‘My friend, Jo-Beth. Is she... Has she...?’
‘She’s safe beside you in the next bed, unconscious when brought in but now peacefully asleep.’
The tension left Pearl’s face. ‘At least she’s alive. My name is Pearl. We were together on the ship.’ She hesitated. ‘Was there... have you seen a monkey? I had her in my pocket...’
With a laugh Elly pointed to the windowsill where Peanut sat grooming herself hard up against the warm glass side of a lantern. ‘Your rescuers could not detach her without getting bitten, but she came when I offered her food. She can stay there tonight.’
‘Thank you. Thank you.’
Elly patted her hand and released herself. ‘I’ll leave you now. Sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.’
She paused in the doorway to see Pearl craning towards the next bed, then closed the door quietly behind her.
~*~
The next morning she was wakened by her new young trainee hovering anxiously and dripping hot tallow on Elly’s chin. She sat up hurriedly.
‘What is it, Nurse Rachel?’ She swung her legs over the side of the cot, seeking her slippers, her mind preparing for an emergency.
The girl’s candle dipped. ‘Oh, Matron, you’d best come to Ward One. A woman brought in from the shipwreck is hysterical and her friend wants her to have laudanum.’
One of Elly’s strictest rules gave her control of all medications. In the bumbling hands of at least two of her inherited “nurses” these were as dangerous as anarchists’ bombs.
‘I’ll come at once. It’s nearly time for me to rise, anyway.’ She dressed rapidly, adding a shawl to her warm worsted gown. Pinning on her watch and chain, she noted that it was already five o’clock on a fine, chilly June day. While hurrying along the corridor to Ward One, her ears alert to the early stirring of her hospital, she watched the black hordes of bedbugs scurry ahead of her light to disappear into cracks in the walls. The last scouring down had obviously had little effect. She sighed, determined to approach the Board once more for permission to replaster and whitewash, although the only real solution might be the one proposed by the rebel journalist, J.G. – to blow the place apart and rebuild. The whole hospital structure was insanitary and unsound.
Ward One was wide awake. Faces shadowed and distorted by lantern-light turned greedily to the occupant of one bed, absorbed by one of the oldest human dramas, overwhelming grief. Jo-Beth sat with her arms locked rigidly across her body as she rocked back and forth, howling her misery. Tears ran down her cheeks and into her mouth, stifling her, but still she cried the one word over and over: ‘Ethan, Ethan.’
The toneless lament fell on Elly’s nerves like droplets of ice water. She darted forward to tug at Jo-Beth’s arms, trying to unlock them, trying to make the girl look at her.
‘Jo-Beth. Jo-Beth. Listen to me.’
‘It’s useless. She won’t hear. Her friend here tried to help and got knocked half-senseless for her pains.’ The young trainee pointed to Pearl sitting on the floor holding her ribs. Her bed gown had been torn from neck to waist and there were scratches on her throat.
‘See to her,’ Elly ordered, ‘Then take the key from my waist and fetch the laudanum.’ Her arms went around the rocking figure, holding, rocking with her, trying to impart her own warmth to the girl shut away behind her icy wall of despair. She rested her cheek on Jo-Beth’s auburn head, crooning wordlessly, yet watching her nurse as she resettled Pearl in her bed, checked the strapping on her ribs and soothed her obvious anxiety over her friend’s condition. Rachel had the right mix of compassion and dexterity. She’d make a good nurse, if she stayed.
Detecting a slackening in the rigid muscles under her hands, Elly was ready when quite suddenly Jo-Beth collapsed against her, burrowing into the comforting human warmth. Elly raised her head to glare at the rows of staring faces. Some had the grace to turn aside, while others continued to watch as Elly soothed.
When Rachel returned, the drops of opium poppy extract were administered, and they waited until Jo-Beth finally drifted off to sleep. Elly then drew the young nurse aside. ‘Have you heard whether there are any other survivors? Did you ask the porter?’
The girl bowed her head. ‘All lost, poor souls. This Ethan was the ship’s captain, so Miss Pearl says, a handsome giant with golden hair and beard, but...’
‘He hasn’t been found. I see. All the same, we’ll check the mortuary to be certain.’
Rachel shuddered then bravely followed into the cold yard behind the hospital building, and held a lantern while Elly found the key to the padlocked shed which did duty as mortuary and post-mortem surgery. She paused a moment, drawing her shawl tightly around her shoulders as she gazed out towards the coast, now faintly outlined against the coming dawn. She took the lantern from Rachel.
‘Wait for me, if you please. There’s no need for us both to forgo our breakfasts.’ She opened the door, propping it wide with a piece of rubble, unable to endure the thought of that place with the door shut.
Inside the darkness closed around her and her feeble lantern, while her nostrils filled with a dreadful miasma like the fetid breath of a carnivore. Rats scurried into the corners trailing evidence of their feast, shredded skin and muscle, leaving holes torn and gaping in the faces and bodies of the two dead sailors lying on trestles. Beyond them lay other bodies brought in before the wreck, men killed in a drunken brawl, and another who had simply lay down in the muddy road to die.
Gases escaping from their rotting flesh, and the thought of the rats, made Elly gag. She covered her mouth and nose with her shawl end, then raised the lantern, forcing herself to observe the two newcomers carefully. They were only partially clothed in seamen’s slops, but their feet were hard with callus, and what remained of these seamed faces could never have belonged to the vigorous giant described by Pearl.
‘No beard,’ muttered Elly, racing out the door and locking it behind her.
~*~
Twenty-four hours later the two young women survivors came to the Matron’s room to discharge themselves and thank Elly for her care. Pearl held up her borrowed gown, three sizes too large. She had utterly refused to don a corset, and carried her damp jacket and pants underarm. Jo-Beth, in her heavily stained and torn silk, would have shamed a guttersnipe.
Elly rose from her chair behind the desk.
‘Ladies, before you go I have something to say to you. I suggest we repair to the boardroom where we can sit in comfort.’ She led them downstairs, ushering them into the Board’s sanctum where a comfortable fire burned in the grate and cushioned chairs were available. Sunlight poured through the unadorned windows to glimmer on polished cabinets and gilded frames. Hospital benefactors stared down their painted noses at the intruders.
‘Please be seated, ladies.’ Elly arranged her skirts, laying her clasped hands on the large cedar table provided for meetings. ‘I believe you were unable to save any belongings from the shipwreck. Nor do I think you have any contacts in Sydney Town.’
Pearl nodded gravely. Jo-Beth’s lip trembled.
Both young women had been marked forever by their terrible experience, thought Elly. It showed in their eyes. Heaven only knew what scars they carried within. She said gently, ‘I’m afraid no other survivors have been found. Your ship broke in two and sank within a few minutes.’
Jo-Beth stifled a sob.
Pearl said, ‘I had no-one aboard who mattered to me, but Jo-Beth has lost both her parents and her future husband.’
Yesterday’s hysterics were understandable, thought Elly. Poor, poor girl. But she made her voice brisk and businesslike. ‘In that case, you may be interested in a proposition I’ll put before you. You will forgive me for alluding to private matters revealed in your delirium, but I believe you, Miss Pearl, have nursing training.’
Pearl’s lips thinned, then relaxed, as if she’d decided to waive a normal reticence. ‘It is true I am skilled in nursing and dispensing. I was well trained by a Missionary doctor.’
&nb
sp; Elly leaned forward. ‘And I am in dire need of trustworthy nurses. Would you be willing to stay, to work for me, to help train other young women for just a short while, until you have settled your future plans?’ She hesitated only momentarily. ‘Miss Loring – Jo-Beth. I don’t know how you would feel about such work, but you are welcome to stay here until you have fully recovered. You suffered a terrible shock, as well as physical trauma. Perhaps, if you wished, you could help in less demanding ways. There’s always so much to be done.’
Pearl glanced at Jo-Beth. ‘I need money saved before I can seek out my brother. I would be willing to stay if Jo-Beth agrees.’
While the two young women conferred, Elly watched, thinking how little she knew about them. They’d been blown onto her doorstep by a storm and left to lie like flotsam from the sea. However, their character was written in their faces. The small one, Pearl, she thought she would never truly know. Yet she was capable of unselfish love for her friend. And she was Mission trained! Elly also believed she was a fighter to the last drop of her blood.
The other one had too-white hands, and doubtless had never scrubbed a floor or carried slop pails. But she could learn. There was strength in her. Already she was dealing with a ghastly emotional wound and thinking about the future.
Elly leaned forward. ‘I won’t attempt to hide the difficulties, not the least of which is the hospital’s Board of Directors. We disagree upon most matters, and since they hold the purse-strings, which means the power, we have some lively clashes. Yet I’m gradually achieving small victories.
‘The wards have been cleaned up, and the worst abuses done away with, although there are many changes still to be made. The great need, however, is for good staff to demonstrate to the Board and to the community that nursing can be a fine career, almost a profession, when carried to its highest reach. Suffering is endemic in this world, but we, as trained persons, can alleviate it. It’s our role, our reason for being. There can be no greater reward than to see our efforts transform a sick or injured person into a healthy one.’ She stopped and smiled. ‘Well, that’s my speech. Has it convinced you?’
Pearl and Jo-Beth exchanged glances. Pearl spread her hands fatalistically. ‘This is no gift you offer. It is a challenge. Yet I have found all of life to be a challenge. There would be a salary?’
‘Twenty pounds per annum, with uniform provided.’
‘Then I accept.’
‘Good. Miss Loring?’
Jo-Beth answered slowly, ‘I have family back in Boston, but I was never happy there. I thought I had escaped when Ethan... when the man I love...’ She choked on a sob, then continued more firmly. ‘I don’t believe he died in the sea. He will return to me one day, and I must be here, waiting for him.’ She met Elly’s amazed, compassionate look with one of fierceness. ‘I mean it. I know he’s alive and will seek me out. Tell me what I must do to earn my keep and I’ll stay until he comes.’
‘My dear...’ Elly couldn’t go on. In the face of such belief, what could she say?
Pearl took her friend’s hand and offered the other to Elly. ‘We both accept your offer.’
With a mental sigh, compounded of satisfaction and pity, Elly rose and collected a silver tray with crystal glasses and decanter of madeira from a side cabinet, bringing it to the table.
‘I want to thank you both. Your help will be invaluable to my future plans. And what better way to celebrate than with the Board Members’ own private stock?’
She handed around the glasses, raising hers into a sunbeam, splintering crystal and amber liquid into blinding shafts. ‘Ladies, this is an historic moment. You may not have realised it but you have helped to lay the first brick in the structure of career nursing in the colony. Nurses of the future will look back to this day and see when it all began, the foundation day for an eminent profession.’ She scanned the doubtful faces watching her and laughed. ‘You will see, I promise you.’
She flourished her glass. ‘Let us drink to the future, to nursing – and to the confusion of a most obstructive Board of Directors.’
The two raised their glasses dutifully to her, swallowing any doubts they might have, along with the Directors’ best madeira.
PART TWO - AUGUST, 1853 - APRIL, 1855.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Elly had escaped for an hour. She felt wonderfully liberated as she closed the door in the hospital’s surrounding wall behind her and set off north along Macquarie Street towards the harbour. She hadn’t realised how burdened she’d been by her responsibilities – not that she’d consider for a minute giving up when the struggle had barely begun. Nevertheless, this break gave her a welcome chance to breathe in air untainted by drains and carbolic fumes, and to see a little of Sydney Town.
She paused at the brow of the hill to view the town laid out around her like a colourful chart, with herself at the centre. The spit of land dead ahead on the eastern side of the Quay was a defence station known as Fort Macquarie, while behind her stretched Macquarie Street ending at Hyde Park, surrounded by the elegant homes of the rich. The park was a venue for saunterers and cricket-players, where military manoeuvres still took place. It was also the outlet point for Mr Busby’s bore, the source of water for the whole of Sydney, including the hospital. At present the supply coming from the sand hills to the south could be termed barely adequate for a community of some sixty or seventy thousand souls, but Elly foresaw problems ahead in summer. She’d been told the Tank Stream, the freshwater creek which had originally supplied settlers and which still ran down into Sydney Cove, had become irreparably polluted with sewerage and other waste.
According to Mr J.G. Patterson, her journalist acquaintance, Sydney was a rabbit colony, expanding and multiplying without a thought of a plan in anyone’s head.
‘Tanneries, slaughter houses and boiling down works pour out their dainty odours from every side,’ he claimed. ‘And when the regular summer southerly comes down on us, dust from the brickfields chokes the very lungs in a man. Our ‘taters are grown in fields of human muck; smuts freely besprinkle milady’s weekday wash; while a visit to the municipal abattoirs on Glebe Island, just minutes away from the heart of town, would have you in tears. Filthy, diseased livestock penned in cells awash with putrefying guts, and the wastes flushed away into our harbour. I tell you, it’s a disgrace.’
Elly, close to nausea, had begged him to stop. But she’d been impressed by his attitude. His gadfly instincts were directed by a civic consciousness she could only admire. She wondered if his friend Paul Gascoigne thought the same way.
A sharp breeze enlivened the sunny day, and she wrapped her cloak around her. Looking eastwards, beyond the Public Domain, she could follow a pattern of scalloped bays all the way to South Head and the white finger of Mr Francis Greenaway’s lighthouse; then back again along the heavily forested line of the Northern Shore, still sparsely settled, although there were ample ferry services across the harbour and people crossed on day trips to ride and picnic.
They’d realise soon enough the advantage of living away from the town with its influx of crazy gold-seekers clearing the shops of goods to be carried over the mountains to the mining camps. The traffic was two-way, with the lucky strikers pouring back into town to fling their nuggets about and proclaim their good fortune. It brought joy to the merchants, but made for a rowdy passage down George Street at night.
To the west, beyond the main streets of the town, rose Flagstaff Hill, the signal station for the arrival of overseas vessels; while beyond that lay Darling Harbour and the western reaches of the great Port Jackson. If she squinted she could see miles across the flat plains flowing out to a range of blue misty mountains bounding the colony. One day, she promised herself, she’d take the paddle steamer up river, and explore as far as the foothills of the range. But she’d never go north to the cedar country at back of Port Stephens. Never again.
With a tug at her wayward cloak, Elly abandoned her bird’s-eye viewpoint and set off downhill to the crowded quayside.
Here was a scene of frantic activity, with ships and ferries arriving and departing the colony’s gateway.
I like this place, Elly thought. It was so alive, so unashamedly a rowdy frontier town evolving into a city. One day, despite itself, it would be a sophisticated metropolis, but until then it could enjoy itself like a growing child, testing and tasting along the road to the future. She was glad to be a part of it. And she’d set her mark, however small, on Sydney Town. With the help of friends, and luck and determination, the people would one day have a hospital to be proud of.
She punctuated her thoughts with a decisive nod, and was startled when a deep-pitched voice behind her said, ‘Now there’s a strong decision just come to life. I trust the persons involved will survive its implementation.’
Paul Gascoigne stood hat in hand, his other wrapped around a leash restraining Pepper, who bounced and yapped, clearly delighted to encounter Elly again.
She bent to pat the little brown dog. ‘Good day to you, Mr Gascoigne.’
‘What, no rising to the fly?’ Paul’s lips curved in his usual half-smile. ‘I made sure my cast would draw you.’
‘I’m too happy this morning to allow my mood to be destroyed. What brings you and Pepper down to the Quay?’
Paul tugged on the leash and commanded the dog to sit, with no appreciable effect. ‘This is one of our favourite daily walks. Pepper likes the smell of the sea and the various cargoes unloading, although, when I have time, we prefer the shore where he can chase gulls along the sand and be free as a dog should be.’
Elly looked around her at the bustling quayside thronged with porters and carriers servicing the ships; at the piles of lumber, wool, spices and silks waiting on the wharves; the ferry-boat passengers lined up; clerks and servants hurrying on business; the horse cabs, omnibuses and private carriages. She understood the need for a leash on Pepper.
The little dog barked furiously at a passing mongrel, and Paul admonished Pepper to mind his manners before a lady, adding, ‘We also have a problem with packs of half-wild dogs roaming the streets, along with our pigs and goats and hens. Pepper’s mighty courage scarcely fits with his small frame. He’ll take on any challenger.’
A HAZARD OF HEARTS Page 12