Hospital in the Highlands (9 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Fay Lamont had been in a strange mood all day. Of course her injured pride must be avenged, and in a manner that would make all concerned most uncomfortable. She gave the matter a good deal of thought and finally decided on a plan.

Fay drew the last of her savings out of the post-office and spent the morning shopping in the town. She daren’t take her wares home, but having left the note in her room she wasn’t worried about keeping away from Rowans all day. She had lunch with her mute friend from the forestry commission, and then left him in favor of another appointment with the leader of the orchestra that was now in residence at the Heather Hotel.

Alec Wylie was a violinist himself, so Fay didn’t attempt to
outshine him as a performer. Nevertheless she was obviously an asset to any company, if only for her looks, and he had no hesitation in signing her on and glamorizing a professional musician’s life for her benefit.

“It’s not all hotel work,” he told her. “Sometimes we accept a private engagement, a wedding or a ceilidh, and then we turn out the Strathspeys and reels for variety.”

“How interesting!” said Fay. “Actually I’m invited to a ceilidh tonight.”

“Not at Lochside?” asked Alec. “MacGregor’s place?”

“Yes. That’s the one.”

“If it had been any day but Saturday we would have been playing, but that’s the one evening we have musical dinners here. Ah, well, Enjoy yourself. You’ll be a working girl this time next week.”

Fay did not so much intend enjoying herself as seeing that two other people did not. She went into the hotel powder room and slipped off the simple silver gray dress she had worn to play in and opened the weekend case she had borrowed from Pixie. Inside was a length of taffeta in the Strathallan tartan. With the aid of pins she wound this around herself until she resembled a Scots cocoon, then she tied a bustle
at the back with what remained of the material.

“Not bad,” she decided, posing in front of a long mirror. Narrower ribbon she tied round each wrist and ankle, then she made a bun atop her luxuriant, curling fair hair.

“If Flo can wear something for him, so can I,” she determined. “He ought to be proud of me for knowing one of these outlandish patterns from another.”

Finally she draped herself in an evening cloak and sneaked out of the hotel in search of a taxi.

They were dancing on the lawns at Lochside when she arrived, so she decided to lie low until her entry could command an attentive audience. She was feeling rather queasy when the dancers eventually went inside, but having spent so much money on her outfit she was determined that it should be seen. Unfortunately a stolid Scottish servant barred her way as she would have entered by the french windows, and while the creature was asking to see her invitation the Strathallan himself came up with Flo, and they had been embracing, Fay knew it as though it had been communicated to her.

“Hello, you two!” she greeted brashly. “You don’t look exactly delighted to see me.”

“Fay!” groaned her sister. “You can’t seriously think you’re all right in that—that get-up?”

“What’s wrong with me?” asked the other, wishing they had an audience other than one gaping servant. “This is the Strathallan tartan. I’m honoring the laird by wearing it.

Robert Strathallan had kept his composure, on the surface at least. At first he had wanted to laugh at the picture Fay made, but when Flo showed distress he was immediately in sympathy with her.

The laird spoke in Gaelic to the servant, who blocked her way once again and looked ferocious into the bargain.

Fay turned, her catlike eyes blazing.

Robert Strathallan took her arm in a brotherly gesture. “Look, Miss Fay, you don’t want everybody to laugh at you as I almost did, do you? They’re expecting a missing guest, not a member of the Comedie Francaise. Frankly, I think you’d be a wow in there, as an entertainer, but as guest you can’t expect to be taken seriously. Which is it to be?”

“Mind your damned business!” Fay snapped, frustration and reaction making her want to cry because her plan had gone adrift.

“Please change your dress and join us, Fay,” begged Flo. “We’re having a lovely time.”

“I haven’t another dress with me and your idea of a lovely time isn’t mine, apparently. Let me go!” She struggled violently and then bit the hand which was restraining her.

“You vixen!” exclaimed the laird, and as one or two other guests wandered outside, glasses in hand, Fay broke away and ran wildly for cover.

“Not that way, Fay!” Flo cried desperately. “That’s the way to the loch!”

“I’ll get her,” promised Robert Strathallan, hastening into the misty darkness as a distinct splash reached their ears. “Get help. Lights.”

Flo could scarce
l
y believe the scene that followed.

Someone tore down a spotlight from one of the trees and directed its beam on the dark waters where Robert Strathallan could be seen up to his neck, reaching and searching and calling.

“It’s no good,” he said, dragging himself back into the reeds, his finery sopping and filthy. “I can’t swim in this lot. I’ll have to strip.”

Colonel MacGregor was standing in his elegant dancing pumps also in the reeds, as were most of the men-folk. Meg came up to Flo and her face was white and sheetlike.

“By the description it’s—Fay in there,” she shuddered. “How
—?
Why
—
?”

“I can’t tell you now, Meg,” Flo said shakily. “Why doesn’t she swim? She
can
swim.”

All attention was on the. loch as somebody made a screen for the laird to remove his clothes and wade out once more. Behind Flo a figure rose up out of the reeds and looked on with great interest.

“What’s going on, sisters, dear?” the vision asked brightly. “Does Mr. Strathallan often go for a swim on a night like, this?” Fay Lamont had succeeded in her act of vengeance after all!

Twice the laird had called at Rowans, and on both occasions he saw only two of the sisters, Miss Meg and Miss Fay. Flo was too busy to see him, apparently, and at the hospital she had given him no opportunity for private conversation. She had written letters of apology to him and to the MacGregors, had even persuaded Fay to apologize also, though that young lady still insisted that she didn’t know what she had to be sorry for.

“The very idea of anybody getting wet on my account is fantastic,” she shrugged. “You know very well I can swim like a fish. If the laird chose to act the hero for your benefit it has nothing whatever to do with me.”

“Why didn’t you answer, when we shouted?”

“I didn’t want you to know where I was,” Fay smiled impudently. “You had both been bullying me and it was my intention to sneak away like a whipped cur.”

Meg, too, had reverted to her hand-wringing.

“What will they think of us? I’m so ashamed I’ll never dare to go out again. We must be the talk of the glen.”

The laird did his best to set the eldest sister’s mind at rest. “I’m the one who should have my head examined, Miss Meg. As milady over there says, I should have ascertained that my services were required before I rendered them. However, we’re all laughing about the episode now in the glen, so why should you still mind?”

“Meg thrives on misery,” Fay said tartly.

“And you on doling it out, Miss Fay?” the laird asked sharply, bringing a surprised flush to the other’s naturally pale cheeks before she flung out of the room.

Flo had more than a natural feeling of embarrassment—which Fay’s behaviour had caused—to keep her from seeing Robert Strathallan alone, however, She had seen the light only when it was too late, and now she knew she was in love with him. Over and over again she told herself that she had foolishly invited the situation in which she now found herself, and there was apparently nothing for it but to forbid herself the sweets of the temptation that had led to that all too brief yet promising succumbing.

Robert Strathallan finally wrote her a letter, which she opened with trembling hands in the privacy of her own room.

“Dear Miss Flo” (he began formally),

“I cannot believe that your sister’s madcap behavior still has anything to do with your avoidance of me since the ceilidh. I use the word ‘avoidance’ in the sense that though I see you at least twice a day in the course of our common duties, your behaviour is now that of an efficient stranger, and I can only conclude that I am guilty of offending you deeply.

“Perhaps I presumed on a too brief acquaintance that my immediate sense of being attracted to you was honored by your interest. If this was not so then I ask to be forgiven, and I am indeed in an abject frame of mind as I write these words.

“I would cut off my arms rather than they should touch you against your will again, and you need have no fear that I will ever accost you when we meet socially.

“Simply tell me that you bear me no ill-will.

“Yours with a troubled heart, “Robert Strathallan.”

Flo had put the letter to her lips and kissed it before she remembered that such things were not conducive to putting someone out of one’s life. Now there were two letters which must be written before she could know a moment’s peace of mind, and they were both to men who were making havoc of her life.

“Dear Robert” (ran her reply),

“You are certainly not guilty of offending me in any way. I feel rather that the reverse is the case, and it has nothing whatever to do with Fay and her behaviour. I accepted your friendship as eagerly as you offered it, but I am not free to offer more at present, perhaps not ever. To keep on seeing you might have distorted my clear view of things, and so I have avoided you, albeit not without regret.

“So, Robert, please try not to think harshly of me for wearing your tartan while suspecting what such an act implied. Unfortunately we cannot exist in the land of make believe for long, but it was very pleasant to find myself there for such a little while with someone as nice as you.

“Yours truly,

“Flo Lamont.”

Jim had to be told, she firmly decided, or she couldn’t look him in the eyes again. It was something better spoken of than written, so—if he still loved her—it was imperative that he take some leave and join her to discuss their future. Therefore her letter to him was telling and brief.

“Dear Jim,

“Please will you come home for no other reason than that I am suddenly confused and need your friendship even more than your love? There is much to discuss and it has been such a long time since we met.

“I can’t say more now, but hope and pray that you will heed.”

Both missives posted, Flo settled down to normality, at least on the surface, and acknowledged the aching of her troubled heart in private. Having fallen in love, it was no simple matter to fall out again simply by denying the object of her affections. It was like trying to walk through a wall by pretending it wasn’t there, and one was getting bruised all the while by one’s persistence.

At the hospital life went on, though Mr. Strathallan’s rounds were sober affairs nowadays. Annie Lindsay had returned, as he had forecast, and spent most of her time under morphine. Once when she was due for an injection, however, she asked the staff nurse to wait while she had a word with Sister.

“Yes, dear?” Flo asked gently. “What is it? Something you want me to do for you?”

“No, thank you, Sister. Ah just want ye to know, Ah ken what’s wrong wi’ me.”

“You do?” Flo squeezed the hand gripping the coverlet. “Who told you?”

“Tam did. He’s such a wean, himself, he couldna keep such a secret. It was bad at first—knowing. But—Sister...?”

“Yes, Annie?”

“.
.. having a man like my Tam, being loved, having weans, it’s all been worth it. I wanted you to know my feelin’s.”

“Good, Annie. Good. I won’t let you—suffer.”

It was Sister who gave the injection herself on that occasion.

CHAPTER TWELVE

In the men’s ward was another of Sister’s “special pets” as the other patients
good-naturedly
called the favored ones. He was a fourteen-year-old boy lying with a stump where his right leg had once been.

Dennis MaGrath, son of a Glasgow Irishman, was no hero and would never merit a medal for his fortitude during suffering. In fact when the orthopaedic surgeons in his home city had found it necessary to remove the shattered limb, which had been crushed between a truck and a kiosk, young Dennis had lost all his limited interest in living and allowed himself to sink into an unchildlike apathy that didn’t help his physical condition at all.

Life’s ultimate crowning achievement, in the lad’s eyes, was in being selected to play for Celtic, the famous Scottish football team, and now all that was gone for him and he was apparently incapable of resolving on an alternative star to hitch his wagon to.

The bundle of bones that eventually found its way to the Glen and the bracing effects of Highland air went straight to Sister Lamont’s heart and stayed there, despite the averted eyes, the lack-lustre hair, the miserable whining by which young Dennis communicated with his tormentors. Flo kept her patience long after the rest of the staff on the ward had had enough of “that wretched kid,” and undertook to feed him herself, rather than that he should be forcibly fed through the veins, a procedure that made him whimper even more than usual.

Gradually Flo had persisted with her “problem child,” crooning little stories and anecdotes into his ear while the spoon hovered near his stubborn mouth, so that occasionally , Dennis took nourishment through sheer absentmindedness. At long last his weight increased infinitesimally, then a little more and more until he was feeding himself, sulkily but adequately, and watching for Sister’s visits, prepared to shelve his own efforts the minute she looked like neglecting him.

“Well, Dennis,” she said, after a long talk with the boy’s father, “I hear you’re a Celtic supporter?”

The lad gave a grimace but said nothing.

“I don’t fancy their chance myself,” Flo said, “but as they’re playing Northwick next week I wondered if you’d care to go along and see the game.”

“Who wants tae
see
football?” Dennis ungraciously demanded.

“
Thousands and thousands of boys do, that’s who,” Flo returned, “especially when the team wants to meet a supporter who has never lost faith in them. That’s
you,
Dennis MaGrath. All Celtic wants to meet you, and they wish you to see the game from the players’ enclosure. Have I to tell them you don’t want to go?”

“Please yersel’,” Dennis shrugged uncertainly.

“I’ll go by myself, then,” Flo almost snapped.

Dennis pushed himself up in bed on his skinny arms.

“You invited, too?” he asked.

“Of course. I like watching football. Millions do. Everybody can’t be a player. There’s a lot of fun and excitement in being a spectator.”

“Ah’ll go,” Dennis conceded, “and Ah’ll explain the finer points o’ the game tae ye. Without me ye’d like be shoutin’ fer the wrong team.”

“Very likely,” smiled Flo. “Thank you, Dennis. Now between now and next Saturday week you can increase your weight by about four pounds, if you try. I don’t want Celtic to think we neglect you at The Glen.”

It was victories like this made the job worth while, Flo exulted on that occasion. She had accompanied Dennis to the game at Northwick and he had never once looked back since. Now he had several other interests in life besides football. He had been told the story of Douglas Bader, who had lost both legs and still made a nuisance of himself in the air, and he had written an essay on the game they had seen together, in such detail that it won a prize in a newspaper competition and brought a letter from the Editor asking that the lad come to see him if he ever wanted a job. Now Dennis, who had been such a problem and a menace, was all set to become a sportswriter on a famous Scottish daily.

“That Ah can dae wi’ an artificial leg!” he told his Dad on one of his monthly visits.

“Not to mention getting into everything free!” Flo smiled encouragement as Mr. MaGrath looked as though he might weep for very joy.

Matron sent for her Sister in Charge about a couple of weeks after the ceilidh, the longest two weeks of Flo Lamont’s career.

Miss MacDonald was in the nursery, and she was standing frowning at the green distempered walls while a nurse busily changed the sixteen cots before their occupants should return from the afternoon feed.

“Yes, Matron?”

“Ah, you’re there, Sister. I’m expecting Mr. Strathallan any moment.”

Flo knew by the behavior of her heart exactly when the surgeon arrived, and she told herself it was imagination when her name seemed to be soundlessly cried out, anguished, from behind.

Calmly Robert Strathallan said, “I believe you wanted to see me, Matron. What are we doing here? Playing ‘this little piggy went to market’?”

Matron laughed, and Flo thought, “Of course it was imagination.
He’s
quite cheerful.”

“That’s a very good idea, Mr. Strathallan!” said Miss MacDonald heartily. “You may well have a motif there for my decoration. We’ve got our annual grant for brightening the place up, and the nursery is going to be done first. Look at it! If any of our babies can focus at all this green will make them sick. It’s like a workhouse ward from the bad old days. I’m going to have it professionally planned and supervised.”

“Splendid!” Flo said, feeling something was expected of her.

“Yes, well,” Matron proceeded, smiling, “I fancied you would approve, especially as I thought of asking your sister, the one who’s expert on decorating, to give us an estimate for the job.”

“Meg ...
?
” at first Flo’s heart soared, then she suddenly remembered that Keith was still there, and that he must not be allowed to cause more havoc in his ex-fiancee’s life. “How very kind of you to think of her,” she said, her twisted lips creating a poor impression of a smile, “but there’s no need to employ my relations, you know, Matron. I don’t expect it. Meg wouldn’t. Anyway, she’s very busy.”

“Oh.” Matron looked completely taken aback for the moment, then she coughed nervously. “I wasn’t thinking of it as a favor, Sister Lamont, to anyone but the hospital. I understood your sister had the extra knowledge and ability to make a classy job of the nursery for us, and she has been advertising for work. Doctor Bexley gave me the clipping.”

“She’s booked up for months. I’m sorry,” she insisted, and turned towards the door. “May I be excused now, Matron, please?”

Before Matron could answer, however, and she was not looking exactly pleased, the door opened and Fay appeared. Once more it was library day and for reason of her own she was sticking to the job.

“Excuse me,” she said sweetly, “but I couldn’t find you, Matron. Is it all right for me to start my round, now?”

“Yes, do, dear,” said Mary MacDonald, softening for one whom she considered a delightful and beautiful girl. “We were just having a wee discussion about interior decorating. I wanted to give the job to your sister, but the S.I.C. says no.”

“Meg would love it,” Fay said promptly, frowning at Flo. “You know she would.”

“She’s booked up for ages,” insisted the other, stubbornly. “It’s impossible for Meg to work at the hospital.”

“
I
think Meg should decide for herself,” Fay suggested sweetly. “Even if she is busy she’ll squeeze this place in somehow, you’ll see. I’ll tell her about your offer, Matron, when I go home this evening.”

“Do,” Miss MacDonald said, now ignoring her Sister in Charge. “I’ll put it in writing if you like, dear.”

Fay escaped before Flo could force her to meet her eyes, and she contrived to be so busy and so elusive that Sister Lamont finally had to pen her a hurried note and sent it to her via one of the maids.

“I must see you,” was written without preamble, “and as I have an hour off duty at four o’clock I will go to the Heather Hotel for tea. Join me at my table and let us talk about you know what.