A HAZARD OF HEARTS (19 page)

‘Son of a diseased monkey!’ Pearl sprang up
suddenly and was restrained by Elly.

‘Miss Pearl,’ began the hapless J.G.

Her lips curled in a snarl. ‘I would hide bamboo
slivers in your food. I would deliver you to the Death of the Thousand Knives.
I would –’

‘Here! Before God, I believe you would. Just
hold her there a minute longer, Miss Ballard, and I’ll be relieving you of me
presence. But I’ll be back and we’ll sort this out like Christians, I promise
you.’ Cramming his hat on he stalked outside, where the wind promptly snatched
it and whirled it away over the wall.

Elly began to laugh. ‘Oh, Pearl, what a little
fury you are. Would you really stick bamboo slivers in his dinner? Is it like
ground glass?’

Pearl’s stiff muscles relaxed, her face
softened. There was a suspicion of laughter about her lips. ‘He thought I would
do it. I would have scratched his face if you had not prevented it.’

‘I know. I know. Oh, dear, what a day.’ Elly
dropped down on the stairs and rested her head against the rail.

~*~

The
Earl Grey Tavern
, with its
welcoming yellow-paned windows aglow, while lively enough, was not the rowdy
drinking place Elly had half-feared it would be. Its benches and table-tops had
seen hard use but were well scrubbed, while clean cushions covered the window
seats. The polished mirrors behind the bar reflected a cheerful crowd, and as
she soon found, these patrons were more inclined to forget their wine in
conversation which could quickly turn to spirited argument.

The smoky air, thick with the warmth of many
bodies, the smell of pipe tobacco and frying sausages, the soft glow of
lanterns hung from beams and a crackling log fire, welcomed Elly in a way she’d
never before experienced. In her cushioned corner, with a mug of beer before
her and Paul at her side, she felt herself to be on the fringes of a foreign
and fascinating world.

It was primarily a world for men, although there
were women present, and Elly found she envied the camaraderie that men could
find in such a place. It was more a club than a tavern, its members there to
air ideas and ideologies, to discuss new ways of thinking and measure them
against the old. She listened to the exchanges taking place around her, a
jumble of politics, art, religion, science, plus other topics she could only
glean in snatches.

It didn’t surprise her to see J.G. across the
room, arguing vociferously, using his hands to demonstrate a point, but most of
the faces were unknown to her. Then a young man with the untamed hair and beard
of a pirate and the body of a dancer threaded his way between the tables,
hailing Paul in heavily accented English. When Paul waved to him, he grabbed a
bottle of wine from the waiter and continued to their table.

‘Elly, allow me to introduce Edouard Chevrel,’
Paul said. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony here. Frenchy, this is Elly Ballard.’

The newcomer bowed, eyeing Elly appreciatively
and comprehensively. ‘Mademoiselle Ellee, I kiss your hand.’ He turned
immediately to Paul. ‘What’s the latest news? I was going to the meeting at the
Royal Hotel
but the press is so great I could not get in. Tonight it is
a veritable powder keg, with Wentworth and Henry Parkes the match and flint to
ignite it.’

Paul shrugged. ‘Henry knew how it would be and
warned me not to get involved. He has to speak against Wentworth being chosen
to head the Constitutional Committee in London, but he knows he can’t win. All
he can hope to do is undermine the opposition while putting our case for the
kind of Upper House we want.’

‘We should be there to rally around him.’

‘No. He’s stacked the audience, as has
Wentworth. It’ll end in a shouting match, that’s all. You know how easily
Wentworth loses his temper.’

Frenchy shook his bushy head and poured the
wine.

‘Why were you warned not to get involved?’ Elly
asked Paul.

He grinned, looking every bit as piratical as his
friend. ‘Some of us have to stay out of gaol to continue the work, particularly
those who can make public speeches. As Frenchy said, the powder keg could go up
very easily, and end in half the audience finding themselves before a
magistrate in the morning.’

‘Are your meetings always so volatile, then?’

‘It depends...’ Paul broke off as a wave of
laughter swept the next table, and a big man with a shock of violently red hair
and nose to match, rose to stand before the chimney-piece with his mug raised.
His voice went with his girth and filled the room easily.

‘Speech is still free to all men, and I have
something to say. Ladies and gentlemen, let us drink to freedom of thought, of
purpose, of action, to our day of liberation and secession. Friends, I give a
toast – the new Republic of Australia.’

Frenchy shot up, flourishing his glass, but Paul
pulled him back by the tail of his elegant coat. ‘Sit down, you fool. You can’t
drink to treason. This isn’t France.’

Already there was an outcry and several men
descended on the giant who had proposed the toast, forcing him to the floor and
holding him while a dozen glasses and tankards were solemnly emptied over his
head. Sputtering imprecations, he raised his eyes to a little bald man standing
over him, swathed in a grease-spattered apron and wielding a long toasting
fork.

‘Mr Benjamin,’ he said, ‘You know the rules of
this tavern. No-one speaks against Her Majesty the Queen or the British Empire.
Will you leave peaceably or be pricked and added to the other sausages in my
pan?’

Benjamin shook his wet head like a spaniel,
counted the opposition, and meekly departed.

Elly joined in the general laughter, saying, ‘Is
Mr Benjamin one of your sympathisers, Paul?’

‘He’s a damned revolutionary, like Frenchy here,
but a good fellow at heart. He just doesn’t believe we want freedom to govern
ourselves without breaking away from our Mother Country.’

Frenchy picked up the wine bottle and
scrutinised the level within, saying morosely, ‘If you’re not careful you’ll
find yourself with a House of Lords running the Colony to suit a handful of
squatters, and Wentworth the first to grasp a ducal coronet.’

‘Rubbish. He only just scraped in at the last
election. Next time...’

Puzzled, Elly asked, ‘What’s wrong with an
aristocracy? It’s always worked well in England, if not in your country.’

Frenchy threw up his hands. ‘
Mon Dieu
–
can she not see?’

She turned to Paul, who explained, ‘Elly, there’s
great social injustice in England and the oppressors have always come from the
titled class, or the very rich. But now, in this new land, we have the
opportunity to form a more equitable government, truly representative of all
men and not merely the privileged few. We want to retain the Westminster system
but adapt it, to use the brains and energy of men who would otherwise be denied
their chance by virtue of their birth.’

Drinkers at the next table had turned to listen,
and one put out a hand to shake Paul’s. ‘Well-said, my friend. And it’s the man
from the ranks of the working class, like Henry Parkes, who will help to mould
this new Parliament of ours.’

‘Right. Right.’ The current of agreement swept
around the room. Other conversations ceased as more people began attending to
Paul.

On his feet, flushed and eager, he continued, ‘It’s
true. There are plenty of others like Parkes. We have the goodwill of men
articulate enough to stand up to our Botany Bay aristocrats, those self-seeking
scoundrels who would carve up the wealth of the Colony amongst themselves.
Against their opposition, we’ve rid ourselves of the convicts and we now pay
our workers. There’ll be no slaves in this democracy. And we’ll unlock the land
so that anyone who wants to work can raise his children in plenty, without the
need to send them into factories and mine pits and smelters to ruin their
health. This country will raise a new breed of men and women, strong,
independent and free.’ He looked down apologetically at Elly. ‘I promised you
no speeches, tonight.’

‘Don’t apologise. It’s stirring talk. I’m making
discoveries.’ Elly meant it. This place, these people, were alive, generating
their own excitement in life, trying to get things done. While some of it, no
doubt, was air dreaming, there was purpose behind the discussions and an
intention to work on the problems they would encounter. These men were
builders, not destroyers, uninterested in maintaining the status quo. Their
lives were go-ahead, as she wanted hers to be.

Frenchy gazed at Paul with admiration. ‘That is
the spirit of the barricades. You have the heart of a true Frenchman,
mon
ami
. I salute you.’ He grabbed Paul by the shoulders and kissed him soundly
on both cheeks. Paul jerked back out of range, cuffing his friend lightly on the
jaw. Elly had never seen him so passionately alive, so happy with himself and
his company.

‘You should know, Frenchy. You’ve thrown a few
cobbles in your time and had to run for your life.’ He turned to Elly. ‘Do you
think we’re all mad?’

‘Yes, wonderfully, excitingly mad. You’re all so
unrestricted, so unafraid to try to change the world.’

‘Youth and a dream, always a powerful
combination. But it must be accompanied by common sense. There are older,
longer heads involved, experienced fighters who will be with us on the long
haul to victory.’ He raised his voice again to address the crowded room.

‘Victory won’t come overnight, we know, but come
it will, if we have anything to say. Eh, friends?’ He flung up his arms and was
answered with an approving roar. ‘Then join me in a toast to our new country,
to self-government, to universal suffrage, to equality for all. To victory!’

Elly raised her glass and joined in the shout, ‘To
victory!’ and drank deeply. Her gaze locked with Paul’s as a thrill ran through
her body, bringing with it an odd, tingling awareness.

Paul stiffened, his triumphant expression
vanishing, to be replaced by a look of stupefaction. For a long moment the
tavern, with its noise and smoke and press of people, faded into the background
and there were only the two of them, poised on the edge of some great
revelation.

Elly held her breath in the expectant silence.
Then, like a thunderclap, the world rolled in again on a wave of sound and
sight and smells, smashing the fragile moment. Other people surged forward to
claim Paul’s attention, leaving Elly wondering whether she’d imagined it all.

Much later, when the tavern keeper had gone
around and turned down most of the lamps, while yawning ostentatiously, Elly
and Paul stepped out into a cold starlit night and hailed a cab. Elly’s head
reeled with words, so many words, so many ideas, so much enthusiasm. She felt
drunk with it all. It seemed only natural to turn to her companion with her
question.

‘Paul, awhile since, when you spoke of the
children I heard something like pain in your voice. Do they mean so much to
you?’ She waited, trusting that the intimacy they’d shared with his friends
would, for once, be enough to bring down his barriers.

His voice, when he finally answered, sounded
distant, but not unfriendly. It was more like questioning, as if he needed an
answer where there was none. ‘Have you stood on a hillside before dawn on a
bitter morn, with the moon peering over your shoulder at a line of women on
their way to the mills, with the frost biting their bare toes and their ragged
backs bent into hoops, their faces shrivelled and yellow-pale like rat-gnawed
cheese? Have you seen the starvelings of seven and eight struggling along at
their mothers’ sides, heading for a workday of thirteen hours, with no hope of
any future beyond crippled limbs, rotted lungs, stunted minds?’

Elly’s hands tightened on her reticule.

He went on. ‘Do you know what it’s like to suck
on a leather strap to ease the hunger ache in your belly, or strip a drunken
man for his rags, leaving him in the gutter to freeze? Do you know what it’s
like to see hope fade from the eyes of loved ones, knowing it might all have
been avoided?’ Paul sighed and leaned back further into the shadowed interior
of the cab. ‘I’m a poor companion tonight. The wine has bred melancholy.
Forgive me.’

‘There’s no need.’ She sensed that, with the
mood of the evening destroyed, he wanted their outing to end, and she remained
silent until the cab drew up at the hospital gate. As he handed her up the
steps to the front door she turned to him. ‘Paul, I’m so glad you asked me to
meet your friends. They’re a wonderful band of people. Perhaps I may come with
you again one Thursday night.’

He smiled non-comittally, thanked her for her
company, then left. Standing with her hand on the stair newel she listened to
the sound of fading hoof beats and thought she had just spent the strangest,
most interesting evening of her life in the company of the most enigmatic and,
yes, attractive of men.

‘It will be a simple amputation of the left
leg above the knee, Matron, but as the child is so young, it would wise to have
a woman in attendance, to give reassurance.’

Elly glanced up from the notes in her hand and studied
Doctor Houston’s increasingly worn face. He removed his spectacles, polishing
them on a dirty handkerchief which he returned to the pocket of his equally
filthy coat. She knew he’d been operating since early morning and probably
wanted to go off duty.