Tom Bedlam

by George Hagen

  But Oscar's most damning exposé was on the subject of Sissy Grimes:

  “Dear Tom,” he wrote.

  Recent facts compel your loyal friend to expose the activities of a certain acquaintance of yours, Miss Sissy Grimes:

  (1) The attractive young lady, an employee of Todderman & Sons Porcelain & Statuary, was observ'd in the close company of the nephew of the owner of same establishm't. (Note that Mr. & Mrs. Todderman were without issue, a side effect, no doubt, of seeing each other's faces in bed last thing at night and first thing in the morning.) Shortly thereafter Miss Grimes was promoted to the Accounts Dept., a post to which she was unsuited (accord g to knowledgeable sources) as the young lady was unable to add the digits of her left hand to the digits of the right and get the same answer twice.

  (2) Six months after said promot'n, Miss Grimes was observed to have gained weight (markedly more in the bellie than elsewhere). In such time, her addit'n had not improved, nor her subtract g (though her fingers consistently remained five to a hand).

  (3) Seven months after said promot'n, Joshua Todderman (bilious nephew and heir to the Todderman fortune) announced his engagem't to the comely Miss Grimes. Mr. Henry Todderman, proprietor, was heard by this report'r remark g that it was cheaper for his nephew to marry Miss Grimes than keep her on the payroll, as she was costing a fortune in invoicing mistakes.

  (4) One month later, the adorable Miss Grimes b'came the lawful wife of Mr. Jos. Todderman, and promptly gave birth upon her wedding night. She also gave notice (to the relief of many in the accountg dept.).

  (5) Seven months aft'r the birth of young Joshua Todderman, J. Todderman announced that his missus was pregn't again. (The account g dept. was deeply gratified by this news, as their ledgers had been perfectly balanced since her departure.)

  (6) Shortly after the birth of the Todderman triplets, Mrs. Todderman was seen visit g her husband at his place of business. The acc'ting dept. noted that Mrs. Todderman was expecting again (observed by this reporter) and noted that she was now in grave danger of giving birth to more children than she could effectively count.

  Your loyal servant begs your forgiveness for the intimate details described above, but attests to their veracity.

  Oscar

  Few documents could change a young man's sympathies so quickly. Sissy vanished from Tom's fantasies. Instead he began to entertain thoughts about Audrey. Her letters were frequent, her affection for him was constant, and her character had ripened. Her last letter typified this new maturity, showing an awareness of city life that was a far cry from that of any other girl her age.

  Dearest Tom,

  Your last letter was very sweet. I imagine you now a very different boy from the one whose attentions I fought so hard to steer away from my brother. In fact I blush, thinking of my foolishness, and hope you have forgotten that silly girl.

  I am not the same person I was, Tom, I know that. As I walk home in the evenings, Edmund feels less like a disguise than a second skin. I marvel at the freedom of men on the street. Men look where they wish, they carry themselves slowly, or meander, or sit without obligation to speak, or laze.

  Women have no such freedom. A woman is suspect if she walks slowly or meanders, coy if she sits and ignores the greetings of passing men, provocative if she looks a man in the eye, and offensive if she reclines upon the street as a bricklayer or a sweep does, with his feet spread and his mouth half-open.

  What freedom men enjoy! Is it fair? In my suit I can do these things; in my suit I can look a man in the eye and he thinks nothing of it; in my suit, I could go to sleep on a park bench and be left alone. But only a fallen woman dares sleep by herself in public!

  I am a half-man, Tom. I straddle the line, gratified by this privilege, able to enjoy men on their terms. And women? Well, I look at women and count myself lucky to be one only part of the time.

  Audrey

  William Bedlam also sent letters—two a year—which evoked a consistent theme. To cite one such message would be to cite them all:

  My Dear Tom,

  I am on the verge of great prospects and expect to return to the stage imminently! It is merely a matter of time, for I have the talent, the wisdom, and the confidence!

  Alas, circumstances and infirmities prevent me visiting or sending for you, but I hope to see you soon, with good news and renewed fortunes!

  With high hopes, Wm. Bedlam, Actor

  Tom turned eighteen during his final term at school. He listened to his peers discussing their plans; many would apprentice themselves to their fathers, and others spoke of joining the army. Tom entertained the idea of becoming a doctor but doubted that the terms of his agreement with Mr. Mansworth included the four years of training. His notes to his father went unanswered, and by his last week, he realized he hadn't even the train fare to return to London.

  On the day before he left, however, a letter arrived enclosing a pound note. It was not written in his father's hand.

  My dear boy,

  On behalf of your father, I enclose a pittance, which should enable you to book train passage to London. I urge you to come as quickly as possible, as the planets are aligning above us, and all indications point to a flaming Apocalypse by late July!

  May God preserve us, Paddy Pendleton

  There was no sign of the anticipated Armageddon as the train rolled past green meadows and the clutter of brick dwellings that marked the city's sprawling perimeter. It was a clear July day in 1885; the air was fresh, the sun generous and warm. Tom peered out of his window, looking for hints of his boyhood—a past that seemed distant, dark, and immutable now. But the call of the stationmaster was cheery, the mood in his carriage excited, and along the platform a parade of smiling strangers welcomed his fellow travelers.

  All at once, Tom was reminded that he was a young man, ready to embark on a life that would challenge the successes and failures of his father. He vowed to be unhindered by the many corruptions of his youth.

  LONDON

  AS TOM MADE HIS WAY FROM KING'S CROSS STATION, BAG IN HAND, wearing a school blazer and a low black hat, he cast a handsome shadow. His feet cut a long stride, his dark hair was trimmed short to the collar; he had his father's rigid nose, eyes of a pale and elusive blue, and one feature that belonged only to his mother.

  It was a small, persevering smile—Emily Bedlam had married William Bedlam with it, greeted her first and second sons into the world with it, and bade farewell to the last patch of blue sky she saw with it. It wasn't much of a smile, but it was tenacious, enduring, and uncynical. If she could have seen him now, she might have been relieved to see that it prevailed; for greater obstacles lay in store for him.

  IN THE DISORIENTING CHAOS of the station, a man with muscles almost bursting out of a straw-colored suit, sporting a riotous grin and a wide red mustache, gripped Tom with a firm embrace and a howl. “Tom Bedlam!” he cried. “Is it you?”

  “It is,” Tom replied anxiously. “Who are you?”

  The man laughed. “Do you not remember Oscar, Tom? Have you lost your mind in Scotland?”

  “Oscar? Oscar Limpkin!”

  Only in Oscar's wicked grin did Tom recognize his friend. The man who had once insisted on playing the hero and villain in every childhood game now led Tom from the terminus as he pointed out the notable figures in his city—as a journalist, Oscar was as proud of his knowledge as he was of his profession.

  “See that fellow?” he said, waving genially to a bald-headed barber standing at the threshold of his shop. “A wife killer, acquitted.”

  Farther along the street he embraced a fat, bearded man named Mr. Stickley and explained to Tom that the man had generously contributed hundreds of pounds to feed orphans in Sudan. Everyone seemed to like Oscar, even the woman with thick-lensed glasses and hair the texture of steel wool, who (Oscar explained) sold opium to brothel madams, ran a popular betting pool, and slept on a mattress stuffed with pound notes.

  “She told you such things?”

&
nbsp; “Everybody loves to see his name in the paper,” Oscar assured him.

  HE ESCORTED TOM to Tottenham Court Road, where they caught a horse tram. The afternoon crowd spilled alongside hansom cabs, coaches, and food carts. Sober-faced flower sellers with thick, bunched skirts offered small bouquets to passersby A group of young nannies pushing perambulators in formation whispered behind their hands while people struggled to pass them. A beggar appealed for coins as he gestured to the grubby-faced tots tethered by a rope to his waist. A businessman sprang nimbly across the path of several clerks, who eyed him with tepid respect, and disappeared into a hansom cab. Oh, glorious London, thought Tom, for he had forgotten the city's human parade, its rhythm and thrill.

  “Audrey wants to see you, of course, but she's working late,” explained Oscar. “She's been promoted—a little more money, a lot more work. The price of success.” He wrote down an address and stuffed it into Tom's pocket.

  “Has she really changed?” asked Tom. “I know her hair is short and her clothing like a man's.”

  Oscar paused, as if at a loss to explain Audrey. “Well, she's a woman now, if that's what you mean—though you wouldn't know it to look at her. She still takes care of the baby while Mother works in the evenings.”

  “Baby?” replied Tom.

  Oscar nodded. “The Orfling, Tom.”

  “But he should be about eight by now,” said Tom.

  “He shouldbe,” Oscar replied, with a shrug, “but he isn't. It's a marvel. We Limpkins were always a rather strange family, weren't we? Perhaps when you're a doctor you'll be able to make sense of us.”

  “A doctor?” Tom replied, surprised.

  “Of course. That's what Audrey thought you'd be.”

  “Yes, I remember now,” Tom admitted.

  Oscar issued Tom a warning: “Remember, she's stubborn, well-intentioned but judgmental, and rather rigid, which is odd, considering she goes about pretending to be someone she isn't.”

  “And supports her family by doing so.”

  Oscar's blithe smile faded. “She has my admiration for that, Lord knows. I will never be rich, but she takes this Edmund business rather too seriously. She likes wearing a man's clothes a little too much. What's wrong with being a woman?” Here, Oscar raised a finger, as if he'd finally found his point. “That's what it is, because I think being a woman is marvelous! I adore women!” Suddenly he seemed disheartened. “Why wouldn't a woman want to be one? All my favorite people are women.” He paused. “That includes Audrey—even when she's pretending to be a man—which doesn't make sense, does it?” he said, puzzled.

  “No, it doesn't,” Tom replied.

  They parted at Oxford Street. Oscar had to meet someone, so he directed Tom towards William Bedlam's residence.

  “By the way,” he said, “you'd better change your name if you're to become a doctor. No one in his right mind would seek treatment from Dr. Bedlam!”

  TOM WALKED SOUTH; he noticed the houses become smaller, the streets narrower and more crooked as they neared the river. William Bedlam's address was Number 23, Gilles Street. The building was slumped between the neighboring houses like a drunk supported by two friends. Tom mounted the sunken front step, noting the cracked sills and shattered panes. The glass was pasted with stage bills, all featuring William Bedlam's face—the same picture that Mrs. Bedlam had fixed with flour paste to the tenement wall in Vauxhall—so that, from Tom's perspective, his father appeared to stare at him from every window.

  Upon Tom's first knock, a young man opened the door a crack. “Yes?” he said, gazing at the visitor first with one eye, then the other.

  “William Bedlam,” said Tom.

  “Who wants him?”

  “His son.”

  The door shut abruptly. A few minutes later, there was a cry from behind the door, and William Bedlam staggered out. “Tom, my boy! Come in, come in!” he bellowed. Then with a cautious eye to the street, he ushered Tom in, slammed the door, locked it, and opened his arms. “Tom, kiss your kind, old father, whose frank heart gave you all!”

  Tom complied, and his father embraced him, tottering on his good leg, compelling Tom to hold him with equal vigor so that he didn't topple.

  “Forgive the caution of my young friend here,” whispered Bedlam, “but there's always somebody wanting money from me. Young Isaiah is very good at separating creditors from my friends.”

  “That's easy enough,” murmured a deep voice. Tom recognized old Paddy Pendleton seated in the dim light of the kitchen. “You haven't any friends but me!”

  Bedlam asked Tom to pick up his fallen crutch and steered his son to the kitchen through a room stacked with newspapers, crates of bottles, scores of spades, pickaxes, rakes, hoes, and two perambulators.

  “Props for the next production,” said his father.

  They looked more like the easily filched possessions of strangers than theatrical necessities. Tom spied a stuffed monkey in one perambulator, and a pumpkin wrapped in baby clothing in the other. At the entrance to the kitchen, he noticed that the floorboards had rotted to the earth below. A potbellied stove was smoking, a pan sizzling upon it. The young man was frying slices of bread in bacon grease while Paddy Pendleton sat, his enormous, majestic face perched above a small body clad in several woolen sweaters. He accepted a slice of fried bread from the young man and nodded to Tom. “My boy I trust my letter reached you.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you very much,” said Tom.

  “Somebody had to bring you home,” said Paddy, eyeing Bill Bedlam.

  “Tom,” began his father, “I found myself short of cash.”

  “As he always does,” added Pendleton. “I took the liberty of sending you the money myself to ensure that it would reach you, instead of going to some other purpose” Here, Paddy fired another glance at Bedlam, who turned to Tom for sympathy.

  “He don't trust me. Me! His oldest friend, and he don't trust me. Rest assured, when my ship comes in, Paddy Pendleton will be the better for it!”

  “I'm beginning to think your ship is the one upon which the Antichrist is embarked,” said Pendleton, rubbing his arms. He raised his head to the ceiling and nodded briefly—as if to acknowledge the Almighty's plans in this regard.

  The young man paused from his work at the frying pan and gave the heavens a nod too. Then he offered Tom a slice of fried bread, which Tom accepted.

  “Tom, this is my protégé, Isaiah Pound,” said Pendleton. “Isaiah shares my concern for the salvation of humanity.”

  The young man nodded to Tom. “There are so many souls to save,” he murmured. He was very thin, with brown hair and a cowlick that sprang from the side of his head. He preened the sparse beard on his chin. Tom noticed that, although it was a warm evening, he had wrapped newspaper around his shins to cover the gaps between his socks and his trouser hems, likewise his wrists and jacket sleeves. The paper crinkled as he moved. When the fried bread was ready, he put a slice in Bedlam's hand, wiped his fingers clean on a rag, and sat down beside Pendleton.

  “Have we any brandy?” murmured Pendleton.

  “Not today,” said Isaiah.

  “The Lord will provide,” said Pendleton. He and the young man gave the ceiling another respectful nod.

  “And let us hope He is generous,” added Bedlam, winking at the rafters. He turned to Tom. “So, my learnedboy. Let us speak of your future. To what profession do you aspire?”

  Tom considered the dirt floor, the crumbling plaster walls. “It hardly matters,” he muttered. “Mr. Mansworth, I'm sure, is finished with my education.”

  “God bless him,” said Bedlam. “He paid for this here house.”

  “God bless,” echoed Pendleton and Isaiah Pound, sharing another nod upwards.

  “Why was that?” Tom asked.

  “Terms of our agreement, Tom.” Bedlam sniffed. “You was to get an education, while I received the funds to buy this house and staged a modest production of Troilus and Cressida. I've got the reviews somewhere here…”
/>   So his father had profited from his testimony too. Tom's distaste for the man returned.

  “Answer me, Tom, what do you wish to do?”

  “I would study medicine, but—”

  “A doctor!” Bedlam interrupted and looked to Pendleton and Isaiah with pride. “A doctor!”

  “Admirable,” said Pendleton.

  “There is no hope of it,” said Tom. He looked at his father for a beat. “Unless you'd sell your house to pay for my training.”

  Bedlam put his finger wisely to his nose. “Dr. Tom Bedlam!”

  “I'd use a different name,” said Tom, recalling the advice of Mr. Grindle and Oscar. “Bedlam probably wouldn't inspire confidence in a patient.”

  His father frowned. “Bedlam's a good name. It's done me well. I chose it myself. I was brought up in St. George's Fields Orphanage, and named myself after the hospital across the street. Nobody forgets such a name.”

  Tom raised his eyebrow. “Infamous, indeed,” he replied.

  “Nobody expected much of me. I was motherless and nameless,” declared Bedlam proudly. “So you see,” he said to Tom, “you were fortunate as a youth in having a mother and … your father's name.”

  Tom considered this. “I am grateful for what I have,” he replied, “yet I think it fair to say that there are more respectable names, just as there are more diligent fathers.”

  Pendleton chortled.

  Bedlam looked stung by Tom's remark, but for the sake of the company, he weathered it with a robust smile. “Be assured, you have a diligent father now, my boy. But I understand that every professional name must inspire confidence in the public.” He narrowed his eyes. “So what would you change it to, Tom?”

  “Smith,” said Tom.

  Here, Bedlam rose, insulted. “Don't tease me, lad! If my son is to be a doctor and he changes his name, it should be one that I approve. When he marries, and when he has children, they're my grandchildren, are they not? And if they don't have my name, then I deserve some say in what name they have. So what's it going to be?”