Tom Bedlam

by George Hagen

  “I shouldn't imagine it's heard nearly as often,” agreed Tom.

  “I knew I would die if I couldn't meet her, so I waited outside her house, shivering, for hours,” Oscar continued.

  “The next time you do that,” the typesetter said with a sigh, “take a dictionary to pass the time.”

  “She finally appeared, like Helen of Troy, her cheeks as pink as—”

  “—undercooked pork?”

  Oscar put his arm around Tom, as if to shield him from the typesetter's influence. “I told her what I did for a living, and she'd read all of my articles!”

  “Really?”

  “Well,” conceded Oscar, with a shrug, “the ones critical of her father.”

  “And did she approve?” asked Tom.

  “She said that I had sparked ‘much debate’ in her household.” Oscar laughed. “Oh, Tom, I will marry her. She's everything I've ever dreamed of in a woman!”

  This seemed an appropriate time to make a confession of his own, so Tom told Oscar of his feelings for Audrey.

  “You're the perfect fellow for her,” exclaimed his friend. “Feet on the ground, a bit stuffy, solid and serious, you'll bring her down from her fantasies!”

  Tom frowned. “Stuffy?”

  Oscar laughed. “In my family, Tom, you're as stuffy as a meerschaum pipe! It's a compliment.”

  “Meerschaum. I'll wager you can't spell that,” grunted the typesetter.

  Tom wasn't so sure about the compliment, but he was glad of Oscar's endorsement and hoped it would be of some help to him when he proposed to Audrey. He then told Oscar about his argument with his father.

  Oscar was stunned. “Tom, you amaze me!” he cried. “Perhaps you're not as stuffy as I thought.”

  “I may need to ask your help in finding lodging.”

  “Of course,” said Oscar. “Naturally, I cannot put you up. My bed happens to be under here,” he explained, pointing to a bedroll under the typesetting table. “But my mother will insist you stay with her. After all, you're practically her son-in-law!” Oscar gave Tom an appraising glance and grinned. “Telling your father off is quite a reckless and foolish thing to do. I'm proud of you!” He chuckled. “Audrey will be so upset.”

  “Why?” Tom replied.

  “She's a little old-fashioned.”

  TOM APPEARED AT the Mercantile Exchange at precisely six o'clock and was directed to the basement. Though it was a spacious room, the desks were arranged like a labyrinth. Stacks of bound ledgers were heaped on every surface, and there were no signs, and no sense of order. Sunlight shimmered briefly on the ceiling—a passing reflection from a puddle on the street above. It reminded Tom of Plato's famous cave, for it was hard to imagine, in the dark confines of this gaslit chamber, what freedoms existed beyond its walls.

  He asked for Edmund Limpkin half a dozen times before a pink-faced man with thick spectacles and a close-shaven head admitted that he knew the name. “Follow me,” he said and led Tom between stacks and bookcases in a path that confounded Tom's sense of direction. “Friend or relative?”

  “Friend,” said Tom.

  “Edmund keeps to himself. Secretive.” His guide looked back at Tom as if expecting an explanation.

  “Works very hard, I'm sure,” Tom said.

  “Yes, I suppose.” The man's stare, magnified by his lenses, offered no reassurance. It was cold and intimidating. “Mr. Murdick.”

  “Mr. Bedlam,” replied Tom.

  A limp hand was offered. Tom shook it and left it hanging in the air. Murdick tipped his head at a stack of ledgers. “He's here.”

  “Edmund?” said Tom.

  Audrey peered around the stack. She smiled but her face fell as Mur-dick came into view.

  “Edmund, you have a friend,” said Murdick, as if this was a surprise to him.

  Audrey closed her ledger. Murdick remained standing between them. “Are you an old friend of Edmund's or a new one?” he asked.

  “Old,” replied Tom.

  “Ah. The best friends are old friends, eh?” Murdick said with a smile, his face inches from Tom's.

  “Yes,” Tom replied.

  “Of course, we need new friends too. Advancement. Progress. New friends. New ventures, eh?” Murdick's eyes danced. Then he nodded towards Audrey's desk. “Tell Edmund so. He needs a friend to tell him that. One hand washes the other, eh?”

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” Tom replied, but a glance from Audrey advised caution.

  “Just passing the time of day,” Murdick said. “No harm in that.” His tone was so bland that he almost sounded simple. His eyes, however, missed nothing in Tom's expression.

  “No harm at all,” Tom agreed.

  “I'll be going now,” Audrey said to Murdick.

  “Have a pleasant evening, Edmund,” said Murdick, placing such odd emphasis on each word that it appeared he doubted it was evening, doubted it would be pleasant, and doubted that Edmund was Edmund.

  He remained in place so that Audrey had to turn her back to him to slip past. As she did so, Tom noticed that Murdick bit his lower lip—it was either pain or exalted pleasure.

  “I don't like him,” said Tom when they emerged from the building.

  “None of the women like him,” said Audrey.

  “Women? I thought women weren't employed here.”

  Audrey sighed. “Last year they hired a few women. Good news, I thought… until I discovered that a female clerk earned half of what I'm paid as a man—so, Tom, I'm still better off being Edmund Limpkin.” She frowned. “Besides, Mr. Murdick is not to be trusted around women. We lost a girl last week. She wouldn't say why she left, but she was very upset.”

  “You must take care around him,” said Tom.

  “I'm a man, Tom.” Audrey smiled. “But the looks he gives women! Desire in a man's face can be repulsive, especially in one who dislikes women, and I suspect Mr. Murdick is such a man.”

  “Do you ever feel desire?” Tom asked, for his hopes and the subject seemed to have converged.

  “Yes—” she replied, without meeting his eyes.

  “For a man?”

  “Sometimes I look at a woman as if I were actually a man, and desire her. Is it me? Or my clothes? Some women are so pretty, Tom, that I can't help myself. Perhaps it's the power of being dressed as a man, or perhaps it's something else.” Her words faded. She glanced nervously at him. “I don't know what I really meant by that,” Audrey confessed, and lapsed into silence.

  “Audrey” Tom began, “perhaps you should leave before Murdick guesses your secret.”

  “I've a family to support, Tom, a duty to my mother and the children. Oscar's utterly unreliable; he disappears for days; he's reckless and impulsive, an absolute dreamer. I can't leave this job before the girls grow up, and the Orfling …”

  Now Tom saw Audrey's situation as a form of imprisonment; she was trapped by her disguise, her duty, and her sex. It inspired him to explain his new liberation from his father. He hoped, perhaps, to generate some kindred spark of rebellion in her. But after he recounted the scene she looked shocked. “You see,” Tom concluded, “he and I were bound to part ways eventually, and now I'm free of him. I owe him nothing. If I never see him again, I shall be eternally happy.”

  “Oh, Tom,” Audrey sighed.

  “Only one thing matters to me, Audrey—that we are together.”

  She gave him a long, considered glance, and he felt himself judged quite thoroughly.

  “I love you,” he said timidly.

  “Of course you do, Tom!” she replied, squeezing his arm.

  “The fact is,” he continued, “both Oscar and I are hopelessly in love. He wants to marry that girl from Kensington, and I want to marry you!”

  One can practice a confession of this sort many times, as Tom had, but no matter the confidence in his voice, or the conviction in his mind, he had never been able to picture Audrey's reply.

  “I'm hungry,” she said with a smile, implying, Tom guessed, tha
t a momentous decision should never be made on an empty stomach.

  They stepped into a public house and ordered food and beer. The crowd was loud and boisterous. He waited for Audrey to answer his proposal. Her silence made him all the more anxious.

  “My dearest Tom,” she said finally, her forehead creased. “I am concerned about your father.”

  “My father?” Tom replied. “Why?”

  “You can't banish him from your life any more than he can banish you. You're linked forever.”

  “He deserted me and my brother.”

  “Shamefully, yes; but you are obliged to be a good son to him and a better father to your own children.”

  “Audrey” Tom said, reaching for her hand, “this is beside the point. I love you!”

  She withdrew her hand, glancing around to see if anyone had noticed the gesture, but all the tables nearby were crowded with people singing and swaying together. It was a merry house on a Friday evening, and everybody seemed oblivious to them.

  “I love you just as much,” she whispered.

  Tom cloaked his reply between his hands. “Is it foolish, then, to think that you would marry me?”

  “No,” Audrey assured him.

  Tom grinned.

  But Audrey's expression became rueful. “I'm afraid, though, that our lives cannot converge now.”

  “Why not?”

  “I must support my family. Were you to marry me, you would assume that burden and abandon your studies. I cannot allow it.”

  Tom's joy faded. “I don't believe you. Is there someone else?”

  “How dare you?” she replied. “I am not cruel, and I wouldn't taunt you with such a deception. I love you and wish you to succeed, Tom. But this world takes advantage of those who don't value their own worth. To me, you have always been a doctor. For you to pass that up, even for my benefit, would be a tragedy.”

  Tom brooded for a moment. “I must be with you,” he said. “Come with me to Edinburgh, or I shall stay here with you.”

  Audrey shook her head. “Oh, you silly boy be reasonable. You must apologize to your father and devote yourself to becoming a doctor.”

  “Oh, Audrey,” he groaned. “Every reasonable thing I have done has broken my heart. Don't ask me to be reasonable. Don't torture me!”

  He seized her hands, a gesture that caught the hawkish eye of the elderly barmaid who had been collecting glasses on a tray as she meandered through the tables. She drew nearer. Using her hip to bump Audrey's chair, she interrupted their conversation to remove the full mugs of ale on their table.

  “We've not finished,” said Tom.

  “Oh, yes you have, luv,” she replied sharply. “You and your friend should find yourself a mollyhouse, because your sort don't belong here.”

  “My sort!”

  “Come, Tom,” murmured Audrey.

  They made their way to the door while the patrons, seeing two young men cast out in disgrace, began a jeering contest that escalated to pushing and shoving. Tom and Audrey found themselves cuffed and battered as they tried to run the gauntlet of drunken and abusive hecklers. As they struggled through, one face in the crowd turned away so as not to be recognized: a pink face, clean-shaven head, with thick spectacles that reflected the gas lamp sconces on the walls. Pleased with his reconnaissance, Mr. Murdick smiled and downed the contents of his mug.

  Audrey wiped spit from her cheek as Tom sheltered her with his arm; they staggered into the street but kept walking until the scrutiny of passersby became indifferent. Eventually, they stopped while Tom investigated Audrey's bruises; she was unhurt but in tears.

  “I'm sorry,” he said. “I forgot who you were, where we were—”

  Audrey looked at him with forgiveness, but it was not the expression he wished to see. From it, he drew his own conclusion. “I'm not fit to love you.”

  “Of course you are,” she said. “But I have a duty to my family, and you have an opportunity to better yourself.”

  To better himself? At once, Tom wondered if Audrey was comparing him with Bill Bedlam. Was there any worse example of a faithful husband or a supportive father? And if Arthur Pigeon were to weigh in, he might remind her that Tom had betrayed him at his inquest. In short, it seemed to Tom that Audrey needed no reason to doubt his decency—the evidence against him was ample. Though she took his hand and held it close to her cheek, Tom had already concluded that she was rejecting him.

  “This is not the end of happiness, Tom. We are not mayflies; love endures; we live far beyond one careless summer. I dearly love you, but if my love can't last beyond a temporary hardship, I would seriously doubt its strength. The Orfling will grow, the twins will become independent young women. Wait for me,” she said.

  Grimly, he replied, “How long?”

  “However long it takes. I don't know what obstacles I face, but I love you in spite of them.”

  What obstacles? he wondered bitterly. His own defects? How long would she wait to see him prove himself a more reliable man than his father? And if he failed?

  They parted on the Westminster Bridge, with the boats passing underneath—little packets of light dancing on the water. It was a beautiful evening in London. Audrey might have kissed his cheek; he couldn't remember. Though the fog had lifted, he was blinded by sorrow; and though her words of consolation were sweet, Tom heard nothing but the echo of her rejection. He lingered on the bridge, watching his hopes, his life imagined, his comfort and sense of belonging vanish in the dark oblivion of the river.

  HEARTBROKEN

  “I BELIEVE I OWE YOU AN APOLOGY.”

  Tom had found Paddy Pendleton and Bill Bedlam seated at dinner. Because there was no other chair at the table, he remained standing in the doorway.

  “I am very sorry” he added.

  Stunned, Bedlam looked to his friend to verify his son's contrition.

  “What's that, Master Bedlam?” said Pendleton.

  With his mind on Audrey, Tom proceeded to say exactly what she had advised. And, perhaps because he had suffered a greater indignity in the pursuit of love, the words came easily. Tom's shame at having to apologize was considerably diminished by the astonishment apparent on his father's face.

  “I'm deeply sorry for whatever pain and disappointment I may have caused you, Father. I hope you will forgive such ungrateful behavior.”

  Pendleton murmured, “Hallelujah” and began to sob into his napkin. Taking his cue from the colporteur, Bedlam rose unsteadily from his chair and extended his arms to Tom, as though he were onstage for the homecoming scene. He clasped him to his breast, determined to outdo Pendleton's emotional display.

  “Oh, my boy my boy! All is assuredly forgiven! Nothing could ever break the ties that bind! It's only natural for a son to rebel, but you have the decency and wisdom to know when you are wrong! I heard from Mr. Griff today; you have been enrolled at Holyrood. You shall go to Edinburgh, become a doctor, and I shall be proud! We have only each other, and in the years ahead we know that blood is thicker than water, and that which binds us, no man can tear asunder!”

  Once again, Tom felt a mixed sense of accomplishment. Once again, he had done the reasonable thing—reconciled with his father—but now, in the man's firm and hearty embrace, he felt cold. The stifling affection of Bill Bedlam was no balm for Audrey's rejection. Without her, he was an empty vessel.

  OSCAR INSISTED, HOWEVER, that Tom visit one last time for the sake of his mother. “She adores you, Tom, and will be heartbroken if you do not come!”

  Tom didn't want to see Audrey again, but since the Limpkins were the family he wished he had, he went. Outside the building he stood as darkness fell, holding a bunch of yellow roses for Mrs. Limpkin, trying to will his broken heart into repair for one more evening.

  Finally, emboldened by a remark of the late Mr. Limpkin's—Silence is as scarce in the Limpkin household as solvency!—Tom entered the tenement.

  Audrey was first to appear at the door when he arrived, and before he could speak she cl
osed the door behind her so that they were alone in the hallway.

  “I ask one favor of you, Tom,” she said.

  “What could I possibly do for you?” he replied bleakly.

  “That letters be exchanged between us, as they always have, and that we never lose touch, for though you are injured—”

  Tom tried to deny it, but Audrey placed her trembling forefinger on his lips. “I know you better than you know yourself.”

  “You do not,” he replied.

  But she looked at him with such compassion that his heart sank. “I can't stay, I can't bear it,” he said, buttoning his coat.

  “I love you,” she whispered, “but I won't see you abandon your future; I must stay for my family's sake.”

  “Marry me anyway,” he pleaded, “before I go.”

  She considered this. “Become your wife in one minute and say goodbye to you in the next? My heart would break, Tom.”

  Yet it was obvious to Tom that his heart would break if she did not. There lay the dilemma, and before the sides could further their pleas, a noise came from below—the thunderous footsteps of Oscar, jubilant and oblivious to this tender scene. “I must be applauded!” he cried. “Do you hear me, this minute!”

  As he reached the landing, Oscar seized Tom's and Audrey's hands. “I have obtained information concerning a gentleman known as Bronson Mansworth! Information from a secret source which proves that our friend in Parliament is up to no good!”

  “Oh, Oscar,” replied Audrey skeptically. “It'll hardly help your standing with his daughter.”

  “You'll see,” promised her brother cryptically. With typical fanfare, he threw open the door, greeted his family, and changed the emotional weather with the subtlety of a hurricane.

  The rest of the evening was spent in the clamor of the Limpkin household, with Oscar alluding to but never revealing his secret, Mrs. Limpkin fussing over Tom and his prospects as a doctor, and the Orfling wailing piteously until he was permitted to sit on Tom's lap, where he happily dribbled and squirmed. Throughout, Tom did his best not to look at Audrey or reveal his unhappiness.

  When it was time to go, Mrs. Limpkin gave Tom one of her enveloping squeezes, and the Orfling daubed his cheek with a smooch of drool. Tom felt his pain recede. Elsie gave him a hug and kissed him rather determinedly on the lips before her twin sister protested with outrage and, probably, envy. Then Audrey led Tom to the door with anxious eyes and trembling lips.