Jessa said, “No,” but somehow she didn’t feel at all unremembered, in spite of the omission that Nurse Gwen had pointed out.
But before Jessamine had the pleasure of washing the Perfesser, sun-kicking him, putting him in the pram and taking him for a walk, there was something else to happen.
An everyday ordinary street accident right at their door.
It was to a motor-bike driver and his pillion rider. They skidded off the street and landed high on the Belinda hedge.
Well-meaning bystanders wasted no time carrying them into the clinic, Sister Valerie protesting forcibly meanwhile that the pair should have been conveyed to a General, not a Hospital for Premature Babes.
“It’s still an ‘orspital, ain’t it?” said the chief very determined good Samaritan angrily, “and these two people are still in need of care?”
Matron Martha, who had appeared on the scene and looked firstly at the scratches on the patients, secondly on the different sexes of the patients, thirdly on the condition of her hedge, and fourthly—and darkly—on the up-ended motor-bike, which form of transport she abhorred, said, “Yes, sir, it is, though not the type of hospital that admits casualties. However, as you have already handled them more than you should, I won’t have them handled again. Hasn’t anyone ever told you to leave an accident just where it lands?”
“Blimey,” said the good Samaritan, “on the top of the blooming hedge?”
He was a little frightened of Matron, however, and did not stop to argue. Matron Martha had to call on the rest of the men to carry the paid to some quickly-improvised cribs. “Usually,” she said icily, “we can carry our patients ourselves.”
The girl was put at the end of the nursery reserved for the outgoing normal-weight babies, the boy was put on the closed-in verandah beside Master X.
Doctor Elizabeth came in and diagnosed only bruises and scratches, but prescribed several days in bed.
The shock had left the young couple. They were able to absorb where they were. The girl giggled when she was told.
The boy—so Sister Helen reported to Jessamine—swore.
“He would have got up, too, only he couldn’t. Matron Martha had seen to it that he wasn’t left any clothes. “ ‘What’ll I do?’ he said, ‘what’ll the fellas say? A hot-rodder in a hospital for undersized kids. I’ll never lift me head.’ “He hasn’t, either,” went on Sister Helen, “you’d think he was disgraced for life. These boys, don’t they think they were ever born?” She paused, then asked, “How’s the girl?”
“After the first embarrassment, after the worry as to how her Jimmy was taking it, the old maternal instinct took over. Now she’s all eyes and sighs. I believe she’s only waiting her chance to help with the babies. Incidentally, she’s rather a nice kid herself.”
“He might emerge the same when he emerges from under those blankets, who knows! I do know he looked quite different parted from that atrocious black wind-cheater with the skull and crossbones on the back. Hot-rodder!” Sister Helen sniffed.
One thing that had puzzled Jessa had been Matron Martha’s insistence that the pair were not to be shifted from Belinda. Ostensibly she had made the danger of removal her excuse, pointing out again and again that accidents were like prems, they should suffer a minimum of handling. This would have made sense if the girl and boy were not so unmistakably sound and in one unbroken if scratched and braised piece, and if all Matron’s nurses, including Jessa, had not been well aware of the fact.
Marvelling at her own daring but unable to subdue her curiosity, Jessa dared question Matron Martha when that lady visited the girl that afternoon.
Following her from the normal ward into the corridor, she said, “She seems all right, doesn’t she, Matron Martha?”
“She’s all right.” Matron gave a shrug.
“Then—” Jessa hesitated, putting the question unmistakably into her hesitation.
“Then why am I keeping her here?” Matron seemed rather to relish not resent the query.
“I’ll tell you why, it’s because I have a disciplinary nature, Nurse Jess, and quite often I feel like inflicting a sharp lesson. This is one of those occasions.
“I abhor those noisy machines. Screaming here, screaming there... even screaming past a hospital, the very idea!
“And those drivers—black windcheaters with dreadful barbarian drawings on them. Then the girls. Not enough on them to keep out a summer breeze, let alone a wind in August. Little shorts and a. shirt! The next thing that child would have been down with pneumonia and dead.
“And if she’s not”—Matron was warmed up now—”let me tell you it’s not doing her inside any good, Nurse, being jogged up and down like that Girls were made to be women and mothers, not condiments to be shaken out like pepper from a pot.”
“Well, if you don’t approve of them, wouldn’t it have been better if “
Matron held up her hand. “I’m teaching them a lesson, a lesson they’ll never forget. How do you think they’ll feel recovering from a hot-rod accident”—she mouthed it expertly—“With the Lady Belinda Hospital for Premature Babies?”
Jessa answered what she judged must be the understatement of the year, “I don’t think they will.”
She eyed Matron admiringly. It took some thinking to inflict a punishment like this. Matron must have seen the applause. “Oh, yes, I’ve thought out some reproofs in my time, Nurse Jess. I was at a normal obstetric home before Belinda. I remember one case being brought in by her husband and he was absolutely—Well!” Matron spread her hands.
“It seemed he had stopped at every tavern for a brandy to keep up his courage. Anyone would have thought he was the case.” She gave a laugh. “He thought it himself when he woke up, like our hot-rodder here, in a ward.”
“Matron—I mean Matron Martha, you didn’t—?”
“I did, I put him to bed to sleep it off in a midwifery home. When he came to, all he wanted to do was slink out of the door. Men!” Matron shrugged again.
“There was another, I recall—I soon fixed him. The wife arrived about nine p.m. I admitted her, and enquired about her husband. Seems they had gone to the pictures and that soon after she had started a few pains. She came out and along to the hospital by herself, but he decided to stop on because he hadn’t seen the second half of the film.
“I second-halfed him. I phoned a notice to be screened at the theatre—‘Bill Bloggs come to Women’s Infirmary at once.’ Second half, indeed!”
“But, Matron Martha, wasn’t that rather cruel? He might have thought that something had gone wrong.”
“It had, Nurse Jess, it had gone very wrong indeed. A man watching a second half at a theatre while his wife is in another theatre of a different sort.
“I can tell you I kept that man waiting... and waiting. By the time I let him go his pass-out ticket was not current any longer. Also the picture theatre was closed for the night and all he was ready for was bed.
“Oh, yes, I’ve thought out my reproofs,” and proud of her ability at “chid” delivery, Matron Martha swept along to the next ward.
When Jessa went back to the normal section the girl was hopping around quietly and peeping ecstatically at the babes.
“They’re sweet, they’re only as big as dolls. I never thought a baby could be so little.”
“They’re big compared to our tinies next door. These are almost full-time, ready to go out.”
“Smaller still—oh, I’d love to see them!”
“Why not?”
The girl’s face lit up. “Could I?”
“Hold on to me, you’re not the steadiest yet, and we try to make as little noise as we can.”
The two of them went silently through to the heated interior. Jessa conducted the patient around the isolets and humidicribs, she showed how they kept the babies warm.
The waiting bottles all with their owners’ names on them were demonstrated, the tiny chests of drawers, the closet for the babies’ going-home clothes.
And then the babies themselves with only their faces showing ... little wan white ones ... crumpled pink ... another Tar Baby, but only milk chocolate this time, not black.
“You’ll have to come and watch their oil baths,” whispered Jessa.
Again the girl said, “Could I?”
“Why not? I tell you what, we’ll make you a parent.
Parents are encouraged to visit whenever they can. Which baby will you have?”
The girl chose Deb. Number One, which was not surprising, as already the Peters baby was a small beauty.
“Time’s up, Mrs. Peters,” smiled Jessa. “See you tomorrow?”
“Mrs. Peters” murmured rapturously, “Yes, please.” During the day, whenever Jessa was working in the normal ward, the girl, whose name was Jill, proffered shy information as to herself—and Jim.
“We’re steadies. He’s a nice boy, Jim. You mightn’t think so with that hot-rod of his and all its gadgets, but—well, he is.” Jill looked almost belligerently at Jessa as though challenging her to say he was not, but all Jessa said was, “I’m sure he is, Jill.”
“If only he didn’t belong to that club. There’s the whole trouble. Always outdoing each other on their bikes. And the money they spend on them. Jim earns a good salary, too, but there’s never much left. I tell you, Nurse, the only quarrel me and Jimmy ever had is over that hot-rod.”
“Don’t you like riding pillion, Jill?”
“Not the way the gang—and Jim—rides. I’d sooner a side car, or even a small motor-car, a second-hand one would do. But more than that I’d like our own little house, ever so little would be enough, and a garden ... and I wouldn’t mind that baby, either, but” with a sigh—”Jim’s gang only go in for hot-rods.”‘
“Jim won’t always stick to his gang, the same as the gang won’t stick to it either. He, and they, will grow up. It’ll be all right, Jill, you see.”
Jill looked wistful. “I wish I could think so, Nurse, but it took a long time for Jim to even go steady, he was so frightened of what the gang would say. Men are funny things.”
“You can’t prod them, Jill, they have to come to decisions themselves.” Who am I talking, asked Jessa of herself, I who can’t even bring two people together, let alone begin on myself.
Her duties that afternoon took her out to the Perfesser. Jim’s cot occupied the other corner of the closed-in verrandah and Jim had actually emerged from the blankets.
“Good afternoon,” smiled Jessa.
Jim did not say good afternoon, he growled, “All right, laugh at me, I suppose whole world is splitting its sides.” Jessa began diapering the Perfesser. “The whole world? You are important, aren’t you?”
‘The gang, anyway.”
“Oh, them—” Jessa dismissed Jim’s gang with an expert snap into its place of the big safety pin.
“Funny-looking little codger,” said Jim with unwilling interest.
“Who is?”
“That kid.”
“He’s not, he’s beautiful, and he’s coming along famously.”
“Beautiful—with that skinny little dial!”
“Master X is almost normal weight. If you think he is small you should see our three-pounders, and less—”
“Blimey, no, thanks.” Jim watched a moment. “Why do you call him that? Master X?”
“Because we don’t know his name, he was brought in from a telephone box. He was under three pounds, and not long born, fortunately. You see, you have to be quick to save prems.”
“Who were his mum and dad?”
“They didn’t stop to tell us.”
“You mean they—”
Jessa said, “Yes.”
Jim said, horrified, “Blimey, a little bloke like that.” There was a silence for a while.
“What’ll become of him, Nurse?”
“He’ll go to an orphanage. They’ll find a name for him—probably with a pin stuck at chance in an electoral roll.” Jessa hoped she was not piling it on too thickly. “He may be adopted, he may not.”
“I shouldn’t think he would, he’s got an ugly little dial.” Jessa checked with difficulty a hot retort. She finished the diapering, then went over and put the baby beside Jim. “You can give him his bottle.”
“Me! Not on your sweet life, sister.”
“I’m Nurse.”
“I know that, I just said not on your life, sister, to show you I’m no sissy girl. Give a baby a bottle!” Jim sneered.
“All the same, like it or not, you’re giving it. I’ve a lot to do. We all have a lot to do—indeed, we have too much to do here. We can’t afford passengers, Mr. Jim Whatever-Your-Name-Is. You’re not doing anything lying there, so it won’t hurt you to hold a bottle for a little baby.”
“Who says it won’t?”
Jessa took a chance. “Matron says.”
“Oh—” said Jim uncertainly, and Jessa saw she had won.
She put the Perfesser and the bottle beside Jim and got out in a hurry. In another moment she would not have been able to check her laughs.
When she came back fifteen minutes later Jim was watching the last of the milk disappear. His eyes were fascinated. “Blimey, he can put it away,” he said.
“You know”—with an upward glance to Jessa—”he stopped once’ and looked right at me and grinned. Least, I would have thought it was a grin if I didn’t know it was wind.”
“Oh, so you do know something about babies?”
Jim scowled. “My sister’s got a nipper, and I’ve heard her say a grin is only wind.”
“Your sister’s wrong then, it’s a smile. That was a smile. It was a smile for you.”
“You reckon?”
“I know.”
“Blimey,” said Jim.
That evening Jessa asked Matron Martha if she could possibly postpone the stay of the two accident sufferers a few days longer.
“What are you up to, Nurse Jess?”
“Something I know you would have been up to in my place, Matron Marrha.”
“I suppose I would,” admitted Matron. “I used to be full of schemes. All right, but I hope it’s a punishment, not a reward.”
“Does it matter if it only begins a punishment?” asked Jessa.
Matron Martha pretended not to hear.
Jessa got out the Belinda pram and appealed to Jim, who was now allowed up, to take it out into the garden for her. In it she put Master X.
“It’s his first outing, Jim. Imagine it, his very first helping of sun and air and outdoors. He couldn’t have it now either, only that you’re here to keep an eye on him. The rest of us are far too busy, we have too much to do.”
“Don’t you worry, Nurse Jess, I’ll watch the little bloke. First day out, eh?”
Jessa was pleased that the direction of the wheeling followed the direction in which she had had the pram pointing. Around the next corner sat Jill, and very pretty she looked, too, in a rosy-pink bedjacket Sister Helen had produced from her magic box of knitteds, and she was giving Deb. Number One her meal.
She did not pause to watch the encounter; nor did she question either of them on their return.
The next day Jim wheeled a second time, Jill gave the Peters babe another bottle.
The third day Matron Martha decided finally they must have had sufficient reproof and could go home at last.
“You are dismissed from hospital,” announced Jessa cheerily, coming into the garden and finding them sitting together. “Would you like me to ring up two of your club members, Jim, to fetch you and Jill home on their bikes?”
“Flop them.” said Jim. “We’ll take a taxi, eh, Jilly?”
“We’re going to sell the bike, or what’s left of it, and get a bit of land,” smiled Jill.
“We might get a cheap car, too. A fella’ll need a car when he gets a wife and family.”
“Only first of all you said a ring,” reminded Jill. “Just a little one. I don’t like big diamond rings.”
“Righto, love.”
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They left that afternoon. Like the ungrateful children they were, they did it without a backward glance and no thanks whatever.
“They don’t look very chastened,” commented Matron Martha dubiously.
Jessa thought to herself, “No, when people are in love they only look one thing “
As she wheeled Master X into Belinda again she told him: “They only look in love, Perfesser dear.”
CHAPTER XI
IN spite of the seeming predilection of prems for spring and the extra work this preference entailed, Margaret and Jessa, knowing Matron Martha’s strict maxim concerning regular breaks, looked every day to the notice-board, where approaching vacations were listed as they came due.
They looked in vain... so kept on their good work, knowing that things must be very hectic for Matron not to hustle them away from the prescribed couple of weeks.
Then one day there appeared that long-anticipated “Trainees Due for Seasonal Leave,” but beneath it one name only. The name was M. South.
“Only me?” exclaimed Margaret unbelievingly.
Jessa echoed a little disconsolately, for although she revelled in the busy rush she had been building up quite considerably in her mind this promised trip to Biggabilla, “Only you.”
“I can’t understand it, Jessamine,” said Margaret bewildered. “Really, I think Matron Martha should explain.”
“Then I don’t advise you to tap on the door and ask her to, darling. You’ve led a charmed life to date, not a single chid.”
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