The House on Flamingo Cay (19 page)

* * *

Two days later, when she was in charge of the shop while Madame Elsa had lunch, Stephen came in.

“What do you want?” she said coldly, retreating behind an illuminated glass showcase.

To her alarm, he pulled at the cord of the door blind and closed the slats so that anyone coming to the salon would think it closed.

Sara gripped the counter. “Please go away. You have no right to come here,” she said nervously.

“I wish it hadn’t been necessary,” he said gravely. “Sara, I’m afraid I’ve some bad news for you.”

“Bad news?” she repeated blankly. “Not ... not about Angela?”

“No, it isn’t your sister—it’s Laszlo,” he said quietly. “He’s been injured in a road accident. If you’ll lock this place up, I’ll take you to the hospital.”

“Yes, I’ll come at once. Madame Elsa is out, so I’ll have to leave the key next door and explain where I’ve gone.” Halfway to the door, she stopped. “Is he very badly hurt?” she asked.

“They aren’t sure yet, but I gather they may have to operate.”

In his car, Sara said, “How do you come into this—and how did you know where to find me?”

“You can’t hide yourself in Nassau,” he said drily. “I’ve known where you were for some time. As to Laszlo’s accident, the hospital rang me because of a letter in his wallet. It was an American airmail, presumably from your sister. I had it sent down to Laszlo earlier this morning.”

“Why not to me, since you knew where I was?”

“I thought you would prefer to think you’d gone safely to earth,” he said, without expression.

A few minutes later they reached the hospital and Stephen spoke to a porter who took them to a small waiting-room. It was some time before anyone came to attend to them, and Sara moved restlessly about the room, her hand thrust into the pockets of her skirt, her lower lip caught between her teeth.

“I shouldn’t worry too much. He’s very fit and he’ll get the best attention,” Stephen said quietly.

She turned to face him. “Don’t you know anything else? What happened? How bad it was?”

Before he could answer, a nurse came into the room. Evidently she had met Stephen before, as she gave him a pleasant smile and said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Rand.”

Stephen slipped a hand under Sara’s elbow. “This is Miss Gordon, Sister. She is Mr. Laszlo’s fiancée.” Perhaps puzzled by the sudden wave of color that had suffused the girl’s face, the Sister gave her a quick searching glance.

“I’m afraid you won’t be able to see Mr. Laszlo yet,” she said kindly. “He’s still in the theatre. But we’ll let you know as soon as he’s brought up. I’ll get someone to bring you a cup of tea. Will you be staying with her, Mr. Rand?”

“Yes, of course,” Stephen said quickly. “Can you give us anything to go on, Sister?”

“There were four people in the accident. The other three have only minor injuries. Unfortunately Mr. Laszlo was more seriously hurt.”

She hesitated, and Stephen said, “I think Miss Gordon would prefer to know what to expect, Sister.”

Sara braced herself. “Is ... is he going to die?” she asked, in a low voice.

The promptness of the reply left no room for doubts. “No certainly not,” Sister Moore said firmly. “He’s young and strong, and Mr. Conway is a very fine surgeon. But his injuries are severe,” she added frankly, “so I think it will be some time before he can leave us.”

When she had gone, Sara sank into a chair and gave a long sigh. “It never rains but it pours,” she said flatly. Then, looking up at Stephen’s troubled dark face, “It was kind of you to offer to stay, but it really isn’t necessary. I’ll be all right, and I’m sure you have other things to do.”

“They can wait,” he said curtly. “Look, if you’ll be all right for a few minutes, I’ll go and see what they’ve done with that letter from your sister.”

While he was gone, a porter arrived with some tea. Sara cradled the cup between her hands and her mouth twisted. Tea, the great British panacea for everything from a headache to heartbreak, she thought, with irony.

Presently Stephen came back with the letter. He gave it to her, then lit a cigarette and moved away to the window.

It was not a long letter. In her small flowing hand, Angela gave a brief description of their flight, the Stuyvesants’ home and her first impression of Minneapolis. The wedding was now definitely fixed for a date the following month. Would Sara let her know by return what her plans were.

It must have been nearly an hour after their arrival that the door opened again and a youngish man in a white coat came in. He introduced himself as Doctor Evans, the hospital’s surgical registrar.

“I’m sorry we’ve had to keep you in suspense, Miss Gordon,” he said, as Sara waited anxiously for his verdict. ‘However, you’ll be glad to hear your fiancé has come through very well.”

“Can I see him?” she asked eagerly.

He hesitated. “Well, I think it would really be better if you went home and got some rest. He may not be conscious for some time, and then we hope he’ll sleep.”

“Oh ... yes, I suppose so,” she said worriedly. “But he is definitely out of danger now, Doctor?”

“Now try not to worry, Miss Gordon. I can promise that we’ll get in touch with you if there’s any change in his condition.”
Something in his face, and the cautious answer to her question, roused Sara’s suspicions. “There’s something else? Something you haven’t told me,” she exclaimed sharply. “Look,
please
—you must tell me the truth. I shan’t break down or have hysterics.”

Doctor Evans glanced at Stephen. “I have been telling you the truth, Miss Gordon. In the circumstances, Mr. Laszlo is doing very well. But there is one other thing,” he admitted with a troubled expression. “You see, as well as the head injury there was damage to the left foot. We’ve done everything we can to save it, but I’m afraid there’s still a chance that—”

He stopped short as Sara gave a cry of anguish. “Oh, no! He
can’t
be crippled. He’s lost so much already.”

The doctor took her arm and made her sit down. “It may not come to that, Miss Gordon. We hope it won’t. But you urged me to be frank with you, and I have been.”

Sara swallowed. “Yes ... thank you,” she said huskily. “But you see Peter is a refugee from Hungary. He’s already lost his home and his family. If anything else happens to him—” She finished the sentence with a mute gesture.

The doctor nodded. “Yes, I understand how you feel.” His expression was very kind. “But he still has you, you know. If, as we hope, his foot can be mended, it will be your job to help through his convalescence. Have we got your address and telephone number?”

“She’ll be staying at the hotel,” Stephen said firmly.

“But the shop—” Sara began.

“Madame Elsa will have to find other help. Don’t worry: I’ll explain the situation to her.” His tone was briskly decisive and, for the moment, she was too concerned about Peter to face an argument with him.

Indeed it was not until they were back at the hotel and Stephen had taken her up to his private sitting-room and poured out two brandies that she realized the impossibility of accepting his support.

“Stephen, it was kind of you to suggest that I should stay here, but I’d rather go back to my lodgings,” she said awkwardly.

“You’re staying with Madame Elsa, aren’t you? I doubt if she’ll want to put you up if you aren’t working for her, and you can hardly do that and be on call from the hospital,” he said evenly.

“Well, in that case I can find another room somewhere. Apart from ... anything else, I can’t afford your charges now.”

“Then you can have a staff bedroom and pay your way by doing some odd jobs in the office. We could do with an extra clerk at the moment.” He gave her a sardonic smile. “You needn’t suspect me of philanthropy. If I’d known you were going to take a job, I’d have offered this in the first place. As for ‘anything else,’ as you put it, I shall be over on Flamingo after today. Does that satisfy you?”

Sara hesitated. He was undoubtedly right about her not being able to stay at Madame Elsa’s and, from what Peter had told her, it was not easy to get inexpensive lodgings in Nassau. The city was geared to the tourist trade and visitors to the Bahamas did not come on limited budgets.

“Very well,” she said finally. “Thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me. It’s entirely a business proposition,” he said negligently. “Now if you’ll give me this Elsa woman’s address, I’ll arrange for your gear to be picked up and turn you over to my manager.”

She gave him the information. “There is one other thing. Could I send a cable to my sister?”

“By all means. If you’ll write it down on this pad, Reception will deal with it for you. Excuse me a moment.”

When he had left the room, Sara rested the pad on the arm of her chair and nibbled the tip of her pen. Then, with sudden resolution, she wrote:
‘Can’t leave Nassau. Peter injured in car smash. Critically ill after operation. Princess Margaret General Hospital. Asking for you, Sara’

Two days later, about seven o’clock in the evening, Sara was rinsing her hair at the basin in her small bedroom when she heard the door open. Thinking it was Marianne Kaufmann, the Swiss-born receptionist, she reached for the towel and said anxiously, “Has there been a call for me, Marianne?”

“I don’t know.”

Sara dropped the towel, pushed the wet hair out of her eyes and stared at the reflection in the looking-glass. Hardly daring to believe what she saw, she turned. “
Angela
—you’ve come!” she exclaimed thankfully.

For a long moment, the sisters faced each other. An instant later they were in each other’s arms, half laughing, half crying, and both trying to talk at once.

But presently Angela extricated herself and drew back. She blew her nose. “Oh, Sara, I’ve been
such
a fool! It would have served me right if you threw me out on my ear,” she said, in a low voice.

Sara shook her head. “It was both our faults. If I hadn’t been so self-righteous, it would never have happened. But never mind all that now. The important thing is for you to go to the hospital. You ... you have come because of Peter, haven’t you?” she asked anxiously.

“I’ve already seen him. I went straight there from the airport. I—I was so terribly afraid I’d be too late.” Her mouth puckered and she buried her face in her hands, her whole body beginning to shake with convulsive sobs.

Sara drew her gently down on the bed, an arm round the heaving shoulders. After a while the violent paroxysm of weeping began to lessen and Angela groped for a handkerchief.

“I’m s-sorry,” she muttered hoarsely. “I don’t know why I’m being such an idiot. I—I suppose it’s because I’m so happy.”

“You mean you and Peter...?”

Angela nodded. Presently, when she had mopped up her ravaged face and drawn a deep quivering breath, she said shakily, “I still think it’s crazy. We hardly know each other. But that’s the way it is ... we haven’t any choice.”

Sara’s mouth twisted and she had to turn away to the window to hide a grimace of pain. “Yes, I know what you mean,” she agreed quietly.

There was silence for some moments, then Angela said quietly, “Sara dear, there’s something I must say. That row we had ... the day you left the hotel. I—”

“It doesn’t matter now. Let’s forget it,” Sara said quickly.

“But it
does
matter,” Angela insisted. “What I said about you and Stephen—it was unforgivably cruel.”

Sara turned to face her. “Well, we were both unhappy and confused,” she said gently. “I was pretty rough with you.”

“I deserved it—you didn’t. Sara, are you in love with him?”

Sara picked up a comb and began to deal with her tangled hair. “I’ll get over it,” she said levelly.

“I thought—when they told me you were here again—that something must have happened,” Angela said hopefully.

Briefly, Sara told her what had happened during her absence. “So Stephen thinks that Peter and I are engaged,” she ended, with a shrug.

“Is Valerie Langdon-Owen still on the scene?” her sister asked.

“I don’t really know. I only go down to work in the office. I imagine she is.”

“Are you going to stay here?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been planning ahead. Everything has depended on whether Peter recovered and whether you came back. What are your plans?”

“I’m going to Peter’s bungalow. As soon as he’s well enough, we’ll get married. After that—who knows? But whatever we do will always include you. Why not come back with me now?”

“I can’t just walk out without letting Stephen know, and he’s gone to Flamingo for some time.”

“Well, as soon as he comes back, then.”

“Maybe—I’ll have to think about it.” Shrugging off the damp towel, Sara reached for her cotton blouse.

“Angela, what happened with the Stuyvesants?” she asked diffidently. “Weren’t they very upset?”

“Yes, terribly.” A painful flush stained Angela’s creamy skin. “I almost didn’t face them,” she admitted shamefully. “But I knew I had done them enough harm without adding cowardice to it, so I told them everything. Sara, do you believe we have to pay for ... for the wrongs we do? I—I have this dreadful feeling that Peter’s accident was my fault—that I have no right to be happy again.” Her eyes were brilliant with anguish. “The hospital people
say
he’s over the worst now, but he looks so strange and worn. Do you think it might be my punishment...?” Her voice broke suddenly and she pressed her fingers to her eyes.