“WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT?” BEDLAM ASKED MISERABLY. “HAVEN'T you seen a man eat before?”
Tom conceded to himself that his father's mood was justified; Bedlam shivered beneath a blanket while his wet clothes warmed on a rack beside the potbellied stove. His eyes were hollow, fingers raw and trembling from the damp cold, and his white hair was matted, greasy, and receding at the temples. How much of this was age or the ravages of his recent infirmity, Tom didn't know. But he couldn't take his eyes off the man.
“He's entitled to look at his father,” Mrs. Bedlam replied.
Bedlam frowned. But the food was beginning to take effect, and he signaled the return of his sense of humor with a wink.
“Much obliged for this, Emily…. Much obliged. Hadn't eaten in a week. You've saved my life, you have.”
He paused to relish the sensation of food in his belly, and then his eyes surveyed the room and arrived at Tom again.
“Look at 'im! So tall. Soon be as tall as me.” He presented the empty bowl to Mrs. Bedlam for another helping, but she shook her head. “The rest is our breakfast.”
Bedlam seemed about to get angry, but again, he caught Tom's eye and instead smiled wistfully. “For what we've received, may the Lord make us truly thankful,” he murmured and winked again. “Look at you, Tom. Nimble too, I reckon. Think ye could walk the rope?” His eyes settled on his son in expectation of an answer.
But Mrs. Bedlam interrupted. “I won't have him do that.”
“It's work.”
“He's got work.”
“In a factory?” Bedlam sneered. “What about the open air?”
“Honest, regular, dependable pay—even when it rains,” said Mrs. Bedlam.
“Honest? What's more honest than risking your life, madam!” cried her husband. “He'd be an artist of the tightrope. Not like regular folk. A performer, a presence on the stage, a master of balance and grace!” Bedlam began directing his pitch with full intensity at the boy. “We're not land-bound, lad. We roam the clouds, we fly, we touch the angels!”
“You almost took room and board with the angels,” added Mrs. Bedlam. “What happened to those lofty aspirations of yours—the stage and so on?”
Bedlam's expression became haughty. “The world's a stage, my dear. People like to see children on the tightrope. Big crowds. Big receipts. There's no telling what people would pay to see Tom—”
But Mrs. Bedlam finished his sentence: “—fall. Because that's why they watch.”
Mr. Bedlam's humor vanished, and cold fury appeared in his eyes. “I never, ever fell, madam.”
Without reply, Mrs. Bedlam looked at his knee, beneath which, braced by a leather harness, was a rough wooden peg. “Tom will grow up to be a gentleman,” she said. “Not a beggar” Her expression was bitter, and directed squarely at her husband. Bedlam looked at Tom, who looked away, sensing the man's humiliation.
“Shame on you, Emily, for saying such a thing,” said Mr. Bedlam. “How dare you disgrace me before my protégé?”
“Your protégé? You deserted him. As a father, you're a disgrace; as a gentleman, you're a failure; as a husband, you're nothing but a burden!”
Mrs. Bedlam had never spoken with such clarity before, and Tom was surprised. She pressed one hand to her head, as if to soothe a headache, but there was no mistaking the disgust on her face.
Rising from his chair, Bedlam whipped his clothing from the rack around the potbellied stove where it had been drying. He dressed himself without speaking and, once dressed, struck the floor with his wooden leg—it echoed loudly like a gavel in the small room, and he proceeded to argue in his own defense.
“Know this, Tom Bedlam: I am not the man she describes! There are two sides to every story. And one day, perhaps when you have a wife”— here he glared at Mrs. Bedlam—“and a son, you will understand. You will think kindly of your father. And, in spite of Mrs. Bedlam's slings and arrows, mark my words, you will feel gratitude to me.… Gratitude”
This last word was delivered to his wife, but it seemed directed at the world at large.
The solemn echo of the wooden peg marked his departure. Down the stairs, thump by thump, it rang. Tom listened as the sound mingled with the other noises of London in the early morning—the cry of gulls, the clatter of wooden carts on the cobblestones, and the steady rhythm of horses pulling cabs, the calls of hawkers, tradesmen, and a wailing infant somewhere in the crowded tenement. Then the steam whistles of the factories of Vauxhall summoned the minions in a cacophonic blast, erasing his father's progress.
Mrs. Bedlam collapsed on the bed, her reserves of energy and lucidity spent. She sent Tom to work that morning without her.
All day long, Tom heard his father intoning gratitude. The meaning, implicit in its repetition, was that he had misjudged his father.
“DO YOU EVER FIND, Oscar, that your parents see things in exact oppo-sites?” Tom inquired later.
“All the time,” Oscar Limpkin declared. “My mother says we're a happy lot, my father replies that we're miserable. That's why I'm getting a job.”
“A job?” Tom asked.
“Selling newspapers,” said Oscar. “I shall bring the day's facts home and settle the matter of happiness once and for all,” he promised with a gleam in his eye. “One day I shall be a reporter, Tom, and I shall know what goes on in London, from the finest mansions to the most depraved cellars. Then I shall expose the corrupt, free the oppressed, and champion the truth!”
What was the truth about William Bedlam? Tom wondered. Some families lock up the liquor, or the savings; the Bedlams were miserly with the truth. In refusing to speak of her husband for the majority of Tom's life, Emily Bedlam had denied the boy his right to assess his father's character and measure himself against the man. The few details that Tom had teased from her as her mind became feeble merely perplexed him. Had his father really killed Tom's brother? Had there been a brother? Or was Tom simply the unfortunate product of two adults with equally flimsy grips on reality?
Emily Bedlam did not rise from her bed after Mr. Bedlam's visit. Her illness took a turn for the worse, and Tom was spared such existential questions while he dealt with her care and worked the hours necessary to sustain their small household.