Tom Bedlam Read online

  “You must take care of your hands, Bill. Remember how you chafe in the winter? Your fingers are raw as beef.”

  Bedlam smiled wistfully at his wife and began to recite a limerick:

  The bird that deserts his own nest

  Is a fool, and to this I attest:

  My loss is eternal,

  My future infernal,

  But the wife I abandoned is blessed!

  Mrs. Bedlam looked pained by the verse, and Bedlam quickly put his hand on hers. “You're too good to me, Emily,” he said, “considering.”

  In spite of Mr. Bedlam's assuring words, Tom saw the uneasiness between his parents. When the conversation failed to take root, Mrs. Bedlam asked her most direct question: “What brings you here, Bill?”

  Bedlam replied by averting his eyes and shaking his head. Then he said, “Why the comfort of my family Emily!” As if expecting her retort, he added, “I regret, Emily, deeply regret, that I've sacrificed domestic happiness for my calling.” Then he described his tour across England, the enormous success of King Lear, the applause of the crowds, and the praise he'd received in newspapers.

  “When was this?” inquired Mrs. Bedlam.

  With excessive pride he replied, “Why, only five years ago, Emily, and I'm still recognized on the street. ‘There goes Bill Bedlam!’ they say. ‘An astounding King Lear!’ What I'm saying is that it's not all for naught that I went my own way. I am an actor, an artist, not an average man by any means, and not a man to be judged by other men's standards!”

  Stung by this remark, Mrs. Bedlam folded her arms, and Bedlam realized that he had contradicted his earlier regrets. “Oh, Emily. You know what an actor's life is like! I've suffered for my profession, believe me.”

  “You were always welcome here,” she replied gently. “In sickness and in health—as you vowed once.”

  This silenced Bedlam for a moment. “I'm ashamed, Emily. But I was an actor when we met, and I am still one now, and in all likelihood—”

  He paused, took her hand tenderly, and kissed it without finishing his sentence. He frowned at Tom. “Your mother's a good woman, Tom, a very good woman. You know that, don't you?”

  Tom nodded. To see his father holding his mother's hand was gratifying enough, but to hear his mother's praises sung was quite another. Observing his father's affectionate gestures, Tom forgot ever having doubted his mother's wits. The sight of his parents in this sublime domestic tableau warmed his heart—for a moment, all seemed right in the world—and a timid smile appeared upon his face.

  “And it just so happens that I've got good prospects, Emily.”

  “Prospects?”

  “Title role in a production of Julius Caesar here in London. With top billing, I stand to make a good deal of money!”

  “Oh, Bill,” Mrs. Bedlam replied. “How wonderful! I've been so worried about Tom's schooling. Perhaps now he'll have a—”

  Bedlam nodded vigorously. “Of course, Emily! And when I have paid back my investors, Tom's education will be first—”

  Mrs. Bedlam lowered a plate. “Your investors? You mean you are the producer and the top billing?”

  Bedlam nodded proudly. “I have realized a simple fact: God helps those who help themselves!”

  “Amen,” she softly replied. Bedlam glanced cautiously at her, adding that it was a virtue to be ambitious, but she didn't reply—this comment appeared to refer to an old argument. His eyes flickered to Tom, and he remarked again on the fine meal and removed a long-stemmed pipe from his pocket, put the tip in his mouth, and made a considerable fuss of looking for his tobacco pouch.

  “Stolen, I'm sure,” he muttered. “I passed a man on the stairs and I'll wager he—”

  “On the stairs?” said Tom, for he had heard no one else on the stairs.

  “Probably on the street,” corrected his father, “a city of ne'er-do-wells. But perhaps a neighbor might lend us some tobacco. Do us a favor and beg me some, Emily. If I go to the Limpkins, they'll have me recounting my successes for hours!”

  In his mother's face Tom recognized her determined optimism at work again. “Of course,” she said. “And poor Tom hasn't had a moment to talk with his father.”

  Almost immediately upon his wife's departure, Mr. Bedlam's vulpine gaze turned to the room, to the items stacked on the shelves, and his conversation became abstract. “Your mother's a good woman, Tom, a fine and good woman. God bless her. She takes good care of you?”

  “Aye,” Tom replied.

  “Of course she does,” said Mr. Bedlam. His attention strayed to the cluttered kitchen shelves; tipping his pipe up and down thoughtfully, he peered into the jars that were stacked on a small table by the potbellied stove. He lifted his coat, checked that it was dry, then threw it over his shoulders.

  “Why don't you stay?” asked Tom, fearing that his father was about to leave.

  Bedlam looked blankly at him. “Stay? Stay where?”

  “My friend Oscar's father stays at home. Why don't you?”

  Bedlam smiled at the boy's sincerity. “I am a poor player, Tom. I strut and fret upon the stage. It's no life for a family. I'm better off on the road, and you're better off here. But when my fortunes improve, Tom, you shall be the better for it!”

  Losing interest in the kitchen, Bedlam now scrutinized Mrs. Bedlam's bed. He slipped his fingers under the mattress and made a show for Tom of testing the bed's softness. Then, eyeing the door, Bedlam leaned towards his son with a conspiratorial gleam.

  “Bless her, she's been saving her money for us. Y'know that, don't you? For when we're all together again.” Bedlam waited for Tom's reply.

  Tom nodded. “In the country, yes.”

  “Aye.” His father smiled. “In the country.”

  Tom echoed his smile.

  “Yes, indeed. Saving up for the country.” Bedlam raised his empty palm. “Watch carefully, Tom—” With a flourish, he produced a folded banknote from between his fingers. He passed the note before Tom's eyes, savoring the boy's fresh respect. “I was going to add this one-pound note to her savings. Perhaps you know … where she keeps them?”

  “Aye.” Tom nodded.

  “And where would that be, lad?”

  HIS TRUE CHARACTER

  When mrs. bedlam returned with the tobacco, she found

  Tom seated alone in the room.

  “Where is he?” she asked.

  “Gone, but he'll come back,” Tom promised. “He said so.”

  “Gone?” repeated Mrs. Bedlam. She turned to the potbellied stove and saw that the coat and boots were missing.

  “He left us money,” said Tom. “And he's bringing more when his play opens.”

  “Money?”

  Mrs. Bedlam quickly knelt by the bookshelf, removed the Bible, and then uttered a cry.

  “Oh, Tom.” She sighed. “Did he ask you where our savings were?”

  “Yes.” The boy nodded. “He had a pound note to add to them, so I told him where you kept them. He said he wanted to make sure we had enough.”

  Mrs. Bedlam flipped through the Bible's empty pages.

  “He expects to make hundreds of pounds, and then we can move to the country and I'll have an eddication!”

  Mrs. Bedlam pressed her hand to her heart. To Tom, it was a sentimental pose, like the ardor of one of her shepherdesses.

  “He'll be back soon,” Tom assured her.

  His mother didn't move for a moment. “Of course he will, Tom,” she finally replied, clasping him to her breast with the most miserable smile.

  THOUGH SHE STILL GREETED friends and strangers alike with her giddy smile, there was less joy in Emily Bedlam's demeanor after Bill Bedlam's visit. Her confidence in the goodness of man had suffered a grave setback. In subsequent days, a stranger with the luck to be greeted by Mrs. Bedlam often didn't know whether he had been blessed or cursed; such was the ferocity with which she delivered her God Blesses.

  Meanwhile, Tom began to dream of his father's success on the stage, for he was cer
tain that this would bring his family together. Surely, if William Bedlam made his fortune, he would come home, and Emily Bedlam's love would be justified.

  So Tom looked for his father's face everywhere, pasted on foolscap, perhaps with the words Astounding Julius Caesar!

  But a full year passed without any sign of a production under way. Instead, Emily Bedlam continued to work at Todderman's factory, and Tom continued to escort her every morning.

  As Bill Bedlam's likeness yellowed and curled upon their wall, Mrs. Bedlam let it remain a silent testament to her husband's questionable character; but it served only to reinforce Tom's perception of his father as a figure of prominence. Long after he had forgotten the man's awkward efforts to win his affection, Tom remembered his ramrod nose, his handsome figure, and his charm. Tom was sure that, somewhere out in the world, William Bedlam was playing kings and princes.

  AN EDUCATION

  UNTIL THE LOSS OF HER SAVINGS, MRS. BEDLAM HAD BELIEVED that an adequate (though by no means ideal) education could be gleaned from the Bible. Beginning with Genesis, she had taught the boy his alphabet. From Adam to Zillah, Tom learned his letters. The Bible was also Tom's source for geography and history. He didn't know where France was, but he knew that the river from Eden divided into four— Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, and Euphrates; and he didn't know the kings of England, but he knew that Lamech was the son of Methuselah, who was the son of Enoch, who was the son of Jared, and so on. Such matters, however, seemed irrelevant within the walls of Todderman's factory.

  One morning, when Tom neared twelve, it became obvious to his employer that the boy could no longer fit into the nooks behind the kilns, or make his way through some of the tighter passages. Todderman summoned Tom to his parapet and handed him a letter sealed with red wax. “To whom is this letter addressed, Tom?” he said.

  After reading the name of the addressee and the street aloud, Tom proved himself a capable messenger. He was to deliver invoices in the city.

  Quickly, he learned his way around London, from Westminster to Paddington, and Finsbury Square to Whitechapel. He knew which streets were busy and which offered quick passage. Sometimes he dawdled on the way back, knowing how much time he could tease out of his errands.

  One day he went walking along the Thames Embankment, where the workers gathered at lunch. The street entertainers were out in large numbers to take advantage of the crowd. A man played a flute while two monkeys danced at his feet, and farther on several acrobats constructed a human pyramid to the watchers' enormous applause. Still farther, a man stood upon a crate, holding up a small sign, which read, SHAKESPEAREAN SOLILOQUIES. His silver hair and pike-straight nose immediately caught Tom's attention.

  “Tom? Good heavens! What luck!” cried Bill Bedlam. “Come to me, lad!” he cried, dropping his sign and giving the boy a hearty embrace. “This calls for celebration!” After leaving his crate and sign in the safekeeping of another performer, he led Tom down a side street.

  “Come, lad, ask and you shall receive! What'll it be?”

  Buoyed by his father's greeting, Tom glanced about the busy stores and noticed the pastry shop directly before them. It was a genteel establishment, with a large window at which many people were seated. Peering in at the counter, he saw an array of lemon tarts. “A tart, perhaps?” he said.

  “A tart!” echoed Mr. Bedlam. He immediately dug into his pockets and, having taken tally of what was inside them, removed his hands slowly.

  “Here's the thing about lemon tarts, my boy.” He frowned. “The one thing you don't want is a lemon tart. Did you know that it stunts the growth? I suspect not. The effect of this poison on the body is most obvious in the petite figure of our own Queen Victoria.”

  To make his point, Bedlam composed a limerick:

  There once was a queen quite absurd,

  With a passion for pastry and curd,

  She ate three small portions,

  And suffered contortions,

  That reduced her dimensions one-third!

  “The poor creature!” Bedlam continued. “If she were not a monarch, she would be on parade in a circus for tuppence a showing. Tragic, eh? What I propose is something guaranteed to give you long life and a healthy disposition.”

  “Those people are eating tarts,” Tom countered.

  Bedlam, however, removed a green apple from his satchel; it was pitted with holes, bruised, and unimpressive, in spite of the furious polishing it received from Bedlam's sleeve.

  “Yes, and they shall shrink, Tom,” he said. “You, on the other hand, shall attain a respectable height, live a longer life, and thank me for it one of these days!”

  Reluctantly, Tom accepted the apple, though it reminded him of the dull farthing he had received the last time they met.

  “Tell me about your mother. Is she well?”

  “She is as well as usual,” Tom replied. “Did you put on your play?”

  “Not yet, lad, but I have good prospects,” his father replied. “And when my ship comes in, so will yours!”

  Bedlam proceeded to describe his standing in the theatrical community. He was clearly adored by his audiences, admired by his fellow actors, and sought after by producers. Success was merely a matter of time.

  “I'd like to see you play a king or a prince,” Tom said.

  Bedlam promised that Tom and his mother would have the best seats in the house at his next production. “You have my word, Tom,” he said and, embracing the boy went on his way.

  when tom told his mother about his encounter, she listened but expressed no joy at her husband's promises. Tom couldn't understand why.

  “He expects to be on the stage in a few months,” Tom explained.

  “God bless him,” his mother replied with more condemnation than kindness.

  BY THE TIME TOM WAS fourteen, there had been no more news of Mr. Bedlam. True to his father's prediction, however, Tom gained many more inches, which he attributed to the avoidance of lemon tarts. He had more mature interests and desires now, and had refined the technique of eluding his responsibilities in pursuit of these impulses. It was a wonder that he still had a job, for he was never available when he was needed, and when he wasn't needed, he was always up to mischief.

  “Where's Tom Bedlam?” cried Brandy Oxmire when Todderman sent him to find the boy. Brandy roared for him past the sweat-soaked men shoveling coal into the furnaces, past the workshops of the potters straddling their wheels as they drew jug and bowl from primeval clods, past the glazers, spattered and half-demented from using their leaden potions, until he arrived on the rooftop, with London spread out before him—a thousand towns of steeples, town houses, and higgledy-piggledy tenements dappled with sun and smoke.

  There, Brandy dug into his pocket for his thistle-shaped clay pipe, but finding his leather tobacco pouch empty, he cursed, stuffed the pipe into his pocket, and let out another roar for the idle boy in case his employer might be listening.

  The only place Brandy had missed was the factory cellar, a quiet tomb where rows and rows of freshly fired porcelain pieces stood white and still—a line of stiff-shouldered earls no taller than a boy's hand, two score duchesses with raised noses and milky white décolletage, dozens of delicate horses poised on rear hooves, and fifty milkmaids with coy smiles.

  In a dark corner, two figures were nestled on a heap of sacking. Tom Bedlam placed his hand on the warm, pink breast of Sissy Grimes.

  “Tom,” she murmured in warning, but the boy smiled innocently. She was a pretty creature. She worked in the sunlit studios where the glazing was done. Sissy's job was to paint the identical smiles on the lips of the milkmaids—perfect copies of her own tempting and elusive pout. But when his hand strayed below her waist, Sissy's body went taut, and suddenly she slapped him, not once but three times.

  “I love you, Sissy,” he said, gasping.

  But she was already fastening her buttons, her fine eyebrows knitted together and her own milkmaid mouth firmly set. “Love!” she muttered.

/>   “Honest,” he added. But her head tossed skeptically, and her elbow almost knocked the shelf that supported the porcelain earls.

  “Take care, Sissy.” Tom gasped, fearful that, if one piece fell, the whole row would shatter and Todderman would have his skin.

  “You'd best be careful, Tom Bedlam!” Sissy's eyes bored into him. “You're only a boy.”

  “But I do love you,” he replied, perhaps with more emotion than he meant, in defiance of that increasingly unkind stare of hers.

  “Love.” Her skepticism reappeared. “A man who loved me would get me away from here,” she declared, indicating with a glance the dusty timbers of the cellar and everything above, including the smokestacks.

  “I'm going to marry you,” he vowed.

  “Oh, Tom.” She sighed, tied up her hair, then shook her head at him. “If I married you, I'd be stuck here forever. I don't want to turn out like your mother.”

  Tom might have defended his mother if Brandy's uneven footsteps hadn't approached. He snatched a basket of figurines while Sissy busied herself by spreading the other items on the shelves.

  “Gone deaf, Tom Bedlam?” muttered Brandy, his deep breaths enough to make the little salt and pepper shakers tremble. Then he noticed Sissy. “What are you doing down here with her?”

  “See here, Brandy, you'll upset the whole works,” chided the boy as the cripple glared at him. “Sissy was helping me bring some pieces up to the glazers. A dozen milkmaids. Now you watch—one breath in the wrong direction and there'll be nothing standing. What'll Mr. Todderman say then, eh?”

  The cripple stopped breathing; with hands raised, he tried to turn around, but his hip grazed one shelf, and a small puppy dog rocked. Tom caught it before it fell, and Brandy groaned.

  “No harm done, Brandy; lucky I was here,” he scolded. Sissy slipped up the far stairs without a backwards glance.

  After Tom took the basket to the glazers, Brandy gave him his next task. “The master wants you to deliver an invoice to Belgrave Square. And on your way, Tom,” he added, softening his tone as he tossed the boy a coin, “get us some t'baccy”