Seaside Hospital (13 page)

CHAPTER TEN

L
isa dared not look at him, and her heart beat a frightened tattoo as she waited to hear what he would say.

“You know what to do, Lisa,” he said at last, but his face was drawn, and in his eyes was a look that she knew she would never forget. “First, the child must be considered. We owe our duty to a young life.”

“Yes,” she whispered, through dry lips.

“But there must be no bargaining.”

Her heart sank. “You don’t understand. The person—she won’t give the information if I don’t promise—”

“You were going to the police, weren’t you?” he reminded her. “You got as far as the door of the police station. It isn’t like you to hesitate. The police must be told. They can and will make her talk.”

She shook her head fiercely. “She won’t. She’ll scream and cry and faint and have hysterics—anything, but wild horses won’t make her talk if she doesn’t want to. And she won’t, without my bargain.”

“Who is this person that you appear to know so well?” he asked sternly.

Appalled at how nearly she had betrayed her sister, Lisa stared hopelessly at him. “Don’t make me tell you,” she whispered. “Please, Randall, don’t make me tell you. Not yet. Let me get the information first.”

He sighed. “Very well. That is the all-important thing. But can you be sure of getting it? You know you can’t trust a kleptomaniac.”

She nodded fiercely. “I know, Randall. Don’t worry, I’ll get the information.”

“I ought to take you to the police station and make you bring this person in for questioning,” she heard him say in a low tone. “If I let you do it your way, Lisa, you must agree to do something for me.” She nodded dumbly. She had half-anticipated something of the sort, and she was not surprised at his proposition.

“You must present this person for treatment.”

She sat staring ahead, silent.

“You know it’s essential, Lisa,” he urged. “Sir Hugh Angrove is the man, and I’ll arrange it all for you.”

“Why would you do that, Randall?”

He smiled twistedly. “You haven’t given me your full confidence, but I know it must be someone near and dear to you, for you to run such risks. Where is the person to be found?”

“In Barnwell Bay,” she admitted reluctantly.

“I’ll drive you there. Time is of the utmost importance.”

“No, no, please, Randall, don’t go with me!”

His smile faded. “Don’t you trust me, Lisa?”

“If I’m not to tell you yet who the person is, then obviously you can’t come with me,” she cried.

Tears spilled over and ran down her face. She was aware that she wanted to fling herself into his arms, sob out her troubles on his shoulder, leave him to deal with everything, as she was certain only Randall could. Then the memory of that last time they had talked, on the balcony outside the children’s ward, came back to her. She loved him, but he didn’t love her. He was filled with the haunting memory of the dead Catherine Varnell.

She pulled herself together and got out of the car. “I’ll go now, sir,” she said formally, “and get the information, and after it’s all over, I’ll bring ... her to see Sir Hugh.”

“Lisa!” he said sharply. “I wanted to see you about—” he began, and she recalled that he had said at first that he had been looking for her everywhere. “Oh, never mind now,” he said impatiently, and shutting the car door, he drove off with a noisy clanging of gears, and the old grim expression back on his face.

Jacky would be on stage, Lisa realized, looking at her watch. There was no sense in hanging about the theater. She decided to go to Jim Gosling’s, a quiet little cafe in a back street, and have a coffee and a sandwich.

“How do, Nurse?” Jim said, with a cheery grin. “What, all alone tonight? Where’s that girlfriend of yours? Fair caution, she is!”

“Oh, she’s busy,” Lisa said, with a brief smile, and gave him her order.

“You look tired out, Nurse,” Jim reproved, as he put a plate of egg and tomato sandwiches and a cup of coffee in front of her. “Here, how’s that little coppernob that got run over? Fair took over him, this town is! Not a day passes without customers come in and ask after him.”

“Christopher’s pretty bad, Jim,” Lisa said soberly. “In fact, if we don’t find the parents, he’ll die.”

“Cor, fair makes you sick, don’t it!” Jim exploded, nodding to a smartly dressed woman who had come to sit on the counter stool at Lisa’s side. “What did a little kid like that want to get run over for? Don’t seem right.”

The woman looked from one to the other of them. “Is it true, Nurse?” she asked breathlessly. “Will he really die? Do you know, or is it just what you’ve heard?”

“Why yes, it’s true, I’m afraid,” Lisa said quietly. “I'm in the children’s ward, so I know. We're trying so hard to find his parents—he’s calling for them, you see—and if we could only contact even one of them, we think it would save his life.”

“What I can’t understand,” Jim said, as he wiped the counter down, “is what happened to the poor little kid’s mother. You can understand the father. See, how I figure it out, there might be something funny about ’em—But you’d think the mother’d step forward, no matter what was what.”

“Perhaps she was afraid that her child would lose more by her coming forward,” the woman suggested, turning back to the counter and sipping her coffee.

“Was there more for him to lose than his life?” Lisa countered swiftly, her heart beating faster, for some reason. Why was this woman so interested in the child?

The woman did not answer. She appeared to be thinking deeply. Suddenly she said to Jim, “Where’s the telephone?”

Jim pointed to the booth in the corner of the cafe, but she shook her head. “No, an outside telephone,” she said.

He directed her down the road, and watched her go. “Smart turnout, that, I reckon,” he said to Lisa, beaming approval on the woman’s chic dress and jacket, and the high-crowned hat with the brim pulled well down over her head and eyes. It completely hid her hair, and Lisa found herself wondering what color the hair was. Surely it wouldn’t be
red
?

The thought took hold of her, and furious to think it had not occurred to her before, Lisa hastily put some money on the counter and fled out of the cafe after the woman. But there was no sign of her anywhere.

It was time to go to the theater, so Lisa hurried down to the promenade. Jacky was already offstage, in her dressing room removing her makeup. She looked surprised to see her sister. “Hello, you’re not going to be long, are you, Lisa?”

“No, I’ve just come to say I’ve decided to agree to the bargain we made, Jacky. If you’ll just give me those addresses, I’ll be off right away. I haven’t much time, either.”

Jacky stared at her in the glass. “Which addresses?”

“The addresses of the parents of the little boy who was run over. You remember, you listened in to their conversation,” Lisa said. “You can’t have forgotten, Jacky.”

“Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lisa looked at her sister’s innocent face in the glass, and her heart sank. “Look, Jacky, you promised to do this, if I got rid of the diamond brooch for you, no questions asked. Now don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about the brooch, too?”

“What brooch?” Jacky asked, smoothing on fresh makeup. Lisa removed it from her handbag and opened the case. Jacky’s eyes slid away from it, but she said quickly, “I don’t know anything about it. And I have a date. I wish you’d go, Lisa.”

“Do you mean to tell me you’re going back on your word, Jacky?” Lisa breathed, keeping her exasperation down with difficulty. “But you promised, because it’s to save the child’s life! He’ll die if we don’t find his parents, and you’re the only one who knows where they live.”

“I don’t know anything about it,” Jacky persisted. “Don’t believe people if they say he’ll die. People always exaggerate. Children get over things quickly. He’ll be all right,” she finished easily.

Lisa got up. “You don’t seem to understand,” she said, in a low voice. “You’re trying to wriggle out of this the same as you’ve tried to wriggle out of everything else, but this time the issue is too important. I’m going to save this child’s life, if I can. You’re going to give me those addresses. If you don’t, I’ll go to the police—”

“What for?” Jacky returned coolly, setting glittering studs in her ears. “The brooch is in your possession, not mine. No one can identify me, you said so yourself. But if the police get information that this isn’t the first piece of valuable property you’ve had—after all, Derek had to get rid of the other for you, didn’t he, and he doesn’t know I had anything to do with it. I’ve only got to say—”

“You wouldn’t do that!” Lisa gasped, horrified.

“Wouldn’t I?” Jacky cried, jumping up, all pretense of bland indifference gone, anger sparking from her kitten eyes. “I’m tired of your preaching to me, Lisa Bryant, and I’m fed up with hearing about that hospital of yours. Don’t try to force information out of me, because it won’t work. It’ll only be the worse for you, I promise you!”

“And what will happen the next time you get into trouble?” Lisa drove herself to say.

For a second, Jacky looked frightened. Then she summoned up everything she had, and managed to laugh light-heartedly, saying, “You’re only trying to scare me, because you can’t get your own way for once.”

“Jacky, I warn you, if it happens again, I’m going to have to get medical help for you. I can’t go on. Meantime, I want those addresses!”

Someone knocked on the door. “Your escort’s here, Jacky!” they called.

Jacky gave a last look at herself in the glass, and snatched up her
fur cape and her purse. “That’s my boyfriend for tonight, until Master Derek gets over the sulks,” she said gaily to Lisa as she whisked out of the room.

Limp and dispirited, Lisa sat down again. She was back where she started, just because she had trusted Jacky.

She looked around the littered dressing room, and at the still-open velvet case. A little voice whispered
to her ...
a way out, a way to get Jacky under proper medical treatment and care and perhaps force her to give that vital information. All Lisa had to do was hide the brooch in its case, in this dressing room and inform the police. They would come for a search and take care of the rest.

But Lisa could not do it. Jacky was her sister, and she was as loyal to her as she had ever been, and she guessed that Jacky knew it. Jacky was confident that she had nothing to fear from Lisa; not even though the outcome might be in her best interests.

Lisa stood up tiredly and left the theater. She did not know what she could do now. There was nothing left, no one to whom she could turn for help and advice, no way of tracing the child’s parents, no way out at all.

She was just about to turn into the hospital gates when someone emerged from the shadows and spoke to her. It was the smartly
dressed woman who had been sitting beside her in the cafe.

“
‘
Christopher
’ is my little son—Michael Holland,” she said, her voice breaking. “Would—would you take me to him, please? I’ve decided to come forward on my own. I can’t stand it any longer—”

“Oh, Mrs. Holland, I’m so glad,” Lisa said, joy in her voice, as she took the woman’s hands in hers for an instant.

“I just tried to get his father on the telephone,
but ...
he wasn’t there, so they said.”

“Well, come up to the ward and see Sister.”

Lisa’s step was light, and she felt that half of her troubles had rolled away in one instant. Now she could face Randall Carson and not feel she had let him down.

At the door of the children’s ward, Lisa saw Sister sailing toward her, apron flying.

“Sister,” she said, finding it hard to keep her voice down in her excitement, “this is—‘Christopher’s’ mother, Mrs. Holland. His real name is Michael Holland.”

Lisa watched them go down the ward, to that little bed in the corner. Sister was as pleased as she was herself. Randall Carson, who was off duty, was sent for, and soon the hospital grapevine had the news that the child’s mother had been found.

Lisa went downstairs again. There was still half an hour before she need be in the residence. She stood outside in the little garden at the back of the hospital and sniffed the damp night air, drenched with the smell of late roses. Little Michael would live, she told herself. For the moment she wouldn’t let herself think of her other troubles.

Randall Carson came striding along the path. She knew his footsteps and her heart started its usual tattoo when he was near.

“Lisa!” he said, looking down at her. “I’ve just heard the news. So you found Christopher’s mother! I’m just going up to the ward. We have you to thank for saving that child’s life,” and to her astonishment, he drew her into his arms and stood holding her, his cheek against her forehead.

In less than a minute he had put her from him, but he was smiling, and he said, in what was for him an almost jubilant tone of voice, “Don’t go far—I’ll be down soon, and I want to talk to you!” She nodded, unable to speak, and watched him continue his way toward the lights of the rows of ward windows.

She walked slowly through the garden, and out into the road, where the usual evening traffic swished by. It all had a remote look. She was feeling dazed, not only from Randall’s unexpected caress, but because of the strain and excitement of the evening, and the fact that she had had very little food since lunch.

She had just decided to go back again and find a cup of tea till Randall Carson came downstairs, when one of the passing cars pulled up, and Derek Frenton got out.

“Lisa! I wondered if I would be able to see you—I was just debating giving you a ring on the phone. I must talk to you!” he said urgently.

She recalled that Jacky had been going out with someone else because Derek had the sulks, as she had put it.

“What about Derek? I have to go in soon.”

“Lisa, it’s about Jacky. She doesn’t know about us—”

“Yes, she does,” Lisa said. “I told her. She doesn’t mind, as I explained that you and I weren’t together again.”

“Why did you say that?”

“Because it’s true, Derek. I told you. There’s nothing left. We can’t recapture what we had at first. Besides, there’s someone else.”

Derek’s face flushed angrily. It was one thing to know that Lisa went out with other men. As he had said, he liked to feel that she was popular. It was quite another thing to be told by Lisa that she no longer wanted him. If anyone had to be jilted, it wasn’t going to be Derek Frenton.

“You’re just teasing me,” he said, managing to laugh. “Well, about the party, what time shall I call for you?”

“I’ve already told you, I’m not going, Derek.”

He followed her back into the garden. “It’s Lindon, I suppose. He isn’t the marrying kind, you know, but I
do
want to marry you, Lisa, don’t you understand?”

“Derek, your own father told me that you only took me back because he threatened to stop your allowance if you didn’t I couldn’t come back on those terms.”

“What a thing to say! It wasn’t because of you; it was because he doesn’t like Jacky that he threatened to stop my allowance.”

“It makes no difference, Derek,” she said wearily. “I just don’t want to be engaged to you, and—”

Before she could say any more, he had taken her into his arms and was kissing her madly, and only when footsteps came near and then turned away again did he let her go.

Lisa spun around in horror. “Oh, Derek, don’t you see what you’ve done? How could you!”

She was hardly aware of what he said. All she knew was that Randall Carson had hurried down to talk to her as he had said he would, and that he had seen her in Derek’s arms and gone away again.