Читать книгу The Snake-Oil Dickens Man - Ross Gilfillan - Страница 9

Chapter Two

I

I RODE THAT poor horse hell for leather back to the Particular and jumped off by the front steps, fully expecting to be received like the messenger from Marathon. I found Merriweather where I had left him and poured out my news in one long and unpunctuated narrative. Merriweather was suspicious and sceptical but Amory said he’d had reports of Barnum’s juggernaut rolling through a neighbouring state and thought it might be due at a city not fifty miles from us the following week. Now he considered it, Merriweather recalled that he had seen a handbill bearing Barnum’s name in the street but hadn’t stopped to pick it up.

I said, of course it was Barnum. They’d only have to look at him to know that. And they could do that now because here was the buggy stopping right outside. Merriweather flicked aside the curtains and peered out. Irving, whose excitement had propelled him into the parlour after me, said:

‘I tell you it’s Barnum hisself!’

‘Barnum don’t look like that.’

‘How d’you know? You seen pictures?’

‘No, I ain’t seen no photographs, but why would he claim to be this Dorlyon?’

‘Well, I heard tell, one time he went and sat in the seats of his own cirkis, jest like he was a reg’lar customer and when they was all applaudin’ and calling out for Barnum, he jest sat where he was and never let on.’

‘Kinda thing he might do, then?’

‘Sure is. Exactly so. He’s checking us out, making sure this town’s the one for his show. Looking over this hotel too, I reckon.’

‘Appears the part, I must say,’ said Merriweather. ‘Fancy clothes. And what’s that on his finger? A diamond?’

‘P.T. Barnum ain’t the man to wear paste,’ said Irving.

‘Well, Barnum or no Barnum, it don’t do to keep customers waiting,’ said the hotelier and hustled Irving out the door. Then he checked himself in the glass, sent me about my work and made his own regal entrance.

II

I didn’t see Mr D’Orleans again until dinner-time but I could tell the impression he was creating from the orders that were being sent to the kitchen. Mary Ann and the cook were preparing for dinner like it was Thanksgiving at the White House. I had come to help out but finished up only getting underfoot and Mary Ann loaded me up with a great bundle of bed-linen and sent me spinning across the yard towards the wash-house. My mother was there, as she always was, stirring sheets and shirts in the big copper tub. She said, ‘Lo, Billy,’ but she kept on stirring, her hair all over her eyes, as it ever was.

‘You all right, Ma?’ I said, for I had taken to using this appellation and from that you may deduce that my relationship with her had considerably improved from the day I had attempted to exorcise her from the back stoop.

‘I guess I am,’ she said.

‘Don’t look it, Ma,’ said I, ‘Merriweather getting at you agin?’

‘That man,’ she said.

‘He ain’t beat you again, has he?’ I said. ‘Because if he has …’

She stood up from the wash-tub and straightened herself. Whenever she did this I was surprised to see how much taller she was and how proud she could appear when she didn’t stoop and wasn’t so timid and servile.

‘You listen to me, Billy,’ she flashed, ‘I don’t want you meddling with nothing that happens ’twixt Melik and me; ’taint none of your business. Someone’s going to get hurt if you do that. Understand me now.’

Anger and burning frustration flared like foxfire, as it always did whenever I tried to touch upon the roots of things and asked why Merriweather was so blamed keen to keep us both at the Particular.

I said, ‘I don’t know that I do understand, Ma. It’s awful hard when he threatens you. He does it to keep me in line. What if we was both to go away from here? What then?’

‘Some things jest ain’t possible,’ she said, with grim simplicity, ‘and that’s one of ’em.’

‘I wish I could change your mind.’

‘Don’t worry yourself over me. Merriweather ain’t so bad.’ She plunged her arms into the water and began to pummel one of his shirts. ‘Any case,’ she said, ‘where could we go? Here, I got shelter and food.’

She paused a moment and then said, ‘But you’re getting to be an ejucated fellow, Billy, I can see you gotta look out for something better.’

I couldn’t tell her the nature of the threats Merriweather had made against the eventuality of my deciding to quit him and his hotel, so I let the matter drop and helped her with the laundry. After we had done, I said maybe we could talk more when I came to see her later. My mother occupied a room in a lean-to behind the wash-house and I had taken to visiting her for an hour; not mainly for conversation, because she wasn’t one for that, but to teach her to read and write. But it was beginning to look like she was either word-blind or quite as stupid as Merriweather said and the worst of it was, I could never seem to make out which. As I left the shed, she said, ‘T’aint just Merriweather, Billy!’

‘What do you mean, Ma? Who, then?’

She held out her arms which were lividly red up past the elbow and her hands, wrinkled as a corduroy road, closed me to her bosom.

‘Nobody, Billy. I didn’t mean that,’ she said. ‘Only sometimes little people get swept into a corner by the big folk and once they get themselves in that corner, there just ain’t no escapin’.’

III

D’Orleans and Wilkes were seated before the most sumptuous table I had ever laid at the Particular. I served them with turkey and chicken and ham and pork and every kind of vittle we had in the larder. Then I brought the wine and was startled, as much as injured, when Merriweather struck me hard for bringing out the second-best. He sent me to fetch bottles from his own stock, apologising to his guests all the while. When I had set wine and a box of cigars upon the table, Merriweather ventured to pull up a chair and address the opulently-attired Mr D’Orleans.

‘I’m told you are agents for Mr Barnum,’ he said, with a smile you might have hung cups on.

‘’Deed we are,’ said Wilkes, through his own chip-toothed grin. ‘Our job’s to make sure everything’s fine and dandy when the travelling museum comes to town. I’m in sole charge of advance publicity. Maybe you seen some of them bills I posted?’

Merriweather nodded but his eyes were fastened upon Mr D’Orleans who continued to eat, quite daintily; eating and observing, but so far without saying anything.

‘And a nation hard job it is,’ the thin man was saying. ‘Barnum demands the best and only the best will do.’

‘Barnum’s is a pretty bully show, ain’t it?’ said Merriweather.

‘Why I should say it is,’ said the man. ‘Best since C’ligula. It’s been laid before the kings and queens of Europe. Barnum give ’em the best seats hisself.’

‘Old Barnum must be making a sizeable pile of money,’ observed Merriweather, eyeing D’Orleans’ ring.

Here Mr D’Orleans slowly ground out his cigar and spoke.

‘The trick, as I’m sure you appreciate, is in spending money to make money.’

Merriweather nodded, eagerly.

‘If Barnum thinks whales are what the public wants to see, he catches them and shows them at the museum, regardless of expense. Barnum has men scouring the earth for fantastical novelties that will pull the city crowds through the doors of his American Museum or the country folk after his travelling circus. Do you know how much it costs Barnum to take this huge show about the states? But it doesn’t matter because Barnum knows he’ll get it back, and more. He spends money on seeing to it that his show is always the best and he also spends on publicising the name of Barnum. Investing and advertising, that’s Barnum’s trick.’

‘I got charge of that,’ said Wilkes, ‘I post the bills, get the puffs in the newspapers, spread the word, hang the bunting, maybe rustle up a band to play Barnum into town. That way, when the caravan turns up, there’s a crowd of customers there already, just begging him to take their dollars. Oh, I think I can say that Barnum knows my worth.’

‘Indeed he does,’ said Mr D’Orleans.

Merriweather regarded the bigger man with fascination.

‘Mind if I inquire what is your function, precisely?’ he said.

‘I call it attending to details,’ said D’Orleans. ‘Mr Barnum is accustomed to the best of everything. He can’t take his circus just anywhere. Everything has to be suitable. He can as easily set the show some place else. It’s not just a matter of a likely spot to pitch the tents and corral the animals. Mr Barnum and his performers need their rest, away from the hurly-burly and quality accommodation is not always easily found.’

‘Very true,’ said Merriweather.

Mr D’Orleans adopted a confidential tone. ‘Mr Merriweather, I take you for a smart businessman. A man doesn’t come to have an establishment as fine as this without being sharp.’

Merriweather nodded complacently.

‘So I hardly need to explain to you the opportunity this will afford?’

‘No, no, I can see that. I heard what it’s done for other places. Why only this morning, I was saying to Silas Amory that what this town needs is some big attraction. I guess the Barnum show would do it.’

‘And you would be agreeable that Mr Barnum and his party lodge here? I did notice another establishment by the railroad …’

‘That plague-hole ain’t fit for Mr Barnum,’ said Merriweather. ‘No, you must have him come here. He’ll get the best of everything.’

‘That’s well because, of course, that’s what he is used to. Now, it’s a tedious business but there are certain small matters that will need attending to before I telegraph Mr Barnum with confirmation that both town and accommodation will suit.’

Telegraph Mr Barnum! That was a good ’un, I thought, as I refilled the glasses.

In the event the business seemed anything but tedious to Mr D’Orleans as he listed the requirements of P.T. Barnum and Merriweather copied them down. D’Orleans was evidently a man who delighted in making the most thorough of preparations. He rocked back in his chair, put his shiny boots upon the table and invited me to light his cigar.

‘Mr Barnum is partial to a good smoke,’ he began. ‘These will never do. But you can procure more?’

‘Oh, cigars? I don’t think that’ll be no problem,’ said Merriweather.

‘And while this sort of thing,’ he indicated the bones of the fowl on his plate, ‘is quite adequate for Wilkes and I, when it comes to Mr Barnum, it simply won’t do. I’m sure you understand.’

‘’Course I do,’ said Merriweather. ‘You just tell me what he wants and I’ll see he gets it.’

‘I should have your cellar replenished.’ He tossed off a bumper of Merriweather’s premium claret as if it were sarsaparilla. ‘I can recommend some vintages, if you like.’

Merriweather frowned at the stranger and said: ‘Pardon me, but I thought he was a teetotaller?’

‘Mr Barnum is, certainly,’ said D’Orleans. ‘It keeps the temperance folk sweet, but,’ and he touched his nose, ‘there are those of his party who are partial to a good Bordeaux. With the time they have spent in France, how could it be otherwise? I shall need to inspect your cellar.’

‘Well, there ain’t much to inspect but I guess I can get more supplied,’ said Merriweather.

‘Then there’s the matter of accommodation. He’ll take your best apartment.’

‘Nothing wrong with the one you’ve got, is there?’

‘Mr Barnum will want something more spacious. And, of course, rooms for his closer associates.’

‘Of course, of course. How many?’

‘All of them, at least,’ said D’Orleans.

‘But I have gentlemen occupying half of them,’ the hotelier demurred.

‘That’s your affair, of course. However, if I were you …’

‘They’ll be gone tomorrow,’ said Merriweather. ‘I’ll pack ’em off to the Central Pacific Hotel.’ Merriweather had begun to look uneasy. He loosened his collar, about which he appeared to be feeling some warmth.

‘There will be no problem?’ asked D’Orleans. ‘Because if there is, you should say so now and we will decamp to the Pacific.’

‘There’s no problem. It’s just going to be a big outlay. And what about my guests? They may never come back.’

‘Spend money to make money,’ smiled D’Orleans. ‘Barnum under this roof should be advertising sufficient to put this place on the map. A moderate outlay now will certainly return itself and more later. There was a fellow in St Louis, had a small but decent enough hotel. Barnum stayed and now he’s got the biggest place in town.’

‘He’s rich as creases,’ said Wilkes.

Merriweather smiled uncertainly. ‘Let me help you to another glass,’ said D’Orleans. ‘I think we understand each other. Now we come to those details peculiar to entertaining Mr Barnum’s party.’

Merriweather sat stiffly, like a rod in a lightning storm.

‘The General will expect special accommodation.’

‘The General?’ said Merriweather.

‘Gen’ral Tom Thumb, o’ course,’ said Wilkes.

‘You’ll know that General Thumb is travelling with Barnum?’ said D’Orleans.

‘I suppose he is,’ said Merriweather. ‘What of it?’

‘It’s your beds,’ said D’Orleans, ‘I measured them at three feet …’

‘And six inches,’ said Wilkes, consulting his notebook.

‘From floorboard to quilt,’ said Mr D’Orleans. ‘They will never do for the General. He will expect a bed of an appropriate size.’

‘Well, where can I get one of those? A child’s crib?’

‘A child’s crib? That would be far beneath his dignity, a gross insult to one of his high standing. Remember that the General has been exhibited at the royal courts of London and Paris …’

‘Then mightn’t he use a set of steps?’

‘That would hardly do! The General is Mr Barnum’s most prized exhibit and personal friend. If all is not acceptable to him, it will be no less so to Mr Barnum himself.’

‘Then what shall I do?’

‘Get a bed made,’ said D’Orleans. ‘And while you’re about it, have the carpenter fashion a wash-stand and chair. And an escritoire, so he may attend to his correspondence.’

‘This is outrageous,’ said Merriweather.

‘And have any regular-sized furniture removed from his room.’

‘Is that everything?’ said Merriweather, weakly.

‘Yes. Excepting the matter of the Indians,’ said D’Orleans.

‘Indians?’ said Merriweather.

‘Just a few Cheyenne, some Apache and a bloodthirsty Kiowa called Yellow Bear who have consented to attach themselves to the circus. They’re perfect gentlemen and won’t give you any problems. So long as you don’t inflame them, of course.’

‘How?’

‘Well,’ said D’Orleans, winking at me, ‘Be sure you don’t put a Commanche in the same bed as an Apache, for one thing. Although I’m given to understand that a Kiowa with a Commanche might be quite safe.’

Merriweather’s eyes were too clouded with the visions of ghostly dollars to see what was afoot but it was now clear to me that Mr D’Orleans or Barnum as we supposed, was having a rare game at Merriweather’s expense. He and Wilkes were enjoying it mightily but no one relished the spectacle as much as myself. In fact, now I remembered how D’Orleans had looked when Merriweather had struck me, I fancied that it might even be for my benefit.

My enjoyment was short-lived. Merriweather invited his guests to take a glass of whisky with him in the saloon, no doubt intending to show them off to his other customers. Wilkes bent over the table and whispered in his ear. Merriweather, his head crooked in my direction, seemed to notice my presence for the first time and snapped, ‘Don’t stand there gawking, Billy. Ain’t you got no work to do?’

IV

I had promised my mother that I would visit her later and was surprised and annoyed when I didn’t find her in her room waiting for me. She wasn’t in the kitchen and didn’t answer when I called up the stairs. I asked Mary Ann if Merriweather had sent her upon an errand, but Mary Ann was too busy scrubbing the pile of dirty dishes our new guests had caused to bother answering questions from me.

I was about to walk over to the livery stables, where she sometimes went to talk to Old Henry, when I heard Elijah’s bell. Wilkes’s high-pitched laughter rang from the saloon accompanied by a low and silken chuckle that I guessed must belong to D’Orleans. Everyone was having a bully time and I longed to hear what was going on. But Elijah had summoned me and I must go. I could have taken the back stairs but instead, I fished my book from my coat pocket and hastened into the saloon, heading for the main staircase. Mr D’Orleans arrested my progress. ‘And where might you be going in such an all-fired hurry? Won’t you sit with us awhile?’

‘Sit down, boy, you might learn something of the world,’ said Wilkes.

‘I have to attend on Mr Putnam,’ I said to Merriweather, showing him the book.

Merriweather exploded. ‘Putnam be damned!’ he said. ‘Our guests have requested your presence. You’ll stay here.’ Elijah’s bell rang once more and so used was I to obeying its call that sitting there while it jangled seemed next to unnatural.

But how mightily pleased I was to join the company and hear Wilkes and Mr D’Orleans entertaining the entire saloon with astounding accounts of Mr Barnum’s Travelling World’s Fair. Mr Barnum was truly an amazing man. He had built himself a palace and called it Iranistan. He took to farming at Iranistan but he didn’t use horses, not he. Mr Barnum’s ploughs were pulled by elephants! He had built his own city. He had the greatest show on earth – a circus, menagerie and marvellous museum all rolled into one – and when it came here, which it would, as soon as Mr D’Orleans sent word that all was satisfactory, we’d see the miracles wrought by P.T. Barnum for ourselves.

Mr D’Orleans said that he’d taken a liking to me and would escort me personally through the menagerie where I’d see wolves and bears and leopards and tigers. And he would take me to the kraal, where we could watch the bareback riders and sharpshooters practising. There’d be dwarves and giants, wire-walkers and acrobats, bear-tamers and lion-slayers. He told Merriweather that it befitted the dignity of the circus to have the best seats occupied by the dignitaries of the town and he would be honoured if the hotel owner would accept the first two complimentary tickets for such seats. Merriweather took the proffered red-coloured tickets while D’Orleans presented a handful of yellow ones to the assembled company. ‘Tell your friends,’ he told them.

‘Don’t let ’em miss the day P.T. Barnum came to town!’

While the crowd was taking up their tickets and talking up P.T. Barnum, Mr D’Orleans said to me, ‘I have quite taken a shine to you, Billy. You’ll help us pave the way for the circus, won’t you? I need someone I can count on.’

‘Oh, I sure will!’ I exclaimed.

‘I’m glad. You can show us a place we can erect the tents and pavilions? And put up signs advertising the coming?’

I could, for sure.

‘And maybe you could also help us with the tickets. Mr Wilkes?’

Wilkes, who had been exchanging a quiet word with Merriweather, gave D’Orleans his ear.

‘I had just been thinking of how matters might be expedited if we were to sell the tickets in advance of the show, as we have sometimes done before. It’s really not too troublesome and it would save much time later.’

‘Well, I suppose we could …’

‘Good, then I shall arrange with Mr Merriweather how we may proceed with sales of the tickets on the morrow.’

I basked in the glow of his attention and had it not been for my mother’s recalcitrance, I should surely have followed the dream that was born then, of slipping away with this circus and never seeing Merriweather nor the Particular again. Here was I, Billy Talbot, who had never been anything and had never looked like amounting to anything, called to assist the most famous showman on earth. What with all the excitement, the merriment and the two glasses of beer I’d just had, I couldn’t help voicing the question that was on the minds of everyone present.

‘Are you Mr Barnum?’ I asked and there was a perceptible hush.

No one could have been surprised at my question, only at my presumption in asking it. In his velveteen suit and silver watch chain, with his chest thrown out and his head back, he had the poise and the stature we would have expected of a legend. But he only laughed loudly and said, ‘Barnum indeed!’

The hotelier laughed with his favoured guest and clapped him on the back. ‘Barnum indeed!’ he echoed.

I was thinking I never had enjoyed a night at the Particular so much. It was an occasion I should remember for ever, I was sure of that. Our guests seemed to think I was capital company and even Merriweather was casting me approving looks. Mr D’Orleans excused himself – he was tired and would have a long day of it tomorrow. He left Wilkes to tell us of how they had to build great water tanks to hold the rhinoceroses, which they called rhinonosceri, on account of there being so many of them and of how he’d questioned his own wisdom in calling his shooting gallery the ‘John Wilkes’s Booth’. I was ready to be entertained but Merriweather was looking about for someone to be confidential with and could find only me.

‘Now this is more like it,’ he said, rubbing his palms.

‘Ain’t it, though?’ I said, glowing with pleasure. ‘I did right, didn’t I?’ I think by then I actually believed I had been instrumental in bringing Barnum to town, when all I had really done was to gallop on ahead, waving an arm and hollering ‘Barnum’s a-coming, Barnum’s a-coming!’

He too left the room shortly after and I gorged myself on tales of far-off lands, of adventures beyond the scope of my imagination and I congratulated myself that such wonderful people would actually stoop to take an interest in my poor self. Maybe the world wasn’t what I had taken it for, after all.

Then Merriweather reappeared in advance of something pink and shimmering. But for the drink inside me, I would have been more shocked. Even so, the vision of my mother, the drab, stained and work-worn hermit of the wash-house, transformed by a quality taffeta dress, with her hair washed and combed and piled up upon her head and cheeks modestly rouged and powdered, sent a tremor through my frame. She was suddenly beautiful. I tried to say something to her but either the words never escaped my lips or she didn’t hear me.

The rouge on her cheeks seemed of a stronger colour as she stopped by my chair. Wilkes said, ‘You’ll have to excuse me, Billy,’ and got up and took her hand and together they walked down the saloon and I cannot tell you how I felt when she hoisted the hem of her dress and mounted the stairs.