Tom Bedlam by George Hagen

Author:George Hagen [Hagen, George]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-54816-0
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

THE IMMIGRANTS

IN 1889, DR. TOM CHAPEL BEGAN A NEW LIFE IN PORT ELIZABETH Hospital as its resident surgeon. Little Margaret was born the next year. Tom sent a photograph to Edinburgh of the baby—a beatific face with a little shock of hair pricking up from her scalp like a halo.

It was hard for Tom to reconcile his good fortune with Audrey's tragedy. He had a loving wife, a daughter, and a house overlooking Algoa Bay. Life was precious. Like a tightrope artist preparing for his first step, Tom checked his moorings every morning—first Lizzy, sleeping beside him, then Margaret, snoring in the crib at the foot of his bed—only then did he feel ready to face the world.

When Iris appeared two years later, they sent another photograph; this one showed a baby wrapped tightly in soft flannel, eyes open and alert, her Buddha lips poised to utter her first remark on the condition of the world before her.

When no answer arrived from Edinburgh, Lizzy was disappointed but not surprised. “Father doesn't forgive easily,” she explained. “I once buffed his brogues with red shoe polish. He spent weeks trying to get out the color. For years he talked about those shoes.” She sighed. “As for Eve,” she said, “well, she loved you, Tom. I doubt I could have forgiven her if she had taken you from me.”

“But you're sisters” Tom said, recalling Audrey's devotion to the twins.

“There are all kinds of sisters,” Lizzy reminded him.

Charity was born three years after Iris, in 1895. She developed an early passion for lace—she insisted on white socks fringed with lace and wore an enormous lace-edged bonnet that framed her solemn, pudgy face the way paper frills garnish a lamb chop. She would follow her mother around the house, thumb in her mouth, fingers clutching a fold of Lizzy's skirt.

It would be fair to say that Tom and Lizzy leaped headlong into family life. The ship's captain who had married them had issued a cryptic admonition before sealing their vow: “A hasty departure yields an ill-equipped voyage.” The Chapels' marriage, however, was founded on affection and respect. Thus “equipped,” they appeared quite prepared for the challenges of parenthood. Though a nurse present at Margaret's birth warned them that “children are quite capable of ruining a perfectly good marriage,” Tom and Lizzy enjoyed their children, and considered the attendant chaos and emotional upheaval a blessing and an adventure. It was only when Tom declined an offer to become head doctor that Lizzy wondered if he would one day regret the demands of his family.

“Eve would have insisted that you take such a position,” she said.

“That's why I married you, my dear,” he replied. “The head doctor must spend three of his evenings at meetings in the hospital. Three nights a week away from my family? That would be like skipping three in seven installments of The Pickwick Papers. I'd miss so much.”

For that reason, Tom and Lizzy were not seen among Port Elizabeth's polite society. They

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