“I don’t think it’s necessary to advertise any longer, Mr. Barnum,” she said. “As you have hoped, the whole city has mermaid fever.”
“Maybe the whole country,” Levi said. “There were reporters from plenty of out-of-state papers today.”
They were meeting in Levi’s room in the hotel, it being deemed easier for Barnum to come in than for Amelia and Levi to go out.
Barnum laughed in delight. “Soon all the monarchs of Europe will cross the ocean to see you.”
Amelia did not particularly care who came to see her so long as the new tank that Barnum built inside the museum was larger than the one at the Concert Hall. If she must swim in circles endlessly, then she wished for those circles to be greater than the ones to which she was currently confined.
“Lady Amelia,” “Dr. Griffin,” and a select cohort of journalists were invited to tour the new exhibit in the museum prior to its opening to the public. A crowd of the curious gathered in two long rows between the hotel and the museum to watch Amelia and Levi and the reporters cross the street between the buildings.
Amelia had already spent many days with people gawking at her, but she never felt so foolish as during that promenade between the hotel and the museum. Her face was hidden by her bonnet and she abruptly felt the necessity of the parasol. When she opened it she had somewhere to put her hands, and the shade could be tilted to hide the size of the crowd if too much of it peeked through the brim of her hat.
Barnum waited at the entrance to the museum with his showman’s smile and a wave. He kissed Amelia’s hand like he was greeting true royalty. She was barely able to restrain herself from snatching her hand away from his dry lips.
The doors were securely locked once all the party had entered the museum, and two more of Barnum’s toughs were set outside to glare at anyone with thoughts of trying to follow.
The sixth saloon had been designated the “mermaid room.” This forced ticket holders to pass through many other exhibits first; Barnum didn’t want folk coming to the museum only to see the mermaid and then rushing out again. After all, he needed to sell programs, and the programs were useless if people didn’t enjoy the rest of the museum.
“Also,” he’d told Amelia earlier, “one day you plan on leaving me, don’t you? And I’ll still have to sell tickets to the museum. If everyone who comes to see you loves the other exhibits, then they’ll tell their friends that Barnum’s American Museum is worth their Sunday afternoon and a quarter.”
Once inside the mermaid room, they were immediately confronted with a large copy of the woodcut Barnum had used in the advertising pamphlets. This depicted three beautiful mermaids, one of which was seductively combing her hair. The copy had been printed on a long, billowing curtain that hung down from the ceiling.
This effectively blocked the rest of the room and, Amelia realized, created more anticipation. The effect was duplicated almost as soon as a visitor turned the corner. Before them was a large white sign with another picture of a mermaid; next to this was text describing Dr. Griffin’s encounter with the mermaid in the waters of Fiji.
Below this, safely hidden under glass, was a small notebook with a leather cover open to a diary entry in which Dr. Griffin wrote of his marvelous discovery. On the next page was a small sketch of Amelia. Levi had done this himself, and Amelia was impressed with how well he’d captured her real likeness. She looked like what she was—a mermaid, an alien thing, not the lovely creature that Barnum used to sell tickets.
This notebook was entirely empty otherwise. Barnum had aged it by bending the leather and bindings and dripping salt water on the edges so they would curl up. It looked like a real naturalist’s notebook, but it was just another of Barnum’s humbugs.
Every turn of the exhibit had another display like this—one with a seashell necklace that was supposedly a gift from Amelia to Dr. Griffin, a copy of the letter Dr. Griffin had sent to the London Lyceum, and so on. The very last stop before visitors reached the tank (which was twice as large as the one at the Concert Hall) was the very dried-up mummy fish that Barnum’s friend Kimball had used to propose the mermaid exhibit so many months ago.
The thing was horrible, but all the reporters stared at it in fascination before asking Amelia how it felt to see one of her very own dead ancestors there. Despite her continued silence they never ceased trying to see if she would answer.
The result of all this twisting and turning was something like a maze that would force visitors through the saloon slowly. They wouldn’t be able to rush to the tank, for no one could even see the tank until they turned the last corner and reached the very end. And of course, there would be guards present to ensure no one got any untoward ideas, like trying to climb into the tank with her.
Amelia almost hated to praise Barnum, but he’d done an exceptional job of designing the mermaid room to maximize interest. Additionally, the constant press of people behind them would keep viewers moving through to the next room. No one would be able to stand indefinitely in front of the tank and block others from seeing her.
The result of that bit of genius would mean the museum could accommodate more people, and more people meant more ticket sales. Amelia should have been pleased about this; her contract stated that she took a portion of the sales, and Levi had assured her that he’d been keeping careful track of Barnum’s accounting. But somehow she couldn’t think of dollars and cents as Barnum did. She could think only of the eyes, the parade of eyes that would march past her all day.
“How about a demonstration from the mermaid?” one of the reporters asked Barnum.
Half of the men looked at Barnum and the other half at Amelia. She felt suddenly the discomfort of being the only woman in a room full of men, men who gazed at her with speculative eyes. Her body did not seem to be protected by her clothes, and she resisted the urge to turn away. They would not make her ashamed of herself. They would not make her a human woman.
She pretended not to know what the man had said and gazed at each one in turn until their eyes dropped away.
Barnum said, “I can’t believe a demonstration would be necessary. Not when all of you lads have surely seen the lady at the Concert Hall this week.”
“I’ve seen it, but I’m still not sure what actually happened,” one man said. “How does she change? How can it even be possible?”
“The good Lord created many wonders before he rested,” Barnum said.
Amelia marveled at the way a lie rolled off his tongue. He didn’t even seem to think about it.
“Dr. Griffin, you’re a naturalist. What do you think?”
Levi smiled easily, the smile that Amelia thought of as his showman’s smile. It wasn’t really Levi when he smiled like that.
“I’d have to agree with Mr. Barnum. Some wonders can’t be explained,” he said.
The man looked as though he wanted to continue that line of questioning, but then Barnum promised all of them a glass of whiskey to celebrate and they filed out.
Amelia lingered behind, staring at the tank, trying to remember why she was doing this. She tilted her head, walked around it. She thought of the long and tiresome days at the Concert Hall, and the more she looked at the tank, the more it looked like a cage.
CHAPTER 9
Barnum wanted Amelia to climb into the tank every morning before the crowds arrived and then swim in circles for the duration of the day. This meant hours and hours and hours of dull repetition while people stared at her.