Nurse Jess by Joyce Dingwell Read Free Book Online Page B

her on the bedside table and they were the last thing she looked at before she went to sleep and the first thing she looked at when she woke up.
    She slipped them in the pocket of her lilac uniform — Margaret was dove-grey today—and now and then as they went downstairs to breakfast she gave them a reassuring touch.
    Margaret brought the subject back to the Professor again, tactfully bypassing Jessa ’ s regrettable faux pas in not only thinking the Professor was a parent, but directing him to medical aid. She spoke admiringly of what he had said in
    London, how he had lectured in America, the countries in which he had travelled by special invitation to give his scholarly advice—Yes, thought Jessa, and I have his very own spectacles right here.
    She looked out for him as they climbed the stairs for work, peered along the long corridor, glanced up for a daddy-long-legs shadow on the opposite wall, peered quickly through the glass of every ward. There was no Professor Gink.
    Once inside the nurseries she had little time to think of him. The Bruiser was not only to be bathed and fed, he had to be dressed.
    “ Dressed, Sister Helen You mean, of course, his nightie— ”
    “ Pilchers, petticoat, dress, jacket, bonnet, what-have-you, ” said Sister. “ He ’ s going home, my dear. ”
    “ Home? ”
    “ Where else? He ’ s not advanced yet for college, and I do believe home is the usual place. ”
    “ But is he big enough? ”
    “ Five and a quarter pounds, and that ’ s more than lots of normal term babies. Do you expect us to keep him till he ’ s ready to vote? ”
    “ I only hope we ’ re doing the right thing, ” said Jessa, looking down on what she considered in her newness here was a very small babe indeed.
    “ Since when has a trainee of two days ’ experience known more than Professor Gink? ” returned the Sister not unkindly.
    “ Did the Professor say he was to go? ”
    “ It ’ s one of his net theories. The best equipped hospital in the world is not as good as the poorest home, in his belief. As soon as they reach five pounds, so long as there are no complications, he likes a child under his own roof tree. Nurse Jess.
    “ The child needs it, too. Don ’ t think for one minute that these babies are being hoodwinked. They know we ’ re only playing a part, that we are only poor substitutes at the best.
    “ Then there ’ s the mother. Try to feel with her the frustration she ’ s been suffering. A mother in word only. Now at last comes her big chance. ”
    Jessa finished Bruiser ’ s bath accompanied by Bruiser ’ s usual howls and started Bruiser ’ s bottle accompanied by Bruiser ’ s usual purrs.
    “ Has Professor Gink done his rounds yet? ”
    “ Bless you, he doesn ’ t work to a schedule, he just flies in and flies out. At the moment he has flown to another state. ”
    “ Another state? ”
    “ South Australia cabled for his opinio n. Next week it might be Queensland, over to New Zealand, anywhere. He is not actually attached to Belinda, he ’ s just very interested in it. In a way it ’ s his baby. ” At that pun Sister Helen laughed.
    Jessa felt the spectacles in her pocket. “ Is he usually long away? ” she asked.
    Sister Helen, diapering Madeleine, sighed, “ Those lashes of hers ought to be cut, they ’ re absurdly fabulous—no, not long, not long anywhere, he ’ s too much in demand. ”
    “ It—it must be hard for his wife. ” Jessa was aware that her heart was thumping oddly.
    “ No wife; never even looked like marriage—bur I suppose it will come in time. A doctor should be a family man, I think. But the girl would have to be somebody special, wouldn ’ t she? Something like him—dedicated. ”
    “ Yes ... dedicated... ” agreed Jessa, and all at once she was remembering that that was how she had always thought of Margaret... dedicated.
    And as suddenly she was remembering last night and Margaret ’ s shining eyes.
    They would be a good pair, a