A HAZARD OF HEARTS (46 page)

‘I don’t want to think about... that.’

‘Yes you do. Tell me, Paul.’

He held her gaze firmly. ‘It’s not your affair.’

She was just as adamant. ‘I’m making it my
affair. You’re not the only person with a difficult past. Children have always
suffered for their father’s sins.’

‘My father committed no sin,’ he roared. ‘He was
a wonderful man. If he hadn’t been so innately good he’d never have been
cheated out of his land by a smiling villain not fit to wipe his boots!’

‘Tell me what happened.’

‘I’m damned if I will.’ He sounded less like an
enraged adult than a cross, sulky child, and Elly grinned.

Paul said stiffly, ‘I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t
have shouted at you.’

Delighted that he had forgotten the maggots for
the moment, Elly continued to prod him. ‘Shout as much as you like. Who was
this villain who stole your land, and how did he do it?’

Paul looked grim as he travelled back into the
past against his will, driven by her into remembering.

‘He was a gentleman, so-called, a member of the
railway company who knew our land would be wanted for a new spur line to be built
out to the coast at Whitby. When my father refused to sell mysterious fires
broke out in the hayricks, sheep were savaged by wild dogs, fences came down. Our
workmen were bought off –’ He stopped, stretching out towards the screen. ‘Could
we... No. Never mind. I’m sorry, what was I saying?’

‘The farm had been under attack.’

‘Yes.’ He visibly collected his thoughts. ‘One
night several sheep were found with their throats cut in a field. Two men lay
against the stone wall: my father, unconscious from a bump on the head, and a
stranger, dead with a bill-hook through his chest. My father was arraigned for
murder. He’d no need to swear his innocence to me. I knew him for a man who
could never kill another, whatever the provocation. And there were many to swear
to his good character. At the trial there was enough doubt to save him from the
noose, but he was transported for life.’

Elly poured another small whisky and prodded him
to continue. ‘So your mother couldn’t manage without help, the farm had run
down, and the railway entrepreneur bought it at a low price. Where did your
family go?’

‘To a cottage in the village. Mam had fallen
pregnant and ill, so Jessie stayed with her while I went into the mill. The
money for the farm swelled the purses of doctors with their useless medicines
and the equally useless lawyers who failed to bring my father off. I slaved in
that mill, drawing lint into my lungs with every breath, but the pay was
pitiful. The babe came into the world sickly, and Mam never fully recovered. Grief
for my father didn’t help.’

He lapsed into gloomy silence, and Elly urged
him to continue. ‘So you took ship to Australia and lost your family tragically
at sea. You found yourself alone in a strange country at... what age?’

‘Fourteen years. I felt like forty, with the
weight of misery and experience on my back. It made me very angry, very
resentful.’

‘I think you still are.’

His head snapped up and he gave her his full
attention. ‘Is that what you think? That I’m brooding over my losses, still?’

‘Are you not?’

‘In part, I suppose. I’ve thought of pushing the
Yorkshire gentleman under one of his own trains, knowing it was only a child’s
dream.’ He paused. ‘Elly, the boy who’d gone on the streets, running wild, had
the good fortune to be rescued, educated and stood on his feet by a
philanthropist. I’ll tell you about him some day. But the boy grew into a man
with a mission: to create a society of equal opportunity, where children are
not enslaved through poverty; where men may speak for themselves without fear
of reprisal; where the law is the same for all and one man may not own another
nor treat him as something lower than the beasts.’

 His voice had taken on power as he defined his
purpose in life. To Elly he sounded like the old Paul. ‘As the child of a convict
father I should have been relegated to the under-class in our society. But I
refused to be classified, branded. I’ve fought to be seen as the man I made
myself. I’ve also waited a long time to avenge my father’s murder.’

Shock held Elly immobile, searching for words. ‘Murder!
I thought he was transported...’

‘He was.’ Paul thumped his thigh with a fist.
His voice rose. ‘Christ! Will those little buggers never let up? Elly, I think
I’ll go mad.’

She flew to him, holding his shoulders as he
struggled to rise from the couch. ‘No. No. You must go through with it. It’s
your only hope of saving your leg. Paul, tell me about your father. Who killed
him?’

His eyes bulged with effort. She could see him
being torn by a desire to knock her aside and rip away the bindings holding the
maggots against his flesh, saw the cracking self-restraint which allowed her to
hold him down against the cushion. She was no physical match for him, yet she
prevailed, helped by his still-functioning will.

‘My father... They assigned him to a country
property,’ Paul panted. ‘The overseer was bad, but his master was worse. On his
orders my father died on the triangle, his back shredded to ribbons by the cat.
That man will die by my hand, one day.’

The catharsis of his last speech seemed suddenly
to release the alcohol to flood his brain. He went limp in her hold, his jaw
slackened as his head fell to one side and he slept. But before long he began
to moan and mutter, his fingers twitching, reaching down his legs towards the
source of his restlessness. The hours passed while Elly sat with his hands
locked in hers, her back and neck stiff with fatigue, listening to him rave in
a half-awake drunken state about the itch, the awful, tearing, nerve-shredding
itch of tiny mouths nibbling, chewing, gorging on his flesh.

But when daylight filtered through the windows
Elly detached herself from his hold to inspect the wound, and she saw what she
had prayed for. Cleaning away the glutted creatures into her box she found that
the necrotic tissue had all but disappeared, leaving behind healthy pink
granulated tissue, the beginnings of new flesh. If she wasn’t so exhausted she
wouldn’t be crying, she told herself, as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

Paul’s cracked and weary voice recalled her. ‘What
is it, Elly? Has it all been for nothing?’

She beamed through the tears. ‘My dear, it
worked. It worked!’

He bolted upright and tore away the screen to
stare at the wound where red and black flesh had made way for raw pink. ‘It’s
true,’ he croaked. ‘You did it, Elly.’

‘I’m not so sure. I seem to detect the guidance
of another Hand here.’ Elly shook herself mentally. Mysticism at dawn! Impractical
and misleading. She must pull herself together.

Paul seemed dazed. He sat staring at his leg,
muttering, ‘It’s true. It’s true,’ while Elly wondered whether she had the
strength to finish off here and get back to the hospital. A hot drink. That’s
what they both needed.

Yawning and stretching cramped muscles, she
revived the almost dead fire then put water on to boil.

‘Elly?’

Paul’s voice, so tentative, made her shrink
inwardly. He had remembered his loss of control during the long night and
wanted her to leave. He couldn’t bear to face the person who had heard and seen
his humiliating disintegration.

‘Yes, Paul?’

‘Come here, please.’

She went slowly, not meeting his gaze as she
sank down again on the stool beside the couch.

‘Elly, I placed my trust in you, knowing you’d
stand by me through whatever came, and you upheld that trust magnificently. I
know I didn’t suffer alone through those hours. There will never be any way to
thank you. I simply want you to know I couldn’t have held out without your
presence, holding me, giving me your wonderful strength. I owe you my life,
Elly.’

It wasn’t a moment to politely demur. Elly felt
she had held Paul’s life in her keeping for a time, or if not his life, his
sanity. She never wanted to see anyone go through such an experience again. But
it had been worthwhile. His leg would heal in due course. The cracked shin bone
was minor in comparison with the infection, and Paul would walk again without
aid. His career and life were safe, but for how long, with Cornwallis on the
prowl?

‘Paul, do you have any idea who your assailants
were?’

‘Hirelings, thugs in the pay of Cornwallis. I’ve
thought so from the beginning, when I woke up to find how close I’d come to
being crippled. It’s his style.’ Paul sounded so matter-of-fact, Elly was
amazed, and then angry.

‘How can you be so calm about it? What if...
when he tries again?’

‘I’ll be ready, and more careful.’ He drew her
close beside the couch. ‘Elly, it’s you I’m afraid for. You’re next in line for
his vengeance.’

‘I know it. But how can we guard against the
unexpected? He won’t try the same ploy twice. He’s too clever. He’s a sadist,
Paul. He’ll draw out the plot with twists and traps. Do you know he pays the
Governor at Darlinghurst Gaol to let him watch hangings, now they’re no longer
public? I even saw him set the rope around a poor man’s neck.’

Paul stiffened. ‘How in the Hell did you see such
a thing?’

‘Oh, from a window. I was attending a patient at
the time.’ Elly dismissed this. ‘The importance lies in the sidelight to his
character. We can expect almost any response from such a man, the more twisted
and cunning, the more likely.’

His muscles relaxed and he lay back, exhausted,
while Elly hurried to fetch a steaming mug of tea. She refused to let him talk
until he had drunk most of it. Then, placing the mug on his table he said, ‘My
dear, we must make plans of our own. A creature who will pay to participate in
a hanging is, as you say, capable of any action.’

‘I know it. But although I started this, now I
want to put aside worry over the future, for just a few minutes longer. I want
to relive the joy of our success.’ She put her hand in his. ‘Paul, you’re whole
and healthy, or will be again. It’s a kind of miracle.’

His fingers closed over hers, tightening. A tide
of exhaustion mixed with elation washed over and through her, as she gave
silent thanks. The luck, or divine planning, or whatever, had been with her and
Paul that night – something much more powerful than either of them. And she was
grateful to the depths of her being.

For the next few days after the burning of
the Eureka Hotel Pearl saw little of J.G. as he moved through the various camp
sites, talking with the men and adding to his understanding of the situation.
She found that she had more than enough work with an outbreak of sandy blight
caused by wind-blown dust, and a consequent call for her particular form of eye
wash. This simple solution of boiled boracic and herbs acted like magic on the
painful swelling, made worse by poor diet and the generally run-down condition
of the sufferers. At least the warmer weather meant less rheumatics and
pneumonia.

November was an uneasy month. The arrest of
Westerby and two others charged with burning down the Eureka Hotel had caused
uproar amongst the miners. At a meeting on Bakery Hill a crowd of nearly ten
thousand gathered to wave their banners and listen to moderate speakers plead
for restraint while firebrands preached rebellion. A deputation went to the
Governor demanding the release of Westerby, although the hotel proprietor,
Bentley, and his two henchmen were convicted of Scobie’s manslaughter and
sentenced to three years’ hard labour on the roads.

Rumours flew that the Commissioner and the
Governor were secretly planning to teach the diggers ‘a fearful lesson’, and a
detachment of the 40th Regiment marched into Ballarat from Geelong, jeered by
the diggers. There was some scuffling which led to a few injuries. And tempers
still ran high that night when a troop of mounted police rode through the camp
to the accompaniment of shots in the air, showers of sticks and stones and
angry cries of ‘Joe! Joe! Get rid of the bloody traps.’

Things remained strangely quiet around Golden
Point during the next day. Pearl missed the background noise of the windlasses
creaking, of digging, chipping, cursing, of water running. She knew a meeting
had been called and felt uneasy, knowing the temper of the camp.

She was also worried about J.G., whom she had
not seen for days. His ferreting activities had several times led him into
trouble with men who resented his curiosity or feared his motives. The
goldfields already had their own newspapers. They didn’t need any toffee-nosed
city journalist poking around, misrepresenting their case. But the occasional
black eye never deterred J.G. While not particularly healthy or strongly built,
he had the doggedness of an Irish terrier, with a respect for the truth shining
through all his whimsicality. In fact, Pearl cared a great deal about what
happened to the man.

Thinking back on their encounters in Sydney Town
she also recognised just how long ago this caring had begun, even when she
believed she hated him for interfering in her affairs. Was it because he had so
obviously cared what happened to her, an insignificant little woman from a
despised country, without presence, riches or connections, who flew at him in a
fury whenever he approached her? But how much of that caring went beyond
humanity and friendship? Would someone as restless and cynical on the one hand
and broad-mindedly inquisitive on the other, ever consider tying himself down
to a woman, when he had always roamed the world freely and clearly loved doing
it? It wasn’t possible.