middle-aged. One can tell just by looking at you,” Charity said.
“One cannot tell just by looking at me,” Amelia said mildly. “I don’t age the same way you do.”
“How old are you?” Levi asked.
Amelia shrugged. “I’m not certain. I don’t keep time the same way you do, but I think I lived with Jack thirty or forty years, and without him ten or more years after that.”
Levi did some quick calculations in his head. That meant if she was, say, nineteen or twenty when she married Jack Douglas, she could be well over seventy now.
Charity made a small hiss of disbelief. “That’s impossible.”
“So, I am told, is being a mermaid,” Amelia said.
Charity sputtered some more at this, for Barnum had told her that “without a doubt, this lady is a mermaid,” but she would not believe it without the proof of her own eyes. She’d been fooled by Barnum’s tricks before.
“Well, you don’t look a day over twenty, which is how I’m going to treat you,” Charity declared. “And young unmarried women do not go about in the evening with young men unless they are escorted.”
Levi had seen plenty of unescorted young women going about with both young and old men, but these were not respectable women and that was not a topic for a lady’s parlor.
With Charity’s edict firmly in place, it was determined that she and Barnum would attend a show at the theater with Levi and Amelia.