Seaside Hospital (9 page)

“I see,” Sir Jules murmured, thinking. “Well, I’m glad you’ve had the sense to drop that dancer and go back to Lisa.”

“For goodness’ sake, Dad, don’t let Lisa know I told you it was she who found the clip!” were Derek’s parting words, as his father allowed him to go.

Sir Jules, however, had not finished with the subject. “I’ll see young Lisa about it,” he told his wife, “and I’ll get to the bottom of what happened to that clip of yours if it takes forever!”

Sir Jules tackled Lisa about the clip, in the privacy of his study. “Now don’t be a silly girl,” he said, in a friendly tone. “Of course Derek told me about it, and of course you must have the Reward. I never heard such rubbish. You, of all people, should have it, my dear. I’m very glad my son has seen eye to eye with me at last!”

“He promised he wouldn’t tell!” Lisa flared.

“He does as I tell him,” Sir Jules chuckled, “because he doesn’t like being without money. When I said I wanted the truth, out it came. Now, my dear, where did you find it?”

“Sir Jules, I’m not like your son—I don’t care about money, so don’t expect me to answer your question. I don’t want the reward. I returned the clip, and as far as I’m concerned, the matter’s at an end.”

Sir Jules glared at her. He hated being opposed, but he liked Lisa very much. She was like him in some ways: proud, a girl who made up her mind and stuck to it, a girl who was afraid of neither hard work nor telling the truth. “I suppose that means you’re shielding someone else,” he said shrewdly.

As she flushed to the roots of her hair, he nodded.

“I didn’t say so, Sir Jules,” she protested, “and it isn’t fair to go on like this at me. But since we’re being so candid, let me tell you something. I didn’t want to come back to Derek, but as he promised to return the clip secretly for me, I couldn’t very well do otherwise. But he didn’t keep his word, and if he breaks it once, he’ll do it again, so I don’t feel bound to go out with him any more. I shall tell him so to his face, too!”

“Little spitfire,” Sir Jules chuckled, with real affection in his voice. “So that’s how it happened. Oh well, I suppose I asked for it, threatening to cut off his money if he didn’t get you back.”

“
What?
I didn’t know that,” Lisa exclaimed.

Sir Jules frowned. “I shouldn’t have let that out,” he said ruefully. “Oh well, you know me—blunt and forthright. All the same, I wish you would stay with the boy. You’d be good for him, and I—well, I like you. You’re the girl I’d pick for my daughter-in
-
law, if I had my way.”

“I’m sorry,” Lisa said unhappily. “I like you, too, Sir Jules, but I couldn’t go on like that, not the way I feel about Derek now.”

“But I thought you were so keen on him at first!”

“I was, at first,” Lisa agreed, avoiding his eyes.

“What happened, lass?” he asked softly, and when Lisa did not reply, he said disconcertingly, “Left you for this dancer, I suppose, and now he sees the mistake he’s made, he wants to come back, eh? I can see by your face that it’s true. And you don’t feel inclined. I can understand that. You won’t be pushed the way you don’t want to go.”

It wasn’t that. Lisa faced the truth and did not like it. If it had been only Derek, she might have taken him back. Once, he had meant everything to her. It was Randall Carson who had changed everything; Randall Carson, who picked on her but who had the grace
to apologize; Randall Carson, who never did a mean or dishonest thing, and who gave generously of himself and never asked of other people what he would not be prepared to do himself. He was a
man,
and beside him, the frivolous, unreliable Derek did not shape up well.

She shook her head despairingly.

Sir Jules patted her hand. “I understand, my dear, but don’t be in a hurry. Make the lad dance to your tune for a change. It’ll do him good. Meantime,” he said, on a changed note, “what about the person you’re shielding? We haven’t forgotten that, you know. How about unloading on me, eh? You trust me, don’t you, Lisa, lass?” he urged, in a tone that tempted her to confide. “Well, why not tell me all about it?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lisa stared at him, wide-eyed. What should she do? It was an overwhelming temptation to unload her troubles onto Derek’s father, but in the first place, he did not like Jacky and did not know that she was Lisa’s sister. She could scarcely expect sympathy or even help from him on that score alone.

“You don’t understand,” she whispered.

“Perhaps I understand more than you think, lass,” he said softly. “I had to work hard when I was young, and I was the sort of mug who carried the can for other people. If it’s your nature to help folks and to be loyal into the bargain, it’s never very easy, and it seems at the time that you get more kicks than ha’pence.”

She flashed him a grateful look. “All right, then, I’ll admit I’m shielding someone, but don’t ask me to tell you who—you wouldn’t do that yourself, would you, if you were in my place?”

“No, I’ll not say I’d let on, at that,” he said slowly. “But there’s this about it. Someone’s stolen something. Oh, aye, I know it was brought back—by you—but did you really find it, or did you take it off that party, or what? They ought to be punished, see? They can’t be allowed to get away with it. Then there’s the other aspect that I’ve got to warn you about: the police call it being an accessory, if you’re in on something, even if you did persuade the other party to give it up, you know what they’re up to, and they might do it again, and you’re shielding ’em. See what I mean?”

Lisa leaned forward, a little pulse throbbing in her throat. “But you don’t understand. That’s the case with an ordinary thief. But supposing the person is—well, suffering from kleptomania?”

Sir Jules frowned and looked really worried.

“That’s not so good, either. You’re a nurse, you know the ins and outs of that! I’m only a layman, but I could tell you of a case or tw
o
I’ve read about in the papers—right hot onto ’em, the authorities are. Make’em go and get themselves seen to, psychiatrists and all that. Why, I even read in the papers of a kleptomania case that was put through a brain operation. It’s to help them, Lisa, don’t you see?”

She clenched her hands. He looked kind but unmoved. He believed she was wrong, and even allowing for liking her as much as he did, he would force her, in the end, to divulge Jacky’s name. She could see that.

And then the door opened, and Lady Frenton entered. “Sorry, Jules, but—oh, I thought you were engaged,” she said, looking at Lisa with no great liking.

“Well, I am what you call engaged,” he said bluntly. “However, now you’re here, Annabel, what is it?”

She went pink. She knew that her husband had always cherished a liking for Lisa Bryant, and part of her own toleration of Jacky was because Derek’s taking up with the dancer had meant that Lisa had been pushed out. Now the girl was back again, and closeted away in the study having private talks with her husband! “I’ll talk to you about it later, Jules,” she said.

Lisa rose hurriedly to her feet. “Oh, please don’t let me disturb you, Lady Frenton. I was going, anyway. I’ve only got another hour. Thank you for your help, Sir Jules. I’ll think over what you said.”

Regretfully, Sir Jules watched her go. “A pity you had to come in then, Annabel,” he grumbled. “That girl was just going to disclose something that might have helped find the person who took your clip. She’s shielding someone.”

Lady Frenton snorted. “So that’s her story! Well, it’s as good a story as any, I suppose. You can’t prove or disprove it. At least, I’m not sure
...
what I came in to speak to you about was Gwen’s insistence that a nurse came into the house on the day of the party. Gwen’s just come to tell me she’s recognized her today—the girl Derek brought home for the afternoon.”

“You mean Lisa herself?” Sir Jules asked incredulously.

“Exactly, Lisa herself.”

The talk with Sir Jules had disturbed Lisa very much. He was not the first person to insist on warning her that a person suffering from kleptomania needed medical help.

When she got back, a sealed envelope was waiting for her. It had come by hand.

She discovered it was a brief note from Ellard.

“I keep forgetting—I simply must repay you the cash you trotted out from your hard-earned savings to redeem my cigarette case. Not for my benefit, I’m well aware, but as always to save the worthless skin of that sister of yours. Here it is, Lisa, my dear, every cent of it, in convenient notes. I’m sure you can do with it. And don’t dare return it to me nor argue about it when we next meet—which will be soon,
won’t it
?”

Lisa was glad of the return of her savings, but felt that the underlining of the last two words spoiled an otherwise friendly letter and somehow constituted the hint of a threat.

She sighed and put the cash into her handbag. She had almost made up her mind to go straight to the Post Office and put it in her savings account when she recalled that she had promised to go for dinner and dancing with Randall Carson. She recoiled from the idea of wearing the amber dress, lovely as it was, because of its associations with Ellard on the night Randall saw her there with him. She decided to spend some of the money on a new dress.

As she had not yet told Mary about her proposed date with Randall Carson, she decided to do her shopping alone. She went on a day when Mary was taking the bus home to her parents and merely said she had some shopping to do.

Mary was so thrilled by her own news that she forgot to ask Lisa why she was taking a bus to Chertonbury, when they usually shopped locally.

“Remember Jerry, the tall medical student? He’s asked me out for a show and supper afterward next Saturday. How’s that for fast work? You must help me choose something really nice to wear, Lisa. I’m going to work on my father this afternoon, to foot the bill.”

Feeling miserable, Lisa watched her friend ride away. They had always shared everything. This was different. As she chose her new dress, in one of the big stores in Chertonbury, she reflected that she dared not let Mary know beforehand or the hospital grapevine would know all about her date with Randall Carson before it even happened. Yet as Lisa tried on the soft gray blue dress, which brought out the color of her eyes, and spent the rest of her money on matching kid shoes and purse, and blue jacket
lined with short gray fur, she realized that part of the pleasure was missing, in not sharing all this with Mary.

Mary’s father made her a present of a fur coat to go with her new dress, and until the Saturday came, Mary could think of nothing else. Lisa knew that she was to go out with Randall Carson that night, and her feelings were mixed. The only thing about it that she was thankful for was that Mary left earlier than she did, with her friend Jerry
.

Randall Carson was in full evening dress, as he had been on that other occasion. As Lisa got in his car, he put on the lights and flashed a quick glance at her.

“Blue suits you,” he said briefly, when she was settled, but as he put the light off, she noticed that his face was less grim, and she guessed rightly that he had been really looking to see if she was in the amber dress.

She wished, as they went up the broad flight of shallow steps into the Gloucester Hotel in Chertonbury, that he had chosen some other hotel. This one, she knew, was frequented quite often by Ellard, and was more to Ellard’s taste than Randall Carson’s, she thought with surprise.

But once seated at the table, with Randall smiling across the bowl of low purple flowers at her, she felt happy again. It was so bright and gay.

Randall chose the meal and the wine; then he looked at her as if she were the one woman he wanted facing him.

Her dress was held up with shoulder straps of silver leaves, so she had bought some more to fix, coronet-fashion, round the plaited bun on the top of her head. He noticed that.

“I ...
like long hair very much,” was all he said, yet the tone made her glow with pleasure.

Jerry and Mary came to the Gloucester for supper after the show. Jerry said, “Hang the expense, this is my birthday!” and he had marched her straight to the bar. On the way back to the restaurant, they looked in at the dancing.

“Do you see what I see?” Mary gasped. “Surely that isn’t our Randall Carson, dancing with the woman in blue? What’s the matter with him? He looks as if—”

“He looks as if she’s knocked him for six. Ever see a man in love before?” Jerry murmured; then laughing a little, he muttered, “Fancy old Carson getting taken like that. Can’t see her face—oh yes, they’re turning this way.”

As Randall and Lisa reversed, they caught sight of her face. Lisa didn’t know they were there. She was dancing with her eyes closed, transported in a blissful dream, from which she did not want to wake.

“Lisa!” Mary whispered, and looked doubtfully at Jerry. “She never mentioned her date!” she muttered, looking very hurt.

They were gone by the time Randall and Lisa stopped dancing and returned to their table. A bland voice cut into their thoughts, startling them.

“Good evening, Lisa. I wasn’t expecting you here tonight,” Ellard Lindon said, a mocking smile on his face.

Randall Carson rose to his feet, his face set.

Lisa, flustered, began to make hurried introductions, but Randall interrupted her.

“We’ve met,” he said curtly. “How’s the arm, Lindon?”

That, of course, spoiled the whole evening. Ellard did not stay long at their table, but it was too long for either of them to repair the damage afterward. They were both relieved when Lisa said she had a headache and wanted to go back to the hospital.

Later, looking back on the evening, Lisa felt she must have imagined that she and Randall Carson had been close, even for a moment.

She recalled, with a fresh gust of anger, the way he had looked after Ellard had gone.

“How did you come to know that fellow?” he had asked brusquely. “Everyone knows his type!”

“I don’t see—” Lisa began frostily, because Randall’s manner had become the hectoring one she knew from experience.

“All right, I know it's no concern of mine,” he had put in swiftly. “I just wanted to make sure you knew what he was like,” and after that, he had been cold and unfriendly.

“He’s merely an acquaintance—” Lisa had tried to explain, unwilling to have the evening completely ruined.

“Please don’t try and explain now,” Randall had said.

Next day everything seemed to go wrong. Mary was a little strange in her manner, but as Lisa was late, having overslept after a restless night, she hardly noticed it at first. Later, when she tackled Mary about what was wrong, Mary said, in a rather offended voice, “Well, I did tell you about Jerry, didn’t I?” and would not explain any further.

In the press of other things, Lisa dismissed the matter, but later, when she stood by the bedside of the still little form of Christopher, she recalled that she had promised to make some inquiries about him, and with the memory of Randall Carson came the thought of Mary’s odd manner that morning.

Later, as she hurried to another ward to find Sister, she passed Jerry, who rolled his eyes, and with the candor of the medical student, he leaned forward and said in a stage whisper, “My hat off to you, fair lady, for humanizing the Old Man! Whew-ew! I saw him last night! He was treading on clouds with you!”

Lisa flushed painfully and hurried on, guessing the rest. So that was it. Jerry and Mary must have seen them, at some time during their evening out together, and now it would soon be all over the hospital. Considering the way she and Randall had parted company, it was beyond thinking about.

Unwilling to face Mary so soon, Lisa hurried out of the hospital to spend her free time on the task Randall had assigned to her. In her trim nurse’s uniform, she called at as many shops and booths near the scene of the accident as she could. It was near the pierhead that she ran into Ellard, his hat pulled down at a rakish angle, taking a stroll along the promenade. His face darkened as he saw her.

“Lisa! Just the one I want to see,” he said at once.

“Not now, Ellard, I’m on hospital business.”

“Well, that’s a new one! You do think up some good excuses for avoiding me, don’t you, my dear?”

“It isn’t an excuse, but all right, I’ll spare you five minutes,” she said, aware that her feet were aching. “If you must know, I’ve been inquiring about the parents of a little auburn-haired boy who was knocked down along here a few days ago. We can’t trace anyone who was with him.”

“Good heavens, do they give you those jobs to do too? What are the police for?” he exploded.

“People don’t always confide in the police,” she said quietly and surprised a strange look in his face. “What did you want to see me for, Ellard?”

“Need you ask?” he returned coolly. “You’ve been putting off seeing me again, and then I find you with that stuffed shirt of a surgeon at the Gloucester. What’s the idea?”

Lisa was normally very sweet-tempered, but Ellard had already angered her by spoiling her cherished evening and making things awkward and miserable between Randall and herself. Throwing caution to the winds, she said crisply, “All right, you hold certain information that you tell me could make things uncomfortable for my sister Jacky, but that doesn’t mean that you control my life, Ellard! If I want to go out with anyone else meantime, that’s my affair. Please don’t butt in like that again!”

First surprise, then amusement, fled over his battered face, and finally he threw back his head and laughed. “All right, Lisa, you win! You infuriate me, you drive me crazy with longing, but you keep me amused, and I never know what’s coming next! What more can a man ask in his girlfriend?”

They had been sitting on a seat where the promenade jutted out in a deep bay. A secluded seat, screened off from the winds by glass paneling and a high clipped hedge.

Now he stood up, pulling Lisa to her feet, and before she was aware of what he was about to do, he dropped a light kiss on the tip of her nose.

“Don’t forget me altogether, that’s all I ask,” he said laughing; then his eyes narrowed. “Lisa, do yourself a favor, while you’re about it, and drop this searching business.”

“What do you mean, Ellard?” she asked indignantly. “I can’t—it’s part of my job.”

“Oh, be your age, my dear. Turn it in. Tell them you’ve tried—just how many inquiries have you made?”

“Quite a lot, but I haven’t finished.”

“Forget it, Lisa,” he repeated. “Or you might discover something that hits you personally.”

Ellard had just warned her off resuming her inquiries; everything in her revolted at being warned off, by him, but she had no idea where to go next. She had indignantly told him that she had not finished, but the truth was that her inquiries were exhausted, and if she couldn’t find another person likely to help her, it would look as if she had allowed Ellard to frighten her off.

Simeon! The old boatman flashed into her mind as the one likely person to have seen the child. She went at once to his end of the town.

Once there, she was astonished to find Randall’s car parked in the same place as he had left it on the night of the disastrous fishing trip. But this time he had a different passenger—Thalia. Lisa saw Thalia raise her tear-stained young face appealingly to Randall’s. Lisa’s soft shoes made no sound. The couple in the car were completely unaware that she had seen them, but to Lisa there was no mistaking that scene. Randall Carson was looking down earnestly into Thalia’s face, intent, tender.

Lisa swallowed the lump in her throat and quietly went back the way she had come. She managed to see Simeon, who had not made her any happier.

“Yes, I’ve seen the little lad, m’dear,” he had said at once. “Playing about on his little trike, he was, just about half an hour before it happened, I’d say. I was plying the coast, along there by the bandstand. I know who could help you. Someone sitting there watching the little ’un. Couldn’t miss her—that dancer at the Coronet. Always to be seen sitting about, letting folks look at her, she is!”

Jacky.
Lisa’s heart had lurched as he had said it. Simeon didn’t know that Jacky was her sister, and she felt she didn’t want him to know.

“Was the little boy alone at the time, Simeon,” she had asked swiftly, “or couldn’t you see that much?”

“Oh, aye, I could see it all,” Simeon had assured her. “Wasn’t much fish about, so I thought I’d try some trips round the point. Had me glass out, watching the crowds. There was this here little ’un, couldn’t miss him with his carroty hair, and there was a woman, smart-like, and her had carroty hair, too. I used to like redheads in me prime, lass,” he finished, chuckling. “There was this here dancer, seen her pictures everywhere, and come on my boat on trips in as daring a trouser suit as I ever set eyes on in Barnwell Bay before, and there was a man, city type, I’d say, striped trousers and all. Go and see this here Jacqueline, m’dear, she’d be knowing more than me, her being set there like.”

And so Lisa made her way back up the cliff steps to the town, to the theater, to see Jacky, and as she went, she remembered Ellard’s words of warning. “Forget it, Lisa, or you might discover something that hits you personally,” he had said.