Tom Bedlam

by George Hagen

  “Yes, sir,” Arthur replied.

  The schoolmaster's gaze lingered. “Any excitement lately?” he asked.

  Arthur nodded. “It's noisy at night.”

  “Chapel, I could still probably get you into one of the medical units. Your experience—”

  “No,” Arthur interrupted. “I'm happy here.”

  “Happy?” Boyle looked alarmed. “Here?”

  Arthur couldn't explain it. The prospect of losing his life was never as awful as the thought of losing Martine.

  THOUGH THEY RARELY HAD a private moment together, Martine began to make her interest in Arthur abundantly clear. She exerted a tender pressure against him when they stood side by side, and on one occasion, when Arthur was speaking to Madame d'Usseau, Martine passed between them, facing her mother so that her bottom brushed against him provocatively. Because Madame never let Martine out of her sight, their encounters were choreographed within the confines of the town house. Once, when Martine balanced on a stepladder to retrieve a jar of peaches on a high shelf, she asked Arthur to steady her. He placed his hands on her hips, but she corrected his grip, moving his hands beneath her breasts.

  When they returned downstairs, Madame d'Usseau stared at their flushed faces with bewilderment. “C'était difficile de descendre les pêches?”

  Martine seemed unable to prepare the midday sandwiches without Arthur's assistance in the cluttered kitchen upstairs. With great speed and dexterity, they would throw the sandwiches together, load the food upon a plate, brace themselves on the only part of the floor that wouldn't creak, and fondle each other—Arthur's hand buried between Martine's legs while she stroked him until they were both in ecstasy.

  “Good heavens,” cried Madame d'Usseau when they returned. “These are the worst sandwiches I've ever seen. Did you make them with your feet?”

  One evening, after sweeping the floor, they shared a cigarette outside.

  “Run away with me,” said Arthur.

  “I can't leave my mother,” Martine replied.

  “We'll take her with us.”

  “She would never leave her furniture,” the girl sighed.

  “We could drug her coffee and take her to England or Africa.”

  “Oh, Arthur.” Martine smiled. “What a romantic you are.” She pressed against him gently. “You don't seem English at all.”

  “Run away with me.” There was more desperation in his voice this time.

  She answered with a frail smile. “You'll be sent to prison, or shot for desertion.”

  “To hell with them all!” he cried.

  Madame d'Usseau watched them embrace from her window upstairs. She didn't mind her daughter's affection for this man. As first romances go, it was suitably innocent, though she worried about the effect his death would have on the girl; for he would surely die.

  HOLLOWAY

  THE WOMEN'S PRISON HAD A GRAND POSTCARD FAÇADE OF PARAPETS, towers, and wrought-iron gates. Inside, however, there was no mistaking its purpose: the narrow windows, iron catwalks, and rows of doors reminded all who entered that this was the domain of miscreants and murderers.

  Audrey Limpkin had earned her twenty-eight years of imprisonment for refusing to show any regret for her crime—shocking the jury the newspapers, and society at large. At each parole hearing she repeated her innocence and showed no remorse (in spite of Oscar's advice that she do so simply to shorten her sentence). Since she couldn't be reformed, it was a relief to civilized society that she lay behind a three-foot-thick wall of stone.

  The visitor from far-off Gantrytown who hesitated at Holloway's entrance feared not Audrey's influence but an attack of conscience from within. He had betrayed Arthur Pigeon and reaped from his betrayal an education, a family, and a comfortable existence. In supporting her mother and sisters, Audrey had had to fight off the attack of a violent predator and garnered society's harsher rebuke, a long prison sentence. The inequity of their fates was simply staggering.

  Tom took his seat in Holloway's waiting room, a heavily overpainted basement chamber with pipes running along the ceiling and a series of worn oaken pews where visitors waited until the inmates were summoned. It was a slow process. Every twenty minutes a prison officer would approach the podium at the front of the room and send the next visitor into the meeting room while repeating an admonishment against physical contact.

  Tom passed the time thinking about his visits to three Pendleton lodging houses in search of Charity. Nobody would acknowledge her existence—they were such secretive people. He left notes but suspected that they would never reach her. He recalled his daughter's little clothespin family and wondered if the Pendletons were a more formidable substitute—blank faces, rigid convictions, matching clothes and matching dogma. Was she happy? He doubted it.

  As for Iris, well, he had found her company's lodgings, but was informed by a surly woman that nobody was up before two in the afternoon. “Come back later,” she said, “or go to the revue!”

  “Dr. Chapel?”

  Tom snapped out of his reverie. An inmate wearing a tidy green serge uniform with a white cap and checked apron stood before him.

  He mouthed her name.

  “Yes, Tom,” she replied. “It's me.”

  Unable to speak for the sight of her, Tom reached out, but checked himself, remembering the officer's warning. But Audrey embraced him, then steered him past the officer's forgiving nod.

  “Dearest Tom,” she said. “It is so good to see you.”

  Words failed him again. The sight of her face, her warmth, her gentle spirit—at once he felt the urge to laugh in joyous relief. Oh, dear Audrey! She was still his sweet Audrey, safe and sound.

  “I'm taking you on a tour. It's one of the privileges of a wardswoman.” She led him past the interview tables, along a corridor, through a door, and suddenly the prison opened up into a broad, sunlit chamber containing three levels of steel catwalks, a skylight above, and a concrete exercise area below.

  “Welcome to my home,” she said, without irony.

  He noticed that her walk was awkward. One of her feet splayed slightly.

  “That's my hip. It never quite healed properly.”

  Tears suddenly welled in his eyes; his emotions seemed to veer from one extreme to another. He dabbed his cheeks with a handkerchief, not saying anything for fear she would think him utterly unhinged.

  “It's all right,” she assured him. “I'm perfectly fine. And it doesn't hurt, I just walk a bit like a duck now.”

  Audrey told him about the prison's history. She spoke quickly and confidently, slipping into a routine she must have conducted many times before for visitors. At times Tom was aware that she stole glances at him; he imagined she was reconciling her memory of young Tom Bedlam with the man before her, and he wondered what she must think of him now.

  “Many suffragettes were incarcerated here. Emmeline Pankhurst would come for a month, go on a hunger strike, then be released until she recovered,” she explained.

  “Why was she arrested?”

  “Arson and other acts of civil disobedience—anything to call attention to the cause. The authorities here responded by force-feeding her and others very brutally. My heart went out to them. When Newgate closed in nineteen-oh-two, I was brought here; I saw them suffering my ordeal—”

  “You mean incarceration?”

  “No, Tom, I mean rape.”

  “Rape?” Tom exclaimed. “How?”

  “With a tube forced into one's mouth, rectum, or vagina. That's how they made them eat. What else would you call such a ghastly violation?”

  He winced and averted his eyes. “I didn't know they did such things.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Audrey. “I worked in the infirmary. Some women never recovered from the experience. Many were so badly hurt that they had to be released.” She sighed. “Then the war came along, and that was the end of that”

  “The abuse, you mean?”

  For the first time, Audrey looked despairingly at him
. “No, Tom, I mean the cause” she replied. “You see, when Mrs. Pankhurst turned her attention to the war effort, beating the Huns became more important than giving half the country the vote. Everything the suffragettes had done seemed forgotten, and something so important to so many people slipped from the public mind.” She shook her head. “God, we might not have gone to war if women had the vote.”

  As they went back to the meeting room, Audrey's pace slowed. They walked side by side now, talking of family news.

  Audrey had heard from the Orfling that Iris had inspired the company to do a war revue. “She has wonderful pluck, Tom,” she said. “You should be proud. The Orfling thinks she's brilliant. You must see the show and tell me all about it!”

  Audrey's face was lined now, and her hair was turning gray beneath her cap. Her eyes, as she looked at him, were still warm and generous, which provoked Tom's shame again.

  “Audrey” he began, “I'm so sorry for all these years, for being so angry with you. For behaving so badly—”

  Audrey's closed smile appeared, but she looked pained.

  “I must say it, I've been unfair—”

  “I accept my lot,” she interrupted. “I'm stubborn, Tom. Oscar says so all the time. I will not let you apologize. I had your letter, that was enough.”

  Surprised, Tom looked at her. “But you never answered it.”

  “Oh, Tom, of course you had my forgiveness,” she whispered. “I still love you.”

  “I love you too,” he said.

  It was a relief to him to say those words. In some way it was an acknowledgment, perhaps, that he could love a woman again. Later he would wonder whether the bitterness he had harbored towards Audrey for so many years was his own affection—misunderstood, misdirected, and misspent. The dark offspring of unrequited love is hatred.

  Audrey explained that she was to be released in two weeks' time.

  “I will be there,” Tom promised.

  Audrey blew him a kiss as she rose from the table, and Tom stared after her, feeling, again, the dizzy intoxication of her presence.

  BEDFORD PARK

  THE MESSAGE WAITING FOR HIM AT THE HOTEL DESK WAS WRITTEN on War Ministry stationery. The handwriting was large, the signature enormous.

  Chapel,

  I under stand from my wife that we are now related. We must meet again. Please join us for dinner tonight at my residence in Bedford Park.

  G. Mansworth

  P.S. Bring this letter.

  Mansworth's house and lawn were illuminated with bright lights that evening. Policemen walked the perimeter, conveying a sense that the more humble world that lay a few feet beyond the minister's fence was a dark and insignificant domain.

  Tom wondered how much this perception was shared by his host as he alighted from a cab and surveyed the security around him. Several policemen examined his invitation while an officer apologetically patted down the doctor's pockets, explaining that there had been threats to the minister's life. Apparently, Geoffrey Mansworth, minister of war, leader of the armed forces, and the man who could bring Arthur Chapel home, enjoyed precisely the kind of importance and public loathing he had achieved as a schoolboy at Hammer Hall.

  Eve met Tom at the door. Her face and shoulders were powdered and pale, like those of an alabaster goddess.

  “Thank you for this,” he said softly.

  Though anxious, Eve looked pleased. “Geoffrey can't wait to see you. He remembers you very well from school. How odd,” she went on, “since you knew each other for only a year.”

  “It was a memorable year,” Tom replied cautiously.

  “He's engaged with a meeting in the library at the minute, but he'll be with us shortly.”

  How much did Mansworth remember? Tom recalled his dreadful smile at the summit of Hammer Peak after Arthur Pigeon's fall. Had time changed him at all? It seemed unlikely. Audrey had reminded Tom that Mansworth was still contesting his father's will and was staunchly determined to prevent his sister and Oscar from sharing the family fortune.

  Another couple was waiting in the sitting room.

  “You've inspired me to bring the family together, Tom,” said Eve. “This is my sister-in-law, Penelope, and her husband, Oscar Limpkin.”

  “Tom!”Oscar shot up from his chair. Now fifty-one, with a broad, unforgettable grin and a graying red mustache, he simultaneously shook and embraced Tom. “Is it really you? Good heavens, isn't this a peach! I never thought I'd see you again, Tom, never! Penny, this is Tom!”

  Last seen by Tom through a bedroom window in Kensington, Penelope Limpkin's pretty face had become frail over the years. She offered him a timid but earnest smile. “Hello, Tom,” she said. “I'm so glad to meet you. Isn't it so very kind of Eve to invite us here? Geoffrey and I haven't spoken for years.”

  What a price she had paid for marrying Oscar, Tom thought.

  “I told you our luck would improve, Penny!” Oscar's eyes danced, and Tom could see his old friend concocting a plan. “Tom, I musthave a private word with you! Please excuse us!” He took Tom's arm and steered him out of Eve's earshot. “You are precisely the man I need to speak to,” he whispered. “My next biography is about Geoffrey Mansworth, and as I remember, you knew him as a boy.”

  “I did,” Tom replied.

  “Well, I shan't hold back this time, Tom. The public will know the truth about him. No more chummy biographies for me. I'm going to write the facts!”

  “Is that prudent,” Tom said, “given your kinship?”

  Oscar squinted at Tom indignantly. “He is a warmonger, a profiteer, and he has denied his own sister her birthright! People must know what kind of a man—”

  “What kind of a man, indeed!” boomed a voice.

  Tom turned to see a figure standing at the threshold. The eyes were puffy, and the skin was pale and blotched with bruises. One hand clutched a silver-handled stick. He was a mere shadow of the man pictured in the silver frame. He stepped into the room with painful, cautious movements, his whitened knuckles pressing the stick for support. This was a very sick man, Tom guessed.

  “I knew you would come,” said Mansworth, without addressing Tom by name. He sat slowly before the group, gasped, and gestured for a glass. Eve was ready with the sherry and placed it in his hand. Mansworth nodded his thanks, but Eve hung behind him, more like an attendant, Tom thought, than a wife.

  “Oscar? Penelope? What a pleasant surprise. Eve, you've put together quite a committee for me.”

  His wife looked slightly wounded by his remark. “It's a nice change, isn't it, to see family?”

  Mansworth's eyes skated warily to Eve, then to Tom. “Yes. Well, at the very least, my past has caught up with me.”

  “Yes, Geoffrey,” said Oscar, gloating. “Tom is going to tell me about your childhood for my new biography!”

  Mansworth answered Oscar's remark with a dead stare. “My childhood? How convenient,” he said finally. “Between Penelope, Tom, and my wife, you won't need to consult me at all!”

  When his sarcasm produced no amusement, Mansworth looked disappointed. He studied his sherry for a moment.

  “The book will be authentic, Geoffrey.” Oscar savored his next words, clearly wishing to irritate the man. “People will be able to weigh your past deeds against your aspiration to be prime minister. Tom and I are old friends. He'll tell me everything”

  Mansworth eyed Tom over the rim of his sherry glass, and remarked with mock sorrow: “Are my secrets no longer safe with you?”

  “For a price, perhaps,” Tom replied.

  Mansworth's smile faded. “What brings you here?” he growled. “Surely it can't be the weather.”

  “The war,” Tom replied.

  “The war,” echoed Mansworth. “I advise keeping at a safe distance from it.” He smiled. “Go south, Bedlam. Go south.”

  “My son has been shipped to La Bourse, in northern France. I'd like to have him back. Perhaps you can win the war without him.”

  Mansworth nodded gravely.
“Well, my friend, at the beginning of the war we took soldiers no shorter than five foot eight. Now we'll take them at five foot three. They're allneeded now. What's his rank?”

  “He's an assistant bombardier in the South African Heavy Artillery.”

  “Artillery?” Mansworth gave a sniff. “I wouldn't move him from the artillery. His chances there are better than in the trenches.”

  His casual indifference brought sudden tears to Tom's eyes. He sat down. Eve saw his reaction, and she put her hand on his shoulder in consolation. Mansworth's eyes met hers, but she kept her hand where it was, as if in defiance of him.

  “Penny and I also have a son in the war, Tom,” said Oscar brightly. “He was at Suez, and at the fall of Jerusalem. An officer; a captain, actually, and only twenty!”

  “So has Audrey,” said Tom.

  “Audrey yes,” said Oscar. “Poor Audrey.”

  The group's shared sympathy caused Mansworth to wince. He interrupted the ensuing silence. “Well, every war needs soldiers,” he said. “And sacrifices. Losses too.”

  “All the more reason to end it,” said Oscar.

  Mansworth glared at him. “It keeps our economy going. It is paying for your dinner and the wine in your glass. So spare me a lecture, Oscar. Those are the terms of my hospitality.”

  Mansworth turned his eye to the dining room. At once, the kitchen maid appeared to welcome the guests to dinner.

  Eve glanced apologetically at her guests and ushered them into the dining room. Amid the silver settings and candlelight, the conversation seemed to wander aimlessly, as it invariably does when the subject on everyone's mind has been banned. By the time dessert was served, Mansworth had begun to complain of pain and announced that he was retiring to bed.

  Tom asked if a doctor was treating him.

  “Ten doctors. Ten doctors, each with a different opinion!”

  “Has any suggested a kidney ailment?”

  “Probably,” growled Mansworth. “I can't remember.”

  “I would prescribe eight glasses of water a day and absolutely no strong drink,” Tom said.