Tom Bedlam

by George Hagen

  Tom loved the distant errands. On those rare moments when the weather and his duties collaborated, he slipped into the more genteel crowds—gentlemen in their top hats and day coats, women in gaily colored frocks and bonnets—and imagined himself a man of leisure with money in his pocket to spend as he pleased. For a moment he forgot his oversize shoes, oily black breeches, woolen shirt, threadbare cap, and the grimy canvas bag slung over his bony shoulders that contained one invoice from Todderman & Sons Porcelain & Statuary. That was, until he brushed against a barrister in a handsome black morning coat, who took offense and swiped at Tom's ear with the ball of his fist.

  After delivering the invoice to the gentleman on Belgrave Square, Tom remembered Brandy's demand. He decided to go out of his way, across St. James's Park, to a shop on the river near the shipping companies where Virginia tobacco was sold and where, coincidentally there was always a crowd and a show to be seen.

  Today, a man with a deep voice and a small body stood upon a wooden crate, pamphlets in one hand, Bible in the other, and predicted the “end of the world two weeks hence!” His name was Paddy Pendleton, and his face might have been carved from granite, full-lipped, with deep-set eyes and a big puss's nose and whiskers. When the Bible became too heavy, Mr. Pendleton would take hat in hand, flick back his mane, and temper his tirade to make a plea for pennies for orphaned children. Once an adequate sum for a meat pie and a pint of ale had gathered in his hat, it would return to his head, the Bible would rise, and the subject would return to the darker matter of Armageddon.

  The next act that caught Tom's attention was a new one. A sizable throng gathered around a rope stretched between two lampposts while a figure in a white dress and parasol attempted to cross from the first to the second post. The performer's jerky, exaggerated movements seemed futile at first, but it became obvious to Tom that this was a comic performance intended to provoke laughter and derision.

  Two strangers to the event spoke behind the boy.

  “Good heavens, is that a lady?”

  “Only if I'm a lady too,” said the other with a laugh, noting that the “lady” had very broad shoulders and hairy fingers.

  The figure now executed a backwards somersault and landed back on the rope, petticoats tumbling. The bonnet fell to the crowd, revealing the acrobat's face—a swell of silver-white hair tied back in a ponytail and a familiar nose.

  “It's a bloke!” cried a sailor to one of his companions. Rude laughter burst from the group.

  Tom worked his way through the crowd until he was close enough to examine the fellow in petticoats in closer detail.

  It was unmistakably the face from the broadsheet on his wall. The man executed three somersaults on the wire and displayed enough dexterity to earn applause and a generous offering of coins. But instead of playing kings and princes, Tom's father was reduced to playing the fool.

  Whatever elation Tom felt at seeing his father was muted by disappointment; quietly he eased himself away through the crowd, hiding his face for fear of being recognized by the performer.

  MRS. BEDLAM'S NEW CONDITION

  IT HAPPENED ONE COLD SPRING MORNING. THE SUN HAD LOST ITS JAUNDICED hue as a fresh wind blew across the courtyard of Todderman's factory. Emily Bedlam was walking with Tom towards the yawning factory doors when Mr. Todderman greeted her from his place on the parapet.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Bedlam!”

  “Up yours, Mr. Todderman” came the reply.

  Todderman blinked at her. “Beg pardon, Mrs. Bedlam?”

  Mrs. Bedlam responded with her familiar smile, gentle and kind as ever. “Why, I said God Bless, Mr. Todderman, just as I always do!”

  Surprised, Tom looked at his mother, but she showed no change in expression, no indication of malice or anger. Perhaps the wind had changed the sound of her voice.

  But when they walked through the glazing workshops, it happened again.

  “Up your arse, Mrs. Mudd,” cooed his mother.

  Putting her meaty fists to her waist, Mrs. Mudd growled, “What did you say to me?”

  But Mrs. Bedlam had the same good-hearted look on her face. “Just what I always say, God bless and keep you, dear!”

  Baffled by this curious exchange, the woman didn't know whether to believe her own ears or the pious figure before her.

  Tom left his mother at the pottery bench, feeling a peculiar sense that justice had finally been done.

  The news traveled quickly through the factory. All day Mrs. Bedlam was uttering the most shocking greetings, and yet she seemed unaware of it. And when challenged with her own words, she replied with such innocence, and even indignation, that her inquisitors backed down. There was no doubting Mrs. Bedlam's goodness—for many years they had mocked her for turning the other cheek, ridiculed her innocence, and mimicked her kind words. This was either the devil's work or the sweet revenge of an addled mind. Her victims could respond with shock or pity, but it was impossible to think ill of the poor creature.

  “Have you any idea what you're saying?” Tom asked her that night.

  “I'm not saying anything that I don't usually say,” his mother replied. “I only mean goodwill; surely people can see that!”

  For the next week, a series of increasingly astonishing epithets poured out of Mrs. Bedlam's mouth whenever she greeted people who had betrayed her. It was as if her brain had decided to mete out the justice her decency would not. Her greetings to friends were as sweet as ever, but when she met any souls who had wronged her, her greetings were delivered in the foulest language.

  On three successive days she called Mr. Todderman a flesh barnacle, a cankerworm, and a dog-hearted scoundrel.

  Fearing that he would be a laughingstock in front of his employees, Todderman chose not to address her at all, but when he made the mistake of meeting her eye as she passed him in the hall, she curtsied. “Ah, Mr. Todderman, may the devil brand your backside with the face of your wife!”

  He'd have fired her on the spot, but she did such fine work, and for so little wages—the abuse he suffered was worth it.

  When Mrs. Mudd realized that all of the other women were laughing to hear her abused, she confronted Mrs. Bedlam. “Listen here,” she said, “I never said nothing behind your back!”

  “Oh, Mrs. Mudd,” said Mrs. Bedlam sweetly, “if your mouth isn't opening and closing all day, then the hole between your legs is!”

  These words spread through the pottery workshops, the glazing rooms, the kilns and furnaces, and eventually spilled up and down Procession Street. Suddenly, it was Mrs. Mudd who was leered at by strangers, while Emily Bedlam was treated as an oracle. Folk asked for her opinion on the honesty of their neighbors, their doctors and grocers, and Emily issued unvarnished replies, though moments later she couldn't remember a word of what she said.

  Finally, however, she made a tearful confession to her son: “Tom, I'm afraid my mind is going,” she cried. “My mouth says one thing while my head thinks another!”

  “Nobody thinks ill of you,” he assured her.

  “How can that be?”

  “Well, on account of it being only certain people,” he said. “People who deserve it. Brandy told me it was God talking through you, telling people what they deserve to hear.”

  His mother looked horrified. “God would never say such things! It's awful what's happening to me, and I don't know what to do!”

  Tom didn't know either, but he feared a dreadful irony: that the true sign of his mother's encroaching insanity was that she was finally speaking her mind.

  he settled his mother in bed one evening with assurances that it would pass. It felt strange to be giving her advice for a change, and Tom wondered what he would do without her if indeed her mind was going. The image of Bill Bedlam earning pennies for walking a tightrope in petticoats was not reassuring.

  Then Tom remembered Sissy's dismissive remark: I don't want to end up like your mother, do I? Both of his parents were spiraling down in their own miserable trajectories, and it
frightened him.

  Presently, his mother asked Tom to read to her.

  Tom opened Genesis and read, “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain.” He paused, hearing the Limpkin children. They were running up the stairs emitting high shrieks and joyous giggles.

  “I wish I had a brother,” Tom remarked.

  “You had one, Tom,” his mother replied softly. “An older brother, but he died at birth,” she added.

  “What?” Tom replied, surprised.

  “I didn't say anything,” Emily answered, her face becoming fearful that she'd uttered another blasphemy.

  “You said I'd had a brother.”

  Mrs. Bedlam denied it, drew up a blanket around her shoulders, and directed him to put a chunk of coal in the potbellied stove.

  The next day at work, Tom recalled his mother's remark. Perhaps, if he put the question to her again, her new “condition” might yield more answers.

  He waited until she was settled in bed the following evening. When she seemed tired but coherent, he rephrased his question. “Mama, tell me about when you married Mr. Bedlam.”

  “Oh, Tom, we hadn't an easy life. My father wouldn't permit me to marry Mr. Bedlam even though I loved him. He said he had a ‘weak character.’”

  She paused to savor those words.

  “Actually Tom, his character was worse than ‘weak,’ but I was as stubborn in my way as my father. He was a brewer by trade, and very successful. Success makes some men believe they know everything. They will not let others make mistakes that have to be made. My father warned me that Mr. Bedlam had no capacity for work, and if I married him, it would be without parental blessing, and support.”

  This prompted Tom to wonder if his mother would disapprove of Sissy, and what she would do about such a marriage. Then it occurred to him that the matter was irrelevant as Sissy already disapproved of Tom as a husband.

  “But you married him?”

  His mother nodded. “From that day on I never spoke to my family. Bill and I made our way through that first year living all over London, scraping by so he could do his theater acting, and I eventually found work at the factory, you see, because I had a gift for shaping clay. So, your father performed, and a newspaper printed that he was one of the best young actors in London, and he carried that article around in his pocket until it fell to pieces from being quoted.” She sighed. “As though a piece of paper granted him privileges—the right to be idle, to wait for reward, success, and his rightful place on the stage—but it didn't, you know. It was all just talk.”

  “When was my brother born?”

  His mother blinked at Tom. “Why, Tom, you have no brother. Whatever gave you that idea?”

  THE TRUTH HAD TO BE teased out slowly. Emily Bedlam's pride and decency were entwined so tightly with the circumstances of her marriage to Bill Bedlam that she would allow only a portion of her story to escape on any particular evening. But Tom persisted, and over a succession of nights, the following story emerged:

  “One day, Tom, I felt I was with child, and I told your father so, and he became very upset. He knew, you see, that we could go without meals and sleep in odd places as two but not as three. A baby needed a home and a father with steady work. He wasn't ready for that. He knew that his acting days were numbered, because how could I work with a baby to raise? He even went to my father for help!”

  “And what did he say?” asked Tom.

  “My father told him he would support the child only if Bill left me for good—you see, that'show much he hated the man: he'd rather see me disgraced, raising a single child alone, than support an idle man.

  “So there we were,” Mrs. Bedlam continued, “with a baby due soon, and I'm working up until I feel the labor pains coming, and your father broods in silence in the corner of the room while the midwife fusses over me. It took your older brother a day and a half to be born—as if he wasn't sure about his future in this world. But when he arrived he was the most beautiful little thing, with a full head of brown hair and the sweetest little face, and eyes as bright and curious as two stars. And your father wouldn't touch him. I believe he looked at that baby and saw his career ended.”

  Mrs. Bedlam looked sadly at Tom. “When a baby comes, everything changes, Tom. A man can't be selfish anymore. He has a baby to protect, and a child's future to consider. There's no living day to day or week to week anymore. A steady living was what we needed. I told him that, and your father greeted that medicine like a dose of tar water.” Mrs. Bedlam sighed. “Well, I'd been awake for two days minding my baby and I was tired, Tom, so I fell asleep for almost a day.” Then she uttered a groan and wiped tears from her eyes.

  “When I awoke, snow was falling on the windowsill. The room was cold, and the stove was dark. I knew the midwife must have been dismissed. Then I saw your father stamping the fresh snow off his boots. He'd been out, and when he saw me looking at him, he took my hand and told me how sorry he was, but the baby died. He'd been out to bury him.

  “I thought I'd never get over it, you see, Tom, but your father showed it worse than me, for in a few months his hair had gray streaks, and by the next year, when you were expected, he was almost completely silver at the top.

  “I thought it was his regret, you see, changing his hair, but”—she paused—“then he went about his life as if nothing had happened.

  “Two months before you were born, Tom, I saw your brother in a dream. He was a little boy but I recognized him, for his eyes were the same, like two stars, and he said something strange to me. ‘Mama,’ he said, ‘keep the baby in your arms and never shut your eyes, don't sleep, until you're sure he's safe.'”

  “What did he mean?” asked Tom.

  Mrs. Bedlam shook her head. “I don't know. But I forgot the dream, you see, until the day you arrived. When I saw your little face, Tom, all creased and wrinkled and your eyes opened, I remembered. And though your father begged me to sleep, I lay in bed with you in my arms, my eyes wide with worry.” She looked at Tom. “I thought that, if I slept, you might perish like your brother.”

  Here his mother stopped and asked for a drink of water, and Tom poured her a cup from a jug—it was one of Todderman's, with a Chinese design; the glaze had bubbled into a froth at the rim. He had sold it to Emily Bedlam for a quarter of its normal price and taken the money out of her wages.

  “I held on to you,” she continued, “and I did not sleep for three days until I simply couldn't keep my eyes open. And when I finally passed out, your brother appeared in my dreams again, and he cried to me to wake up. I opened my eyes, found myself alone. The window was open, the room was cold, but I could hear the cries of a baby—your cries, Tom. I went to the door and heard a fuss on the stairs.”

  Mrs. Bedlam described stepping out of her door to see all her neighbors peering over the banisters, watching Bill Bedlam, who was dressed in his greatcoat and holding his shrieking newborn.

  “Where are you going, Bill?” she cried.

  “Why, to find a doctor, of course. The baby is sick, Emily! Terribly sick!”

  At this point there were interjections from the spinster, Mr. Bottle, and the Limpkins, arguing that the baby was hardly sick and that they'd never heard a newborn cry with such powerful lungs.

  “Well, your father insisted you were dying,” said Mrs. Bedlam. “But I knew differently. I held out my arms for you, Tom. Your face was crimson, your little red hands shivering with cold. With the eyes of all the neighbors on him, your father handed you back to me, his face ashamed.”

  Mrs. Bedlam's expression darkened. “I couldn't read his mind, Tom, I just knew that he had fearsome thoughts, and that my dream had saved you from a walk through the streets in the cold air. Who knows what might have happened to you then?” She shut her eyes to clear such thoughts from her head. “I nursed you until you were quiet, and then your father left.”

  “He left?”

  “For good.”

  “Why?”

  “He said I didn't
trust him, that I thought the worst of him. He said he was innocent.”

  “Innocent of what?”

  His mother's expression became cautious; her eyes avoided her son's persistent stare.

  “I don't know why the room was cold, Tom. Or why the window was open, or why your father didn't wake me to feed his baby boy. I won't accuse any man of ill when I have no reason. I only know that I was woken by a dream, and your brother probably saved your life that night.”

  His mother drifted off to sleep. Tom found himself stroking her fore-head and wondering, if he mentioned this story in the morning, whether she would acknowledge a word of it.

  THE NEXT MORNING they were trudging through the snow to Todder-man's factory when Tom remembered his question. “Did he have a name?”

  “Who, Tom?” his mother replied.

  “My brother—before he died.”

  “You had no brother, Tom,” she replied. “Whatever gave you that idea?” She seemed indignant, as if he had made an unkind remark. They paused at the threshold of the factory, kicking the snow from their shoes against an iron post.

  Above, Tom noticed Mr. Todderman's face duck from the parapet as soon as he recognized Mrs. Bedlam.

  Tom frowned and wondered whether his brother was in heaven looking down at his predicament. It was some consolation to have a sibling (if only in theory) to share the burden of his mother's madness and his father's desertion.

  THE LIMPKINS

  AT SOME TIME WE ALL COVET A PLACE IN ANOTHER FAMILY, OR A respite from the darkness of our affairs. There were times when Tom wished his father had succeeded in stealing him from his mother's bedside, if only to deposit him in the care of the next-door neighbors.

  The Limpkins led a cluttered, debt-ridden, and astonishingly loud existence. Their children spilled out of the tenement half-dressed and barefoot, often filthy, and frequently hungry, yet they always seemed to be happy.