A HAZARD OF HEARTS (52 page)

The lanes grew even narrower, until her
shoulders brushed against the shanty walls crowding in on her. The boy clutched
her hand, saying cheerfully, ‘S’black as a blind man’s holiday, ain’t it?’ Still
he led her unerringly through almost pitch darkness until they rounded a corner
and saw a door standing crazily ajar, with the glow of candle-light within.

Elly hardly noticed the poverty of the room. She
made straight for the bundle of straw in the corner where a figure lay with
blood-encrusted skirts drawn up, a wad of rags thrust up between her legs. A
bedraggled old woman rose from kneeling beside her.

‘You the Matron?’ Her voice was as rough as her appearance,
but her eyes, flicking over Elly, were large and soft, sunk in a mass of
wrinkles.

Elly nodded, dropping down beside Lucy to feel
her pulse. That, with her pallor and shallow breathing told their tale. ‘She’s
lost the baby. Has the bleeding ceased?’ She gingerly moved the rags, unable to
suppress her gasp.

The woman said grimly, ‘Been butchered, ain’t
she?’

Elly’s fury almost choked her. ‘Who did this? Was
it you?’ She spun around, the blood rushing to her face.

The woman answered mildly, ‘No, ‘tweren’t me. Think
I’d be fool enough to send for you if I’d ‘a done it? Found ‘er in the alley,
we did, me and young Barty here. She’d been flung out to die in the dirt. Just
a young’un she is. Still milk on ‘er lips.’

‘I’m sorry. Thank you for taking her in and
sending for me.’ Elly looked back helplessly at the unconscious girl. ‘She’s
lost so much blood. I’ll have to get her to the hospital somehow.’

Barty’s grandmother touched her shoulder
lightly. ‘It’s too late, lass. I sent for ye because she called yer name, but I
knowed it were no use.’

Lucy’s eyelids fluttered and Elly leaned
forward.

‘Lucy, dear. Can you hear me? It’s Elly.’

The faintest smile seemed to twitch the corners
of the pale mouth. Elly bent lower to detect faint breathing. She touched one
of the cold hands lying flaccid, like the hands of a doll, then took off her
cloak to lay it over the girl.

‘Elly.’ She caught the faint whisper and leaned
close again. Lucy’s glazed stare seemed to go far beyond the crumbling walls of
the room. ‘I never meant to die, Elly. It’s all gone wrong.’

‘Hush, dear. I won’t let you die. Save your
strength.’

The faint voice persisted, ‘He said I’d be all
right, but he lied to me, too. Then he tied me down. He hurt me, so much. I
screamed... begged him to stop....’

Elly bit her lip hard and tasted blood. She
couldn’t listen to this.

‘Hold me, Elly. I don’t want to go into the darkness
alone...’

Elly slid her arm under the girl’s shoulders,
gathering her against her bosom. With a sigh Lucy tucked her head under Elly’s
chin. ‘So much blood,’ she whispered. The breath rattled in her throat.

‘Lucy?’ Elly tipped the dark head back, watched
as the girl’s facial muscles smoothed out, leaving her little nose more
prominent, slackening her jaw. With gentle fingers she closed the staring blue
eyes. Lucy had gone on her long journey alone.

Elly stayed on her knees for a long time,
cradling the slight body. Then, sighing, she laid it down on the straw and said
to the watching woman, ‘Who did it? Do you know, Mrs...?’

‘Smith. Grannam Smith. I gotta suspicion. The
girls ‘round here know where to go when they’ve taken a tumble too many, risky
though ‘tis.’

Elly got up slowly, feeling as though her energy
had drained away into the dirt floor under her boots. ‘Tell me where to go.’

Grannam Smith shook her grey head. ‘Best not. This’s
no place for the likes of you. Let Barty here take yer back home to make
arrangements for this poor lass. Yer can’t do no good goin’ for the butcher.’

‘I can see him hanged.’

‘No. You’ll bring trouble on us. We don’t want
the law down in the Alley.’

Elly up-ended her purse on the one piece of
furniture, a ricketty shelf holding a heel of loaf and a few utensils.

‘It’s all yours if you will tell me where to
find this person.’

The old eyes followed the coins rolling off the
shelf onto the floor.

Barty made a dart and began stuffing them into
his pockets. ‘I know where he lives. I’ll take yer. Then I’ll bring yer back a
pint, Grannam. That allus eases yer bones.’

The old woman raised her hands fatalistically
then sat down on another pile of dirty straw, clasping her knees. ‘Go on then. I’ll
watch over the lass until you send some’un.’

Elly followed the boy out into the network of
alleys, her face burning hot, her heart a lump of ice. She had never felt so
clear-headed, so thoroughly scoured by emotion.

What fool had said there was nothing so bad that
it might not be worse? There could be nothing worse than this. All the feeble
troubles she had totted up so recently were as a zephyr against this tornado of
destruction, this terrible loss of a vital human being with her whole life
before her. When Paul knew the truth he would never forgive himself, or Elly.
She would never forgive herself. But she could force the murderer to abandon
his trade.

Within a few minutes she was completely
disoriented. The lanes had become a labyrinth, directionless, barely visible.
Barty, towing her by the arm, seemed to proceed on a combination of touch and
instinct. Shadows slithered by in the dark, some with two legs, some with four,
but Elly took no notice. In a place where she’d have hesitated to come by day,
she let herself be led, feeling no fear, nor any other emotion. She was frozen.

They eventually turned into a cul-de-sac,
stopping before the vague outline of a tumbledown cottage, only a grade
superior to the surrounding shanties.

Barty whispered, ‘‘E’s in there. I can see a
light be’ind the curting.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘The Doc. That’s what they call ‘im. You goin’
in there?’

In answer, Elly stepped forward and knocked on
the door, the panel rough and splintery under her knuckles. When she glanced
behind her, Barty had gone, blending with the shadows. No-one answered her
knock, but when she found the door unlatched she stepped inside into a
damp-smelling darkness.

A slit of light guided her ahead into a cramped
room furnished haphazardly with a broken-legged armchair, a table and bed, and
a cabinet. An oil lamp flickered on the table, lighting a heap of bloody rags,
with a few dirty instruments lying in a bowl of red-stained water. Bile rose in
her throat, but she swallowed the bitterness. Her gaze swept the room, past the
empty bed with its suspiciously stained coverlet, stopping on the figure
slumped in the chair, legs out-stretched, head sagging on one shoulder. A pipe
with a long slender stem had fallen from the man’s dangling fingers to smoulder
on the mat, a rising smoke spiral filling the room with its sickly-sweet odour.
Opium. She stepped forward to peer into the slack face. With mouth open and
eyes turned up, Doctor Harwood slept.

Elly’s trembling legs gave way and she found
herself on the mat at his feet. Her whole frame shook, even her head bobbed
uncontrollably. She dug her fingers into her thighs, keeping them there until
the tremors stopped. The thought uppermost in her mind was surprise that she
was not surprised, that this might have been expected of a charlatan who had
brought death to so many. Having left The Settlement when it became too hot for
him, he would have continued to practice his spurious ‘medicine’ in other
towns, until finally forced to flee for sanctuary in the heart of an Alsace.

Here he lived amongst his own kind who would
never give him away; and here, by all appearances, he would shortly die. The
man’s bones rattled with each breath; his skin had dried to parchment; he
looked a hundred years old. Only slits of white showed beneath his eyelids,
while his lips, wizened as sun-dried peel, curled back from a mouth full of
blackened teeth. Dreaming in another world, he was letting his life slip away
from this one.

Retribution had come to Doctor Harwood, more
swiftly and more thoroughly than anyone could have imagined. The bitter wish
that he might have killed himself earlier, before doing the same for Lucy, was
pointless, Elly knew. What was done was done. But in her heart she despaired.

Had there been any point in her long struggle?
She’d been frustrated at every turn. With so many against her; with her friends
leaving; Cornwallis lurking in wait; Paul content with friendship while her own
yearning for his love all but consumed her; and now Lucy destroyed, when she
might have been saved if Elly herself had only been more flexible – what was
left? She had given her health, her energy of mind and body, and her heart,
with its care for humanity, and they’d been thrown back at her. She had made
mistakes but paid for them dearly. Now it ended.

Bart returned for her, a reluctant escort sent
by his Grannam, and Elly turned her back on the cottage whose occupant dreamed
away the last days of his life. Paul had resumed his search for his cousin, so
Elly arranged for Lucy’s body to be brought to the hospital, to her own room.
There she cleaned and arrayed her decently then spent the rest of the night in
vigil by her side. When Paul arrived, white with fatigue, his broad shoulders
bowed in defeat, she told him all she knew, while wondering whether he had
taken it in. He seemed scarcely to heed her sorrowful account, so she slipped
away, leaving him to mourn privately.

In the morning Jo-Beth brought her a document
signed by the Acting President of the Board of Directors. Elly carried it to
the window and read it carefully because the letters seemed to jump about,
giving her some trouble.

Jo-Beth watched her. ‘What does it say? Is it
bad news?’

Refolding the paper, Elly stared at her blankly.
‘I don’t know. I really don’t know. They write of falling standards, of too
many shortfalls, of patients’ complaints.’

‘What? When they’ve caused all the trouble
themselves? What complaints? I’ve not heard of any?’

‘It doesn’t matter. The evidence will be there
if they need to manufacture it themselves.’

‘Evidence?’

‘Tomorrow there’s to be a special meeting of the
Board. I’m invited to attend and show cause why they should not dismiss me as
Matron.’

Jo-Beth’s horror seemed to strike her dumb, but
Elly only said wearily, ‘Perhaps it’s for the best. I’m not at all sure whether
I want to go on.’

‘You don’t mean it!’

‘I’ve lost my sense of purpose, Jo-Beth. You
know, Paul once warned me not to underestimate the Board’s power. I thought I
could win them over to my views, but they’re unwilling to change. They never
liked a woman standing up to them, and now Cornwallis has thrown his weight
against me there’s no hope of my being heeded. No-one in the community seems
interested in the hospital. Even J.G. with his stinging diatribes will soon be
gone. I’m sorry to sound so defeatist, still, we must face the facts honestly.’
She let the letter fall and clutched her arms about her body, trying to warm
herself.

Jo-Beth made her sit down then crouched beside
the chair, saying earnestly, ‘This is partly because you feel some guilt over
Lucy, isn’t it? But you know her death wasn’t your fault. You’re letting your
judgement become distorted. For that matter, I’m equally at fault for leaving
her to that wolf. So is Paul. But whipping ourselves won’t bring her back; and
giving up on your life’s work would be a useless sacrifice. You’ve always been
a fighter, Elly. You will overcome this terrible melancholy, believe me. It’s
not in your nature to give up.’

‘It’s in everyone’s nature, if the load becomes
too heavy to carry. I’m lonely, you see. I don’t have the strength to keep going
without someone at my side, a battle companion sharing the difficulties,
supporting me when I waver, picking me up when I fall. It’s a sad admission
from a crusader, but it’s the truth.’

It rained on the day of Lucy Gascoigne’s
funeral. A bitter wind whipped the skirts and coats of the mourners huddled
around the grave under a canopy of black umbrellas, yet no-one moved
impatiently or stamped his feet against the cold. Elly gazed around the gallery
of faces, many wet with tears, and thought that Lucy had made her mark in the
world, even in such a brief space of time.

Lacking relatives but rich in friends, she was
mourned by her landlady; by companions from her brief weeks at work; by young soldiers,
confreres of Alan McAndrews; by men from Paul’s political world who had been
charmed by his young protégée; by Elly’s and Jo-Beth’s friends – even by the
fruit-stall man from the corner where Lucy had bought an apple each day. Her
gay, light-hearted personality had touched more people than Elly realised, making
it harder to bear the thought that she had gone, extinguished as easily as a
candle-flame.

The minister’s words of hope of salvation were
whipped away like a flock of starlings in the wind. Elly, looking across the
gaping hole at her feet into Paul’s face, quickly returned her gaze to the
pathetically small coffin, watched it being lowered as mud trickled in from the
sides of the grave. The world wavered in front of her, the faces, the umbrellas,
the dripping trees. This was the last straw, the
coup de grace
. Anger,
frustration and grief combined like a great log rolling over her, treading her
into the mud, and she knew she’d finally given in. She had made her decision. She
would leave Sydney for some place far out in the countryside where she could
find peace, away from all the pain and angst of the past two years. Someone
else could do the fighting. She’d run out of weapons and the will to wield
them.