A HAZARD OF HEARTS (26 page)

Baby Anne Wynham died, as predicted, with the
mother following soon after, much to Elly’s distress. She hardly knew how to
tell Paul. However, he laid no blame on anyone, saying that he believed Sophy
to have given up on life long before her illness. The sad loss of the baby had
been the final blow.

To add to Elly’s troubles, the pinpricks from the
less loyal members of the staff had escalated into defiance, forcing her to
draw on all her tact and patience to hold off open warfare. She knew her
position was not yet strong enough. Her appointment had not been fully
confirmed, nor would it be if she disregarded the Board’s warning not to antagonise
the medical staff. The pity was they seemed bent on antagonising her.

The situation had reached a ridiculous point,
she thought, when for the third day in a row a patient had been admitted with
the attending physician refusing to give staff any indication of the patient’s
condition or illness. Notes were withheld and the confused nurses later accused
of not giving proper care. Worse, they were not being informed when a patient
had been listed for surgery, which meant certain essential preparations such as
the administration of castor oil were not carried out in time, with the blame
again falling on the nursing staff. Elly’s requests for this situation to be
rectified were noted by the visiting Weekly Committee then dismissed. Her anger
swelled. Her patients were not being well-treated in this petty battling for
superiority.

Matters were not improved by the Board’s
delaying tactics in supplying money for essential repairs, while their promise
to provide facilities to train more nurses had not been fulfilled. Just about
all Elly had achieved in the past eight months, it seemed to her, were a few
coats of whitewash, a new stove and two extra unfledged nurses. Her ire reached
a peak on the day when a child of no more than twelve was refused admission on the
grounds that she did not have a good moral character, having come from a
brothel in Durand’s Alley, an area as notorious as The Rocks for filth and
depravity. Despite an argument with the current physician on duty which almost descended
into a physical battle with the child torn between them, Elly lost.

Jo-Beth found her in the storeroom kicking a
flour bag and swearing, words she’d never have used a year ago.

‘Elly, this isn’t like you.’ Jo-Beth urged her
to sit on the convenient whitewash drum once occupied by J.G. ‘Why are you so
distressed? We’ve seen worse cases turned aside.’

Elly paced the tiny space, her arms tightly
folded, her voice thick with rage. ‘I’m tired of running into brick walls,
tired of boards and committees and superior professionals whose aim in life is
to thwart me. If it were just me they injured it wouldn’t matter so much. Did
you see that child’s face? Did you? Just an abused waif, sick and terrified,
and I’m prevented from helping her. One day soon, through no fault of her own,
she’ll die in a gutter of her venereal disease and not one soul will care.’

‘We know you care very much, Elly. I care too. Until
I came here I never knew the world held such misery. But you of all people must
know it does no good to batter yourself emotionally when you have no power to
overcome such problems.’

‘I should
have
the power. Who are these
men to tell me whom I may nurse? Who are they to say to one: “you shall be
helped”, and to another, “you shall be turned away”?’ Elly ground her teeth.

‘They’re the medical officers appointed by the
Board which runs this hospital. They and their overlords may be arrogant,
penny-pinching, moralistic and totally lacking in empathy, but they are in
charge. You have to come to terms with it, Elly.’

Elly stopped pacing and faced her.

‘You’re absolutely right. I know I must work
deviously, not confront them as a man would, but, oh, Jo-Beth, it hurts me.’

Jo-Beth put comforting arms around her friend. ‘I
know. I know. Yet if you hadn’t become so upset you’d have seen a possible
solution. Have you forgotten the nuns who sometimes visit in the wards?’

‘The Sisters of Charity from the refuge. How
stupid of me. Of course they’d take in the child. I’ll visit them this evening.’
Elly straightened up. ‘I’m back to normal now, thanks to you, my dear, and
heartily ashamed of my fall from common-sense.’

‘Nonsense. You just need a cup of tea.’

‘There isn’t time. I’ve sent for a supply of
leeches for little Lilly Smith. She should be bled slowly, rather than cupped. It’s
not a pleasant process, and I’m hoping she’ll sleep through it.’ Not to mention
the rest of the ward, she silently added.

‘I’ll come with you. We can talk while we work.’

Fighting down the disgust that the voracious
little grubs always engendered, Elly accepted the jar of leeches from the
porter, lifting them one-by-one, black and dripping, from the fresh water to
lay them on a cloth. Their slimy segments contracted at her touch, curling up
like snails without their shells.

Jo-Beth shuddered at the sight. ‘Horrible
parasites. How do we attach them?’

Elly put a finger to her lips, indicating the
sleeping child. ‘They’ll do it themselves, with their sucker mouths. But we lay
them over a bone so that, if necessary, pressure may be applied.’ Elly
carefully wiped Lilly’s forearms with a few droplets of milk, then laid three
of the leeches on each arm. They attached immediately and began to gorge. The
child stirred without waking.

White-faced, Jo-Beth pressed a hand over her
mouth and swallowed. ‘When do you remove them?’

‘That, too, the leeches decide. When they’ve
drunk their fill they simply let go and roll off. We can’t pull them without
tearing the skin. However, a little salt sprinkled will encourage them to
release it.’ Elly smiled bleakly. ‘You will grow accustomed.’

She had drawn a screen around the patient’s bed
– an innovation of her own about which the Board had not been consulted – and
felt as private with Jo-Beth as it was possible to be in this communal life of
theirs. Now she took time to study her, finally saying, ‘Jo-Beth, what’s amiss?
I know you’re not happy and it’s understandable, given all that’s happened. Yet
I feel there’s more.’

Jo-Beth dragged her fascinated gaze from the
swelling leeches. ‘Very little escapes you, does it? However, I’ve decided I
must not add to your burdens. It’s unimportant, I assure you.’ She rose and
walked away to the window overlooking the courtyard.

Elly was struck by her grace. The brown uniform
gown, an honorary distinction from the trainee nurses, could not mar her
elegant carriage or the features refined by grief and hard work. Just the hint
of a white ruffle at throat and wrist lightened the severity of her dress, and
her red-gold hair, despite being drawn back from a centre part and confined in
a roll at the nape, was still a glory. Elly knew that this woman, however kind-hearted,
would never be suited to a nursing career.

She said on impulse, ‘Captain McAndrews is
growing most attentive. He’s highly connected, I believe.’

Jo-Beth turned. ‘That’s so. He’s also refreshingly
modest concerning his family connections. Yes, I do enjoy his company, and no,
I have no intention of encouraging him to make any advances. How could I put
him in Ethan’s place? How could you imagine I’d even dream of it?’

‘Of course not. The idea is unthinkable.’ But
was it? Jo-Beth couldn’t grieve forever. She had youth and beauty, and when at
times she forgot her sadness, a vitality which drew others to her. She’d
certainly captivated Captain McAndrews, a perfectly nice man, as Elly had been assured;
a man who could offer Jo-Beth the kind of life she was always intended to lead.

Hearing a sigh and a yawn, Elly leapt up to lean
over her small patient and cover her arms with a sheet.

‘Hello, darling. Did you have a good sleep? I
have a surprise for you if you will lie quite still while I fix your arms.’ She
called Jo-Beth to hold the sheet in place across the girl’s chest, while Elly,
herself, raised the other end and removed the engorged leeches. As she had predicted,
most of them had rolled off Lilly’s arms onto the cot and, when encouraged with
salt, the last one released its hold to join its fellows. With them back in the
jar and hidden under the cot, Elly could then staunch the bleeding with wax and
olive oil plasters. Smiling, she removed the sheet, patting the child’s thin
cheek, and was surprised to receive a wan smile in return.

‘S’prise,’ Lilly said, hopefully.

‘You shall certainly have your surprise, my
dear. Jo-Beth, do you suppose our little friend would like a visit from a real
monkey?’

~*~

Christmas loomed on the horizon and the hot
weather blasted in from the deserts, driving a dry westerly wind across Sydney,
flinging up stinging particles in faces, sifting beneath doors and windowsills,
scraping nerves and generally creating misery.

In the hospital Elly dragged the Weekly
Committee mercilessly through wards heated like ovens with the windows closed
against the wind and stench, inventing reasons to keep the members sweating
into their unsuitably heavy jackets, even denying them the comfort of the
boardroom and a glass of sherry by arranging to have the room redecorated “for
Christmas”. The operating theatres were hell-holes. If she could, Elly would
have locked the Committee in to experience vicariously every moment of terror
and pain suffered there; but they made good their escape, then found reasons to
send others in their place the following week.

Elly’s expression grew more grim as she went
back to battle with raging infections and fever-induced delirium with no ice
available and the water supply to the Hyde Park bore now regularly cut off
between the hours of three p.m. and six p.m. Any patients admitted between
those hours, even those for emergency surgery, remained unbathed.

When Pearl knocked at Matron’s office door late
one night she found her buried in paperwork. Elly raised a weary head in
question.

‘Matron, I have to tell you I will be leaving
soon after Christmas.’ Pearl stood formally, hands clasped, her pie frill cap
perched incongruously above her long queue.

Elly sighed. ‘We’re off-duty now Pearl. Sit down
and give me more details.’

Pearl relaxed and sat down. She surveyed the
pile of reports, receipts, submissions. ‘You work so hard, Elly, and I’m sorry
to leave you like this. Yet I did warn you that I intended to go to the
goldfields when I had enough money saved.’

‘And now you have enough?’ Elly thought how worn
the girl looked, like everyone else on staff. Yet light glowed beneath the
translucent ivory skin and she had an air of hope and excitement.

‘I believe so. I don’t want to wait any longer. I
need to find Li Po.’

Elly nodded. She understood what drove Pearl to
leave sanctuary of a sort to brave the unknown hazards of the road. But she had
to say what she felt.

‘Pearl, have you considered that you’ll be
hundreds of miles away in a bleak, comfortless area where strong men die of the
conditions? You’re not robust and you will have no protector in a brash and
lawless society living and dying by their own rules. The risks are enormous.’

Pearl’s face set in stubborn lines. ‘I have to
go. I have to find Li Po.’

‘Do you have any idea of where to begin?’

‘I shall go to each camp in turn, starting from
the town of Bathurst over the ranges.’

‘Can I help? Do you need food, medical equipment?’
Elly didn’t waste her breath with further talk of danger, and she certainly
wouldn’t point out her own need for Pearl’s trained hands and mind. Letting her
go without argument was part of their agreement.

Pearl graciously accepted the offer of a medical
kit and the loan of a canvas satchel. ‘Also, would you return this package to J.G.
when you see him? It’s something he loaned me which I promised to give back. Only,
please wait until I’m gone.’

Containing her curiosity, Elly put the package
away in her cabinet then began to discuss possible dates, with Pearl agreeing
to wait until mid-January to book a place on a wagon going over the mountains
to Bathurst. She would not take a coach seat, which would be more expensive. Elly
also agreed, reluctantly, to take care of the little monkey, Peanut, still
technically under official banishment but in fact living in the nurses’ new
quarters over the large store-room, sunning herself on the windowsill by day
and enjoying the nuts and fruit supplied by Pearl.

At the door Pearl turned. ‘Elly, you have been
kind. You are my friend...’

‘That’s what a friend is for. You owe me
nothing, Pearl, although the hospital owes you a great deal. I’d like to thank
you for your unstinting help.’ Elly added earnestly, ‘And, Pearl, if you will
be advised by me, on your travels you’ll wear your Chinese trousers and jacket and
revert to being a youth.’

Pearl’s secretive smile materialised. ‘I intend
to. They served me well before, and ragged as they are, they’ll serve again. That
jacket has many uses. Goodnight, Elly.’

‘Do you like elephants?’

Elly, immersed once more in her paperwork on a
hot December evening, raised her head to blink at her reflection in the
glass-fronted cupboard opposite. Elephants? Why did she imagine she’d heard
such a question?