A HAZARD OF HEARTS (41 page)

While dressing a blister on Li Po’s foot, Pearl’s
restlessness stirred. This was her job. She should be getting on with it.

However, she struck opposition at once.

Li Po drew himself up to his two inches taller. ‘Our
people are healthier than the yi. They eat more wisely and know how to use a
variety of remedies. However, there are always accidents, and you are free to
attend to those.’ He added graciously, ‘Your skill is not in doubt, yet we have
little use for western medicine, which appears to consist of Holloway’s
cure-everything pills and the letting of blood. Content yourself with seeing to
our camp and to our people when needed.’

Pearl had prepared for the confrontation.

‘I understand how you feel. However, I have
lived among the yi. My adoptive parents were the first people to care about me
and give me a chance to better myself. Ada Carter was my true mother who loved
me. It was a western woman who befriended me on the ship, and another who took
me in, gave me work and respect.’

Li Po said harshly, ‘And what of the men who
attacked you and left you maimed, who would have killed you?’

‘There are beasts at all levels of nature. Not
all western men are evil. In Sydney Town I met with many I liked and respected.’
J.G.’s freckled, irreverent, lived-in face came to mind, making her smile. ‘I
have had time to think while I recovered and listened to the wisdom of Lao Tsu.
Regrets are vain, brother. They stifle the present.’

‘You forgive those yi dogs? You can forget that
once you had beauty?’ He was incredulous.

‘It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t need a
beautiful face to pursue my calling. When I set up my clinic for the sick and
injured, they will be interested only in my skill to heal and my ability to
quieten pain.’

Li Po’s face twitched. ‘You will not do this. It
is unseemly for a woman of the Celestial Kingdom to put herself forward in such
a way. I have already settled your future. A dowry has been arranged. I am a
wealthy man, Younger Sister, and you are to marry Chan Yu-lan at the full moon.

‘No. I’m sorry, brother, but I will order my own
life.’

He slapped her face. The blood rushed to her
cheek where the scar still stood out like a badly mended crack in a porcelain
vase. Her eyes flashed, then watered with pain, but she conquered her initial
response, saying mildly, ‘Li Po, you must realise that I am not a chattel. I am
a person in my own right. Here in this country I have a freedom I could never
have in our land.’

‘A woman should be meek and hold herself small
before a man.’

‘Not so. The Christian Holy Book says ‘blessed
are the meek’, meaning all people, men and women, without one being greater
than another. Lao Tsu says “How does the sea become the queen of all rivers and
streams? By lying lower than they do. One who humbles himself, therefore, can
serve all people.” Until you are willing to be humble yourself, brother, to be
equal with me, we cannot live side by side. So I must go.’ She picked up her
ready-packed bag.

Li-Po said bitterly, ‘You are not my Younger
Sister. You are no true woman.’

‘I was given a name, Pearl. It is the only name
I have. Good-bye, Li Po.’

Pearl didn’t stop until she reached the
tent of Doctor Hsien Lo, where she found him supervising the packing of his goods.
He explained that he intended returning to the land of his ancestors and fate
had obviously meant Pearl to arrive in time to take over his practice.

‘I’m not a qualified doctor.’ Pearl objected as
a matter of form. They both knew anyone at all could hang out a shingle on the
goldfields and be assured of plenty of custom.

‘You are more qualified than most of the
impostors who demand a sovereign in exchange for a mix of chalk, opium and brandy
to cure dysentery, but instead induce prolonged, agonising constipation. You
will dissipate much misery and save lives. One may always perceive the workings
of the Way.’

With a touch of irony, Pearl said, ‘Will the Way
provide me with a roof and food to keep me alive until I have paying patients?’

‘I will do so.’ His indifference to his own
generosity was so superb that Pearl could only bow her acceptance. ‘Have you
parted from your brother?’

‘Unfortunately, he does not subscribe to the Way
and wants me to turn myself into a chattel. I can’t stay with him.’ Pearl concealed
her hurt and began to question the Doctor on further herbal lore.

He left at the end of the week, having
established her as the new consultant for the area, in possession of a neat tent
divided by a curtain into surgery and living quarters. With packing-case
furniture, a folding bed and a properly constructed fire-place, plus a chest to
hold her nostrums and herbs, she was ready for business.

Despite the prejudice against Orientals, Pearl
found herself inundated with patients, and since her fees were small, or
non-existent in the case of hardship, she soon ran the risk of collapse through
exhaustion. She concealed her sex at the beginning so that by the time it was
known too many miners had been treated for intimate complaints for them to be
concerned.

Gunshot wounds were plentiful, plus broken bones
from drunken falls into the pits, as well as the usual run of fevers,
dysentery, rheumatism and piles, all resulting from working conditions. Pearl
also attended women in childbirth and others used as punching bags by their men
after visits to the sly-grog tents. These proliferated and were a constant
source of trouble, since there were no licensed hotels beyond town.

The political unrest continued, with agitation
for the abolition of licence fees as well as the disciplining of the corrupt
police who collected it. There was talk of armed rebellion.

Pearl kept too busy to become involved, until
one night when a miner was brought to her tent close to death from exposure. His
angry friends explained that due to his inability to pay the five pounds fine
for not having his licence on him, he had been chained in stocks outside the Commissioner’s
station for the past forty-eight hours, unprotected from last night’s violent
storm. Pearl tried all she knew to save him, but he had been rescued too late.

The men left, taking the body with them,
planning a whip-around for the cost of a better burial than the usual bark shroud.
Their ominous mood could be understood. The brutal officiousness in dragging men
up from the bottom of a hundred foot shaft to display their licences, twice
weekly, was bad enough. But when it reached the point of men being left to die,
Pearl’s own fury rose.

This scandalous state had to change. She had
seen relentless pressure lead to social upheaval in her own country, with the
revolt of the Tai Ping against their Manchu oppressors. The same could as
easily happen here in this new land among a group of men unused to such
treatment.

Nor was it just the upper and middle-class
English who would rise, but many of the other nationalities represented in the goldfields
melting-pot: the freedom-loving Americans; the dispossessed Irish and Scots;
the orderly Germans; the volatile Italian and French patriots fresh from their
own countries’ revolutions.

Fuming, Pearl paid closer attention to talk
around her, while she patched, repaired and dosed, absorbing the background to
this new movement, awaiting events.

One night, when asked to visit a sick man down
on Madman’s Flat, Pearl set off with her escort carrying her bag while
favouring her with his opinion of the doctor called in before they approached
Pearl.

‘He wasn’t no more a doctor than I am,’ snorted
the bearded miner. ‘A’course we’d already tried a handful o’Holloways’ pills
and spread the ointment on his wound, after we dug out the bullet, that is.’

Pearl shuddered for the unfortunate victim and
hoped the knife blade had not been used previously for skinning a rabbit or
cleaning out a pipe.

‘But this “doctor”,’ continued the miner, ‘he
said as how he’d cup him. For a bullet wound! And he cuts into his chest with
this little metal box full of blades, then heats these little bell-shaped
glasses and lays them on to burn the man while all the blood’s sucked out and
him screaming with the pain of the shattered bone, until we pulls off the glasses
and throws them out the tent, along with the doctor. And then we thought of
you.’

So kind, thought Pearl, her sense of humour
tickled. Third on the list after the national panacea and the medical impostor.
She knew the more conservative miners regarded her as a cross between a native
witch-doctor and a miracle worker, to be called upon only in the case of dire
necessity. But her amusement vanished the moment she stepped into the tent and
saw her patient – the man she knew as Cato, the villainous Redbeard’s partner
in crime.

She paled, and moved back a step. Her voice
sounded like a stranger’s, harsh and discordant. ‘How was he shot? In an armed
holdup?’

Her escort looked at her curiously. But Cato’s
eyes widened at the sight of her. His lips moved soundlessly.

Pearl fought down the urge to run, to put the
greatest possible distance between herself and this man who had taken part in
her degradation. Dreadful memories began replaying in her mind. She dug her
nails into her palms, feeling sweat break out on her forehead as she battled
her emotions. Then, from some recess in her mind a voice emerged. She could
hear Dr. Hsien Lo as clearly as if he stood beside her exuding calmness and
detachment.

‘One of natural, integral virtue is good at
helping all people impartially. Thus, no one is abandoned.’

No one is abandoned.

‘He is good at protecting and preserving...’

Protecting and preserving.

‘A centred being is placid... never loses his
poise... If one’s root is lost, one’s self-mastery could go with the wind.’

Pearl drew in her breath and said quietly, ‘Please
place my bag there on the floor then fetch me a bowl of water that has boiled.’

The man lying on the rough bundle of branches,
thrown down directly onto the dirt floor, watched her, his expression haunted,
grey, pain-filled. ‘What...what...?’ was all he could manage.

‘What am I going to do to you?’ Pearl knelt
beside him putting all the assurance she could into her voice. ‘I’m going to
help you, if I can. You need not fear me.’

He watched her in obvious trepidation as she
worked steadily over him, cleaning the terrible wound in his right shoulder as
gently as possible and binding his arm to his body, then attending the smaller
wounds inflicted by the self-styled doctor.

When she had done all she could she washed and
repacked her bag, then got up saying, ‘You must have realised your wound is
serious. Your shoulder joint has been shattered and you will lose the mobility
of your arm. However, if we can prevent infection, you should not lose the arm
itself. I’ll return tomorrow. Rest now, and have your friends make a mutton
broth for you.’ She picked up her bag and hurried outside. A few yards from the
tent nausea overtook her. She bent over retching until physically and
emotionally empty.

Her guide waited at a decent distance,
approaching only when she straightened up and wiped her face. He said awkwardly,
‘You know Cato, then? You know what kind of man he is?’

When she didn’t answer he pulled at his beard, obviously
choosing his words. ‘He was on the duff and got caught. He’s my brother. When
he come to me for help I couldn’t turn him away. I know he’s no good, but there
it is. He’s my kin.’ He hesitated. ‘Will you inform on him? It was only a few
head o’cattle.’

Pearl couldn’t see his face. Little moonlight
penetrated the streamers of cloud and he held his lantern low. However, he didn’t
resemble his brother in silhouette, nor sound like him. She didn’t fear this
man.

‘Once I would have called your brother scum and
had him thrown into gaol. But I now think he’s had his punishment. He’ll never
steal cattle again, or anything else, with that arm. I’ll see to him until he’s
recovered, but I want no payment. This is something I must do in my own way.’

Surprisingly, Cato’s brother seemed to understand,
or at least was prepared to humour her. ‘Right. Then I’ll take you home. You’d
never find your way alone,’ as she shook her head. ‘And men with rotgut in
their bellies mightn’t reckernise the Chinese Witchwoman flitting without her
broomstick.’ He gave a grunt of amusement, then sobered. ‘Whatever Cato done to
you, I’m sorry for it, and I thank you for helping him. Come along then.’ He
hefted her bag and set off with the lantern swinging by his knee.

Pearl slept very little. Instead, she lay pondering
the changes in her life and in herself since she’d left her homeland. In a
wider world she had come across so many kinds of people, of belief, of attitude,
and been enlightened in many ways; never could she have envisaged a complete about-face
that would see her abandoning vengeance to succour her enemy. It was contrary
to all she had ever been.

Her western mother had known and deplored the
nature which demanded an eye for an eye, had gently tried to inculcate the
Christian ideal that Pearl could only see as feebleness and lack of spirit. But
it had taken Doctor Hsien Lo’s vision of the Way to shed a revealing light on
her religious teaching. In a moment of epiphany she saw the truth: that to be
sufficiently centred and self-reliant to forswear vengeance was not a weakness,
it was actually strength in disguise. Pearl could have hugged herself with pleasure
at her deduction and pride in her new-found strength. Neither emotion typified
the humility encouraged by the Tao, but she decided to be lenient with herself.
No one could achieve perfection in a few weeks, or even in a lifetime.