Seaside Hospital

by Pauline Ash

  Lisa returned to where Jacky was sobbing hysterically. “I’m here—it’s all right, Jacky,” she said soothingly. “Where is your flashlight?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t know!” Jacky cried wildly. “Get me free! I must get away before the police come!”

  Lisa groped around in the darkness, and found it. When she switched it on, her heart lurched in relief. Jacky was certainly imprisoned, but as Lisa’s hands feverishly tore away the rocks, she could see that very little damage was done to Jacky’s foot.

  “There, now you’re free. Take it easy, and let me examine it. No, no bones broken. Hurts there, does it? I think you’re going to be badly bruised, and you’ll have to rest—”

  “How on earth can I rest?” Jacky flared, pushing her sister away. “Where can I rest? Don’t you understand? Derek’s father planted a trap—fake jewelry left lying about, and marked at that! I tell you, I’ve got to get away!”

  “All right, can you put your weight on that foot?” Lisa asked, in a practical voice.

  Jacky tried and winced, crying out.

  “I thought so. You see? We’ll just have to wait for the ambulance, and that might be some time. Now, sit down. I want to talk to you.”

  Jacky sullenly obeyed, all the fight going out of her.

  “Jacky, you’re not going to run away,” Lisa said firmly. “There’s to be no more covering up for you, and no more of your taking what doesn’t belong to you.”

  “I tell you, I can’t help it!” Jacky said, her voice rising again.

  “I know that,” Lisa said gently. “And so we’re going to do something to stop your hands from doing it. We’re going to take you to a man who is specially good at helping people like you.”

  Jacky listened, appalled. “I won’t go and be messed about with! I won’t, I won’t. I won’t go into hospital or be put on a couch and asked a lot of questions. How can you try to make me? You—you who say you care for me so much that you’ll get me out of any trouble! Why, you don’t care for me at all. You hate me, you know you do! Jealous of me, that’s what you are! You’re just like everyone else!” she sobbed. “Nobody loves me!”

  “Jacky, stop it! Quit being sorry for yourself!”

  Lisa got up and went to the mouth of the cave. This had happened so many times before. She must have patience.

  “I suppose dear Ellard did go and telephone for an ambulance?” Jacky said bitterly. “What made you believe he’d do that, I can’t think. He never did anything for anyone else unless there was something in it for himself.”

  “He helped you, didn’t he?” Lisa protested.

  “What’s that got to do with it? He helped me because I accidentally found out what he was doing,” Jacky said calmly, “and threatened to see that it became known if he didn’t.”

  “But he said he had letters from you telling him about things you’d taken!” Lisa gasped, coming back.

  Jacky was shocked into silence for a minute, and then she started to laugh. “Did he really take you in like that? Of course there weren’t any letters. Don’t you know me better than to think I would confess on paper?”

  “You mean you didn’t? There were no letters? Then why did he force me to go out with him?”

  Jacky pulled herself up and hobbled over to where Lisa stood. “Aren’t you simple?” she marvelled, staring into her sister’s face. “You’re different from other girls he knew, that’s why. So unsophisticated, so quiet. But I wonder how long it would have lasted before the novelty wore off.”

  “But you seemed afraid of Ellard,” Lisa pointed out, still mystified.

  “Did I? Well, I had to put on some sort of act to get you to help me out, because I didn’t happen to want Ellard’s company at that time. Oh, Lisa, don’t you ever work people to your own ends?” she finished impatiently. “You can’t be all that good!”

  Ignoring Jacky’s remark, Lisa said briskly, “Look, we can’t wait here all night. Give me that flashlight. I expect the beach is under water by now. The only way out is up the cliff face.”

  “Oh, be your age,” Jacky begged. “You know how these cliffs crumble. It would be asking for trouble to try and climb them.”

  “Well, I’m going to try.” Lisa leaned out of the cave opening. “Yes, the water’s up. That’s funny, there’s lights down there. Here, take this light, Jacky. That’ll free my hands to hang on.”

  “What are you going to do?” Jacky asked, alarmed.

  “If I can just get around this jutting bit of rock, I ought to be able to get a better view.”

  “Well, don’t do anything stupid. Perhaps it’s the ambulance—maybe Ellard did phone after all. Try shouting.”

  Again and again Lisa shouted, but the lights began to move away.

  “It’s no good. I’ll have to try to climb up,” Lisa said and began to move. There was a sudden scuffle of broken rock as the cliff face began to crumble. Jacky’s screams mingled with Lisa’s cry as she fell.

  Horror filled Jacky. Scream after scream was torn from her throat as she stared down into the inky, foaming water dashing itself on the rocks. Lisa was down there, and Jacky was now alone.

  Randall Carson watched the police car ahead of him; he saw it brake, then suddenly stop. Entrapped in the beam of its headlights was the crimson car, pulled up on one side of the road, high on the grass, empty and in darkness.

  Instinctively he drove past as if he had been bound for the secondary road that ran winding along the clifftops. In his stomach was a sick feeling. Where had Ellard gone? Where had he taken Lisa? What would the police do when they found them?

  He pulled his own car off the road, turned off the lights and strolled across the clifftop. Laying flat on his face at the cliff edge, he looked down at the beach, to see where the police were. Lights bobbed and glinted on the incoming tide.

  Lights steadily approaching in from the water suggested a boat, which complicated things. Was that incidental, or had they decided to take a boat after all?

  He got up, deciding that he, too, must get down to the beach. As he stood up, someone broke cover from the gorse bushes and started to run furtively back toward the woods.

  Randall called out, heading him off, and after a brief struggle, held the man pinned to the ground. It was then he saw that it was Ellard Lindon.

  “Let me go; I’m in a hurry!” Lindon snarled.

  “Where is Lisa?” Randall thundered.

  Lindon did some quick thinking. “Down there in a cave,” he said at last. “She’s hurt. I was going to call the ambulance.”

  Randall did as Ellard thought he would—he let go of him, and Ellard escaped into the darkness.

  Randall rushed back to where the police were now returning unsuccessfully from their search of the beach. There was one thought only in his mind, as Ellard had intended: Lisa was down there, hurt.

  “I’m a doctor. I’ve just been told there’s someone hurt down there in the caves,” he said crisply, and described how he had run into Ellard Lindon on the clifftop.

  The police broke into action. The car went off to the airfield, with the promise that radio message for help would be sent at once. The rest of them went down to the beach with Randall.

  As they got to the last strip of uncovered sand, Jacky’s screams cut the night.

  Roses were the first sight Lisa set eyes on as she regained consciousness. They were in a blue bowl on a locker by her bed. After a while she recognized the room as a familiar one: one of the small side wards kept for the staff, back at St. Mildred’s.

  “Easy now,” a nurse said. “You were knocked out when you fell in the water and struck your head on the rocks. You’ve been out for long enough. I’m to fetch Sister the minute you come to.”

  “What for?” Lisa asked blankly, trying to think. The memory of being in the cave with Jacky flooded back. As she recalled the rocks beneath her feet giving way, and that dreadful fall, a pain stabbed through her head, and her exploring fingers found a bandage around it.

&nbs
p; No visitors were allowed yet, but Mary wangled permission to slip in and see her. “How are you, Lisa? Can you stand hearing about my engagement?”

  Lisa’s face lit with pleasure. “You and Jerry?”

  “Yes, and I’m leaving. I’d rather throw it all up than find I’ve failed my finals. Anyway, I expect you’ll be leaving to be married soon, won’t you, Lisa?”

  “Me?” Lisa asked blankly.

  “Well, honey, even you can’t be in any doubt about the way Randall Carson feels about you now, after he got himself all cut and bruised trying to rescue you!”

  “But he wasn’t even there!” Lisa protested.

  “Oh yes, he was!” Mary chortled. “Everyone’s talking about it. He intercepted Ellard Lindon on the cliffs. He was attempting to escape by plane, and the police stopped him. It seems they were after him anyway because he was mixed up in smuggling. Then someone was screaming her head off in a cave. It turned out to be your sister, watching you fall into the sea.”

  “I was trying to climb up the cliffs.”

  “Well, she thought you were going to drown before her eyes, so they say. She said she couldn’t face it, so she dived in and held you up—”

  “Jacky saved my life?” Lisa murmured, trying to fit this new fact in, and failing. Jacky had never lifted a finger to help anyone. That she should dive into that boiling sea and hold Lisa up until help came from the boats made the most amazing story.

  “Yes, and although the police told your Randall that he wasn’t to risk his precious neck, him being a doctor and all that, he did anyway and got to you both first, before the boats could close in.”

  Lisa smiled, a happy smile curling the corners of her lovely mouth. “Where’s Jacky now?”

  “Oh. Oh, aren’t I silly? I wasn’t supposed to tell you all that. I might have known you’d ask where she was.”

  “Well, where is she? Is she—all right?”

  “Oh, yes, she was rescued all right, but she—well, I’m not able to tell you. I mean, someone else is going to tell you. Gosh, I’d better get moving before he comes!”

  “You mean ... Mr. Carson?” Lisa asked. “Where is he now?”

  “Actually, he’s clearing up to take the holiday that’s due to him,” Mary said, looking at her watch. “I must go now. Take care of yourself.”

  “I’ve just remembered Michael Holland. How is he?” Lisa asked suddenly.

  “Oh, that reminds me. His mother’s been asking for you. Do you feel up to having her visit for a few minutes?”

  “Yes, I’d love to see her,” Lisa said eagerly.

  “Right, I’ll fetch her now,” Mary said, jumping up.

  “Are you sure,” Mrs. Holland asked anxiously, as Mary brought her from the waiting room, “that I haven’t shortened your own visit to Nurse Bryant?”

  “No, I’m glad—I mean, she was asking me things I couldn’t answer, secrets, you know, so I escaped to fetch you. Come on, I’ll take you up to her, but it’s only for a few minutes, mind.”

  “Yes, I won’t tire her. I just want to thank her for all she’s done for us,” Mrs. Holland said.

  As Mary showed her in and left them, Lisa was struck by the change in her. Mrs. Holland looked much younger. Her former tenseness and strain was replaced by a new happy look.

  “Sit down, Mrs. Holland, and tell me about Michael,” Lisa said. “I’m longing to hear how he is.”

  “He’s well on the mend, now that his daddy sits by the bedside with me. Everything’s changed for us. His mother has fallen in love with Michael—and,” she added shyly, “she seems to like her daughter-in-law after all. The publicity rather forced things, of course, but now his daddy is very glad, and so am I.”

  “I’m so glad,” Lisa said simply. “If I hadn’t managed to find you, I don’t know what I should have done.”

  “I hope you don’t take all your patients’ troubles to heart like this,” Mrs. Holland smiled.

  “Is that what I do?” Lisa asked wonderingly.

  “Yes. I used to watch you go in and out of the hospital, and I used to think how young you were to have such a load of trouble on your shoulders. Now I begin to see how it is.”

  She said goodbye soon after that, but when she had gone, Lisa closed her eyes and reflected that she would never be a real asset as a nurse; she couldn’t help worrying about the patients.

  Randall Carson came in while her eyes were closed. He bent over the bed, and dropped a light kiss on her forehead. “What did you expect me to be? A casualty?” he laughed.

  “Well, they said you dove into the water and got badly cut and bruised.”

  “Oh, rubbish, it was nothing. Now, young woman, how are you? What have you got to say for yourself?”

  “Randall, I’m all right, but what about my sister?”

  “Jacky,” he said, in a sober voice. “Yes, that young woman has been a fly in the ointment long enough. Well, you know something had to be done about her. Oh, no, don’t look alarmed. Now I know all the facts, the whole case is rather different.”

  “But you kept saying that the thief—the police...”

  “Don’t get excited, my dear, or I shall go," he said firmly. “Jacky tells me that no charge of theft has been made by anyone, and that everything she took has been returned.”

  “Yes, oh yes,” Lisa said vehemently.

  “Now all we have to worry about is getting her helped so that she won’t want to take things in the future. And that’s what I’ve been doing while you’ve been out for the count. She’s gone to the private nursing home of the chap I told you about.”

  “But so soon? Did you have to rush things?”

  “My dear, there were two reasons that made me rush, as you call it. One was that I just managed to catch my friend as he was leaving the country for a holiday, so of course, he wanted to take Jacky back to his nursing home right away. The other reason was that there was a great deal of publicity.”

  “Oh! I’d forgotten that!”

  “Jacky told the reporters she was running away from the man the police finally caught up with. She forgot to mention that it was Ellard Lindon, a friend of you both; so they got the idea you were both running to hide from him. There seemed no point in letting anyone know the real reason why you were both down there on the beach, but you do see that in the circumstances it seemed best to take Jacky out of the way at once.”

  With heightened color, Lisa said, “Oh yes, thank you. I do understand.”

  “Why didn’t you confide in me, Lisa? Didn’t you trust me, my dear?” he asked, on an altered note.

  “It wasn’t that, Randall. It was because I thought if I could clear things up myself, then no one need know and get involved. If I’d lost my career as a nurse or Jacky’s career on the stage—”

  “Yes, I see. Gallant little soul, aren’t you?” he murmured, smiling tenderly.

  “What about Jacky’s stage career, Randall?”

  “Well, the show came to an end, it seems, so she would have had to look elsewhere for something. She doesn’t mind, apparently, because even in this short time she’s got her eye on one of the doctors at the nursing home.”

  “But she was looking for a rich husband!” Lisa said, reminiscently, looking past him at the summer sky outside.

  “Well, this chap’s family is what you might call rich,” Randall said, his expression comical. Then they both burst out laughing. Jacky’s incorrigible optimism and elfin charm never failed to endear her to people, no matter how cross they were with her.

  “Look, never mind about that sister of yours,” he said briskly. “She’s in good hands and will probably be all right. What about you? Are you going to insist on finishing your career? You’re not really fit to go back on the wards for a long time, you know.”

  “Oh, but I must, I must!” Lisa said, struggling to sit up.

  “I was only going to say that I can put my holiday back for a few days, while you get on your feet again, and then—”

  “Don’t bothe
r about me. I’ll be all right,” she said.

  “I want you to come with me, Lisa,” he said in an exasperated voice, “and you’re not fit to travel yet.”

  “But you don’t want a nurse with you on holiday!”

  “No, my darling, I want a wife. Oh, Lisa,” he said shakily, taking her hands and kissing them, “I’m no good at pretty speeches. I’ve seen the back of one of my rivals and I’ve convinced myself that you aren’t engaged to young Frenton, so now I must nip in and propose to you before any more young men appear on the scene. Lisa, you will marry me, won’t you? You do care, don’t you?”

  “Oh, Randall, of course I do, but what about you? I thought it was still that girl who died.”

  “No. I used to think there’d never be anyone else, but now it’s only you, my dear.” He bent and kissed her, and her arms slid up around his neck.

  Sir Jules, Lisa’s next visitor, sent up by a harassed nurse, halted in the doorway, took in the scene and tiptoed out.

  “Is she all right, Sir Jules?” the nurse asked.

  “Absolutely all right,” he said, beaming all over his nice homely face. “She’s engaged,” he added, with enormous satisfaction.