Halfway through the evening that inevitable thing that happens at all medical functions, happened. There was an urgent call.
Professor Gink got up from the official table. He glanced round the long room. His eyes flicked past Nurse Gwen, past Nurse Dorothy, past Sisters Valerie and Judith, then past Nurse Jess.
“
Would
you
mind, Nurse Margaret?
”
he asked, his glance stopping at Meg.
Meg got up instantly. Barry mumbled
“
Blast
”
—and suddenly, miserably, Jessa felt like saying it, too.
The Ball was near to breaking up when the pair returned. Meg came back to the table looking prettier than she had ever looked, with a nursing cape flung over her dance frock.
“
An Rh-transfusion,
”
she said.
“
It went off beautifully. We called the baby Hickory Dickory because his name is to be William, anyway, and the transfusion finished just on the stroke of one. You know,
‘
The clock struck one
—’ ”
“
The chief character in that nursery rhyme,
”
reminded Barry morosely,
“
was a mouse, not a baby.
”
Ba did not look as pleased with the night as when he had started off.
“
We
?
”
asked Jessa, feeling that an eminent doctor
would never give a prem baby a nickname.
“
Professor Gink and I,
”
assured Meg.
The dancers were forming a circle to sing Auld Lang Syne. Jessa felt too wretched to join the crowd and hid once more behind the greenery.
—Or at least she tried to hide. Someone
’
s hand was under her elbow urging her to her feet.
“
I don
’
t want to join in,
”
she protested,
“
I don
’
t feel like it, I
“
“
I know just how you feel. Come out here with me.
”
The next moment she was in the vestibule with Professor Gink.
He put a coat around her shoulders. It was a navy gabardine and it had a white silk evening scarf bundled in the pocket. She knew that because the fringed end of it was dangling out.
“
Luckily,
”
he said dryly,
“
I wore a coat. Put it on,
right
on. Never mind how you look. Now ru
n.
”
“
Run? Run where?
”
“
Home, you young idiot. You
’
re in for a chill, can
’
t you see that? Come on, no waiting for extra viruses, you
’
ve got all you can cope with for a few days.
”
“
But it
’
s absurd. I feel quite all right, just a little tired, that
’
s all.
”
“
Then how is it you just told me you felt wretched?
”
“
I thought you were someone else, I thought
“
“
Less thinking, more action, Nurse,
”
he interrupted forcibly, and started the action by pushing her out into the night. With his arm under her elbow he spurred her on and together they ran.
When they got to Belinda he veered her to the kitchen. She watched
curiously
as he gathered lemons, water and a saucepan and mixed up a drink. He felt her eyes upon him and turned and grinned.
“
Oh, yes,
”
he nodded, reading her thoughts.
“
I know my way about.
”
“
Perhaps,
”
she suggested coolly,
“
you
’
ve done this service before.
”
Another man might have drawled suavely, with smooth sophistication,
“
Perhaps
”
—but
he
didn
’
t.
He turned and said with a somehow sweet simplicity,
“
No, never before, Nurse Jess.
”
There w
a
s a little silence while he boiled the mixture, then poured it into a tumbler. Then he produced
aspirin
from somewhere and brought them both across. She accepted the glass and thanked him.
“
Drink,
”
he said.
“
Here?
”
“
Yes, while it
’
s hot, and then off at once to bed.
”
Across the Belinda grounds Jessa could hear the party breaking up. She took a sip and grimaced, but swallowed it and sipped again.
In a few minutes the Belinda crowd would be back. She drank the scalding liquid hurriedly for fear he might be embarrassed at being found in the kitchen like this.
“
No hurry,
”
he said.
“
Don
’
t burn yourself.
”
“
But—but you have to get home and it
’
s late.
”
She could not say,
“
But you don
’
t want people to see that you have
been mixing a hot lemon drink for a nurse.
”
He said in surprise,
“
But I have a flat here, didn
’
t you know? I have apartments set aside for me at all my hospitals,
but somehow I always think of this
one as home.
”
“
Oh,
”
said Jessa.
She gulped the last of the liquid and aspirin as the crowd were walking up the drive.
“
Thank you, Professor.
”
“
I wanted to do it. Now we
’
re quits again.
”
“
Quits?
”
“
I
’
ve returned a service. Remember my spectacles? Of course—
”
he hesitated, then went on—
“
of course if you had mended the
two
pairs I would still be in debt. But you didn
’
t, did you?
”
He was looking at her oddly—she could almost have called it wistfully in anyone else, but of course it could not be wistfulness in Professor Gink.
“
No, I didn
’
t,
”
said Jess.
The crowd were climbing the front steps.
“
Thank you,
”
she repeated, still not moving.
“
Tomorrow,
”
he said,
“
you will stop in bed.
”
“
I can
’
t, I
’
m on duty.
”
“
Not with a cold like that, my child, not among
my
prems.
”
“
Was that
”
—she had a moment of inspiration
—“
why you went past me when you had the emergency call?
”
He was looking back at her. He seemed to look a long, long time.
“
Yes,
”
he said at length.
“
How else?
”
The doors were opening.
“
Well—goodnight,
”
she said.
“
Goodnight, Nurse Jess.
”
She ran up the stairs. She could hardly have rounded the first landing when the revellers came in.
S
he heard their subdued laughter as she hurried up the next flight and along to her room.
Her head was aching in spite of the aspirin and her limbs felt like lead. She was swimming in
w
ater one moment and in the next she was floating in air.
“
I
’
ll never sleep,
”
she thought, both hot and cold and dry and damp together.
“
I
’
ll only ache and toss till morning.
”
Then miraculously sleep was creeping in on her. She felt
its gentle fingers smoothing
...
smoothing ... her limbs growing inert. There must have been something else as well as aspirin, she thought drowsily.
The last thing she thought was:
He sleeps here. He sleeps here at Belinda. At this very moment he is under the same roof.
CHAPTER XVII
JESSA was off duty a week. The fever left her in twenty-four hours, but Doctor Elizabeth insisted that she did not come in contact with the babies or with anything pertaining to the babies for seven days. As there was virtually no work for anyone at Belinda not pertaining to babies, Jessa remained in bed at first, and then sun-baked in the pocket handkerchief square of grass enclosed by the hedge.
She wrote home, she sewed, she read, she daydreamed things she knew could not come true... she was thoroughly glad when Doctor Elizabeth said she could start back again.
Nurse Gwen and Nurse Margaret were still to be her workmates. The trio got down to it with their old efficiency. They might not be the happiest of groupings, but they were an able threesome. Matron Martha on her daily inspections never found anything of which to complain.
Margaret perforce still played the role of balm-spreader between Gwen and Jessa. One of us, admitted Jessa ruefully to herself, is certainly a Doctor Fell to the other. We simply can
’
t merge.
But one morning they did merge... just for a while, briefly, poignantly... but the moment, both of them knew if did not acknowledge, would always live on.
Gainsborough died.
After the first forty-eight hours with a tiny baby one still watched as closely and carefully, but stopped crossing one
’
s fingers as well—yet twenty days after his small beginning, when he should have been going forward not back, the little blue-eyed boy slipped forever out of their hands.
It was Nurse Gwen who discovered it.
Perhaps, like Jessa, she had never learned to meet Death without a little cry of protest in her heart. Perhaps even at Carabelle tears had slipped through.
She made a little noise, part whimper, part sob, part prayer. Jessa heard it. She went to the crib and stood beside her. She saw the girl
’
s stricken face. She remembered a lot of things...how Gwen had thought it was dreadful to put an umbrella mender
’
s and a judge
’
s son together. She felt like saying,
“
Death does not differentiate, does it, Nurse Gwen?
”
Then something happened... she did not know how it came about. She closed the little blue eyes, then turned and closed her arms around the nurse.
At first Gwen stood rigid. This was not correct hospital behaviour. Nursing discipline meant a great deal to her. Then all at once she started to cry
They were soft broken sobs, the tears splashed freely.
“
He was so little... his eyes were so blue, just like delphiniums ... I said those things, but I didn
’
t mean them
“
“
We all say things, darling, some are things that need not have been said, some are very helpful. A helpful thing was said one day to me. Listen, Gwennie, someone once said:
‘
So a little leaf has left the tree.
’
It was for a baby like this.
”
They stood, arms entwined, looking down at the
“
little leaf.
”
It was a brief moment. It would never come again. They knew that. They would snap each other once more—yet somehow it would be different after this. There would be the memory of a quiet shared minute to make them know that any quarrel was passing, trivial, infinitesimal in the bigger pattern of things... there would be the memory of that little leaf.
Mr. Shaw came, and to spare Gwen, Jessa told him.
He stood whirling his best brown hat around and looking at the toes of his best brown boots.
“
We knew he didn
’
t have much of a chance, Nurse, the wife and me, but somehow we felt he
’
d make it. It might sound silly to you, a weak kid like that, one we haven
’
t had time to get to know, to tend for, to snuggle, but it still hurts.
”
“
Of course it hurts; of course it
’
s not silly, but you mustn
’
t fret, there
’
ll be others. I think previously you told me he was your first.
”
“
Yes, Nurse.
”
Still the, scrutiny of the boots, the hat whirling.
“
Then you musn
’
t be discouraged, this might never happen again. You may have a quiver of fine healthy children.
”
“
Yes,
”
said Mr. Shaw,
“
but never
that
little fellow, Nurse.
”
He went out of the hospital, boots shuffling, hat put squarely back on his head. It was good to know there was love in the world for a little unimportant premature baby, even if it pierced your heart at the same time to know that the baby would never open its blue, blue eyes again.
Jessa aired
the
crib, got
it ready
for its next t
enant.
Rob Roy came
in that night at midnight. He
had only
a very faint heartbeat. He had to be watched personally by the three of them in turn.
“
You
’
re a lot of trouble, Rob Roy,
”
said Jessa in the morning when a lot of the danger was over.
“
Gainsborough whose cot you have was never a worry like this.
”
At the desk in the corner of the room Nurse Gwen wrote the final information on the page headed John Shaw, then closed the book.
“
That infant
’
s name,
”
she said reprovingly to Jessa,
“
is Robert Furies.
”
* *
*
Soon after
Jessa
’
s return
to work
she learned
that their
next examination was looming up.
“
I can hardly believe the time has gone by,
”
she said to Margaret, wishing she had thought of the exam during her convalescence when the hours often had lagged.
Margaret had nodded seriously back.
“
We
’
ll be finished at Belinda before we know it, Jessa.
”
“
If we—at least if
I
get through.
”
“
Both of us wil
l.
We can
’
t fail this far into the course.
”
Jessa said
grimly,
“
Ask Matron Martha, she
’
s doing the testing.
”
Margaret, however, was not considering not passing.
“
Not nurses any more,
”
she sighed.
That gave Jessa food for new thought.
“
Meggy, what are you going to do with your future? Ever consider it?
”
“
Yes—quite often,
”
said Margaret. She glanced quickly and a little diffidently at Jessa. Jessa did not see the glance.
“
I remember when we first came to Belinda,
”
she resumed,
“
how you told me you might go on to nursing the disabled, the incapacitated, something like that. You were always so dedicated, Margaret, and that
’
s what made me
resolve to
—”
“
Yes?
”
Jessa smiled affectionately at her.
“
What have you finally decided, darling?
”
she eluded.
“
I
’
ll tell you when we come to it, Jessa.
”
... We. Did Meggy mean when
she
and Margaret came
to it, or did she mean
—
Who
did
she mean by we?
“
Our break will follow soon after the exam,
”
reminded Margaret before Jessa could question her further.
“
Are you still keen to come to Biggabilla, Jess?
”
“
Of course. I
’
d be disappointed if you went without me.
”
“
I wouldn
’
t think of going without you—or Barry and Professor Gink.
”
Jessa stared.
“
You mean they
’
re coming, too?
”
“
That was our arrangement, wasn
’
t it?
”
“
Why, yes, and I know Barry was very keen because of the opals, but I
’
m afraid I haven
’
t done what you asked Meg, I haven
’
t worded the Professor concerning Biggabilla. It all seems such a long time ago now, so many things have taken place.
”
“
That
’
s all right,
”
said Margaret offhandedly.
“
I asked him myself.
”
“
You
did!
”
Jessa looked a little taken aback. There was no reason for her to look like that, she knew, but Margaret at the time the foursome had been mentioned had been quite astounded at the idea of summoning the nerve to invite the great Prof. Gink.
Well, a lot must have happened since then, Jessa thought a little blankly. From somewhere or other Margaret must have found the necessary courage... or did such things come naturally—when one was in love?
“
As it eventuated,
”
continued Margaret,
“
it was very convenient for him. The Biggabilla infant welfare hall did not open when it intended. In fact, it will open when we are up there, so it will suit the Professor quite well.
”
“
That
’
s nice,
”
murmured Jessa.
The examination came and went. In due course their names were posted on the notice-board as successful candidates. Again Jessa
’
s read first.
A letter had come to Jessa from Margaret
’
s parents, assuring her that they were looking forward to her visit.
“
They wrote to Barry and the Professor as well,
”
beamed Meg.
“
Won
’
t we be a houseful?
”
“
Country places are incapable of being filled,
”
Margaret assured her.
“
When we run out of rooms there
’
s always a barn.
”
It was arranged that the girls go ahead and the men follow after. They took a local air-line, the same air-line that had borne Jessa and the Professor to the Winthrop quads, only this time they went north-west instead of south-west, and the country was very different.
—Or was it so different, wondered Jessa, when they alighted at the Biggabilla strip. To the left was the tiny town, several Shops, two hotels, and the inevitable peppercorns.
She remembered Professor Gink telling her that he had grown up in a peppercorn village. She remembered how she had wanted to ask him what had happened in those years between a country boy and an eminent scholar.
Margaret
’
s father met them in the car.
“
I don
’
t know what you
’
ll think of Biggabilla after Crescent Island,
”
he chuckled.
“
I don
’
t know your island, Miss Barlow, but Mother and I once went to Norfolk Island, and it was a very different background from this.
”
He chuckled again.