Seaside Hospital by Pauline Ash Read Free Book Online Page A

can’t go, in the circumstances. We’ll do something else. I never did like the party much.”
    Lisa squeezed her arm. Mary was such a loyal pal, ready to give up what had been a day to look forward to, just because Lisa was not anxious to go.
    “Why don’t you go yourself, Mary—with Jerry and Mike? Go and have a good time,” Lisa urged.
    Mary shook her head. “No, I’ve a much better idea. Let’s go home to my family for the day. We can lounge about in our old clothes and forget the hospital staff. Mother and Dad will love to have us.”
    Lisa felt better at once. Now she could tell Jacky with truth that she had other plans for that day. She wrote a note to that effect and left it at the stage door.
    Jacky was furious when she read it.
    She telephoned Derek, who was at that moment in trouble with his father. Sir Jules had had to work hard to attain his position and make his life a success. His son’s lazy, extravagant ways irritated him as much as his wife did with her social climbing and her snobbery. That day it had come to a head. Yet an o ther bill for the repair of Derek’s high-powered car after another minor accident had tried his father beyond endurance.
    “You can get to work in the boatyard, young man, and you can stop running around with showgirls!” his father said.
    And then Jacky had come on the telephone. The call had been put through to his father’s office. In acute discomfort, Derek took the call.
    “Look, I can’t talk now—” he began.
    “You’ve got to listen, Derek! It’s my sister. She won’t come to the garden party, and I did so much want her to meet you and your mother—” Jacky wailed.
    “Well, if she won’t come, she won’t,” Derek said, uneasily watching his father drumming the desktop with his fingertips. “Anyway, what does it matter? You’ll be there, won’t you?”
    “Yes, of course I shall,” Jacky admitted, “but I did want my sister to be there, too. Couldn’t your mother send her a special invitation? Then Lisa would have to come.”
    There was a stunned silence; then Derek asked in a dazed voice, “What did you say?”
    “I said then my sister Lisa would have to come,” Jacky repeated impatiently, not caring what she said; she was so angry to think that Lisa wasn’t more anxious to see her rich boyfriend and his family.
    Derek paled. “I’ll call you back later,” he muttered, uncomfortably aware that his father was showing enough interest in the conversation to be unashamedly trying to hear what Jacky had been saying. “ ’Bye for now,” he said, replacing the receiver.
    But although Sir Jules had not caught what Jacky’s high clear voice had actually been saying, it had reminded him of something else he wanted to say to his son.
    “What’s happened to that little fair girl you used to take around? Lisa something or other?” he barked.
    “Well, I—that is—I don’t see her now,” Derek stammered. “She didn’t get much time off—she’s a nurse.”
    “Now look here, my boy, I l iked that girl Lisa,” his father said. “She’s a good type. Works hard. Straight, honest. I’m fed up with the butterflies you usually waste my money on. Now, I’ll give you one more chance. Get that girl Lisa back and leave the other one alone. From what I’ve seen of this Jacqueline in the press, she’ll be no good to you.”
    Derek gloomily took the smaller car out in order to have a quiet time to think about the mess he was in. His father didn’t know that Jacky and Lisa were sisters, otherwise he would never have said he wanted to see Lisa back. But how on earth could he keep Jacky, he wondered, if he was to go back to Lisa—even supposing Lisa woul d have him?
    It was a peerless day and would have been splendid for taking Jacky bathing, but he dared not. His father would find out, and then his last chance would be gone.
    No, he decided, somehow he must get Lisa back, but how could he do that without Jacky knowing? He knew instinctively