by Pauline Ash
SEASIDE HOSPITAL
Pauline Ash
Lisa was troubled and Randall Carson wanted to help; but how could she burden him—of all people—with her terrible secret?
CHAPTER ONE
Casualty was almost empty after a really busy Monday, when they brought in the man who was to play such havoc in Lisa Bryant’s life.
But Lisa did not know that then. She was tired, and her cap was not quite straight, so that a lock of ash-blond hair peeped out, a thing that was forbidden at St. Mildred’s Hospital in Barnwell Bay. The rules and regulations were as stiff and old-fashioned as when the hospital was built, way back in the days of the oldest trustee’s grandfather.
Lisa caught Sister’s eye on her, so she started to hurry, taking the man to the last cubicle, where Randall Carson was already hovering impatiently in the doorway. It would have to be his duty today, Lisa thought wretchedly. Randall Carson was the most important—and the most short-tempered—surgeon at St. Mildred’s, and already that morning he had found fault with her three times.
The newest casualty was different from those of the long stream of vacationers who had been in that day. There had been casualties with cut feet from broken glass on the beach; people who had been caught by the tide; people from capsized boats. There had been cases of sickness from too much sun and from overeating; there had been the usual crowd of road accident victims, both pedestrians and passengers. And there had been local people, domestic casualties, casualties from shops and offices.
But this man was completely different. He was tall, well dressed, debonair, yet with a hard-bitten face and a bold stare that Lisa didn’t like. Underneath the charm he was extremely annoyed.
“It’s so stupid to take up the time of you people here!” he told Randall Carson. “I told the ambulance people I would go to my private doctor, but no; they insisted on bringing me to this hospital because it happened in the street, and that automatically made me a street accident.”
“And what exactly did happen?” Randall Carson asked patiently, looking with interest at the abrasion on the man’s head, and the dried blood on his arm, which was in a rough sling.
“I was getting out of my car outside the Royal Hotel when a workman up on the scaffolding next door dropped something, and it caught me on the head. I slipped and fell on my arm. The most stupid thing to have happened. What’s more, it has caused me to miss an important business appointment.”
Randall Carson ignored that and waited for Lisa to help the man with his jacket, which she noticed was of expensive cloth and cut. With every movement she made, she was conscious of the surgeon’s eyes on her. She wished he wouldn’t keep watching her. It almost made her do clumsy things. She tried to assess the thoughts going on behind that lean dark face of his and wondered what he was feeling behind those cold, slate-gray eyes. She supposed he was so efficient himself that he just hadn’t patience with anyone who hadn’t achieved his standard of perfection.
He deftly dressed the patient’s abrasion and examined the arm. An X-ray needed to be taken. Sister bustled Lisa off to help with a sick child, and Randall Carson was called to another cubicle as yet another ambulance case was brought in. For Lisa, just to be away from Randall Carson’s presence was a blessed respite, despite the close, sweltering heat that even the fans in the hospital did little to cool.
The man with his arm in a sling returned later to have it set in plaster, but Lisa was too busy to pay much attention to him. By then she was back working near Randall Carson, and she found she was holding her breath in case she made another mistake or forgot something else.
Finally, when it was almost time for her to go off duty, Lisa straightened up, and the letter crackled in her pocket—the letter from Derek, which had started all the trouble that day. Derek Frenton, son of a big local boat builder, after getting almost to the point of proposing to her, had written to say that he really thought it would be better for her if she didn’t tie herself to a lazy hound like him.
Although she had only received it that morning, Lisa knew, the letter by heart. “You and I have had lots of fun, Lisa darling,” Derek wrote, “but it came over me today that you adore hard work, or else you wouldn’t be so keen on staying at that hospital of yours until you qualify, marriage or no marriage. As for myself, I’ve never done a day’s work in my life, and a working wife would bore me as badly as I would bore her. I know you’ll be sensible about this, so let’s call it quits, shall we? Better this way, by letter, than an evening wasted in talking it over,” he finished.
Tears misted Lisa’s eyes. Derek was the one person whose gaiety could lift her away from the exhaustion of a hard day at St. Mildred’s; out of the depression she sometimes felt when a favorite patient wasn’t so well, or an old person or a child was brought in very ill. Derek sometimes said she wasn’t cut out to be a nurse because she cared so terribly about the people in those rows of beds.
And now it was all over. She pulled herself up sharp. She mustn’t let herself think about anything else but her work. But it was too late.
“Nurse Bryant,” Randall Carson’s voice cut in on her thoughts, “I’ve asked you twice to take this patient and her case papers over to X-ray. Ah, I see you’ve heard me at last. Might I be favored with a little attention?”
When Randall Carson reached the sarcastic stage, trouble was really brewing. She reddened to the roots of her hair and took the case papers from him, almost dropping them in her haste.
“And come back to me afterward,” he snapped, as she and the patient scuttled out of the cubicle.
As Lisa passed Sister Casualty’s table, she received a searching look. Sister had heard Randall Carson’s remarks. His voice was clear and strong and penetrated everywhere. She wondered why Randall Carson, normally such a fair man, should be just that much more critical about young Nurse Bryant than he was about any of the other nurses. Nurse Bryant was certainly an extremely good-looking girl, but she was keen on her work and rarely made mistakes with anyone else in charge. Making a mental note to speak to Lisa herself after she went off duty, Sister Casualty returned to her patients, and left Lisa to face the surgeon.
Randall Carson was standing with his back to the door when Lisa entered the end cubicle. She realized again how tall he was, and how forbidding he could look.
His hands were clasped behind him, and he was staring unseeingly out of the window. Some children were playing on the grass. All had leg dressings, splints, plaster casts. None of them seemed to be hampered by their injuries. Their shrill cries and laughter cut the air incongruously, and Lisa wondered if the sound would soften Randall Carson’s anger.
His first words, however, promptly dispelled any such notion, and Lisa’s heart sank.
“Nurse Bryant, do you really feel you made the right choice when you chose nursing as a career?”
“I don’t understand,” she stammered.
“Then I’ll explain,” Randall Carson said with elaborate patience. “Many times you have to be reminded that you’re in a hospital, with an important job to do. I myself often point out that you’ve made a mistake or forgotten something. I catch you daydreaming and generally behaving as if the job bored you rather than being one of absorbing interest.”
She flushed painfully. It should be Sister, she thought, or at the worst, Matron, talking to her like this, in the privacy of the office. He was being dreadfully unjust. Her faults were small ones. It wasn’t as if she had made a really big mistake, such as mixing drugs, administering the wrong tablets or anything awful like that!
“I am interested, very much interested in my job, sir. It’s always come first with me, and I’ve always felt like that about it,” she said, in a low voice.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said short
ly, with raised brows. “I don’t want to have to complain to anyone. I had no intention of doing so. In fact, I wanted to talk to you privately before doing anything at all about it, in case something is bothering you. When I first saw you, I thought you were one of those cut out to be a nurse, but your recent record doesn’t help, does it? At least, not as far as I’m concerned.”
She shot her head up in surprise. Those last few words of his summed it up in a nutshell. Not as far as he was concerned! That was the whole crux of the matter. He was one of those people who made her so nervous that her fingers felt as if they were all thumbs before she started, and her hands were shaking before she had been working with him for ten minutes.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, with the mechanical answer of all nurses.
“If there’s anything to account for it?” he began, and waited for her to offer some explanation in her own favor.
She looked up at him. His face looked as grim as before, but there was a look in his eyes that puzzled her. She was strongly tempted to tell him that she had things on her mind, but the thought fled as soon as it entered her head. How could you tell Randall Carson that you were worried about your young sister all the time, she thought, when you hadn’t heard from her for three years? Or that you had just been jilted, and that the letter was crackling in your pocket with every movement? Randall Carson would be the first to say that a good nurse put all personal thoughts and interests from her mind the minute she walked on to the wards.
Lisa licked her lips. “I’ll try not to be forgetful, sir,” she managed at last.
The puzzling look fled from his eyes, and he shrugged. “That doesn’t help much, does it? I was about to suggest that if there was something in your studies that was bothering you, I’d try and help you. If you don’t improve, I shall have to speak to Sister.”
Lisa escaped, and as she hurried off duty to go to lunch, she wondered how it would all end. She loved nursing, but since Randall Carson had started to notice her, she sometimes doubted if she would ever get through her examinations.
As she took her place in the dining room, her best friend, Mary Thorley, whispered to her: “What happened? I saw you go back to Carson—did he tell you off? What for?”
“Oh, the silliest things—you know what a flap I get into when he’s around,” Lisa said disgustedly. “He made a speech about being forgetful and daydreaming and asked if I thought I’d chosen the right profession.”
“What a nerve! What’s the matter with him?” Mary exploded. “He isn’t easy at the best of times, but I don’t think he’s ever picked on anyone the way he does you! I’ve been thinking—have you ever done anything to him to annoy him personally? You must have done something, Lisa, for him to single you out for all this attention.”
That was what Lisa herself was beginning to wonder, but she could think of nothing. “Never mind him,” she said. “Mary, do you mind if we call off our trip to the movie this afternoon?”
“All right. I could do with some time to wash my hair, come to think of it,” Mary said good-naturedly. “Have you just remembered a date with the handsome Derek or something?”
Lisa flushed painfully. “Actually no, he’s ... well it’s all over.”
“No!” Mary exclaimed. “I don’t believe it!”
“It’s probably for the best,” Lisa said valiantly, her chin going up. “I don’t think I would ever have managed to please his mother.”
“Did he say that?” Mary demanded. “When did you hear from him?”
“This morning. A letter,” Lisa said, in a choked voice. “No, he didn’t actually say so, but I expect that was at the back of it.”
Mary was furious. “I never did like Lady Frenton. Whenever she comes to this hospital for committees and things, I get an itch to throw something or say something rude. But I confess I never thought she’d manage to influence Derek into throwing you over. I’ve always thought he was the type to please himself. What hard luck, Lisa. Never mind, if he can’t manage his own life without his mother running it for him, he’d have been no good to you. Your marriage would have been awful.”
Lisa nodded. It wasn’t mother trouble, she was sure. Derek was too headstrong to let his mother unduly interfere, although it was well known that Lady Frenton was a social climber, and had ambitions for her son to marry into one of the county families. Sir Jules Frenton was the owner of the big yacht-building concern outside Barnwell Bay, but he had been just a poor local boat builder before success and his title came.
All Lisa wanted was to get away to her room and think. It was useless to say that Derek would have been the wrong partner for her. He would, by his absence, make such a hole in her life that she didn’t know how she would ever get used to being without him. She had always been the quiet one, and Derek had been her first and only boyfriend.
Lisa tried to concentrate on the most unpopular lunch of the week—mutton stew and lumpy tapioca—but Mary was busily thinking all around the subject.
“And that was why you got into hot water with Randall Carson! Good heavens, why didn’t you tell him you couldn’t keep your mind on your work because you’d just been jilted? I would have!”
“Oh, Mary, what good would that have done?” Lisa protested. “He’d have been even more angry and delivered a lecture on keeping one’s mind off one’s private life in hospital hours; you know he would!”
“Well, I think you ought to go to the movies with me. You’ll only mope about in your room, crying yourself sick over that Derek!” Lunch was finished at last, and they left the dining hall amid a general scraping back of chairs. On the way past the porter’s desk Mary stopped to look for messages and mail and returned with a letter for Lisa.
The mere sight of that sprawling handwriting confirmed Lisa’s worst fears. It was from her sister Jacky, and it was postmarked Barnwell Bay. Lisa’s heart started to hammer. First she had received the letter from Derek, and now this one—the one she had been dreading!
With trembling fingers she opened it, wondering what new scrape Jacky was in, for that was what any communication from her meant. Two pieces of thin pasteboard fell out, but all Lisa was interested in was the note from her sister. It was Mary who stooped to pick them up.
“Here, look at this—two complimentary tickets for that new show at the Coronet Theatre next Saturday!” she exclaimed, her eyes dancing. “You see—something nice always happens after a nasty patch.”
“You can have them. I don’t want to go,” Lisa said, her attention wholly on Jacky’s letter.
“Lisa darling,” Jacky had written, “here I am, turning up again like a bad penny, after three whole years. What bliss it must have been for you, not to have me to worry about. But your peace is shattered, honey, for here I am, and I’m in a bit of a mess, a real mess this time, actually. Could you come to my dressing room this afternoon at three? I need your help, really I do!”
There was more on the other side of the page, but Mary was protesting that she couldn’t take Lisa’s tickets.
“It’s all right, they’re from my sister. She’s in the show,” Lisa explained.
“I didn’t know you had a sister on the stage.”
“She wants me to see her this afternoon,” Lisa said, folding the letter up, the rest unread. “I wonder how long she’s been here?”
“You must go and see the show on Saturday,” Mary said firmly, “if only because your sister’s in it. Stop looking so miserable. It will do you good.”
Lisa nodded absently. All her worst fears that Jacky would turn up again were now realized ... and at a time like this.
“All right, perhaps I will. Sure you don’t mind about this afternoon?”
“Not if you promise to introduce me to your sister. How thrilling to have a relation on the stage!”
As they parted at the doors of their little rooms in the nurse’s residence, Lisa couldn’t help feeling that the romantic Mary wouldn’t have found the prospect of Jacky as a sister a very thrilling thing.<
br />
Lisa had three hours off. Strictly speaking, she should study and go for what Home Sister called a “healthful walk”—to come back refreshed for her next spell of duty. Few of the nurses did that, however. The town had too many attractions for their limited spare time.
Barnwell Bay had a charm of its own, Lisa often thought. It was still a small seaside resort, happily prevented from growing larger because of its natural shape, the town nestling at the back of a deep bay, terminating in two arms of towering cliffs, which crumbled at an alarming rate each year. And so the town stayed very much as it had always been, with its Regency houses, its scattering of hotels, its theater and three cinemas, and its nice little rows of shops; all very compact and comfortable. At the back of the town, St. Mildred’s Hospital still served the whole district with faith and efficiency, but stayed quietly old-fashioned with regard to uniforms and rules.
The tide was out, and Lisa stopped to eat an ice cream sundae under an awning outside the new ice cream parlor, before going to the Coronet Theatre. She pulled out the note again and speculated on what the trouble could be this time. For as long as she could remember, she had been getting Jacky out of scrapes of one kind or another, but the silence of three years had made her begin to wonder if her sister were at last settling down. The note from Jacky dashed these hopes to the ground.
“You always were the strong one of the family,” her sister had written on the back of the letter, “weren’t you, and you can’t blame me if I lean on you a bit. Besides, I’ve been good for a long time now, and it couldn’t last forever.”
How typical of Jacky to write like that, knowing full well that Lisa would at once revive the old gnawing anxiety about her younger sister that had always been there when they were living together at Aunt Agatha’s. Poor, long-suffering Aunt Agatha, who had brought the girls up, always said that in spite of her efforts the sisters were cut out in the pattern that providence had decided on; one to have the fun and the other to do the worrying. And how like Jacky to discover where Lisa could be found and jump dramatically into her life again.