A HAZARD OF HEARTS (30 page)

‘Good God.’

‘Shocking.’

‘Appalling.’

‘All of those things, gentlemen, including
criminal. It’s your criminal irresponsibility which has brought about the
tragedy. I’ve begged and pleaded for special accommodation for such patients,
but you will not listen. This is the outcome.’

‘How dare you!’ The Committee member, a stout,
red-faced man with stringy hair, drew himself up. ‘Why is there no nurse on
duty here to keep order?’

‘There was. I’ll deal with her myself. However,
she had been on duty all day without respite. There is simply not enough staff
to have patients specially watched. I would also point out that the combined
efforts of five people are needed to keep this deranged patient in check.’

With this Old Rose gave a mighty heave,
dislodging two of her keepers and tearing the gag from her mouth as she
struggled to sit up. The men retreated hastily when she spat at them and began
to bawl one of her outrageous ditties. Elly chased after them, bailing them up
in the doorway. She raised her voice above the clamour.

‘Don’t you dare to leave. There’s more to being
a member of the Committee than a ten-minute traipse around the building once a
week. You have a responsibility, all of you, and I hold you to it. Send for
whomever you like to take over here, do what you must. But until something is
done, I will no longer act as Matron in this hospital.’

~*~

The inevitable special meeting of the Board
of Directors convened the following day. Elly presented herself, well-prepared,
knowing what to expect, but with a sore heart and a core of anger within, ready
to be fanned to a conflagration. She had sent an explanatory note to D’Arcy Cornwallis,
begging him to be present, and was relieved see him rise and bow as she entered
the Boardroom. She took her seat, comforted to know that she had at least one
supporter. Her staff had been excluded, as they were not witnesses to the
events under investigation, while the Board apparently discounted the testimony
of patients.

Anyone with any right to be there had crowded
in. Already the room stank of compressed humanity, not always particularly
clean, plus another smell not immediately recognisable. Then she saw the sea of
faces, avid, prurient, and knew she could scent the hunters’ excitement as they
drew in on their prey. Repressing a shudder, she held herself erect before that
collective stare.

The Chairman, Deas Thomson, came quickly to the
point, charging Elly with neglect and dereliction of duty. His manner hinted
strongly at firing squads, and despite her misery, Elly was entertained. The
worst they could do would be to dismiss her. But in the event of such an
outcome, she wouldn’t go quietly.
The Empire
pages would scorch with her
comments, she promised herself.

Not bothering to disguise her scorn and anger,
she rose to meet the charge.

‘Mr Chairman, members of the Board, this is not
a court of law and I am not on trial. Nor are you conducting a military
tribunal. You are here to investigate the unhappy events of yesterday, which I
shall recount and which may be verified by the six members of the Weekly
Committee who were also present. I will add that it was their insistence on my
presence to conduct them on their cursory tour of the hospital which forced me
to leave the patient, Charlotte Perkins, in the care of Nurse Jenkins.’

She paused to survey the six gentlemen
mentioned, all of whom looked uncomfortable, then continued.

‘Jenkins had been on duty in Ward Two all day,
with occasional help from Malone, who assisted in both wards. We currently care
for sixty-five women and children. Assistant Nurse Loring oversaw Ward One
until my one other available nurse, Irvine, could relieve her, while I planned
to do the night duty in Ward Two myself, after the inspection.’

Cornwallis rose and begged leave to pose a
question. Deas Thomson nodded.

‘Matron Ballard,’ said Cornwallis. ‘At what hour
did you commence your own duties yesterday?’

‘At five a.m.’

‘And you planned to stay up all night in Ward
One. Was there no-one else to take your place?’

‘No-one, sir, since the Board has seen fit to
restrict the number of nurses I may employ. My staff frequently take on a
double load when the wards are as crowded as at present.’

Deas Thomson interposed. ‘The members will
recall the Board’s decision not to have nurses on duty at night. The wards were
to be locked and the patients confined until morning.’

Cornwallis honed his voice to a fine edge. ‘With
yesterday’s inevitable result, an assault on a patient and no-one in authority
present to succour her. Which brings me to another point – also stressed by
Matron Ballard at previous meetings – the need to segregate the mentally
impaired from other patients. Clearly, if this had been done, the child
Charlotte Perkins would be alive today.’

He resumed his seat.

Doctor Gault rose to address the Board, ignoring
Elly and speaking directly to the Chair.

‘Sir, the point in question is surely whether
Matron Ballard, the person in overall charge of the women’s wards, should be
held responsible. It was she who insisted upon a weary nurse who was physically
unwell staying with the patient. Nurse Jenkins waits outside this room to
attest to the fact that she left the patient because she, herself, became ill.
She believes she has been mostly unjustly accused and dismissed. Also, there is
more to her testimony which I believe you should hear.’

‘Very well, let her be brought in.’ The Chairman
drummed his fingers on the table, impatient yet not dissatisfied. Elly saw him
glance at Cornwallis, and realised there was antagonism between the two men.
Just what she needed, to be embroiled in a personal quarrel with the powerful
Deas Thomson. As for that lying Jenkins...

Jenkins swam into the room on a sea of lace and
feathers, her elaborate costume far from the neat uniform she’d worn until Elly
dismissed her. Invited to give her version of the facts, she fixed her
marble-blue eyes on Elly and began.

‘I were worn out from running the ward all day with
little enough help from Malone, the lazy skelp, and I got this gripe in the
innards. It’s this terrible weather and all the heavy work. Matron wouldn’t
listen when I told her I needed to lie down and she made me stay on duty. ‘Twern’t
fair, I say. All right for some people to give orders and sit in an office with
their feet up. Mine’d swollen something cruel. Then I had to go to the privy in
a hurry. What could I do?’

Gault said quickly, ‘What did you do, to see to
the welfare of your patient, I mean?’

Jenkins assumed a virtuous expression. ‘I called
in at the nurses’ quarters to ask Irvine to take my place for a few minutes,
but she’d skived off somewhere. So you see, ‘twern’t my fault. I had to go.’

Elly turned on her. ‘Jenkins, you’re a liar. You
no more had the gripes than I had. You made no mention of it to me. Nor, I have
discovered, did you issue the calming dose I had ordered for both Mrs Lyddie
and Old Rose. In consequence they were both in a dangerously agitated state by
the time I left Charlotte in your care.’

‘That’s not true! You’ve always had in for me –’

‘I’ve always distrusted you, and with good
reason, it seems. Nurse Irvine was not in her quarters, if indeed you did go
there. She had spent the afternoon in the Dispensary and was about to go on
night duty in a ward with at least fifteen seriously ill patients needing
constant monitoring.’ She whirled on Deas Thomson. ‘You can’t lock people in
like animals, leaving them in pain and troubled mind. They need nursing, day
and
night.’

He frowned. ‘Let us return to the point. Nurse
Jenkins avers she was ill and could not remain on duty.’

‘Then she should have come for me. I remained in
my office for ten minutes, not with my feet up, but finishing the weekly
report. She knew I would then go downstairs to Mr Houston and to meet the
Committee. I never left the building and could be easily found.’

Attention fixed on Jenkins, who scowled. ‘She’s
the liar, the stuck-up bitch. She wouldn’t listen when I told her I were
sick...’ She trailed off as Cornwallis stepped forward to concentrate his
considerable personality on her.

‘Miss Jenkins, I warn you there are witnesses
prepared to refute your statements – patients in the ward who overheard your
conversation with Matron. We also have the evidence of the porter, Will Tripp,
who saw you with two of the wardsmen drinking in a nearby tavern soon after you
went missing with, er, the “gripes”. Is ale a common cure for such an ailment?’

Jenkins paled. ‘You can’t believe them. They’re
all lying, those cows upstairs and Tripp. They’ve all got it in for me. It’s
not fair...’ She began to snivel.

Cornwallis’ gaze moved from Jenkins to Gault
then on to Deas Thomson. His sonorous voice filled the room. ‘I suggest the
testimony of this witness is a tissue of falsehood, designed to injure the
woman who dismissed her and to absolve the real culprit, Nurse Jenkins herself,
who cared so little for a helpless patient as to go off drinking in a tavern
while the child Charlotte Perkins was murdered.’

Jenkins’ screech of protest could barely be
heard above the general hubbub of approval, with only a few dissenting voices,
notably Gault’s.

Cornwallis’ voice rose above the others. ‘Also,
gentlemen, you will recall a previous occasion when Nurse Jenkins incurred
censure for inciting riot in the wards. I am disinclined to believe anything
said by such a proven trouble-maker.’

Obviously irritated, Deas Thomson rose from his
seat to call for quiet. He asked members of the Board to vote on the charge
against Matron Ballard of neglect and dereliction of duty, and was then able to
formally dismiss the charge. He ordered the former Nurse Jenkins to leave the
hospital, never to return.

 Jenkins promptly went into a fit of hysteria
and had to be carried out, stiff as a paling, heels drumming. Elly wondered
what her unwilling porters would do with her. Perhaps they’d leave her propped
up in the corridor for Will Tripp to deal with? It was a pleasant thought.
Still, she couldn’t leave her unattended. With the Chairman’s permission she
had Jo-Beth sent for to take Jenkins to the dispensary, then returned to her
seat.

Deas-Thomson had recovered his temper. ‘Matron,
you have been vindicated and your actions approved by the Board. Do you have
anything more to say?’

‘I do. Gentlemen, I beg you, don’t let this
terrible thing happen again. At the very least, will you provide separate
accommodation for deranged patients, with appropriate carers? Charlotte Perkins
wasn’t an important person, but she had a right to her life. It’s our moral
duty to see patients like her protected.’

The Chairman was grave. ‘You point us the way,
Matron. It shall be as you wish.’

Elly bowed, as grave as he, then left the
boardroom, victorious yet knowing the opposition had been merely knocked out
for the duration. How many more battles were to follow? And how could she ever
consider abandoning the war and its victims for any reason whatever?

With an hour to spare, Elly stepped out of
the hospital gateway and raised her face to the sun, its warmth a benediction
on her pale cheeks. She knew she needed to get out more into the fresh air. The
home visits hardly qualified when she moved from hospital to carriage to
overheated, stuffy bedrooms then back again. It would be a welcome change to go
on foot, even on this short errand.

Macquarie Street was rapidly gaining favour as a
plum residential area, with its remarkable views and proximity to the shops.
Almost every week, it seemed, attractive sandstone terrace houses sprang up,
their balconies adorned with iron lace work, the facades edged with low railed
fences. Elly had gone only a few steps down towards the harbour when a horse
trotted up beside her and she stepped back as Cornwallis dismounted to block
her passage. He swept off his hat and bowed, his gaze searching her face with
an uncomfortable intensity.

‘You’ve been avoiding me, Miss Ballard. What
have I done to deserve such treatment?’

Although his tone was light, Elly heard the note
of pique and regretted it. He had supported her when she most needed help, and
deserved her civility.

‘Not avoiding
you
, sir, but anything
which takes me away from my duties. I’m aware how greatly I am in your debt –’

‘Nonsense. Please abolish the thought. If ever a
fighter deserved to win you did, with such an army of slow-tops and
gubernatorial boot-lickers arrayed against you. I thoroughly enjoyed the
engagement. However, you really should have allowed me to celebrate victory
with you.’

‘Of course you are right.’ Elly thought for a
moment. ‘Allow me to make amends. Will you be my guest for dinner one night
soon? I’m afraid circumstances don’t permit me to entertain here at the
hospital, but I’m told Tattersall’s Hotel fare is not to be despised.’

‘Delighted, dear lady. An excellent choice, if I
may say so, especially as I’ve not yet seen the more recent additions to their
private Art Gallery. You will permit me to fetch you in my carriage and see to
the wines.’