A HAZARD OF HEARTS (24 page)

Elly shrugged to cover her distress. ‘They’re in
care at the Benevolent Asylum at the moment. I suppose the people there will
arrange something – perhaps send them to the new orphanage at Ormond House.
Sometimes I feel so helpless, Jo-Beth. I wonder whether we make any difference
at all. There were thirty cases of consumption admitted this month, nineteen of
whom have died. The figures for syphilis are worse.’

‘Of course you make a difference. Think how many
would have died without proper attention. Think of the suffering relieved. It’s
unlike you to be despondent, Elly. Don’t tell me you’re about to sicken with
some ailment.’ Jo-Beth took the bowl brought up from the dispensary by a new
trainee, Mary Malone, a fresh-faced girl with intelligence in her round brown
eyes and concern for the exhausted child. Then, with Elly holding the little
girl against her shoulder, she began spooning the mixture into the child’s
mouth.

Lilly swallowed obediently, her gaze now fixed
on Elly, her formerly passive fingers clutching Elly’s.

Turning to the trainee, Malone, Elly said, ‘You
may assist in the dispensary while I’m on the ward, but return in thirty
minutes’ time.’

The girl bobbed then left.

Elly found Jo-Beth surveying her quizzically.

‘Now, tell me Matron, what of the second
sumptuous floral arrangement that would not disgrace the salon of Government
House?’

Elly looked self-conscious, and Jo-Beth pounced.

‘Aha, it came from your white knight, your
champion on the Board of Directors. Am I right?’

‘Yes, although I don’t know why it makes me so
uncomfortable. After all, it’s merely an invitation to dine and hear Toccarini
sing. His name is Cornwallis, The Hon. D’Arcy Cornwallis.’

Jo-Beth dropped her teasing tone. ‘You will go,
Elly? It’s time to remember that you are a young, attractive woman, as well as
an Acting Matron.’

Elly nodded at the bowl. ‘See if the child will
take more.’

‘Elly?’ Jo-Beth insinuated another spoonful of
mixture between Lilly’s slackened lips. She seemed to be half-asleep, except
when racked by another spasm of coughing.

‘No, I don’t think so.’ Elly wiped Lilly’s mouth
and gave her a sip of water.

‘Why ever not? If he’s the Cornwallis I’ve heard
spoken of he’s gentlemanly, cultivated, personable, and could have his choice
of all the unattached ladies in the Colony. Yet he’s interested in you.’

‘Perhaps I don’t wish to be added to a list of
conquests.’

‘I think it’s more like fear. You see yourself
as a country girl, too homespun for the likes of the Hon. D’Arcy Cornwallis,
without conversation, without the allure he expects in his women companions.
Well I can tell you you’re wrong. Men like him seek below the conventionally
lovely surface for intelligence and wit, and the charm conferred by these. You
have them in abundance, Elly Ballard, plus the loveliness, as it happens.’

‘Goodness! You’ve kissed the Blarney Stone, or
else you’ve taken lessons from that rascally J.G.’ Elly laid the sleeping child
down and covered her warmly. ‘I don’t know, Jo-Beth. It would be such an
effort.’

‘You must make the effort. Drag yourself up from
the rut you’ve laboured in for months and take a peep at the outside world, if
for no other reason than it will bind Cornwallis to you as an ally on the
Board. Come along now. Write the gentleman a polite note of acceptance. I’ll
post it for you. I’ve a letter of my own to send.’

Elly’s interest awakened. ‘Captain McAndrews? I
heard you had a follower in a red coat.’

‘Hardly a follower.’ For a moment, sadness
veiled Jo-Beth’s vivid features. Then a smile broke through and she tilted her
head cheekily.

‘Well, a discreet admirer, then,’ Elly amended. ‘Has
he invited you out?’

Jo-Beth primmed up her mouth. ‘Oh, dear me, yes.
Having daringly attended divine service together at St. Phillip’s Church, we
actually ventured a drive in an open carriage through the Government Domain to
admire the flower beds. I scarcely dare tell you of the delights in store next
week.’

‘Let me guess. Bathing at Woolloomooloo baths,
perhaps?’ Elly looked demure.

‘How can you be so improper? No, we are to join
a picnic party to the oyster-beds out in the bay.’

‘Where you will gorge yourselves and have a
perfectly lovely day. I’m so glad you’ve found a companion, Jo-Beth. You must
live in the present, not the past, however much it pulls at you. Will you
introduce me to your Captain when opportunity arises?’

‘Of course. If you will make me known to the
great business entrepreneur, after he has wined and dined you. Do go, Elly.
There can be no harm in it.’

Elly stood up. ‘Very well, I shall go, if only
for the pleasure of a meal which has not been scorched in our depressing
kitchen. Meanwhile, you, Nurse Assistant Loring, may find me two jars for my ‘sumptuous’
arrangements. We’ll put them in the wards and see whether they cheer our
patients.’

~*~

One of Elly’s particular joys was
midwifery. Helping new life into the world made such a change from disease and death,
and she eagerly emulated the Viennese doctor, Semmelweis, whose mothers and
babies thrived while in other hospitals the fatality rate expanded at a
horrifying rate. To this end she scalded or chemically cleaned any item likely
to come into contact with her mothers. Also, while barred by the Board’s orders
from actively persuading attending doctors to wash in chloride of lime, she
always had this ready, and some did use it. Nor was she above locking the
mortuary and losing the key on days when women expected to deliver, thus
preventing doctors from dissecting cadavers before examining the mothers.

Soon word spread through the community that
mothers in her care had a far greater chance of leaving the hospital in good
health and with a living child. Women who were neither poor nor indigent, some
of whom had lost several children in home births, queried the possibility of
lying in at the Infirmary, thereby causing some embarrassment to Elly, plus a good
deal of indignation on the part of the divisional doctors. Eventually the Board
agreed to let her accompany divisional doctors to private homes, upon request
and upon payment of a fee to the hospital.

This added to Elly’s workload, yet gave her an
opportunity to see how the upper echelons of the colony lived. She also learned
how nursing generally was regarded – as a lowly living unsuited to any woman
with pretensions to gentility.

Meanwhile she continued to worry about Mrs
Wynham’s baby. She’d called on Doctor Houston’s expertise and he’d responded
with all his knowledge and experience, but the child was clearly failing. Added
to this worry was Paul Gascoigne’s accusatory attitude. She couldn’t understand
it, when the staff had done their utmost for the child.

She caught him on the hospital steps one
afternoon after visiting hours and insisted on explaining to him each part of
the treatment, adding an assurance that his protegees were receiving the best
available care.

Yet he was bitter. ‘You’ve stated often enough
how poorly the system operates in this hospital,’ he said. ‘Why should I
believe it’s changed merely because you say so?’

His words hurt, yet Elly would not retaliate. For
some reason he cared deeply about this family and their lack of progress. ‘You
don’t have to take my word for it,’ she said. ‘Just ask Mrs Wynham. Both Pearl
and I have sat up at night with little Anne, trying to ease her struggles, yet
the baby can’t thrive. I believe her lungs were defective from birth. Such
children never live long.’

Paul turned away. ‘I’m sorry. I expect too much
of you. Yet it’s so unjust.’

Elly sighed. ‘If you’re thinking Anne would have
had better care if she’d come from a rich family, you’re wrong. The district
physician would have called at her home and she’d have lain in a silken cot,
but the treatment would have been the same – and the end. I’m terribly sorry,
but the baby will soon die. You’ll have to accept it, along with her mother.’

 He faced her again, meeting her gaze. ‘You must
wonder at my interest in this family. I... It’s awkward to explain. You’re
partly responsible, you know.’

‘I?’

‘It was something you said to me, about men
fighting for their rights while their women and children died for lack of
proper health care.’

‘I remember.’

He shrugged. ‘It clung in my memory. Then one
night Sophy Wynham stopped me in the street, tried to beg money from me. When I
would have brushed her aside, she offered herself to me. Her actual words
were... “For God’s sake, don’t refuse me, sir. My children must eat. I’ll do anything
you want. Just give me a trial.” Then she put on this travesty of a smile and
thrust out her bosom, and collapsed on the paving stones.’

‘What then?’ Elly was fascinated by this new
aspect of the chauvinist Paul.

‘I gave her a meal and escorted her home. My
God, what a place. That whole Rocks area should be razed and rebuilt. I give
you my word, I walked with my head swivelling on my shoulders, longing for a
pistol. I doubt if my boots will ever be truly clean again. When I saw the
conditions her children live in I wanted to slap poor Sophy.’

‘You blamed her for the men who ran off and left
her.’

‘I did, and I’m ashamed of it. It didn’t take me
long to realise what little choice she’d had. Thrown on the street as a child,
she’d survived as best she could, and, in the natural course of things falling
victim to the predators. Do you know she’s only twenty years old?’

Elly caught her breath. Twenty, and the girl
appeared forty if a day. She said, ‘So you decided to help her.’

There was no sign of his half-smile and his
voice had deepened to a growl. ‘Someone had to. They were all near starvation. I
found laundry work for Sophy where she could have her baby with her, and I kept
an eye on them. Then she and the babe fell ill, so I brought them here, to you.’

‘So now you feel I’ve failed them.’

‘No. I shouldn’t have blamed you. I apologise.’

‘What other reason did you have for championing
the Wynhams? You said I was only partly responsible.’

Paul walked to the foot of the steps and stood
with his back to her, hands in pockets, his shoulders hunched. He said bleakly,
‘Poverty and malnutrition cost me my whole family, through no fault of my
parents, I might add, except for my father’s too easy trust in the word of a ‘gentleman’.
He was a proud man, John Gascoigne, giving others credit for the same honesty
of character as his own. When that trust was betrayed, he found himself
transported for a crime he could never commit. I left school and went into the
mills, but could not earn enough to feed us.

 ‘Then Mother decided we must go to Australia
and try to be near my father. Without money for fares, we sailed steerage. I
shan’t detail that particular circle of hell, only say that the conditions were
such that when typhoid swept through the ship Mother, weakened by grief and
lack of decent food, died, along with the babe she carried. My sister followed
within the week, leaving me to bring the news to an already broken man. He...
was killed soon after. I became self-supporting at fourteen. There’s little I
don’t know about street life and the struggles of the poor.’ He turned to Elly.
‘So those are my reasons for standing by Sophy and her children - a mixture of
quixotry, shame and childhood memory.’ He sketched a bow, rammed his hat on and
left swiftly.

Elly mused over the conversation long after,
unable to equate this Paul with the one she thought she knew. It pleased her to
think she’d influenced his thinking about a woman’s rights, although she
doubted whether he’d carry it much further than this one act of charity. Still,
it indicated a change in attitude.

As for the glimpse of his childhood, she could
easily imagine Paul as a tough little street-arab, and she ached for the child
he’d been. It was a wonder that he’d done so well. Someone other than the grief-broken
convict father must have taken an interest in his upbringing. It also explained
Paul’s drive to succeed, whatever the challenge. She’d have liked to know more,
but doubted whether Paul’s reticence about his personal affairs could be
probed. Besides, to get close enough for such intimate questions could be
dangerous. She’d already made up her mind on that subject.

Cornwallis’ invitation was accepted and
Elly duly dined with him at the Cafe Restaurant Francais. Delighted with the
delicious meal – an eye-widening array of seafood, viands, vegetables and
side-dishes such as she’d never tasted before – she also appreciated the
attention to her comfort and entertainment by an experienced escort.

Cornwallis had been gentlemanly and circumspect.
He held her arm only briefly when she descended from the carriage outside the Prince
of Wales Theatre in Castlereagh Street, and laid her cloak about her shoulders
with scrupulous delicacy. As for her entertainment, Toccarini’s magnificent
tenor voice had spangled her night with stars, sealing it forever in her memory
as one of life’s high-lights. Music had never touched her before, never had the
chance. But tonight it had brought something awake, and the glorious soaring
notes were locked within to be recalled whenever she wanted them.