A HAZARD OF HEARTS (17 page)

Yesterday’s hysterics were understandable,
thought Elly. Poor, poor girl. But she made her voice brisk and businesslike. ‘In
that case, you may be interested in a proposition I’ll put before you. You will
forgive me for alluding to private matters revealed in your delirium, but I believe
you, Miss Pearl, have nursing training.’

Pearl’s lips thinned, then relaxed, as if she’d
decided to waive a normal reticence. ‘It is true I am skilled in nursing and
dispensing. I was well trained by a Missionary doctor.’

Elly leaned forward. ‘And I am in dire need of
trustworthy nurses. Would you be willing to stay, to work for me, to help train
other young women for just a short while, until you have settled your future
plans?’ She hesitated only momentarily. ‘Miss Loring – Jo-Beth. I don’t know
how you would feel about such work, but you are welcome to stay here until you
have fully recovered. You suffered a terrible shock, as well as physical
trauma. Perhaps, if you wished, you could help in less demanding ways. There’s always
so much to be done.’

Pearl glanced at Jo-Beth. ‘I need money saved
before I can seek out my brother. I would be willing to stay if Jo-Beth agrees.’

While the two young women conferred, Elly
watched, thinking how little she knew about them. They’d been blown onto her
doorstep by a storm and left to lie like flotsam from the sea. However, their
character was written in their faces. The small one, Pearl, she thought she
would never truly know. Yet she was capable of unselfish love for her friend.
And she was Mission trained! Elly also believed she was a fighter to the last
drop of her blood.

 The other one had too-white hands, and
doubtless had never scrubbed a floor or carried slop pails. But she could learn.
There was strength in her. Already she was dealing with a ghastly emotional
wound and thinking about the future.

Elly leaned forward. ‘I won’t attempt to hide
the difficulties, not the least of which is the hospital’s Board of Directors. We
disagree upon most matters, and since they hold the purse-strings, which means
the power, we have some lively clashes. Yet I’m gradually achieving small
victories.

‘The wards have been cleaned up, and the worst
abuses done away with, although there are many changes still to be made. The great
need, however, is for good staff to demonstrate to the Board and to the
community that nursing can be a fine career, almost a profession, when carried
to its highest reach. Suffering is endemic in this world, but we, as trained
persons, can alleviate it. It’s our role, our reason for being. There can be no
greater reward than to see our efforts transform a sick or injured person into
a healthy one.’ She stopped and smiled. ‘Well, that’s my speech. Has it
convinced you?’

Pearl and Jo-Beth exchanged glances. Pearl
spread her hands fatalistically. ‘This is no gift you offer. It is a challenge.
Yet I have found all of life to be a challenge. There would be a salary?’

‘Twenty pounds per annum, with uniform provided.’

‘Then I accept.’

‘Good. Miss Loring?’

Jo-Beth answered slowly, ‘I have family back in
Boston, but I was never happy there. I thought I had escaped when Ethan... when
the man I love...’ She choked on a sob, then continued more firmly. ‘I don’t
believe he died in the sea. He will return to me one day, and I must be here, waiting
for him.’ She met Elly’s amazed, compassionate look with one of fierceness. ‘I
mean it. I know he’s alive and will seek me out. Tell me what I must do to earn
my keep and I’ll stay until he comes.’

‘My dear...’ Elly couldn’t go on. In the face of
such belief, what could she say?

Pearl took her friend’s hand and offered the
other to Elly. ‘We both accept your offer.’

With a mental sigh, compounded of satisfaction
and pity, Elly rose and collected a silver tray with crystal glasses and
decanter of madeira from a side cabinet, bringing it to the table.

‘I want to thank you both. Your help will be
invaluable to my future plans. And what better way to celebrate than with the
Board Members’ own private stock?’

She handed around the glasses, raising hers into
a sunbeam, splintering crystal and amber liquid into blinding shafts. ‘Ladies,
this is an historic moment. You may not have realised it but you have helped to
lay the first brick in the structure of career nursing in the colony. Nurses of
the future will look back to this day and see when it all began, the foundation
day for an eminent profession.’ She scanned the doubtful faces watching her and
laughed. ‘You will see, I promise you.’

She flourished her glass. ‘Let us drink to the
future, to nursing – and to the confusion of a most obstructive Board of
Directors.’

The two raised their glasses dutifully to her, swallowing
any doubts they might have, along with the Directors’ best madeira.

Elly had escaped for an hour. She felt
wonderfully liberated as she closed the door in the hospital’s surrounding wall
behind her and set off north along Macquarie Street towards the harbour. She
hadn’t realised how burdened she’d been by her responsibilities – not that she’d
consider for a minute giving up when the struggle had barely begun. Nevertheless,
this break gave her a welcome chance to breathe in air untainted by drains and
carbolic fumes, and to see a little of Sydney Town.

She paused at the brow of the hill to view the
town laid out around her like a colourful chart, with herself at the centre.
The spit of land dead ahead on the eastern side of the Quay was a defence
station known as Fort Macquarie, while behind her stretched Macquarie Street
ending at Hyde Park, surrounded by the elegant homes of the rich. The park was
a venue for saunterers and cricket-players, where military manoeuvres still
took place. It was also the outlet point for Mr Busby’s bore, the source of
water for the whole of Sydney, including the hospital. At present the supply
coming from the sand hills to the south could be termed barely adequate for a
community of some sixty or seventy thousand souls, but Elly foresaw problems
ahead in summer. She’d been told the Tank Stream, the freshwater creek which
had originally supplied settlers and which still ran down into Sydney Cove, had
become irreparably polluted with sewerage and other waste.

According to Mr J.G. Patterson, her journalist
acquaintance, Sydney was a rabbit colony, expanding and multiplying without a
thought of a plan in anyone’s head.

‘Tanneries, slaughter houses and boiling down
works pour out their dainty odours from every side,’ he claimed. ‘And when the
regular summer southerly comes down on us, dust from the brickfields chokes the
very lungs in a man. Our ‘taters are grown in fields of human muck; smuts
freely besprinkle milady’s weekday wash; while a visit to the municipal
abattoirs on Glebe Island, just minutes away from the heart of town, would have
you in tears. Filthy, diseased livestock penned in cells awash with putrefying
guts, and the wastes flushed away into our harbour. I tell you, it’s a
disgrace.’

Elly, close to nausea, had begged him to stop.
But she’d been impressed by his attitude. His gadfly instincts were directed by
a civic consciousness she could only admire. She wondered if his friend Paul
Gascoigne thought the same way.

A sharp breeze enlivened the sunny day, and she
wrapped her cloak around her. Looking eastwards, beyond the Public Domain, she
could follow a pattern of scalloped bays all the way to South Head and the
white finger of Mr Francis Greenaway’s lighthouse; then back again along the
heavily forested line of the Northern Shore, still sparsely settled, although
there were ample ferry services across the harbour and people crossed on day
trips to ride and picnic.

They’d realise soon enough the advantage of
living away from the town with its influx of crazy gold-seekers clearing the
shops of goods to be carried over the mountains to the mining camps. The
traffic was two-way, with the lucky strikers pouring back into town to fling
their nuggets about and proclaim their good fortune. It brought joy to the
merchants, but made for a rowdy passage down George Street at night.

To the west, beyond the main streets of the
town, rose Flagstaff Hill, the signal station for the arrival of overseas
vessels; while beyond that lay Darling Harbour and the western reaches of the
great Port Jackson. If she squinted she could see miles across the flat plains
flowing out to a range of blue misty mountains bounding the colony. One day,
she promised herself, she’d take the paddle steamer up river, and explore as
far as the foothills of the range. But she’d never go north to the cedar
country at back of Port Stephens. Never again.

With a tug at her wayward cloak, Elly abandoned
her bird’s-eye viewpoint and set off downhill to the crowded quayside. Here was
a scene of frantic activity, with ships and ferries arriving and departing the
colony’s gateway.

I like this place, Elly thought. It was so
alive, so unashamedly a rowdy frontier town evolving into a city. One day,
despite itself, it would be a sophisticated metropolis, but until then it could
enjoy itself like a growing child, testing and tasting along the road to the
future. She was glad to be a part of it. And she’d set her mark, however small,
on Sydney Town. With the help of friends, and luck and determination, the
people would one day have a hospital to be proud of.

She punctuated her thoughts with a decisive nod,
and was startled when a deep-pitched voice behind her said, ‘Now there’s a
strong decision just come to life. I trust the persons involved will survive
its implementation.’

Paul Gascoigne stood hat in hand, his other
wrapped around a leash restraining Pepper, who bounced and yapped, clearly
delighted to encounter Elly again.

She bent to pat the little brown dog. ‘Good day
to you, Mr Gascoigne.’

‘What, no rising to the fly?’ Paul’s lips curved
in his usual half-smile. ‘I made sure my cast would draw you.’

‘I’m too happy this morning to allow my mood to
be destroyed. What brings you and Pepper down to the Quay?’

Paul tugged on the leash and commanded the dog
to sit, with no appreciable effect. ‘This is one of our favourite daily walks.
Pepper likes the smell of the sea and the various cargoes unloading, although,
when I have time, we prefer the shore where he can chase gulls along the sand
and be free as a dog should be.’

Elly looked around her at the bustling quayside
thronged with porters and carriers servicing the ships; at the piles of lumber,
wool, spices and silks waiting on the wharves; the ferry-boat passengers lined
up; clerks and servants hurrying on business; the horse cabs, omnibuses and
private carriages. She understood the need for a leash on Pepper.

The little dog barked furiously at a passing
mongrel, and Paul admonished Pepper to mind his manners before a lady, adding, ‘We
also have a problem with packs of half-wild dogs roaming the streets, along
with our pigs and goats and hens. Pepper’s mighty courage scarcely fits with
his small frame. He’ll take on any challenger.’

He offered Elly his free arm and, scarcely
hesitating, she took it. They strolled along the quayside, skirting piles of
boxes and casks and removing their toes from the path of the heavy wool drays.
Elly was very conscious of the muscular arm supporting hers, and annoyed with
herself for being even the slightest bit affected. Paul Gascoigne meant nothing
to her, that was certain.

At George Street, the main thoroughfare, they
turned south to mingle with early shoppers patronising the stalls and emporiums
so dear to the heart of Sydneysiders. The fashionable parade would not turn out
until afternoon, and drunkards from the taverns some hours later. By night the
streets would be thronged and rather more dangerous, with the larrikin element
abroad and thieves and pickpockets ready to go to work.

‘How did you fare with my friend, J.G.?’ Paul
asked. ‘Did he offer to help you?’

‘He’s a charming man, and yes, he did agree to
mention some of the hospital’s problems in
The Empire
. He agreed with me
that the shocking conditions should be brought to public notice.’

‘I see.’ Paul’s voice was dry. ‘Did he indicate
the, er, tone of the article?’

‘How do you mean?’ She stopped and stared at
him, suspecting him of irony, exasperated by his ability to ruffle her within a
few minutes of their meeting.

‘I mean, I know J.G. rather better than you do,
and he can be unpredictable. Did you ask him for a total
expose
, a
revelation of the staff’s general ineptness and the Board’s intransigence? Did
he promise a trumpet call to action?’

‘No, no. I asked for none of those things. He
wouldn’t, he couldn’t imagine I’d want such a disastrous public airing...’ Elly
swallowed, unable to go on, her mind in a whirl. The journalist had been
horrified by what he’d seen and heard on his tour of the hospital, but she had
made it clear that she must still tread warily, that the Board must not be
alienated, with no actual accusations levelled... No. He wouldn’t...

Paul’s smile had disappeared. ‘
The Empire
is
a daily publication, but so far I’ve read nothing in it about the hospital. Let’s
see if the relevant article is in today. If not, maybe we should pay a call on
J.G.’