“I don’t know, Mr. Barnum,” Amelia said. “It won’t be easy for me to dive into something as small as a wagon. And where will we have these performances? Outside?”
“We’ll have to have them outside if we want to use the wagon,” Barnum said. “But there will have to be a tent or some such thing to cover the wagon, because otherwise no one will pay.”
“And what about the water?” Amelia asked. “How will we get the seawater to the tank every day?”
“I’ve already thought of that,” Barnum said. “We’ll confine your tour to cities and towns along the coast. A second wagon will go with you filled with whiskey barrels. When you reach the next stop on the tour, the second wagon will be sent to the ocean to fill them up with water, and then they will be dumped into the viewing wagon. When you leave town, the wagon can be drained to make it easier to travel, and then it can be filled up again when you arrive in a new place.”
“How many people will we need for such an enterprise?” Levi asked. “You’ll need men to set up the tent, to arrange for seats inside it, to fetch the water and prepare the tank every day. All that will cost money.”
Amelia thought Levi was trying to dissuade Barnum with the thought of the cost.
She could understand, though, that Barnum wanted to get the most use out of her. And she did sign a contract to perform.
But she was no longer Jack’s wife, no longer the mermaid on the cliff by the sea. And if she wasn’t the Feejee Mermaid, then who was she? If she went on tour, perhaps she would find out.
“If I leave and go on tour, you’ll be able to reopen the museum,” Amelia said. “And you’ll be able to make money from that as well as the tour.”
“But your contract only states that you make a percentage of the tickets for your exhibit,” Barnum started, but Amelia held up a hand to stop him.
“I’m not asking for more pay, Mr. Barnum. I am only thinking that it is a fairly elegant solution. The exhibition can continue, the museum can reopen, and without my presence here, the disruptive forces will lose interest.”
Barnum appeared astounded to discover that she agreed with him. He was accustomed by now to Amelia contradicting him at every turn.
“Is this really what you want, Amelia?” Charity asked. Her brow wrinkled in concern. “It’s not Taylor who will have to submit to the rigors of the tour, but you.”
Amelia nodded. “It does seem like the best thing to do. Mr. Barnum is right. I can’t stay here in the parlor forever.”
Charity reached out for Amelia’s hand. “But Caroline and I will miss you so.”
“I will miss you, too, but I’m not leaving tomorrow.” Amelia laughed. “At least, I don’t believe I am.”
Barnum smiled his showman’s smile. “You’re leaving as soon as I can make the arrangements. I’ve already contacted a shipwright to help build the watertight wagon.”
“You seemed very certain of my cooperation, Mr. Barnum,” Amelia said, though this was no more than she’d expected. Barnum liked to feel he had something up his sleeve always.
“You’re a smart girl. I knew, sooner or later, you’d see things my way.”
Levi and Amelia stood just outside the apartment door, the only place where Charity would permit them to be alone for more than a few moments.
Once she realized that Levi and Amelia were “courting,” as she put it, she seemed more determined than ever to chaperone every moment they were together.
“But I’m a widow, Charity,” Amelia said. “And you know Levi’s a decent man.”
“All the more reason for you not to lead him into temptation,” Charity said tartly, but she smiled when she said it. “And I keep explaining to you, Amelia—you just don’t look like a widow. You look like a young girl just out of the schoolroom.”
Now Levi took Amelia’s hand. She leaned in to kiss him—it was her favorite part of the day, finding all the secrets he concealed on his tongue—but he pulled back. She looked at him in surprise.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
His fingers were shaking a little. “Amelia, I know you can never love me as much as you loved Jack.”
“I’ve never said—”
“Wait,” he said. “Wait. I have to get it all out.”
He inhaled deeply, coming to some internal decision.
“I think you know that I love you, and that I have for some time,” he said. “I know nobody can replace your husband, and I don’t ever want to. But I hope that you would consider . . . that you would do me the honor of becoming my wife.”
It was strange, Amelia thought, that his stumbling words moved her so much. It was strange that his trembling hand meant more than the fist he’d used in her defense.
Jack had never asked her to marry him. It had just happened. She wanted to live with him, and in order to live with him they had to marry. There were no declarations of love like this. Jack had made his declaration the day he loosed her from the net and let her leave him.
It was not better or worse, she reflected, only valuable in a different way. And it was unfair to this man who stood before her, every part of him straining in hope toward her, to think of Jack at a time like this.
“Of course I will,” she said. “Of course I’ll be your wife.”
He didn’t kiss her then, but he took her in his arms and buried his face in her hair and she thought a very odd thing then—that she ought to thank the burning man, for if he had not done what he did, then she might never have realized how much she still wanted to live and that she loved Levi Lyman.
They were married as soon as the arrangements could be made. Levi told Barnum of their plans with some trepidation, but Barnum was thrilled.
“It makes everything easier, you see?” Barnum said. “Now you can travel with her on the tour and share one room because she’s your wife, and we won’t have to worry about hotels that don’t allow unaccompanied women or men making advances on her because she’s unmarried.”
Barnum paused, then added, “Congratulations.”
The preacher came to Barnum and Charity’s apartment to say the necessary words over Levi and Amelia. Barnum had pushed for a public wedding, attended by reporters. He had an idea that a wedding would wash away any taint of sin from Amelia—she would be a married mermaid, and therefore the objections of the Elijah Hunt supporters would be invalid.
Amelia had nipped that idea before it was able to fully flower. “I’m not marrying Levi in front of everyone in New York. That, Mr. Barnum, is not in my contract.”
And when Charity chimed in that a wedding was between a man and a woman and if they didn’t want it witnessed by every newspaper in Christendom then it was their affair, and not Barnum’s, the showman had to subside.
Levi brought Amelia home to his little apartment under the same cover of night that he’d used to sneak her out to the ocean to save her.
He unbuttoned all her buttons and unlaced all her laces, and when he put his hands on her, he shuddered and so did she.
“I’ve dreamed of you for so long,” he said.
They stayed inside that little apartment for three days, and on the fourth day Barnum came to the door holding an advertising bill.
“The tour is all arranged,” he said. “You leave tomorrow.”
That night Amelia felt something different when Levi arched above her, something quicken in her belly.
Later, when he was sleeping, she lay awake and put her hands over her stomach and whispered.