A HAZARD OF HEARTS (56 page)

But while she pondered this, a letter of a different
kind arrived, which she’d have liked to burn and forget, but could not. It was
a plea for help, from the former Nurse Jenkins, who had apparently fallen upon
hard times after her dismissal. Typically, she couldn’t resist blaming Elly for
her fall, as she begged for her help. Even so, while feeling no responsibility
for Jenkins turning to whoring, Elly couldn’t reject a woman dying alone, and a
fatherless baby to be cared for.

Pearl offered to go in her stead, but Elly,
already familiar with Durand’s Alley, insisted she would be safer than an
obvious foreigner, and anyway, the duty was hers.

‘I’ll be back before supper. Don’t worry about
me.’ She packed a satchel with food and medicine before sending for a cab. ‘If
matters are as bad as Jenkins says, I’ll most likely arrange her admission to
the hospital. Can you and Jo-Beth manage alone?’ She referred to the funding committee
about to meet in their parlour.

Pearl cast up her eyes, and Elly apologised,
then hurried away.

As before, the cabbie refused to enter the malodorous
warren of Durand’s Alley, so Elly set off on foot with her satchel on her back.
Since it was still daylight she could see where to put her feet to avoid the
worst of the refuse. When Barty shot past with a crowd of mischief-bent allies,
she waved to him and asked after his Grannam. She found Jenkins’ shanty lodging
without much difficulty, and at her knock was admitted at once into a room so
gloomy she could scarcely discern the bundle in the corner.

‘Jenkins? Is that you?’

A baby whimpered. Elly felt her way forward,
stumbled over some object in her path, and was seized from behind. A heavy
cloth came down over her head as she struggled and cried out. Then something
hit her. Blinding pain burst through her skull, then nothingness.

The darkness had an oddly thick quality,
like wool brushing her face. Her head felt as if the wool had got in to wind
itself around her brain, slowing it to a plod. Even her mouth tasted of
flannel, with a furry coat on her tongue. I’m mildly concussed, she thought,
aware of a singing in her ears and the dull ache that accompanied it. But where
was she? And what had hit her?

Events prior to her waking in darkness were
still hazy, but she vaguely remembered young Barty’s impish face somewhere in
the recent past, and a door opening into a dimly lit room. What happened
afterwards was still a mystery. Her muscles, too, ached, and she lay still
while mentally probing the rest of her body, deciding that she rested on something
hard and chilly, perhaps a straw-stuffed mattress. It smelled dank, and she shifted
her head, then cried out as a sword blade of pain thrust through her skull,
leaving her limp and nauseated. Whimpering, she tried to raise her hands but
was brought up short as metal jabbed her wrists. It couldn’t be...! But it was
true. Her hands were cuffed together and attached to a length of chain.

Horrified, she yanked at the chain, feeling the
gyves bight deep into her skin, ignoring the hurt as she twisted and turned
like a snared animal, the agony thundering in her head not enough to drown the
sudden onset of terror.

She couldn’t guess how long she struggled to
free herself before lying back exhausted, tears sliding down her cheeks into
her hair. She was trapped. There was no way the chain could be torn from the
stone wall that grazed her fingers – cold, gritty blocks with no gaps between.
Time passed in periods of panic interspersed with moments of clarity when she
fought to understand what had happened to her. She got as far as realising that
her enemy, Cornwallis, was responsible, and hot waves of anger poured over her,
only to recede, leaving her shivering with cold fear. What was planned for her?
What revenge did he plot in his distorted mind?

Later, she considered when she might be missed. Pearl
and Jo-Beth would be anxious if she hadn’t returned by suppertime. Midnight
might have come and gone, for all she knew. The men would mount an immediate
search. But where? Cornwallis had gone into hiding, and would use his wealth
cover his trail. She wouldn’t be imprisoned in his city house or the farm at
Camden. Both could be too easily searched. Yet Cornwallis might own any number
of properties in any part of the Colony, not necessarily in his name.

What if she had been unconscious for days and
carried into the Outback? No. Unlikely. People struggling for existence in the
bush did not bother with stone cellars. Why did she think it was a cellar? Perhaps
the smell, the faint aroma of spirits bringing back a memory of the hotel in
The Settlement? That was it – a waft of spilt liquor underlying the thick,
musty atmosphere. Which meant she had most likely been confined beneath an inn
or a wealthy private home in a large town.

She was pleased at having arrived at a
conclusion, even an unprovable one. She still had charge of her wits and had
not been reduced to the status of paralysed prey. Yes, that was the way to
stave off dread. Plan and plot to out-think the enemy. Be ready for him when he
came.

That thought almost tipped the scale back into
panic, but she hurriedly regained her balance. She must not meet him already
demoralised by her own fears. He would be hoping for it. That was how he
worked, letting his victims create their own frightening scenarios and suffer
unnecessary torment. Well, she would not play the game. He would have to do his
own bloodcurdling, and work hard at it to make her knees knock before him.

With renewed courage, she sat up, swinging her
legs over the side of the cot she lay on. But the short chain would not allow
her to sit forward. She drew up her legs and curled back against the wall. When
he came, he wouldn’t find her prostrate and helpless.

A key turned in a lock and a glimmer of light
appeared outlining a door opposite. Cornwallis entered, an oil lamp held high
in one hand.

Elly waited until her eyes had adjusted to the
light, then looked up to see him standing over her, smiling unpleasantly. She
knew he was savouring her powerlessness and it helped her to focus on her
anger. His smile became a sneer, an effort to degrade her with his deliberate surveillance,
as if she were an object of dubious value. Raising her chin, she glared back at
him.

‘Well, Miss Eleanor Ballard, who is now the
victor?’

She allowed her own lip to curl. ‘Do you call it
victory to be forced to skulk like a rat in a hole? I’d call it ignominy.’

Her thrust had no noticeable effect. ‘You sing
loud, my dear, but you are still a caged bird.’

‘The rat versus the bird. Do you plan to eat me
for supper?’ Elly was pleased with her steady voice.

‘Something of the kind. I’ve not yet decided on
your fate, but I assure you it will be as poetic and demeaning as I can
contrive. That’s simple justice, considering what you and your assistants have
done to me.’

‘We only had to pull the string. You unravelled
your own fabrication of lies. It was hardly possible for us to smirch a life so
tainted with cruelty and self-seeking.’

Cornwallis carefully set down the lamp then bent
down to slap her cheeks, hard cracks with an open palm, almost splitting her
skin open. Tears jetted from her eyes. She tasted blood.

‘Keep a hold on your bold tongue, mistress.’ He straightened
up. ‘I’ll leave you to summon a little humility while I break my fast. Are you
hungry? I regret that I cannot invite you to sit at table with me.’ He picked
up the lamp.

Elly turned her burning face aside, waiting for
him to leave. The light faded and she heard the door close heavily.

What now, she wondered? Starvation? Or was he
toying with her, intending to return with some new form of torment? Her impotence,
which left her open to any kind of attack, would be a stimulant to a man of his
type. If he came to her in the mood for rape would he be excited more by
resistance or by feeble capitulation? What a useless exercise, in any case. She
could never bring herself to submit tamely. She’d fight him whatever the cost. What
she needed was a weapon of some sort, to give her a small advantage.

Picturing the cellar as she’d briefly seen it,
she could recall nothing beyond the iron cot and stone walls and floor. He had
not even offered her water. The small added cruelty was typical. Oh, for a gun,
or even a knife. She was sure she could bring herself to use one, if driven to it.
But she’d never let him see her fear. It was a point of honour for a Ballard,
instilled by her father and hedged with personal pride.

Yet midwinter cold had entered the cellar, and
hunger and thirst added to her misery. By the time Cornwallis reappeared an
hour later, Elly was racked by tremors, her jaw clamped tight, not to mislead
her captor into thinking her craven.

But the man had changed tactics. In the hand not
holding the lamp he carried a wine flask, while over his arm lay a thick padded
quilt which he wrapped tenderly about her. She took the proffered flask,
clutching it with icy hands, and drank it all. Her head began to spin and she huddled
into the comforting folds of quilt, hazily trying to fathom Cornwallis’ new
attitude.

Settling on the end of her cot, he smiled
without a trace of a sneer. ‘I am not the monster you think me, Eleanor.’

She eyed him warily, waiting.

‘I want to talk with you. I’d like you to
appreciate my motives. You are the most sympathetic of all the women I’ve
known.’

She was incredulous. Why should she care what
drove him to such lengths? Why did it matter to him that she should understand
his depravities? But let him talk, if it was what he wanted. Talking did no
harm.

In a voice growing more taut by the minute,
Cornwallis began recounting his experiences as a young boy, caged in luxury
deep in the countryside while his parents travelled or enjoyed the London
Season, forgetting his existence. He rambled on about loneliness and the
perversions taught by servants; the beatings by a cruel tutor; the
encouragement of a streak in his nature which could take pleasure in the torment
of hunted prey. Recounting instances, his face lit with excitement, and Elly
shivered, not daring to interrupt but hoping he’d soon pass on to less
disturbing reminiscences.

‘I grew to love pain, even my own,’ Cornwallis
said. ‘Yet masochism, over-indulged, ends in self-destruction, and I wanted to
live life to the full, to extract the maximum enjoyment in payment for what had
been withheld from me.’ His face grew dark. ‘I knew I had been deprived of
something immeasurably important, although I could never name it, and the
knowledge filled me with rage. I wanted to smash other people’s pleasures, to
ensure that they, too, were deprived. Then in maturity I learned the exquisite
joy of subtlety, of luring men and women into a pit of their own digging. I disciplined
myself in order to experience greater heights of extreme pleasure. I dealt in
pain, but at a distance, watching it administered by another.’ He paused, and
Elly could almost see him looking back, recapturing the thrill of the chase
before the psychological kill.

Sick at heart, she struggled to hide her
revulsion. Any reaction at all might be dangerous.

Suddenly he was on his knees beside the cot, his
hands imprisoning hers, his expression wretched. ‘Elly, tell me you understand,
that you can still be a friend.’

‘A friend! When you’ve made me your captive and tormented
me!’

‘Can you not see why I did it? You brought me
down; thus you must be punished. My honour demands such payment. But you must
understand and forgive me.’

‘Did you ask forgiveness of all the men you had
beaten to death?’ She tried to withdraw but his grip tightened, forcing the
iron into her wrists. She paled and stopped resisting. His expression
frightened her. The smooth assurance which characterised D’Arcy Cornwallis had
gone, replaced with a half-crazed driving energy.

‘You have to die. Don’t you see?’ He looked up,
his head thrown back in appeal.

In the split second that he relaxed his grip on
her Elly whipped her chain up and around his neck, pulling on it with all her
strength. Caught off balance, he fell against the cot, his fingers gouging
furrows in his throat as he tore at the links and wrenched them away.

‘Whore!’ He tugged the chain sharply. The iron
bands cut into her wrists and she screamed, feeling the blood slippery on her
skin.

Cornwallis wrested the quilt from her, bundling
it under his arm as he picked up the lamp. ‘You can do without comforts. Endure
the cold in fear and darkness, before I end your suffering permanently.’

He had crossed into insanity, thought Elly,
watching the light disappear and darkness descend as the door banged shut. There
was no rationality in his moods, changing from one minute to the next. He was a
volcano ready to erupt, with her chained at the peak. Oh, God! What could she
do to save herself?

For a while she slipped into a state of despair,
but soon roused. The cold was another, more insidious enemy, creeping in to
stiffen her muscles, chill her flesh, and slowly paralyse her will. She made
herself lie down and exercise her legs, driving the blood around her body until
she could feel her extremities once more. If she were to have any hope of
escape, she must be able to move quickly, to respond to whatever tiny fraction
of a chance Cornwallis might leave her.