I mounted and rode a little, doing my very best, though I was extremely nervous for fear that I should not prove to be acceptable. I suppose I rode a good deal better than Bridget had done, for the manager, his wife, and all the men in the ring seemed greatly delighted. I ended by throwing some somersaults, and that set them almost wild. The manager engaged me on the spot, making me sign the contract in the dressing-room tent before I had changed my clothing. Then he hurried me back to the tavern, registered me as Mademoiselle Fifine, writing the name in a big hand all across the page, and ordered me to bed.
“You mustn’t be nervous at your first performance,” he said; “so you must get plenty of sleep.”
When it came time to go to the circus, I was surprised to find that a special carriage, drawn by two large, white horses with long, flowing tails, had been provided for me. I learned afterward that this was one of the Grand Panjandrum’s devices for advertising his “matchless equestrienne.” It gave the people the impression that Mademoiselle Fifine was a person of so much consequence that she must be treated like a queen, and it led to many wild, exaggerated stories of the royal salary the manager had to pay in order to secure so distinguished an “artiste.” It was popularly believed that “ten thousand a year wouldn’t touch her”; that she had her own carriage and coachman and footman and maid, and always the finest rooms in the hotel. My salary, in fact, was fifty dollars a month, and the “coachman” was one of the ring attendants. But I did have the best rooms in all the hotels. The Grand Panjandrum insisted upon that, and he did it rather noisily, too, complaining that the hotels really had no rooms fit for such a person to live in. All this was advertising, of course, but at any rate I was made as comfortable as could be.
I succeeded very well indeed in the bareback riding, and at my suggestion the manager sent an agent to Campbell’s ranch and bought the five or six horses there that I had trained. I soon drilled them to perform little acts in the ring which seemed to please the public. For this the manager added ten dollars a month to my salary. He and his wife were always very good to me, but some of the actors in the circus seemed jealous of the attention shown me and of the applause I got. I was already miserable, because I hated the business and especially my own part of it.
The whole thing seemed to me vulgar, and the people I had to associate with were very coarse. But what could I do? Anything was better than being Campbell’s daughter, and the circus gave me a living at the least.
Chapter the Fifteenth
I DID not remain long with the circus—not more than four or five months, I think—before Campbell found out where I was and came after me. If the manager had been a man of any courage, I should have refused to go with Campbell. But when Campbell threatened him with all sorts of lawsuits and prosecutions, he agreed to discharge me. Even then I should not have gone with Campbell if I could have got the money due me for my riding. But after the first month the manager had paid me almost nothing, on the plea of bad business (though his tent was always packed), and as he was paying all my expenses except for my plain clothes, I hadn’t pressed him for the money. He owed me nearly two hundred dollars when Campbell came, and I asked him for it, meaning to run away and find some other employment. But Campbell told him he was my father and my guardian, and that the money must be paid to him and not to me. The manager weakly yielded, and so I hadn’t enough money even to pay a railroad fare.
Under the circumstances, there was nothing for me to do but go with Campbell. He had sold the ranch, and was now keeping a big wholesale store in the city of Austin. He had built a very big house, and had a great many negro servants in it. Soon after I got to Austin, Campbell’s store was burned, and I thought at first that he was ruined. But he seemed richer after that than ever. My mother told me it was the insurance money, and a good many people used to think he had burned the store himself. There was a lawsuit about it, but Campbell won.
One day I concluded to have a talk with him. I asked him why he wanted to keep me with him, and why he wouldn’t give me the money I had earned in the circus, and let me go away.
He laughed at me, and told me it was because he didn’t choose to have his daughter riding in a circus. So I got no satisfaction out of him then. But in the letter he sent me in the bundle of papers that Colonel Kilgariff brought me, he explained the matter. It was because he feared I would get somebody else to be my guardian, and any new guardian would come upon him for the stocks and bonds my father had given me. Campbell had sold all of them that he could, and was using the money himself.