CHAPTER 2

When I woke from my stupor, with daylight in my eyes, a strange woman was sitting by my bed, holding my wrist and measuring my pulse.

‘How do you feel?’ she asked.

‘Have I been unwell?’

‘You have coughed up half the river. I took the liberty of washing off a deal of mud. I also gave you a sleeping draught.’ I groaned, tried to sit up. ‘Lie still.’ Under a twist of greying sandy hair were freckles, shrewd grey eyes and a sucked-in mouth. The voice had the nasal twang of an accent I did not recognise, and the elbow on the arm that pulled up the bedclothes had a sharp point.

‘The river … what happened?’

‘You don’t remember?’

‘Not much.’ A faint roaring. A dog barking.

‘You’re a heroine, dear.’ Her twang emphasised the r’s. That voice: it was the one you use to children so they will not be puffed up with praise.

‘I don’t understand, Mrs …’

‘Mrs Bleeker. Sit up. Drink.’ She handed me a glass of warm milk. ‘My husband is Sylvester Bleeker, the General’s tour manager.’ She spoke as if I should know who the General was.

I sipped the milk. My locket lay on the table by the bed; but the table was marble, not plywood, and the sleeves around my wrists were not my sleeves.

The strange spiky woman watched me frown. ‘I moved you into a more comfortable room. Rest assured, there will be no expense.’

‘You are very kind, but I really am fine.’

She gave me a long look. I thought that the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes might mean kindness or calculation. I pulled the nightgown up around my neck. When she reached out with both hands, I began to shrink back, thinking she would touch, dispassionate as a doctor, my swollen breasts and tender nipples. Instead, she took both my hands in hers, drew them into the light, pressed them as a phrenologist measures a head.

‘We must notify your family, Miss …’

One word swam into my head, and then another. ‘Mrs … Carroll.’

‘We must notify Mr Carroll, then.’ She let my hands go.

I waited, and more words swam in. ‘Mr Carroll passed away.’

‘I am sorry.’

I ran my gaze along the mantelpiece, the clock, the Toby jug. ‘He was of the clergy, he had red cheeks …’

Mrs Bleeker raised an eyebrow.

‘But very sober in his habits,’ I went on hastily.

‘You were both English? Your voice is refined.’

‘We came from England to better ourselves. But then he was taken with the pleurisy. It was very sudden. Now I have no one, no family. I cannot pay you, I have spent the last of my money.’

Now she would leave. But all she did was pat my right hand. Then she held the fingers apart, examined the webbing that stretched between them to the lower knuckle. She picked up my left hand, spread the fingers again; I fought the urge to snatch back my hand.

‘I was born so,’ I said. ‘I cannot wear gloves, or rings.’

‘You will want a position. Have you been in employment?’

‘I was a governess: I taught reading, writing, drawing, pianoforte. It is true, I am in need of a position. I was told there were many opportunities for governesses in Australia. I have a good reference. Do you know of anyone who —’

‘Can you sew a fine seam?’

‘Pretty fine.’ A strange question to ask a governess. She squeezed my left hand, took the empty milk glass and left the room.

When I woke again I was alone, but on the chair beside the bed was a large bundle of black fabric, and on the coverlet just below my chin was a white glove and a bobbin of white cotton pierced with a needle. I sat up, turned the glove over and over: silk, smelling faintly of lilacs, about the size to fit a five-year-old with slender hands, three of the finger ends and thumb frayed and gaping. I sewed up the finger and thumb ends with small, tight stitches and embroidered two rows of fancy stitch along the hem before a memory rose, with a wave of nausea, of white fabric ballooning on dark water.

Mrs Bleeker returned with chicken broth, bread and more milk. She waited behind the door until I had used the chamber pot under the bed, then put down the tray and fetched a jug, soap and a bowl of water. While I washed, she picked up the glove, turned it inside out, stretched it, thrust her little finger inside. ‘Not half bad,’ she murmured, then looked at the hem and sniffed. ‘What counts is strength. All the clothes must endure hard use. Yanked on and off, tugged at by ragamuffins —’

‘Mrs Bleeker, do you have a position for me?’ I paused, tried to slow down my eagerness. ‘Does your child require a governess?’

‘Child? What child?’ Her voice was sharp. ‘There is no child. Eat your broth.’

I sat meekly at the marble table.

She lifted the mass of fabric from the chair by the bed. ‘I wore this when I played the mother of one of Bluebeard’s wives,’ she said in a softer tone. ‘Excuse me for saying this, but my cries over my dead daughter were heart-rending, everyone said so.’ The black gown had stripes of alternating matte and shiny silk. ‘This would fit you well.’

The broth smelled delicious. I was suddenly starving.

I spent another day and night in the room, eating meals at the marble table, sitting by the window in the soft woollen nightgown, mending seven pairs of little gloves of silk and kid, repairing a rip in a tiny muff of black fur that sat like a kitten in my lap. The window faced away from the road and river; a calm rain fell on rows of carrot tops. From time to time, Mrs Bleeker swept in and out with trays and garments. Once she stayed a little longer, picking up the locket and dangling it from her fingers. I felt a brisk rummaging through my heart.

‘Do you have a job for me? I sew, I sketch, I do anything. Surely there is a job for me?’

Mrs Bleeker took the tray and left. I held myself back from running along the corridor after her like a puppy.

I woke early, covered in sweat. I wrapped myself in the coverlet and waited in the chair for dawn. My breasts tingled, I felt slightly sick. Rain pattered on the window. This was what it was like, to be in limbo. I forbade myself to think of my burden, the past, or the future, and I would not try on the black dress. But I did pick it up when daylight came, and in the pocket I found a piece of folded paper. I opened it and the print shouted at me.

Sylvester Bleeker, manager

Positively Twenty-Nine Days Only
at the Polytechnic Hall, Melbourne

Four of the Smallest Human Beings of mature age in the World

Perfect Ladies and Gentlemen in Miniature

The original and only GENERAL TOM THUMB and his WIFE
(Mr and Mrs Chas. Stratton), COMMODORE NUTT and MISS
MINNIE WARREN in their BEAUTIFUL PERFORMANCES
consisting of SONGS, DUETS, COMIC ACTS, BURLESQUES
and LAUGHABLE ECCENTRICITIES.

Ned Davis, agent

March 1870

I put down the paper, grabbed the nightgown I was wearing in my fists and pulled the folds up over my head. I felt with my hands how the cloth flattened and distorted my nose and mouth, turned my eyes into ghostly hollows. Was this how a simple garment, soaked in water and mud, turned into a caul? Was this how a man became a monster?

Footsteps at the doorway. I whirled, pulled the gown from my head. Mrs Bleeker stood with her arms full of white linen. She put down her bundle, and frowned and sniffed over the latest glove I had repaired.

‘You have ladies,’ I said. ‘Mrs Charles Stratton and Miss Minnie Warren. I would be a very good ladies’ maid.’

‘It is not a position for a governess, or a clergyman’s widow.’

‘But I can mend their clothes, dress them, run errands. I can help you too. I can be your assistant. Please, Mrs Bleeker.’

She hesitated. ‘I will have to ask my husband.’

When she came back, she had an offer.

‘Twenty-two pounds. That’s for nine months, the length of our tour of Australia. Board and all expenses paid, including travel. You will be assistant wardrobe mistress and ladies’ maid to Mrs Stratton and Miss Warren when required.’

I thought of the meagre governess’s wage, held my breath.

‘There will be much hard work and constant travel,’ Mrs Bleeker went on. ‘We will not always stay in such pleasant hotels. The people who come to see us can be rude and vulgar. But then, Mrs Carroll — what is your Christian name?’ I told her. ‘Mary Ann, you know more of Australians than we Americans.’

The twang. Of course. Our friends from the New World.

‘I am most grateful, Mrs Bleeker.’

‘This is all conditional, mind. If the post is agreeable to you, I shall arrange for the sisters, Mrs Stratton and Miss Warren, to interview you. It will be up to them. And the General. And my husband.’ She tweaked the curtain at the window. ‘The rain has stopped.’ She picked up the dress from the bed and held it against me. ‘Black becomes you. I have brought clean underclothes. Will you not try it on?’

She retreated behind the door and waited while I took off the nightgown and put on the camisole, pantaloons, corset, petticoat and hoop. Then she helped me into the dress, showed me the looking glass: pale face and feet, dark tangled hair, black and silver stripes rippling like the moon on water.

‘This gown is too fine for me,’ I said.

‘Nonsense. It’s stage finery.’

In the mirror, over my striped shoulder, Mrs Bleeker stared at me. I saw myself with the same gaze: startled-deer eyes, face still childishly round, but for the jut of my chin. Her gaze travelled down, up, hovered just below my waist.

‘I had almost forgot.’ She took my left hand and slipped a gold ring onto my third finger. It stopped at the joint, just above the web of skin, but it stayed in place. ‘There. You can wear a ring after all. Only painted gold, I fear. We have many such props. Perhaps it will serve as a reminder of poor Mr Carroll.’

I could not help myself. I took Mrs Bleeker’s thimble-callused hand in mine, pulled it to my heart and began to cry.

‘Oh, there, there,’ she said, looking around furtively as if someone would appear and blame her for the tears.

Of course I was curious about the little people. I had never seen any kind of little person, but I had touched one, as we struggled by the Yarra Yarra, and nausea rose when my fingers recalled the fishy wet skin.

I thought of Mr Quilp the dwarf in Mr Dickens’s book, with his hook nose and villain’s smile. I fell asleep while sewing a glove and I entered a hall where the Perfect Ladies and Gentlemen in Miniature stood on a high platform, their eyes level with mine, to judge me. They were not perfect. They were hunchbacked, and their limbs were stumps ending in claws. Their ruddy Toby-jug faces were wizened and crushed and they wore smocks fit for madmen and women. They pointed at me and screeched like bats, You must be tractable, and threw out strings baited with hooks that caught in my clothes and drew me towards them. They would tie me down like Gulliver. I woke, the glove crushed in my hand.

Then Mrs Bleeker came to tell me it was time to meet the ladies, and I wanted to hide behind the curtains, but I scolded myself for such childish fears.

In the sisters’ boudoir, bright dresses, shawls and underwear lay strewn over the beds and furniture amid an overpowering scent of lilacs. At the heart of scent and colour, the furled bud, was Mrs Lavinia Stratton, her eyes fixed on mine.

Imagine a society beauty, and all the things people say about her. Tiny waist, lustrous black hair, exquisitely modelled neck and shoulders, velvet skin, finely shaped eyebrows and black eyelashes. Imagine hair loose, slim form wrapped in a Japanese robe of rose and white silk, dainty feet in matching rose slippers. Now imagine she is just a fraction less perfect: cheeks a little too round and babylike. Now imagine she sips from the magic bottle labelled Eat Me, and she shrinks down, still in perfect proportion, until she is no taller than my hip. And this shrinking concentrates her beauty, as cordial sweetens the strawberry.

Beside her was Miss Minnie Warren, a bonny fairy in a green silk wrap and green slippers, a little smaller, a little chubbier, hopping from one foot to the other. If she were not so close to her incomparable sister, and her own cheeks were not unfashionably ruddy, many would declare her a beauty in her own right. Lavinia, hands folded, could pass for a figurine; but Minnie was a blur of movement. Everything from her hair to her fingers was flyaway.

My eyes filled with tears; whether from wonder or the scent of lilacs, I could not tell. I could scarcely believe that one such creature existed on this earth, let alone two.

‘Kneel,’ Lavinia said to me, her voice imperious, musical. Did she demand a queen’s homage? But she was pointing to a pincushion on the floor in front of her, and I saw the hem of her robe was half pinned, the edge ragged. Behind me, Mrs Bleeker cleared her throat. I kneeled and continued pinning.

‘Look at me,’ Lavinia said. She was fanning her hair out over her shoulders. Her eyes were a startling violet. ‘What do you see?’

‘A beautiful lady,’ said I.

‘Not a beautiful little lady?’

I hesitated. Was the question a trap?

Lavinia smiled. ‘Always remember when you look at me that you are in the presence of a wonder of the world.’

‘Two wonders of the world,’ said Minnie, her voice high and a little sharp. Both spoke with Mrs Bleeker’s twangy accent.

‘I am the Queen of Beauty,’ Lavinia continued. ‘I sing like an angel. I am all that the most fastidious fancy could desire in a woman. Everyone says so.’ She shrugged the robe down a little, giving me a glimpse of powdered skin, then pulled it tight. ‘And I am highly intelligent, but nobody says that. At all times, my talents must be presented to best advantage.’

‘And my talents too,’ said Minnie. ‘Don’t forget my talents.’

‘As if we could,’ said Lavinia drily, shooting her a look. Then she turned back to me. ‘We are very much indebted to you, Mary Ann.’

I nodded, bent to her hem. Mrs Bleeker stood silently behind me, but her eyes were needles in my back.

‘You are a clergyman’s daughter,’ Lavinia went on. ‘And a clergyman’s widow. You look very young. What are you, seventeen?’

‘Twenty. I am newly widowed.’ I felt about to sneeze. I wanted to tell Lavinia a story of my blameless life, but the lilacs swelled my tongue.

‘Such is fortune for us poor women.’ Lavinia put one hand to her chin, tapped her rosebud lips with her forefinger. Her rings flashed. ‘You have worked with children. You sewed up my gloves. You braved the Yarra Yarra. You must have a cool head in a crisis. It is all crisis with us, is it not, Minnie?’

Minnie chuckled.

‘And yet,’ Lavinia continued, ‘I am not convinced we need a ladies’ maid on this tour. We have managed very well so far without one.’

A sneeze rose into my head, but I fought it back. ‘I believe I am not the panicky type,’ I said firmly. ‘I am very diligent and hard-working, and I use my head. I’m sure I can rise to any challenge you might set me.’

‘You are not backward in coming forward,’ said Lavinia. Was that a rebuke? ‘Very well, you shall have your challenge. Mrs B, what is the time?’

‘Twenty past three.’

‘So. Here is your task. You must dress me in my Worth lavender grosgrain gown and put up my hair, and then you must dress my sister in her primrose gown and put up her hair too. Just a simple knot. Mrs B, you can give her hairpins but you must not help her.’

That was easy enough.

‘And it must all be done by half past.’

Ten minutes? I might as well leave now, I thought, and beg in Melbourne’s alleyways. But it must be possible: no harder than dressing Matilda’s dolls. I turned to the bed and flipped through the rainbow of silks, satins and velvets until I glimpsed lavender, pulled out the gown and rushed to Lavinia. She stood with her arms held out, let me pull off her Japanese robe. I felt the faint trembling of her effort to keep herself calm, still, as if she stood balanced on a tiny point. Beneath, she was in her crinolette and underthings. She stepped into the dress and I coaxed her arms into the openings, smoothed and pulled the dress tight. Confusing braids and fringes, tiny hooks and exquisitely covered buttons set my fingers afumble, but somehow I got her fastened in, wound her hair into a hasty knot and pinned it in place. She patted it as if reassuring an unruly pet.

Mrs Bleeker consulted the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Twenty-three past.’

Good, that left more than half my time to attend to Minnie. But when I drew out the primrose gown, she laughed, flung off her wrapper and twisted away from me like a child playing chasey. I could not get her to step into it: I had to throw the silk over her head and then grab each flailing arm in turn and push it into the sleeves, wanting to smack her but not daring to hurt her or rip the delicate fabric.

‘Minnie dear,’ Lavinia cried in reproach, but she was laughing too. It was a much simpler dress than Lavinia’s, but Minnie kept wriggling out of my grasp, and when I tried to do up the buttons, she did can-can kicks under her frothing skirts. I despaired over her curls, pinned up the long locks and left the rest to dance Princess Eugenie–style around her cherubic face. We stood panting, eyeing each other.

‘Thirty-one past,’ said Mrs Bleeker.

‘That’s not fair,’ I cried. ‘You saw —’ Mrs Bleeker frowned and clicked her tongue at me.

‘I saw,’ said Lavinia. ‘But if we were backstage, we would miss our cue.’

I glared at Minnie, who widened her angelic eyes.

‘However,’ Lavinia went on, ‘in view of my sister’s skittishness —’

‘I am not skittish! It’s my natural spirits!’

‘— in view of my sister’s spirits, I will allow that you were very quick, Mary Ann … Minnie dear, you absolutely must let that hem down. I have told you time and time again. When you walk along the runway, all the gentlemen will see your ankles and Lord knows what.’

‘Oh, bosh. It’s exactly the length that Paris is wearing this season,’ said Minnie.

‘Nonsense. Think how fast you will look.’

‘Better fast than frumpy, Vin dear.’ Hands on hips like a tiny washerwoman, Minnie looked as if she were about to stick out her tongue at her sister.

Lavinia’s tone grew stern. ‘Altogether too much spirit. Have you had your medicine today?’

‘She will take it with her tea,’ said Mrs Bleeker. The parlourmaid had arrived with a trolley, and the sisters fell on it, jostling each other as they reached on tiptoe to the top tier of the cake tray. A scent of honey competed with the lilacs. Was I hired or not? I looked towards Mrs Bleeker, who gave a slight shrug.

‘Are you ladies decent?’ The cry came from the doorway, in a high tenor twang.

‘Come in, Charlie,’ said Lavinia.

Mr Charles Stratton, known as General Tom Thumb, strode into the boudoir, spurs clinking. A fine-looking fellow with strong eyebrows and full cheeks, his portliness suited him. He was dressed as Napoleon and moved with a stiff-legged strut as if surveying his empire. He had an erect carriage, a sparse gingery beard, a brave cockade in his hat and high boots buffed without mercy. He gave Lavinia a smacking kiss on the cheek, smiled at Minnie and Mrs Bleeker, took a slice of cake from its stand, broke off a piece and tossed it into his mouth. A hair’s breadth taller than Lavinia, he seemed to fill the room.

‘First-rate plum cake. You ladies have the best teas.’

His voice, high for a man, was deep compared to the ladies’ chirrups. Littleness concentrated his wife’s beauty; for him, littleness concentrated his masculinity, and this seemed to me even more marvellous. All three little people had the plump, fresh look of sparrows who might beg for crumbs, then hop under your nose and devour your whole dinner.

‘Is everything all right, Charlie?’ said Lavinia, gazing at him fondly.

‘Right as rain. How lovely you look, my dear. And you too, Minnie. And …’ He smiled at me. ‘Who might you be, missy? Come for my autograph?’

‘This is Mary Ann, General,’ said Mrs Bleeker. ‘She is a clergyman’s widow, we are considering hiring her to help out.’

Charlie — for so I would come to think of him, though I always called him General — looked me up and down, and I straightened like a soldier on parade. He stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his white waistcoat and thrust out his chest and stomach until the buttons were in danger of popping open. He drew his head back to catch my eye, his top chin sharp, his lower chin more rounded, and it seemed as if he were looking down at me. As he stared, I began to feel that my fancy of cheeky sparrows was all wrong. Charlie and the ladies were the right size, and Mrs Bleeker and I were clumsy giantesses.

I hid my huge hands behind my back as he began to frown.

‘Has Mr B approved this? Do we need any more help?’

‘She is the one, Charlie.’ Lavinia nudged his arm.

‘What’s that, Vin?’

‘The one who rescued you, when you lost your footing on the bridge and fell into the Yarra Yarra.’

Charlie’s gaze dropped. He gently brushed Lavinia’s hand from his arm, and a flush crept across his cheeks. My head roared again with a cascade, a slithery monster, and I averted my eyes as we stood like bashful children.

He will never let the troupe hire me, I thought, if I make him remember.

I felt his eyes on me once more and returned his gaze. His face was still flushed, but now it glowed with hope and an anxious little smile.

‘How is your health, Mary Ann?’

‘Very well, thank you.’ My reply was automatic, but I was sure my puzzlement showed.

‘Are you sure? Just lately? Ever feel a little peaky?’

Surely he could not know of my burden. I opened my mouth to insist I was well. He watched me, still smiling, gave me a little nod, his right eye twitched in something that was nearly a wink, and I realised what I should say.

‘I have felt a little indisposed lately. But it is nothing. I am more than capable of any amount of work.’

‘Well said,’ he cried, sweeping off his hat. ‘General Tom Thumb at your service, young woman. The General is totally in your debt. You saved him from oblivion in a spiteful river at the ends of the earth, and we will reward you handsomely.’ He took my hand in a firm paw, a little sticky with plum cake, and pumped it up and down.

‘How do you do, sir. I am glad to see you so well,’ I said.

He gave off a comfortable man scent of brandy and cigars.

‘What a warm hand,’ he said. ‘I have a feeling you will bring us good fortune. Let us drink a toast. Mrs B, do we have brandy?’

‘We have tea, General.’

‘That will do. Let us charge our glasses — I mean, cups.’

The three little people held out china cups, and Mrs Bleeker poured from the teapot.

Charlie raised his cup high, held my gaze. ‘Let us drink to youth and hope, to a new dawn. Not — as some in this troupe would have us believe — a false dawn.’ For a moment, his voice deepened. Lavinia and Mrs Bleeker exchanged a swift glance. Four of the Smallest Human Beings of mature age in the World, the pamphlet had said. Where was the fourth, and why wasn’t he here?

The cups rose, clinked together, and I felt an almost pleasurable dizziness as I stood in a circle of smiles. ‘To the future,’ said Charlie. I had no idea why he wanted me to act a little peaky, but I would have no trouble doing it.

Mrs Bleeker drew me back from the circle. ‘Well done,’ she whispered. ‘Now all you have to do is impress my husband.’