A HAZARD OF HEARTS (23 page)

Pearl briefly pondered an appeal at his feet,
the reflex abject display of a slave’s remorse, but dismissed it. He wouldn’t
be fooled. Not this one. Besides, she’d grown tired of performing according to
expectations, tired of turning herself into a carpet to be kicked at will. This
was supposed to be a new young land of opportunity. She’d be opportune,
trusting to luck to escape the penalties. ‘I needed the money.’

‘You’ve already sold it – my Dad’s Tompion?’ He
shot to his feet, and Pearl backed away, watching him warily.

‘If a Tompion is your timepiece… No, I still
have it.’

He sank back, wiping his forehead. ‘Well, the
saints be praised. Look, girl dear, whatever your desperate need, you can
return the watch to me and I’ll give you money in exchange.’

The blood rushed away from her head, leaving her
sick and faint. ‘No. I can’t.’

‘You can’t accept money freely given, yet you
will steal. What kind of crazy code do you live by?’

Pearl couldn’t explain. She only knew that her
personal prestige was somehow involved. ‘Let me fetch the timepiece for you.’

‘I think not. We’ll be getting to the bottom of
this right this minute. Sit down on the cask so I can loom over you and browbeat
you into telling me the truth.’

She sat down, curious as to what he’d say or do
next, and strangely heartened by his facetiousness. The man had great empathy,
and much as she didn’t desire any strong connection with him, or anyone else,
she responded to his warmth.

J.G. adopted a lecturing pose, thin legs in
drainpipe trousers astride, one hand on his hip, the other wagging a finger at
her.

‘We have here, ladies and gentlemen, a young
lady of taste and beauty, employed, housed and fed by another charming lady –
oh, and dressed by her, as well.’ He pointed at her sensible grey twill frock. ‘So
why, do you think, she’d steal? To help someone else, perhaps?’

She shook her head slightly.

‘For herself, then?’

Her gaze remained steady.

‘Well now, she must have some great need. What
could it be? Does she want passage money back home to China; or a house of her
own, here in Sydney Town; or a carriage and pair to cut a dash in the Domain?
Furs, jewels to trap a rich husband?’

To her horror, Pearl felt tears rising. How
stupid. She didn’t care what he, or any other man thought of her.

He pressed his advantage. ‘Is she simply a
mercenary jackdaw out to line her nest with the best feathers at the expense of
others? But then, she refused my offer of money. So, we have a mystery still.’

Pearl’s lip trembled. She got up. ‘I have to go
now. I’ll return... return your...’ The tears spilled out down her cheeks. She
stood petrified, unable to wipe them away, unable to control them. What was
happening to her?

J.G. gently reseated her on the cask, his touch
as impersonal as she could wish. Producing a clean handkerchief he patted her
cheeks dry, then pocketed it before moving back to survey her with eyes from
which all merriment had fled. ‘Now tell me what your trouble is, girl dear.’

Pearl told him. She didn’t simply explain the
carefully hoarded cache growing behind a brick in the wall of her room, but
went right back to her years as a cast-off girl-child sold for a few copper
cash to be used by her owners as they willed. She described her life in the
mission in the Yangtse Valley. She relived her foster-mother’s murder; her own
careful plot to kill the Triad who had enslaved her; the flight to a city about
to be destroyed; then told of her terrible disappointment upon discovering that
her brother, Li Po, had gone.

‘He is my family, all I have left. I must find
him. That is why I need money, to reach the goldfields and search for Li Po. I
need more than my wages at the hospital, much more, even if I eat little and
walk the whole way.’

J.G. drew a deep breath. ‘Mother of God, what a
history. Not to mention a sea-trip ending in shipwreck and the loss of your
belongings, including the gold you’d no doubt already saved. But to search the
diggings is out of the question. Do you know how many there are in the
Colonies, and how far apart? Men have poured in from all parts of the globe,
like ants to a honey jar. It would take years.’

Pearl said simply, ‘I have the rest of my life.’

‘Which might not be so long if you set out on
such a mad search. Look, why not try other methods first, such as an
advertisement in the newspapers? Some of them would reach the goldfields. You
could hire a man to make enquiries for you, someone setting off to try his
luck. No, he’d be altogether bent on making a fortune. But you must not go
yourself. It’s too dangerous, too full of hardship.’

Pearl’s jaw tightened. ‘I am used to danger and
hardship, and I will go myself to find Li Po.’

He eyed her with frustration. ‘Not with my
Tompion, you won’t.’

‘Oh, to the bottom of the sea with your Tompion!
I don’t want it. I wish I’d never taken it.’

‘Then there’s one thing we agree upon. Now, be a
good girl –’

Don’t speak to me like that. I am not a good
girl. I am a woman with a mission and I am my own mistress. I’m sorry I told
you about myself. I will not be so weak again.’ She sprang up and whisked out
the door like a small whirlwind, intent on retrieving the wretched timepiece
then dismissing its owner. But when she returned, watch in hand, J.G. had gone.
She ran to the front lobby, then out into Macquarie Street, but there was no
sign of him. Baffled, she returned the watch to its hiding place and went back
to work in the storeroom.

That afternoon she was unaccountably clumsy,
knocking flasks from shelves, stumbling over sacks. When a canister of precious
sugar slipped from her hands and sprang open, dumping its contents all over the
floor, she kicked it away from her then went in search of pail and scrubbing
broom, freely cursing herself, J.G. and the whole race of men.

Elly picked up the ragged conglomeration of
native flowers, the bushy cream and red callistemon foaming wildly over her
hands and dropping fine hairs on the desk. She’d read the attached note from
Paul Gascoigne asking her to accompany him to a political rally, then smiled
and shaken her head. The night at the Earl Grey Tavern had been fascinating,
and at the time she had wanted to repeat it. Now, after consideration, she knew
she could not allow herself to be drawn into Paul’s world. She was far too busy
with her own. And when he wished, he could be far too engaging for her comfort.
She couldn’t afford the distraction.

Inspecting the second offering, a magnificent
arrangement of cultivated blooms, roses, delphiniums plus a dozen others, she
was almost overpowered by their scent. She detached the note from its ribbon to
find a quite different sort of invitation to dine and attend a concert with the
man she now knew as the Hon. D’Arcy Lynton Cornwallis, son of Baron Gosselin of
Gosselin Milton, Herts., and a rising power in the Colony.

Jo-Beth knocked and entered the office. ‘Matron,
can you help me? Nurse Irvine has gone down to the dispensary, leaving me to
watch the ward.’

With a sigh, Elly replaced the flowers on the
table. She couldn’t expect Jo-Beth to like the responsibility of the ward,
untrained as she was and, as Elly knew, finding the work distasteful. Yet she
did try to hide her lack of enthusiasm, showing compassion to their charges,
never shirking when asked to help. She had also become the closest thing to a
friend Elly had ever known. Jo-Beth, discarding formality, had insisted on
bringing her together with Pearl to form a triune of self-support amongst the warring
elements in the hospital, and Elly had happily released a small part of her
burden into the care of two people she could trust. She put aside the knowledge
that the relationship must be brief. Pearl would leave as soon as she could,
while Jo-Beth… Who knew what she would do, or when?

Elly asked, ‘Is someone ill, or simply giving
trouble?’

‘Neither. Mrs. Porrett, the heavy woman with
heart disease has slipped down flat on the cot and her breathing is impeded. I
need help to raise her.’

To Elly’s ears, Jo-Beth sounded brighter, as
though the mist of sadness surrounding her had begun to dissipate. Was she
finding acceptance at last?

Jo-Beth noticed the flowers and her expression
took on some of its old mischievousness. ‘Well, how favoured you are, to be
sure, girl dear – as J.G. would say. Just which gentlemen are battering at the
doors of your heart with floral tributes?’

Elly laughed. ‘None. Don’t be ridiculous.’ She pushed
the flowers aside and left the office, Jo-Beth following. Together they heaved
the distressed patient up onto her pillows, setting a bolster at her feet so
she couldn’t slip down again, then moved on to check a new admission.

The careworn face of the woman hovering over the
cot lit up as they approached.

‘Oh, now my little Lilly will be put right. I
heard as how the new nurses at the hospital were curing folk like magic. You’ll
fix up my Lilly, won’t you?’

Elly stooped over the little girl whose body was
racked by constant coughing, each breath drawn with a distinctive whooping
sound. The soft brown hair was matted with sweat and her terrified expression
wrung Elly’s heart. With one hand gentling the child’s cheek, she took the
pulse, while Jo-Beth spoke to the mother, extracting such details as the child’s
age, background and the treatment already tried.

‘She’s just turned three and she’s not been right
since she watched her Daddy die a month back with the lock jaw.’ The woman’s
eyes dulled in remembrance. ‘It were a cruel way to go, with the awful pain and
the convulsions. We broke his front tooth and all, to put a straw through to feed
him some good broth, but it were no manner of use.’

Jo-Beth explained that Lilly’s illness could not
be attributed to this terrible experience. ‘Has Lilly been near other sick
children?’ she asked.

‘Oh, yes. My neighbour what come in to help had
her three young’uns sicken with the cough. One died only last week.’ She looked
frightened. ‘‘Tis the hooping cough, isn’t it?’

Elly glanced up. ‘I’m afraid so. Lilly is very
ill, Mrs...?’

‘Smith. Is she going to die? You won’t let her
die?’ She clutched at Elly, who sat her down on the end of the cot.

‘Tell me what you’ve done to help her, Mrs
Smith.’

‘Oh, all the things. The minute she were born I
had her passed under the belly of a donkey nine times; then when she started in
to be sick I walked along the road until I met a stranger riding a piebald
horse and asked him what to do, and went home and did it straight off.’

Elly schooled her feelings, saying gently, ‘What
advice did he give?’

‘Why, to catch a mouse and fry it and give it
her to eat. But the child couldn’t stomach it nohow, so I give it to the other
two just in case they was to sicken, like my Lilly.’

Elly refused to meet Jo-Beth’s eye. ‘Did you try
any other remedy, Mrs Smith?’

‘What else is there?’ The woman looked at her helplessly.
‘The Doctor here said to keep her warm and he’d send up a medicine for her,
which the other nurse give her, but most of it spilled out of her mouth.’ She
began to sob.

Elly helped her to her feet. ‘Mrs Smith, there
are things we can do for Lilly, but I think you should go home now and tend
your family. Lilly will be well cared-for here, and you may visit her tomorrow.’

An order went down to the dispensary for a
mixture of garlic, milk and honey to be made up, while Jo-Beth helped Elly to
strip and sponge bathe the child to make her more comfortable, all the while
soothing and promising she would soon feel better.

Jo-Beth’s low-voiced comments on the mother’s ‘treatments’
were lightly turned off by Elly, long accustomed to the superstition masked as
medical lore in many homes.

‘She did the best she could. Yet we may do
better.’

‘I’m certain of it.’ Jo-Beth slid a glance at
Elly. ‘To change the subject. About your beautiful flowers, I imagine one
bouquet was the gift of Mr Paul Gascoigne? I certainly haven’t imagined his
twice-weekly visits to his friend, Mrs Wynham, via your office. Which do you
suppose is the greater attraction?’ A note of envy sounded clearly beneath her
teasing.

How long was it since anyone had sent Jo-Beth
flowers, or acknowledged her as an attractive young woman? Elly wondered. She
must miss such attention, however much she tried to fit into this new, harsh
environment.

Elly said composedly, ‘It can’t be me. I’m never
available to see him for more than two minutes, to give a report on his
protégées – a report which is becoming increasingly gloomy, I’m sad to say. That
baby is so frail and she coughs all night through. I fear she won’t reach her
third birthday.’ Elly lifted Lilly up to support her through a spasm of
coughing, and slipped a clean shift over her head. Although the child remained
unresponsive, Elly continued to reassure her, promising to bring her mother
back to her in the morning.

Jo-Beth’s mind had remained on the Wynham baby. ‘It’s
her lungs, I suppose? And her mother not much better. What’s to become of the
other children if she never leaves here alive?’