Tom Bedlam

by George Hagen

  She fussed with the stool, cleared her throat, threw back her hair, pulled it forward over her shoulders, and adjusted her spectacles once more. All at once everybody was quiet. She closed her eyes, placed her hands on her knees, then took a breath and began to play

  It was a Brahms intermezzo, and the melody quickly silenced the coughs, rustles, and whispers. As Lizzy coaxed wistfulness out of the piece, the expressions of Harding's students changed. They stopped staring at the girl's fingers and sank into their own thoughts, seduced by a mood of regret and reconciliation.

  Rarely does a performance transcend its surroundings and carry an audience to some intangible realm. Tom had never experienced such a thing before. He started to think of Audrey and was ashamed. His year of self-pity began to seem foolish. He had asked her to commit herself to him, and what had he offered her? His bitterness was unjustified, his disgust with women unfair, his scholarly isolation grandiose thoughtlessness.

  The music continued, and a new passage seemed to forgive these indulgences, or so he imagined. Tom stepped forward, to the kitchen doorway, and saw his own melancholy etched on other faces. Then he felt Eve beside him, willing her sister on with a subtle nudge of her chin.

  After the last note had faded, Lizzy's audience remained still, immersed in the mood she had evoked—a tender grief. Only after Cornell started to clap thunderously did everyone stir into applause. “Well done,” he cried. “Brava!”

  The sisters shared a glance across the room. Eve pressed her shoulder against Tom just enough to acknowledge his presence. “She's so talented,” she murmured. “I envy her so. Father is convinced she'll bowl over some young man with her gift.”

  “Isn't she a wonder?” cried Harding as people returned to their drinks and conversation. He came up to Tom and Eve, shook Tom's hand vigorously, then meandered past his other students, insulting each one by introducing himself again.

  “Poor thing,” said Eve, staring after her father. “He's afraid his daughters are almost too old to marry. He'd thought he'd be rid of us by now.” She smiled faintly.

  THOUGH PROFESSOR HARDING had forgotten his students' names by their next class, the Harding sisters had not: Tom and Cornell were invited to a New Year's party during the first rainy week in January.

  It was a merry gathering. The sisters' aunts—two craggy dowagers from their mother's side—plied everybody with food and wasted no time in assessing Cornell's pedigree, then Tom's. One had seen William Bedlam perform his King Lear; the other owned a piece of Todderman's pottery. “A shepherdess,” she sighed, “with the sweetest smile.”

  “Which one do you like?” whispered Cornell, as they made their way home after the party.

  “The aunts?”

  “The sisters!”

  “Both are pleasant enough,” Tom replied. “Why?”

  “Well, Lizzy's mine,” Cornell declared.

  “Very well, Cornell,” Tom responded drily.

  His companion chuckled. “Good thing for me you hate women, Cortez.”

  About a week later, Tom encountered the Harding sisters on the street. They waved to him and fell into a breathless sibling banter in which one completed the other's thought: “Lizzy gives piano lessons to the children of Father's colleagues,” explained Eve.

  “Eve works for the Head of School,” explained Lizzy. “We've been thinking about your friend, Cornell—”

  “We think he deserves a nickname,” said Eve. “You, for example, look like a Cortez—”

  “Yes, I can definitely see an ambitious conquistador in your profile,” agreed Lizzy.

  “And a touch of dishonesty in your eyes,” added Eve.

  “Handsome, though,” said Lizzy.

  Eve smiled to her sister. “Of course he's handsome—but angry and hostile to women.”

  “You don't know me well enough to mock me,” Tom said.

  “We know your sort” Lizzy replied, “don't we, Eve?”

  “Oh yes. You need to be brought out of that hard shell,” Eve continued.

  “Oh, Eve,” cried Lizzy excitedly, “what shall we call Mr. Cornell?”

  “Dodo suits him perfectly,” said Eve.

  “He won't like that,” Tom told her.

  “Of course he will,” said Lizzy, confidently. “He'll be charmed”

  THEY KNEW CORNELL'S sort too. He accepted his nickname gladly Isaac Dorfman warned his friends that they had been bewitched, and that it would come to tragedy in the end. “I'd be happy to read your cards, Cornell,” he said, “to be reassured you're not barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Nonsense!” Cornell laughed.

  “As for you, Cortez”—Dorfman frowned—“I haven't forgotten about the Queen of Pentacles.”

  BY HIS SECOND YEAR, Tom Chapel's shell had cracked. He liked his patients at Holyrood's clinic and drew satisfaction from a successful treatment. Though he still enjoyed marching through the rain, he accepted from the Harding sisters a used gray raincoat—rescued from a parish poor box. It comforted him, for it proved that somebody cared about him; and of course, the sight of him clad handsomely, striding through Edinburgh's wet streets, assured the sisters that Tom was not resistant to improvement. It wasn't long before he exchanged gifts with them at holidays. Other traditions were established—walks along the Salisbury Crags, tea with the aunts, and every now and then the professor would sit Tom down in his study to advise him on his courses.

  “Chapel,” he said, “you have good judgment and a grasp of procedure. You're ambitious too. You remind me of myself. You'll make a great doctor and, I imagine, a poor husband.”

  Tom didn't notice the irony in the compliment: his consummate wish was to follow in his mentor's path. What else mattered? He was still running from the furnaces of Todderman's factory, driven to forget his painful losses. That Professor Harding considered him a poor prospect as a husband seemed irrelevant.

  It was not irrelevant to Eve, though; during Tom's third year she steered him to the best professors and wrote letters on his behalf, inquiring about positions at the better hospitals. She undertook a mission to improve his appearance and gave him scarves, mittens, and other items that softened the profile of the conquistador marching into the wind on Infirmary Street.

  EVE'S INVESTMENT IN HIM became evident one evening in the summer, when the family invited Tom to celebrate the late Mrs. Harding's birthday. They lit a candle, said a prayer, and passed around a picture of her. Suddenly, the professor embarked on a sermon about ambition.

  “Great men, Tom, make terrible husbands. The greater achievements of humanity are made by the selfish: the obsessed and the hungry. But a satisfied man makes not a dent in the world. Be a bachelor, Tom, that's my advice.”

  “Don't be silly, Papa,” said Eve.

  “I speak for myself,” Harding replied. “I was a hardworking doctor; I shaped a fine hospital out of grass huts, suffering, and misery. But I killed my wife working such long hours. My distraction. My folly.”

  “Dysentery killed Mama,” explained his daughter. “It wasn't your fault.”

  Harding removed his glasses. “Burma killed her, and we were there so that I could run a hospital in Rangoon.” He paused. “I made my name there, built a reputation. Despite Burma,” he said, pressing his finger against the table, “and of all my notable achievements, of which there are many”—his voice faltered—“I am ashamed to have been such a poor husband!” The professor rose abruptly, slipping his wife's image into his pocket, and left the room.

  Lizzy stared after him. “Poor Papa,” she said.

  IF PROFESSOR HARDING treated Tom as his protégé, he conferred the complementary title upon Cornell. “What a good husband you'd make for Lizzy, Dodo,” he said, adopting the sisters' nickname. “You're similar in temperament and coloring. I can just see my grandchildren, all with red hair and—”

  “Yes, Papa,” Lizzy groaned, “I've heard this a hundred times.” Cornell basked in these remarks. Lizzy's protests amused him; he believed she would abide
by her father's wishes, just as he would follow the expectations of his father.

  Tom, however, knew otherwise, for a more subtle seduction was continuing during his moments with the Harding sisters. He often found himself invited an hour earlier than his friend or asked to linger after Cornell had left. His affection for both women grew, and each sister expressed hers for him out of sight of the other. Lizzy would give him a sideways nudge with her hip when she wished to share something with him. Eve would face him squarely, her head tilted forward, and whisper so softly that he would have to press his ear to her lips. These small gestures became an advancing competition for Tom's heart. And, since he responded with passivity, the stakes were raised with every gesture.

  A LETTER HELPED to clarify Tom's feelings about his future:

  Dear Tom,

  I have not heard from you in a year. I fear that you would prefer to forget Audrey Limpkin altogether. I am writing to assure you that my affection endures, and perhaps, when my circumstances improve, our relations will improve too.

  The fortunes of the Limpkins have been dark this year. Mother has been sick, and unable to do her rounds, though the girls have been helping. The Orfling is well, though we cannot understand why he still does not grow as he has the appetite of a child three times his size.

  Mr. Murdick has been promoted and now depends on me more than ever. He is a most wretched human being, Tom. He stares at me from behind those spectacles as if I were some riddle. This is still preferable to the slack-jawed leer he reserves for the female clerks. I thank my stars I am not a woman here.

  The worst news is about Oscar. Oh, Oscar!

  You may recall that he had secured some important information about Bronson Mansworth. The father of your young acquaintance at Hammer Hall was selling munitions at inflated prices to the British Army in Khartoum. This while serving as an elected member of Parliament! After Oscar published this information, Mansworth suffered considerable injury in the press, though he remains in his seat, without public apology or official redress.

  Oscar, of course, was hoping to marry his daughter, Penelope. He waited nine months before approaching him again for his daughter's hand.

  Mansworth agreed to the marriage, but his terms were harsh. Oscar had to abandon journalism entirely; only upon his tenth year with Penelope would he receive her dowry.

  Well, Oscar agreed to it. The lovelorn fool! He has left the newspaper, his pride and joy, and is going to write biographies while Penelope continues to teach. She is a sweet girl, but we Limpkins find ourselves no better off now than we were without a millionairess in the family!

  Such is the price of love.

  Audrey

  The Limpkins, formerly his adoptive family, were in fortune's ebb, and this made it easier for Tom to look at the Hardings with fresh admiration. Tenement life was a distant memory, and the genteel life of the Hardings was more familiar, more appealing, and prompted Tom to shed his ambivalence. It helped, of course, that Eve wasted no time when she wanted something.

  TOM'S ROOM WAS in the cellar of one of the college houses. He liked it because of its private entrance to the street. The boiler was next door, and thanks to the pipes laid across the ceiling, it was always warm—though otherwise dark, shabby, and charmless. Eve might never have visited him but for its privacy, for it would have been unseemly for a young woman to be seen alone with him. She always brought a parcel of some sort— clothing, flowers, food, shaving soap—so that her visits appeared charitable. At first, this wasn't far from the truth: she cleaned his room, found an old wooden chest for his clothes, and promised that she would not visit if he failed to keep the place tidy. Tom trimmed his beard and picked up his things, so the visits continued. The room became a more pleasant place for them to talk, and one afternoon, when a January wind whistled through Tom's window, Eve rocked on her heels before him.

  “Cortez?” she said. “Do you find me attractive?”

  Tom admitted that he did.

  “Why have you not said so?”

  “I once confessed my love to a girl, and it led to catastrophe.”

  This amused her. “Well, I've burned my tongue on a roast potato, Tom, but I could hardly refuse dinner. It's time you had some practice in confessing love to a girl.”

  Eve sat upon his bed wearing a thick cardigan and woolen skirt, arms folded. It was cold in the room, but she was the picture of warmth; her cheeks glowed, and when she smoothed her hands across her skirt, Tom's pulse raced. “I'd like to kiss you,” he said.

  “Not so fast, Tom,” she said. “Am I pretty?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  Eve pursed her lips in reproach. “How like a doctor! A woman needs to know her best points, Tom. Flatter me. Begin at my feet, and don't stop until I say you may.”

  When Tom had described her beauty to her satisfaction, she coached him on the virtues of her nature. Finally, she told him he might have a kiss.

  Some men would have lost patience during such coaching, but Tom had found it strangely arousing. Eve told him where to put his hands, and when she uttered her first sigh of pleasure, he felt pleased. This was Eve—a bit like Sissy—whose terms Tom had understood very well.

  WHEN LIZZY NEXT SAW Tom, she recognized her sister's modifications. He was in a tea shop, scratching his diminished beard and frowning at a textbook. Lizzy's slender figure was bowed by the baskets of groceries she was carrying. She put them down and placed her hand upon his knee as she greeted him—perhaps farther up his knee than might have been considered polite.

  “There you are,” she said. “But where is the rest of your beard?”

  “Eve thought it was too much,” he replied.

  “Please grow it back, Cortez.”

  After severe entreaties, he agreed.

  He accompanied Lizzy on the walk up the street to her house. “I've met Dodo's father,” she explained. “He reminded me of a roast goose I saw once in a shopwindow: all browned and shiny, well-preserved but not much to say for himself. Happily rich, I thought.”

  Tom laughed, but her eyes regarded him anxiously. “What shall I do with him, Tom?”

  “Is there nothing you like about him?”

  Lizzy looked disappointed by the question, which implied that she should see something in Cornell. “Yes, but I can't imagine myself having his children or growing old with him, or curled up with him on a cold evening, or sharing a joke—”

  “He hasn't asked you to marry him, has he?”

  Lizzy frowned. “No, Tom. He's counting on it.”

  THEY WERE TOGETHER one evening—Tom, Cornell, Lizzy, and Eve— sitting by the fire in the Hardings' house, when Lizzy happened to notice Eve's toe resting on Tom's shoe. Later, when the professor complained of feeling cold, Lizzy asked Tom to help her fetch another blanket from the high shelf in the linen closet. As he reached for the blanket, Lizzy rested her cheek upon his shoulder.

  “Lizzy?”

  “I just wondered what it would be like to sleep beside you,” she sighed. “To wake up with your face on the pillow beside mine. Do you ever think of such things?”

  In truth, he had imagined this and more.

  “No, I have not,” he replied, knowing better than to admit such a dangerous thing. He was acutely aware of the rivalry between the Harding sisters. There was no apparent solution, he thought, except to deny that he felt anything for her.

  But Lizzy eyed him with contempt. “No? And not with Eve either? Liar” She pressed her finger to his lips to prevent him speaking. “Of course, Lizzy” she said, mocking his tone, then scratching an imaginary beard, “you must remember that you're practically engaged to Dodo”

  She took the blanket from Tom and slipped it over her shoulders. “I am a chattel,” she remarked. Then she added fiercely, “If you marry her, I shall hate you forever.”

  Lizzy always mixed her jokes with the truth—a way of protecting herself, Tom supposed. The funnier she was, the more likely that some revelation was on the way. “In fact,” sh
e continued, “it's easier to imagine myself with lots of little Chapels running around the garden than lots of little Dodos. So you'd better decide on one of us soon, or we shall both hate you!”

  Tom leaned forward and kissed her. They had shared many kisses of the polite sort—quick, tight-lipped, brushing kisses—but this one was an apology. Or it began that way, except that Lizzy kept her lips against his in soft supplication, as if this was her chance, perhaps the last, to make her feelings known. And Tom felt himself spinning, bound to her, better judgment cast aside, and utterly smitten.

  Cornell's voice boomed from downstairs. “Lizzy, I must have a word with you!”

  When they returned to the parlor, Cornell had accepted a cigar from the professor and had forgotten why he had summoned her. It was Eve who glanced back and forth between Tom and Lizzy. She knew something had happened, just as her sister had intuited some change before.

  Tom realized then that he had to make a decision he didn't wish to make and betray someone he didn't wish to hurt.

  As they walked back to Holyrood that evening, Cornell talked incessantly, but Tom remained mute and troubled.

  Eventually, Cornell glared at him. “Well, Cortez?”

  “What?” said Tom.

  Impatiently, Cornell repeated: “Lizzy seemed at sixes and sevens this evening.”

  “You noticed?”

  “Of course!” Cornell retorted. “What the devil was it about? Was it me? I hope you put in a word—”

  “We talk about you all the time,” Tom replied, with a hardened glance.

  “Really?”

  “Really,” he snapped. “Chasing the little Dodos across the garden, while you sip port and fall asleep, ravaged by wealth, good living, infidelity, sloth, vanity, and self-importance. Yes, Cornell, we've talked about everything”

  Cornell's smile faded. “I knew she was fond of you, Cortez, but I didn't imagine you cared for her.” He looked wounded. Then he drew himself up before Tom. “Poor Eve! What a damned wretch you are, Cortez!”