Amelia spent the evening being inscrutable, as always, and Levi had no chance to draw her out. He had no inclination to show his hand in front of Barnum, either, especially since Barnum kept peering at Levi like he was one of the exhibits in the museum.
After the play, Amelia turned to Levi and said, “I understand now, about the stories and the show.”
She never spoke again of the “lie” of Fiji, though he could tell she would never be comfortable with it.
Of course Amelia had known she would be exhibited. She simply hadn’t thought of what Barnum called “the show.” The idea wasn’t that she would be already floating in a tank and folk would file past her, though that was what Amelia had imagined. She’d been picturing those little miniature scenes in the first saloon in the museum, and the way everyone took turns looking in at them. Barnum thought that wasn’t nearly interesting enough.
“It’s not interesting enough to have a real mermaid onstage?” Amelia asked faintly.
“Got to build anticipation,” Barnum said. “Get the audience excited to see you. Whet their appetite. Levi, what do you think of dancing girls?”
Levi appeared nonplussed by dancing girls. After a moment, he said, “Dancing girls won’t go down smooth with the respectable ladies.”
“I’m not talking about obscene dancing girls,” Barnum said. “I’m talking about girls dressed up in costume who will sing a song about Fiji. Amelia here can dance and sing with them and then the other girls can fall away and leave her alone onstage and then—”
“No,” Amelia said.
Barnum looked startled, his squashed-potato nose reddening at her curt reply. “No what?”
“No dancing,” Amelia said. “If you want to have dancing girls onstage, that’s your lookout, but I won’t be one of them.”
Barnum narrowed his eyes at her. Amelia stared right back. She wasn’t afraid of him. She’d crossed the ocean by herself, and she wasn’t about to be bullied by Barnum. He ought to have known that from the start.
He opened his mouth, no doubt to remonstrate with her, but Levi held up his hand. “I don’t know about having dancing girls when we move Amelia to the museum, but they certainly won’t be appropriate when she’s at the Concert Hall. It’s supposed to be a scientific presentation, and I’m supposed to be a naturalist from London. If we make it too much of a performance, folks might not believe the evidence of their eyes when Amelia changes.”
“They’ve got to believe,” Barnum said. “When they see her there will be no doubt that she’s real.”
“But if you razzle-dazzle them,” Levi said patiently, “they might think her change is just more razzle-dazzle.”
“You may be right at that,” Barnum said, chewing on the end of an unlit cigar. “Well, we’ll leave off the dancing girls. For now.”
This last was pointedly directed at Amelia.
“No matter if or when you decide to use them, I won’t be one of them,” she said.
“You agreed to perform for me,” Barnum said.
“I agreed to be a mermaid, not to dance. My contract doesn’t say anything about dancing.”
Barnum threw Levi a dark look, as if this oversight were somehow his fault.
“I’ve got to go and check on the progress of the blasted tank,” Barnum said, glaring at Amelia now.
“You can’t have a mermaid without water,” she said.
Barnum mumbled something indistinct and left the room, trailing his foul mood behind him.
“Don’t worry about him,” Levi said.
“I’m not,” Amelia said.
“I only meant don’t let him bother you,” Levi said.
“He doesn’t,” Amelia said. “Mr. Barnum is accustomed to having his own way. That doesn’t mean I’m required to give it to him.”
She paused, thinking it was the appropriate thing to show gratitude for his intervention with Barnum.
“I do appreciate your help, Mr. Lyman. It never occurred to me to argue that dancers would make the show less credible.”
His eyes flickered at the “Mr. Lyman,” as they always did, but she just couldn’t bring herself to call him Levi. It seemed too much like an invitation for him to pour all the stars out of his eyes and into her hands.
“Barnum’s trouble is that he’s got lots of ideas but he’s never bothered to think them through to the end,” he said. “And it’s no trouble to help you, Mrs. Douglas. No trouble at all.”
He wanted to say more—it was there in the lines of his face, something yearning, something longing, something leaning toward her and hoping.
“If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Lyman,” Amelia said, and made her unhurried way to her own room.
She wasn’t cowardly, but she did not want to hear the longing thing in his heart. Only grief could come of that, for she would have to refuse whatever overtures he made and then there would be hurt feelings. There were already too many feelings cluttering up the space—Charity’s suspicion, Barnum’s dominance, and Amelia’s own conflicted emotions on what she was about to do.
She felt she could think better, more clearly, if only she were allowed to return to the sea now and again. After the demonstration in Rhode Island, Barnum had been adamant that Amelia go nowhere near the harbor.
“I won’t have some damned sailor seeing you without paying for a ticket,” he said.
The harbor was not private. Amelia understood that. It was the reason why she had not wanted to show Barnum and Levi her true form there. But she had arrived in New York via the harbor; she knew how to be careful and understood better than Barnum the sheer numbers of people and boats there.
Amelia wanted—needed—the freedom of the ocean. It would not kill her if she stayed long in her human form. She knew that. But she felt as though it might. It wasn’t just that she couldn’t swim. She couldn’t see or hear or smell the water at all, and the sheer numbers of people everywhere suffocated her.
Additionally, the polite requirement that she sit in the parlor with Charity and the children when Amelia was not engaged in “Fiji business” was oppressive. Amelia did not wish to do needlework and make polite conversation about the weather. She didn’t see how Charity could even know anything about the weather when she rarely set foot outside the museum.
Since Amelia knew nothing of the wealthy classes of New York and their doings (apparently a favorite topic in well-bred parlors across the city), there was little for them to speak about other than the wind and the rain.
In the privacy of her room, she would dream of the water, or of Jack, and wonder how much money she might have after six months. Enough, she hoped, to see all the things in all the world, just as she had promised herself. She only hoped whatever she earned was worth the cost.
The tank was one thing. Barnum’s glassmaker knew well enough how to make it, although the question of transporting it to the Concert Hall was a conundrum. It was decided that the panes of glass would be brought to the hall and assembled there.
The seawater was a different problem altogether. How to collect it, how to carry it, and how to keep it from fouling if it was in the tank for several days—all these problems needed to be solved, and they needed to be solved with as little expense as possible.
They wanted the moon, but they didn’t realize it cost the earth.
In retrospect, Barnum agreed with Levi about the dancing girls. Not only would they detract from the scientific nature of the presentation, but they’d expect to be paid. Every person he paid resulted in less money in his pocket, and sadly the mermaid had been canny enough to ask for a cut of the ticket sales.