A HAZARD OF HEARTS (55 page)

Paul, standing listening with his back to the
fire, took no part in the discussion. Yet he’d done his best this evening,
Jo-Beth knew, coming forward without warning to speak on Elly’s behalf, using
his silver tongue to induce a favourable mood in the audience. He had made them
laugh at him, then gracefully apologised for having taken so long to realise
that equality of opportunity should include the female sex. He’d gone on to
praise Elly as the highly-trained pupil of her eminent father, telling of her
tenacity and fortitude in her fight to improve conditions in the Sydney
Hospital. Elly had been furiously embarrassed, and still avoided talking to
him.

Joining her on the sofa, Jo-Beth said softly, ‘Don’t
be cross with Paul. The way he attacked that cabal of Hospital Governors for
dismissing you was inspired. It’s just the sort of support you need.’

‘I didn’t know where to look. This evening wasn’t
about me. My personal difficulties shouldn’t be dragged into public view.’

‘Nonsense. The behaviour of the Board is
everyone’s business, as well as valuable ammunition in our fight for public
health improvements. You’re not usually so sensitive, Elly. I think you owe
Paul an apology for raking him down when he only tried to help you.’ She had a
shrewd idea that Elly’s over-reaction went a lot deeper than mere pique.

Elly flushed. ‘Perhaps. Let’s leave the subject,
shall we?’

However, to Jo-Beth’s pleasure, Elly did
approach Paul before the group dispersed, and the two seemed to part on friendly
terms.

~*~

Paul convened a meeting at his place some
weeks later, with the promise of important news. Through the open windows Elly
heard the others arrive, J.G. tying up his horse and racing to greet Ethan and
Jo-Beth coming up the path.

‘I’m not late, then? Good. I had to camp out
with a boat crew at Watson’s Bay last night, waiting to board the mail steamer
before she entered the Heads. We’ve got to beat those scamps at the
Herald
to
the news.’

‘And did you?’ Jo-Beth sounded amused.

But Ethan quickly asked, ‘What news of the War?’

‘Not much on the battle front. Still, at last
there’s been a Committee of Inquiry appointed in the House of Commons. High
time. The whole campaign’s been a bloody disgrace, begging your pardon Jo-Beth.
No proper tents, or food for men or horses; no decent road built from the coast
to Balaclava before the Russian winter set in. Hundreds die of scurvy and cholera,
with the wounded left to perish of exposure on the battlefields.’

‘That’s dreadful!’

Jo-Beth’s reaction was as much that of a trained
nurse as it was womanly, thought Elly. She had changed, they had all changed so
much.

 On the doorstep J.G. was still in full flight. ‘The
Frenchies had the sense to send out fifty Sisters of Mercy. Our boys have only
decrepit army pensioners and a few inexperienced orderlies working in
unspeakable conditions. Or they did, until Sidney Herbert at the War Office
persuaded a lady to take a party of nurses out to Scutari to try to clean up
the hospital, in much the same way as Elly has here. Florence Nightingale’s her
name. However, she’ll have her work cut out getting acceptance from the Army
Medical Officers.’

They hurried inside to be met by Paul and ushered
into his fire-warmed room. Spring had come, yet nights and early mornings
remained chilly, so Jo-Beth happily adopted a seat near the hearth to warm her
toes, while Pearl, who had arrived earlier, greeted her errant husband.

Everyone sensed an atmosphere, Elly thought, and
wasn’t surprised when Jo-Beth asked, ‘Has something happened?’

‘Ask Paul.’ Elly’s hands twisted in her lap.

Jo-Beth’s eyes questioned Paul.

He adopted his favourite position before the
fire, laying his arm along the mantel, while Pepper sat at his feet staring up
at him adoringly.

‘We’ve stirred the snake, people,’ Paul said. ‘Although
a brick through my bedroom window last night is an uncommonly weak response
when we consider some of the earlier attacks.’

J.G. was gleeful. ‘That’s probably just the
entree. There’ll be more to come now Cornwallis has been dropped from the
Hospital Board of Management. I heard, too, that the Australian Club has asked
him to resign his membership. The whispers are all over town, and people
withdraw their skirts from the path of the pariah. Why the faces of gloom? We’ve
achieved our aim. The man’s socially doomed in this country. We’ll hear next
that he’s taken passage for England, and good riddance. I wish him joy of the
trip, with every passenger soon aware of who and what he is.’

Paul shook his head. ‘There’s more to it, I’m
afraid. The message wrapped around the brick was scurrilous and specific in its
threats to Elly and me. It’s too vile for me to read it aloud. You can see it
later, J.G.’

‘Well, it’s to be expected, I suppose.’ J.G. was
off-hand. ‘We knew we’d have to be careful until we scotched the snake.’

‘Oh, he’s scotched all right. He’s seen what’s
ahead and gone into hiding.’

J.G. frowned. ‘What haven’t you told us?’

‘This. I’ll read it aloud. It goes to
The
Empire
tomorrow.’

Elly felt the blood draining from her face, and
Jo-Beth moved her chair up beside her as Paul began to read:

‘“Residents of our great Colony will be appalled
to learn of the scandal surrounding one of its foremost citizens, a man whose
advantages of birth and wealth have been grossly misused in the torture and
degradation of his fellow creatures. It has been revealed that the owner of a model
property in Camden, The Hon. D.... C........., a man renowned for his
intelligent and modern attitude towards farming and husbandry, whose
horse-breeding facilities are second to none, whose animals enjoy a princely
existence, is no more than a callous monster in his dealings with his own
kind...”‘

Elly allowed her thoughts to drift, unwilling to
listen once again to the tale of cruelty and violence which had so shocked her
when she first heard it. The evidence had been supplied by Cornwallis’ overseer
in a long-overdue rebellion against the brutality, especially when applied to a
member of his own family. It had been stupid of Cornwallis to antagonise his
companion in crime. Or had he finally over-stepped the line of rationality? He
had to be mad to have organised such orgies of torture involving the men assigned
to him. Their sufferings didn’t bear contemplation.

Instead, she forced her mind to the speeches she
had made, and the interest she’d begun to arouse in the community. Several
women already involved in charitable enterprises had offered their services. As
Jo-Beth had said, the campaign grew stronger daily. Still, she needed to reach
more people. Aware of sudden silence, she looked up at the appalled faces of
the two women.

Pearl asked, ‘Is it true?’

When Paul nodded, Jo-Beth said in some awe, ‘How
do you dare expose him? He’ll be murderous.’

‘No doubt. But it finishes him.’

His gaze was remote, a part of him not with them
in the room. He was remembering his father, Elly thought. Well he had his
revenge. How did he like it? J.G. had been correct to liken Cornwallis to a
reptile, the worst kind, as vicious as the unprovoked tiger snake. They had
stirred him to a wild rage and now, with his own life in ruins, anything could
happen.

~*~

Elly’s decision to speak publicly in the
Domain had not been lightly made. She knew she would be exposing herself as no
lady should, risking being dubbed a light woman seeking personal publicity at
the expense of her reputation.

She also knew it was the way to reach people of all
classes and backgrounds. If she could capture the interest of the masses, the
factory girls, clerks, house-maids and labourers, as well as the masters and
mistresses, all of whom used the pleasant parkland for recreation, if she could
carry her message into the humblest homes and the mansions, she would spread
hope for the future amongst those without hope. A groundswell was needed to
bring about change. Paul had been right. It had to come through the process of law,
pushed for by the great majority. So she must risk anything to gain their
support.

On a bright July day, with the flags on
Government House snapping away from the poles and just an edge of frost to the
air, Elly climbed onto a specially erected platform in the Public Domain. The
unusual sight of an obvious lady clutching her hat in the breeze while
addressing passers-by soon drew a crowd, although before long a coarser element
began to drown her out with their jeers. She persisted, knowing she was losing
the battle, and that people who might have listened had begun to drift away.

Paul, beside her, wanted to take her place, to
drag the crowd in with his well-known face. They were always happy to listen to
politics. But Elly would not let him. It was her cause. It was up to her to
capture her audience.

Her voice had begun to crack under the strain of
shouting above the interjections when in the distance she heard martial music.
Then over the rise marched the red-coated bandsmen of the 11th Foot led by J.G.
twirling his knob-topped cane, and followed by a party of women stepping out
with precision. Jo-Beth and Pearl, demure as ever, headed the procession of
nurses and ex-patients spearing through the thickening crowd to stand before
Elly’s improvised rostrum. The uniformed nurses, so smart and proud, the women
with babies in their arms, dressed in the best they could find and all beaming
at Elly, brought a lump to her throat. So many of them, all here to encourage
and sustain her.

The music rose to a final crescendo of blaring
brass then ceased. J.G. stepped up and bowed to Elly, then turned to the
rapidly growing audience. People descended from carriages to hasten across the
grass, while others skirmished on the edge of the group, seeking a way in.

 J.G. opened his lungs and bellowed, ‘Citizens
of Sydney, you are greatly privileged today to hear a speech by one of our
foremost Ladies, the former Matron of Sydney Hospital, to whom so many of you
owe gratitude, if not your lives. She has something to say which you will wish
to hear. I know you will do her the courtesy of listening.’

A lad in a cabbage-tree hat yelled a rude
comment, but others cuffed him to silence. J.G. bowed to Elly once more then
stood back, and before her nerves overcame her, she plunged into her speech.
Its content was on the lines of the one given at the Royal Hotel, and she noted
increased interest in the listening women. But at the end she had a special
message for the men.

‘You all know what terrible reports we have had
of the War in the Crimea. The despatches sent to London by newspaper
journalists have revealed the shocking state of the hospitals and lack of care
for our soldiers, who die, not on the battlefields, but in the hospitals, and
not so much of their wounds as of disease and neglect.’

An angry roar greeted these words. She waited
until it had died down.

‘I’d like to tell you that something is being
done about it, by a woman dedicated to caring for the sick and wounded men,
together with a band of nurses trained by her. These are all ordinary, decent
women with compassionate hearts, plus a good deal of common-sense – just like
the women I had begun to train in our own hospital here in Sydney. The old
image of the nurse as illiterate, untrained, dirty, drunken – all the epithets
which have, with some validity, been thrown at her – is now out of date. Nurses
are people to be respected and valued. These nurses here before me are a
vanguard of the army of qualified women who will forge into the future with a
profession to be proud of. And you, the people of this Colony, will be the
gainers.

‘Citizens of Sydney, we are at war with a far
more dreadful enemy than the Russians. We are always at war with disease; there
will always be accidents; people will still try to kill one another. Our
hospitals should be places of refuge and healing, but this will only come about
if you, the people of this city, take an interest in your own health. The
responsibility can’t be pushed off onto bureaucrats or well-meaning charities
having little understanding of health needs. We must make our will known to our
leaders, by using public pressure to create the health system we want. Already
we’ve gained the approval of several highly placed officials, of journalists,
of district doctors whose experience supports all I’ve said about our city’s
needs. Now you must do your part.’

From the moment she stepped down she was mobbed,
and for days afterwards people continued to call at the Patterson house to
discuss her ideas. She found she had plucked a nerve of the city and the women,
in particular, were in the mood to fight for change. Committees were organised
to lobby members of the Legislative Council, to raise fighting funds, to
petition the Colonial Secretary, Deas Thomson, due to return from London
shortly, for an investigation into the activities of the Hospital Board, with
special reference to the dismissal of Matron Ballard.

J.G. kept the impetus going in
The Empire;
Paul spoke about health at his rallies; Jo-Beth and Pearl helped Elly organise
further meetings and answer letters and queries. The movement began to swell, until
Elly let herself hope there would be enough pressure generated for an
explosion. It was not yet clear what form the explosion would take, or whether
it would be sufficiently well-directed to achieve the radical changes she
wanted.