A HAZARD OF HEARTS (16 page)

‘A solemn responsibility, Mr J.G.’ Elly
repressed a laugh. He was so entertaining. However she hadn’t lost sight of her
purpose. ‘How do you feel about stinging a hospital board of directors?’

He looked thoughtful. ‘An appetizing thought. All
those fat rumps...’

‘Do you have twenty minutes to spare, Mr J.G.?’

He cocked an eyebrow at Paul, who shrugged,
saying, ‘I’d be glad if you could accommodate Miss Ballard, J.G. Unfortunately,
I have business to attend to. Shall I see you at the rally tonight?’

‘Barring an accidental meeting with a creditor,
I’ll be there.’ J.G. turned to Elly. ‘How may I serve you, Miss Ballard?’

‘Come. I’ll show you.’ She said a brief, cool
farewell to Paul and prepared to conduct her captured journalist over the
hospital’s worst features, determined to win his support and, through him, the
support of newspaper readers all over the colony. She needed publicity to
create a public outcry against the conditions she could do so little to change.

Of course, it would not increase her popularity
with the Board, and considering her dependence upon them, it might be as well
to have J.G. modify the tone of his reports. That is, if he agreed to help her
at all. Paul was useless to her, just another blow-hard ignoring real need in
favour of his own pet fancies. He had disappointed her. She’d do far better with
the irreverent J.G.

~*~

After the journalist had departed, shaken
and expressing his belief that the place should be blown up and begun again,
she recalled certain other more personal remarks he’d passed. He’d been
complimentary to her, applauding the changes already made as well as those to
come. Then he had met her staff, commenting so vividly and scurrilously (fortunately
in an under voice) that she’d had trouble keeping her composure. In hearty
agreement with him, she nevertheless asked him to moderate his reactions in
print, since she needed to keep what help she had.

Paul Gascoigne had also been mentioned.

‘The man’s a hard one to understand, Miss
Ballard. He’s my friend, but I’m only allowed so close and no farther.’

‘He’s stubborn and afflicted with myopia,’ she’d
replied. ‘We clash whenever we meet.’

He cocked his head at her. ‘Now wouldn’t that
argue a similarity of nature?’

‘You mean I’m stubborn and myopic, too?’
Surprised, Elly thought about it. ‘If you mean single-minded, I agree. One has
to be, to achieve anything.’

‘Paul is single-minded and passionate about
legislative reform. He can’t afford to be side-tracked, any more than you can.’

Elly shook her head. ‘The cases are different.’

‘They are indeed. Paul’s background has made him
a fighter. He’s paid his dues in pain and poverty and the sneers of lesser men.
There aren’t many who’d deride him today.’ He dropped his serious tone and
grinned. ‘One more thing. Paul can’t abide managing women. He’s had a surfeit
of them.’

Elly gasped. ‘ You... you’re calling me a
managing woman?’

‘Aren’t you?’

She exploded into laughter. ‘Oh, go away, you
detestable gadfly. Go and sting someone else. But be sure and write a column to
galvanise your readers.’

That evening heavy clouds rolled in from the
sea, glowing eerily green, their bellies laden with torrential rain that
blotted out the sunset. Trees tossed in sudden wind-squalls and black night
descended – the kind of darkness that hid a hand held before the face, yet was lit
periodically by lightning. Snug in her small sanctum with the thunder- claps
shaking her window shutters, Elly pitied those caught out in the storm. When
the porter’s bell rang she went down to answer it herself, feeling a
premonition of trouble ahead.

The man on the step poured with water. His teeth
chattered and his face had the pallor of shock.

‘Ma’am, ye’d best make ready for casualties.
There’s a great ship gone on the rocks, with men risking their lives to save
the poor souls aboard her. Any they do fetch ashore will be brought here, dead
or alive.’

‘Lie down. You are safe, I promise you.’ Elly
had to use her weight on the girl’s thin shoulders as she struggled desperately.
‘I’m taking care of you.’ Elly wiped the sweaty forehead with a cloth dipped in
her own lavender water. She knew the value of simple things in times of stress,
and there was something reassuring about the common garden fragrance of
lavender.

Her patient stiffened then fell back against her
pillow, the dark hair spread there damp and dull, the darker eyes narrowed as
she silently studied Elly.

‘You are a nurse?’ she asked.

Elly jumped. ‘Yes, I’m Acting Matron in charge.’

‘And you took me for an ignorant savage who
could not understand you.’

Elly shook her head. ‘I make no judgements of a patient.
I took you for a woman half-drowned, with two cracked ribs and in danger of
contracting a congestion of the lungs.’

‘But you were surprised that I understood you.’

‘Yes,’ said Elly, honestly. ‘The Asian people we
see in the colony rarely speak good English.’

‘They’re uneducated peasants or slaves trying to
escape to a better life, seeking gold hanging from trees.’ Pearl’s voice was
bitter.

Elly laid a hand on her brow, detecting no sign
of fever. ‘Try not to become upset. You need to rest.’ As she rose, Pearl
grasped her arm.

‘My friend, Jo-Beth. Is she... Has she...?’

‘She’s safe beside you in the next bed,
unconscious when brought in but now peacefully asleep.’

The tension left Pearl’s face. ‘At least she’s
alive. My name is Pearl. We were together on the ship.’ She hesitated. ‘Was
there... have you seen a monkey? I had her in my pocket...’

With a laugh Elly pointed to the windowsill
where Peanut sat grooming herself hard up against the warm glass side of a
lantern. ‘Your rescuers could not detach her without getting bitten, but she
came when I offered her food. She can stay there tonight.’

‘Thank you. Thank you.’

Elly patted her hand and released herself. ‘I’ll
leave you now. Sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

She paused in the doorway to see Pearl craning
towards the next bed, then closed the door quietly behind her.

~*~

The next morning she was wakened by her new
young trainee hovering anxiously and dripping hot tallow on Elly’s chin. She
sat up hurriedly.

‘What is it, Nurse Rachel?’ She swung her legs
over the side of the cot, seeking her slippers, her mind preparing for an
emergency.

The girl’s candle dipped. ‘Oh, Matron, you’d
best come to Ward One. A woman brought in from the shipwreck is hysterical and
her friend wants her to have laudanum.’

One of Elly’s strictest rules gave her control
of all medications. In the bumbling hands of at least two of her inherited “nurses”
these were as dangerous as anarchists’ bombs.

‘I’ll come at once. It’s nearly time for me to
rise, anyway.’ She dressed rapidly, adding a shawl to her warm worsted gown. Pinning
on her watch and chain, she noted that it was already five o’clock on a fine,
chilly June day. While hurrying along the corridor to Ward One, her ears alert
to the early stirring of her hospital, she watched the black hordes of bedbugs
scurry ahead of her light to disappear into cracks in the walls. The last
scouring down had obviously had little effect. She sighed, determined to approach
the Board once more for permission to replaster and whitewash, although the
only real solution might be the one proposed by the rebel journalist, J.G. – to
blow the place apart and rebuild. The whole hospital structure was insanitary
and unsound.

Ward One was wide awake. Faces shadowed and
distorted by lantern-light turned greedily to the occupant of one bed, absorbed
by one of the oldest human dramas, overwhelming grief. Jo-Beth sat with her
arms locked rigidly across her body as she rocked back and forth, howling her
misery. Tears ran down her cheeks and into her mouth, stifling her, but still
she cried the one word over and over: ‘Ethan, Ethan.’

The toneless lament fell on Elly’s nerves like
droplets of ice water. She darted forward to tug at Jo-Beth’s arms, trying to
unlock them, trying to make the girl look at her.

‘Jo-Beth. Jo-Beth. Listen to me.’

‘It’s useless. She won’t hear. Her friend here
tried to help and got knocked half-senseless for her pains.’ The young trainee
pointed to Pearl sitting on the floor holding her ribs. Her bed gown had been
torn from neck to waist and there were scratches on her throat.

‘See to her,’ Elly ordered, ‘Then take the key
from my waist and fetch the laudanum.’ Her arms went around the rocking figure,
holding, rocking with her, trying to impart her own warmth to the girl shut
away behind her icy wall of despair. She rested her cheek on Jo-Beth’s auburn
head, crooning wordlessly, yet watching her nurse as she resettled Pearl in her
bed, checked the strapping on her ribs and soothed her obvious anxiety over her
friend’s condition. Rachel had the right mix of compassion and dexterity. She’d
make a good nurse, if she stayed.

Detecting a slackening in the rigid muscles
under her hands, Elly was ready when quite suddenly Jo-Beth collapsed against
her, burrowing into the comforting human warmth. Elly raised her head to glare
at the rows of staring faces. Some had the grace to turn aside, while others
continued to watch as Elly soothed.

When Rachel returned, the drops of opium poppy
extract were administered, and they waited until Jo-Beth finally drifted off to
sleep. Elly then drew the young nurse aside. ‘Have you heard whether there are
any other survivors? Did you ask the porter?’

The girl bowed her head. ‘All lost, poor souls. This
Ethan was the ship’s captain, so Miss Pearl says, a handsome giant with golden hair
and beard, but...’

‘He hasn’t been found. I see. All the same, we’ll
check the mortuary to be certain.’

Rachel shuddered then bravely followed into the
cold yard behind the hospital building, and held a lantern while Elly found the
key to the padlocked shed which did duty as mortuary and post-mortem surgery.
She paused a moment, drawing her shawl tightly around her shoulders as she
gazed out towards the coast, now faintly outlined against the coming dawn. She
took the lantern from Rachel.

‘Wait for me, if you please. There’s no need for
us both to forgo our breakfasts.’ She opened the door, propping it wide with a
piece of rubble, unable to endure the thought of that place with the door shut.

Inside the darkness closed around her and her feeble
lantern, while her nostrils filled with a dreadful miasma like the fetid breath
of a carnivore. Rats scurried into the corners trailing evidence of their
feast, shredded skin and muscle, leaving holes torn and gaping in the faces and
bodies of the two dead sailors lying on trestles. Beyond them lay other bodies
brought in before the wreck, men killed in a drunken brawl, and another who had
simply lay down in the muddy road to die.

Gases escaping from their rotting flesh, and the
thought of the rats, made Elly gag. She covered her mouth and nose with her
shawl end, then raised the lantern, forcing herself to observe the two
newcomers carefully. They were only partially clothed in seamen’s slops, but
their feet were hard with callus, and what remained of these seamed faces could
never have belonged to the vigorous giant described by Pearl.

‘No beard,’ muttered Elly, racing out the door
and locking it behind her.

~*~

Twenty-four hours later the two young women
survivors came to the Matron’s room to discharge themselves and thank Elly for
her care. Pearl held up her borrowed gown, three sizes too large. She had
utterly refused to don a corset, and carried her damp jacket and pants underarm.
Jo-Beth, in her heavily stained and torn silk, would have shamed a guttersnipe.

Elly rose from her chair behind the desk.

‘Ladies, before you go I have something to say
to you. I suggest we repair to the boardroom where we can sit in comfort.’ She
led them downstairs, ushering them into the Board’s sanctum where a comfortable
fire burned in the grate and cushioned chairs were available. Sunlight poured through
the unadorned windows to glimmer on polished cabinets and gilded frames. Hospital
benefactors stared down their painted noses at the intruders.

‘Please be seated, ladies.’ Elly arranged her
skirts, laying her clasped hands on the large cedar table provided for
meetings. ‘I believe you were unable to save any belongings from the shipwreck.
Nor do I think you have any contacts in Sydney Town.’

Pearl nodded gravely. Jo-Beth’s lip trembled.

Both young women had been marked forever by
their terrible experience, thought Elly. It showed in their eyes. Heaven only
knew what scars they carried within. She said gently, ‘I’m afraid no other
survivors have been found. Your ship broke in two and sank within a few
minutes.’

Jo-Beth stifled a sob.

Pearl said, ‘I had no-one aboard who mattered to
me, but Jo-Beth has lost both her parents and her future husband.’