A HAZARD OF HEARTS (51 page)

No. She’d never listen. The poor, silly child
probably believed she had brought off a coup. There was only one thing to be
done. Elly must approach Cornwallis herself and warn him off. Paul could not be
told. There was enough trouble between the two men. But the rogue might respond
to a threat to spread the story of that night on the hospital steps. His
reputation was precious to him. He’d be ropeable, of course. How could she best
protect herself at such an interview? By taking someone with her, and staying
within his view the whole time.

Not J.G. He’d be bound to tell Paul and it would
all come out. Alan McAndrews, still awaiting his orders from on high, would
oblige her. He remained a friend, despite the break with Jo-Beth. And he was
too polite to question her if she preferred not to tell him her errand. She
prayed she would be in time. She could just shake the little wretch. But Lucy
had no idea of the danger she was in.

Tangled in her chaotic emotions, Elly found it
hard to carry out her duties until she could be relieved, but once free she put
her simple plan into operation by running Cornwallis to ground at his club. The
co-operative Captain McAndrews sent in a note requesting an interview, and soon
Cornwallis emerged to peer about him, then follow McAndrews’ summons to the
mouth of a lane. There he found Elly waiting.

‘What the devil!’

McAndrews said sharply, ‘Watch your tongue in a
lady’s presence. Miss Ballard has something to discuss with you. I shall wait
just beyond earshot.’ Elly was glad to hear the menace implicit in his voice,
glad to know that he wouldn’t move far off.

Cornwallis jeered at her. ‘Well, Miss Eleanor
Ballard, I believe I can guess your errand. It’s effort wasted. I’m losing
interest in the callow charms of your protegee.’

He loomed unpleasantly close, but Elly refused
to give ground. She looked up at his shadowed features, teeth and eyes gleaming
like some beast – a true predator.

‘That’s just as well since, if you were to
injure Lucy, I should have no hesitation in spreading the story of your attack
on me and your humiliation at Paul Gascoigne’s hands.’

‘Don’t try a fall with me, my lady. You would be
worsted. Besmirch my reputation and I’ll inform the world that you are the
daughter of a foul abortionist, forced to hide in the backwoods to save himself
from public dishonour or worse.’

Elly clutched her midriff and reeled as if from
a physical blow. All thought of Lucy fled, submerged in a wash of grief. ‘You’re
lying. My father was devoted to saving lives.’ It was a whisper, forced out by
lungs suddenly short of air.

‘It’s a matter of record, which, incidentally, I
hold safely. I’ve always found it useful to keep such “records”.’

Elly had recovered her breath. ‘I don’t believe
you. My father was not a Christian but he believed in the sanctity of all life
and fought for it unremittingly.’ She saw the dark outline of his shoulders
rise and fall.

‘Perhaps he believed the lives of the women to
be more important. Who knows how he reasoned? Yet he was a criminal, for all
that, performing criminal acts. How does it feel, Eleanor, to be the daughter
of a felon?’

‘You shan’t call him that!’ She threw the words
in his face, hitting out at him with her fists.

Alan McAndrews came running. Seeing her
apparently struggling in Cornwallis’ grasp, he wasted no time in thrusting the
hilt of his sabre hard under the man’s chin, knocking him backwards. He
staggered and fell as McAndrews grasped Elly, pulling her away.

‘Come on out of this. We can’t have you involved
in a public brawl.’

Elly tugged against his hold, trying to reach
the man slowly gathering himself out of the filthy gutter. She was almost
sobbing. ‘You are the lowest creature, to malign a dead man’s reputation. But
you don’t frighten me. Make sure you leave Lucy alone or you’ll regret it.’

McAndrews thrust her out into the street and
hurried her away.

Her visit next day to Mrs Brokenhurst’s house
brought her no joy, as Lucy refused to appear until Elly forced her way into
her bedroom. The girl then burst into furious recriminations, accusing Elly of
having broken her heart. She would not listen, but continued her hysterical
tirade until eventually Elly had to leave, still unsure of the exact nature of
Cornwallis’ dealings with Lucy, yet fearing the worst.

~*~

A week later Lucy knocked on her door late
at night, shivering like a forlorn puppy. Elly took her into her own room, now
back in the main hospital. She chafed the girl’s frozen hands and made her sit
with the bed coverlet tucked around her.

‘Now tell me your trouble, my dear.’ Elly’s
sympathetic tone echoed her feelings. In the face of true distress, all her
irritation at Lucy’s waywardness was forgotten as she sat down on the bed
beside her and gave her a hug.

The girl gulped, sliding her eyes away from Elly’s.
‘I’ve been so utterly stupid.’

‘We’ve all been stupid at some time, my dear.
How can I help? Tell me.’

Lucy struggled, but the words would not come
out. Suddenly she slipped from the chair to kneel with her head in Elly’s lap. ‘Don’t
look at me, or I can’t tell you.’

Elly stroked the dark ringlets. ‘I won’t look at
you.’

Lucy gave a convulsive sob. ‘You’ve got to help
me, Elly. I’m going to have a baby, and I want you to get rid of it.’

‘My poor girl. My poor, poor girl. But I
couldn’t do it, Lucy. You don’t realise what you’re asking.’ Elly never
understood how she found the right words, yet she knew she had to. Her own
feelings must be subordinated to Lucy’s need. ‘You’re carrying a new life
inside you. You are responsible for it.’

‘I thought you would say that. But I’m not
responsible. I didn’t know what could happen. Elly, you’re my only hope. You
have the knowledge, and you would never tell... anyone.’

‘You mean, Paul? He’ll have to be told, Lucy. He
can make arrangements for you to go away –’

‘No!’ Lucy sprang up and stood quivering before
Elly, ready to hurl herself in any mad direction to escape her fate. ‘I’ll kill
myself before I’ll face him.’

‘Don’t talk so wildly. You’re not capable of
such a thing. Consider, Lucy. You’re asking me to murder your unborn child. It’s...
unthinkable.’ She shuddered as Cornwallis’ recent accusations against her
father came back to haunt her. Had he been guilty of abortion? She would not
believe it.

And yet... Why had they left Sydney for a place
buried far into the bush? Why had a highly skilled surgeon and physician
settled for practicing basic general medicine in some pin-point village when he
could have headed a great hospital? She’d thought it was through grief at her
mother’s death, but such an explanation wore thin in time. Could he have done
it?

Lucy’s immature face hardened. Her skin had
taken on a sickly yellow cast. She said harshly, ‘Hundreds of women rid
themselves of unborn children when they can no longer abide to produce litters.
It’s men who say we must. It’s men who bring on the babies, and what matter if
the woman dies of it? There’s always another to be wed and bedded and brought
to bed. My mother was one such, with a baby each year and myself the only
survivor. Well, I’ll not go the same road.’

‘You need not. I’ll look after you and see you
safely through the birth. There are ways of avoiding pregnancy, which I could
teach you. None of this is your fault, Lucy. You’re the victim of your
inexperience and the wiles of a hardened rake. I blame myself for not having
taken better care of you. You couldn’t have known what Cornwallis is.’

Lucy began to laugh, the sound growing louder
and higher, until Elly slapped her briskly, then rubbed the reddened cheek. ‘Don’t
darling. You’re not alone in this. You have people who care about you.’

Collapsing in a sobbing heap, Lucy cuddled into
Elly and let her emotions go. Elly held her, calming her as best she could.

Finally a murmur emerged from the head buried in
her shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault either, Elly. I let him touch me, caress me.
I wanted him to. It was so exciting, his hands on my body… the way he made me
feel. He did things I couldn’t begin to tell you, and I wanted him to go on
doing it. He taught me how to give him pleasure. He took me into such a
strange, wonderful world, Elly, and I believed he loved me. He gave me
champagne to drink, saying it matched the sparkle in my eyes. It was all the
magical things he said, as much as what he did that betrayed me. He lied to me,
Elly.’

‘He’s the master of lies, my dear,’ Elly
commented sadly.

Lucy raised her face, damp and woebegone yet
earnest as well. ‘But it was
ecstasy
. How can I regret it?’ Her expression
crumpled. ‘Then he threw me out, saying I bored him. I loved him, but he didn’t
love me.’

‘He used you, Lucy. He’s not capable of loving
anyone apart from himself.’ But he’s very capable of hatred, she added
silently, and of devising this revenge on Paul and on me.

‘I know what a fool I’ve been. Still it doesn’t
help me out of this trap. You must help me. There’s no-one else.’

Elly stayed silent, her mind in turmoil. While recoiling
from the idea of aborting the girl, she wholeheartedly agreed with the outburst
about women being forced to bear children unwillingly. It was grossly unfair
for them to be loaded with the stigma of having delivered an illegitimate
child; it was worse to force them to undergo the danger and physical and
psychological pain of an unwanted birth. Had her father thought this way? Had
he decided to redress the balance in the only possible manner?

‘Elly?’ Lucy sat back, her gaze boring into
Elly, demanding an answer.

‘I... can’t. I can’t destroy a life, even one
scarcely formed.’

‘Please. Oh, please.’

Elly shook her head.

Immediately Lucy sprang up and ran to the door. ‘You
don’t love me. Your friendship has been a mere sham. Well, I don’t want it,
either. You can go to the devil, Elly Ballard. I’ll take care of myself.’

‘Come back, Lucy!’ Elly followed her down the
corridor to the stairs, tripping then righting herself, gasping with the pain
of a ricked ankle. The girl fled before her across the hall, out onto the
steps. For a moment she paused under the lantern, a slight figure poised, moth-like,
ready to fly.

‘Wait, Lucy.’ Gritting her teeth, Elly hobbled
through the courtyard gate and stared up and down the street. But Lucy had
disappeared into the night.

~*~

The search began as soon as Elly could
raise it, but although Paul and J.G. and their friends combed the most likely
areas of the city, Lucy remained lost. A call at Cornwallis’ house revealed
that he had left to visit his Camden property hours before Lucy’s arrival at the
hospital. Still, it took a lot of persuasion to keep Paul from following to
confront Cornwallis. Only the need to find Lucy kept him with the searchers,
and even they had to give in eventually and rest.

Elly stayed on in her office, ostensibly to
work, but in reality struggling with a moral dilemma worthy of Solomon. Should
she have violated her principles by helping Lucy to rid herself of the foetus? Where
did love end and morality begin? Where did the rights of an unformed child
begin and rights of the mother end? If her own morally strict father had seen
fit to help other women in similar situations, why couldn’t she? Lucy had no
one except Elly to turn to with this dilemma. She felt she had failed the girl.

She would be eternally thankful that Paul had
gone home to snatch some sleep before the message came, delivered verbally by a
bare-foot urchin in a gabble so fast she had to make him repeat it.

‘Grannam says fetch Matron quick’s I can, the
lass’s near gorn as wants ‘er.’

‘What lass? Lucy?’

‘Dunno. Grannam says to come along of me. You
comin’?’

In answer, Elly flung on her cloak, grasped her
purse then spun the boy out the door ahead of her. ‘Call up a cab,’ she
directed.

The boy stopped short. ‘Won’t get no cabby to
come down Durand’s Alley at night.’

Elly shuddered. ‘We’ll go as close as he will
then walk the rest of the way.’

What had happened? It had to be Lucy. Was the
woman exaggerating who said the girl was ‘near gorn’. When she questioned the
boy she got only a blank stare. A minute later he offered the comment that
there had been ‘a lotta blood when we picked ‘er up. Like a pig killin’’, and
she asked no more questions.

The cab pulled up in Goulburn Street, the driver
having refused to turn into the notorious quarter where the boy lived, so Elly
paid the fare then set off after the small figure scampering ahead.

The noisome lanes were unlit, save from an
occasional shaft of lamplight from a tavern doorway. Elly’s feet sank ankle
deep in mud and refuse so foul she couldn’t define the combination of smells. Backyard
privies exuded their contents through fences to pool with garbage heaving under
the sly onslaught of rats, while the night was hideous with drunken shouting and
singing, even screams. A pair of yellow eyes sped out of the dark straight at
her, but the boy flew at the creature, kicking and yelling, and the goat
bounded away. Elly tried to still her thundering heartbeat then shuffled on,
careful to take small steps in case she tripped and fell into something
unnameably dreadful.