“A lot of good it’s done me,” returned Margaret, who was really perturbed at Jessa’s exclusion. “You beat me at every post.”
“There’s only been one post so far, and I still think that result was alphabetical. Oh, well”—with a resigned sigh—”I suppose Matron will spill it all in her own good time. Where will you go, Meggy? Back home as you planned?”
Margaret looked a little uncertainly at Jessamine, and Jess hastened to assure her, “Don’t worry about me, Meggy, Biggabilla will still be there for another break.”
“Yes, another break,” agreed Margaret eagerly—a little too eagerly?—and as she smiled at Jessa her face still wore that slightly uncertain look.
That afternoon Matron Martha “spilled” it as Jessa had anticipated, and it was such an honour (even if an unintentional honour) that Jessa could not help thinking that this time she had pipped Margaret to the post.
Nurse Gwen informed her in her usual haughty manner that as soon as she had finished the Beresford infant—Nurse Gwen never used nicknames—she was wanted in the office by Matron. There was a touch of superiority in the announcement. Nurse Gwen’s tone indicated that a summons to Matron’s office was something that could happen to a G.S. graduate, but never, never to her.
“Gosh,” said Jessa anxiously, “do you know why?”
“I certainly would not dream of enquiring,” reproved Nurse Gwen frostily. “You’d better let me finish that child N while you adjust your cap before you go down, Nurse Jess. It’s over one eye.”
This was a little too much. Nurse Gwen had only been here three weeks.
“My cap can wait,” said Jessa doggedly, “but ‘Bubbles’ Beresford can’t, she’s barely three pounds and she’s going to finish this bottle without any changing of guiding hands if it’s the last thing I do. And I might add, Nurse Gwen, that Matron Martha, were she feeding Miss Beresford, would do the same, too.”
Nurse Gwen tossed her head and tilted her chin.
As soon as Bubbles was diapered and cribbed, Jessa adjusted the cap as advised and went downstairs.
As she descended by her usual two’s and three’s, she tried to tabulate her sins, but quite honestly could not discover one. This did not particularly encourage her. Quite frequently at G.S. she had been severely reproved when to her guileless mind she had boasted a completely impeccable slate.
She tapped on the door. The last time she had tapped here had been for the progress exam. She remembered her surprise when she had walked in and found Professor Gink.
It was not the Professor now, however, it was Matron Martha, and she was rustling papers busily, and looked a little harassed.
“Oh, come in, Nurse Jess—you have been a long time.”
“I was in the middle of a feed, Matron Martha.” Perhaps Nurse Gwen had been right after all, and she should have downed tools, or rather downed babies, and come at once.
But Matron Martha was neither waiting for an explanation nor warming up to deliver a chid.
“Nurse, you are used to flying, aren’t you? What I really mean is, you are accustomed to packing quickly and efficiently what things are best for such a mode of travel. Also always journeying by air, I should presume you never get sick.”
“Yes, I mean, no, I mean—”
Matron Martha brushed her surprised answers aside by an impatient wave of her hand. Evidently she had decided to accept whatever Jessa babbled as the right replies.
“Nurse, you peruse the daily papers, of course...you have no doubt read of the Winthrop anticipations. “Winthrop anticipations... you don’t mean...?”
“Yes, Nurse Jess, I mean the quadruplets that are expected in Curry Bulla in the south-west of this state at any time now.”
Jessa nodded her head.
Of course she had read about it. You could not buy an Australian paper and not read about the anticipated quads. Australia might be large in space, but it was still not so big in population that quads could arrive unhonoured and unsung.
There were only a few sets of Australian quadruplets on record, and an eager continent awaited the new arrivals.
But what did it all have to do with her, Nurse, not even Sister Jess, an unimportant humble trainee at the Lady
Belinda? And what was it that Matron Martha was about to announce?
“Mrs. Winthrop,” said Matron, “was invited to come here weeks ago to Belinda so that the quadruplets would have everything at hand and get a flying start. She refused, preferring to stop at Curry Bulla—and perhaps that was wise, too, for there is no place like one’s own home town, however humble, especially when one faces the milestone that this mother-to-be faced.
“We sympathized with her decision to stop on, and, at the cottage hospital’s request, we flew up humidicribs and isolets, every other apparatus we believed might be required. Specialists from a leading maternity hospital went up later for the mother, and now—”
“Now?” breathed Jessa.
“Now we are sending two specialists of our own, of Belinda’s, for the quadruplets, and one of them is yourself.”
“Me!” Jessa stood like a statue; she had never felt so petrified in all her life. “A specialist—me! Oh, Matron Martha!”
Matron shrugged impatiently. “That, of course, is only for the press,” she deflated unkindly. “I could hardly tell them I am releasing a trainee only halfway through her course.”
“But why me? I mean, there must be many others far more entitled—”
“There are, but you just fit the bill, Nurse Jess. I don’t want to send anyone who gets out of the plane at Curry Bulla looking like a sick duck, and I certainly don’t want to send any of the senior staff, the rush at Belinda being still at its peak.”
Seeing Jessa’s wide eyes even wider in enquiry, she added, “You see, Nurse Jess, I happen to know that, in spite of the feverish focus of attention on Curry Bulla, these babies probably will be less in need of specialized attention than most of our own babies here at Belinda. They will be small, of course, but. after your training these last few months a merely small baby only means—”
“A piece of cake,” finished Jessa unthinking.
Matron Martha frowned.
She must have decided to overlook the impertinence, however, for she resumed, “Therefore, all things considered, I believe I am safe in agreeing that you should go, Nurse Jess.”
“Agreeing?” Jessa echoed it, puzzled.
Matron rustled the papers again.
“I do not usually approve of special requests whoever requests them, but—”
“Matron Martha,” asked Jessa curiously, “did someone ask for—I mean—”
Matron Martha looked at her coldly. She also looked caught out in her own thoughts, and the way her lips tightened made it apparent she would not be caught out again.
“Nurse, go and pack and be ready to leave in twenty minutes. You can do that?”
“Oh, yes—”
“Then what are you waiting for, pray?”
“Matron Martha, did someone—that is—”
“Nurse!”
“Sorry, Matron Martha. Twenty minutes, Matron Martha? Yes, Matron Martha. At once.”
And Jessa flew off.
Once in her own room, however, she paused to hug herself in ecstasy. This was something she had never anticipated in her wildest dreams, to be given the honour to help with quads.
Matron’s deflating words had not entirely deflated her. She might have been chosen merely because of her airworthiness, as Ba would have put it, or because Belinda at the moment had need of more skilled hands than hers, but she still had been chosen, she still was going to Curry Bulla to assist with the Winthrop babies.
For a moment she puzzled over Matron Martha’s caught-out look when she had queried her about that “special request.” Then she dismissed it happily. No one had requested her, for who would? Anyway, what did it matter when it all came finally to this: that she was the one to fly to Curry Bulla, she, un-important, humble Nurse Je
ss.
She packed quickly and expertly, putting in a change of uniform and several pinafores. Stockings, undies, a gay cotton for breaks grabbed through the day, a soft silk ballerina in the hope there might be something on one night, sponge bag, lipstick, cream, cologne, brush...that was all, she thought.
There was a knock at the door and there stood Sister Helen. She did not speak, but smiled broadly and pushed something into Jessa’s hand.
Jessa looked at the bundle wonderingly. A sister’s cascading veil, a crimson cape. “But... I don’t understand...” she said.
“Matron Martha’s orders. Matron Martha says she must not send a nurse up to Curry Bulla to tell them what to do, she must send a sister.”
“But I’m not a “
“You are really, you know. Privately I think it’s a shame you kids don’t get the recognition you should. After all, your past four years weren’t exactly a picnic.” Sister Helen shrugged reminiscently. “I, too, was at G.S.,” she said with feeling.
Jessa was looking entranced at the veil and cape.
“Did Matron Martha really say that?”
“You can check if you like, but I don’t think she’ll be pleased. She said twenty minutes, and”—Sister Helen glanced at her watch—“already ten have gone.”
“I’ll be ready—and thank you, thank you so much.”
“Don’t thank me, thank Matron, my child. And take a fellow senior’s advice, make hay while the sun shines, Sister Jess.” With another beam Sister Helen was gone.
Although time was running short Jessa could not resist slipping on the cape and pulling over the cascading veil. “Oh, gosh—” she said, and blew herself a kiss.
Eleven minutes had gone now, but she simply must run along and show Margaret. She did run along, but Margaret, alas, was not there.
“I’d better leave a note,” she said aloud, and grabbing a pencil and some paper—Margaret had a methodical room arrangement and always had some ready—she scribbled a few lines.
“Something wonderful, Meggy! Have left for Curry Bulla!! Assigned to the Winthrop quads!!! Don’t mind too much, will you? Love, Jess.”
She put it in a prominent position on the chest of drawers, then hurried back to complete her dressing and packing.
As she did so she saw that a note had been put in a prominent position on her chest of drawers, and, drawing her caramel jersey sheath over her head, she crossed and took it up.
“Jessamine darling, have left for Crescent Island! Ba managed to wangle a ticket. Hope you won’t mind. All my love, Meg.”
The note fluttered to the floor. Jess waited till she had the sheath right on, then retrieved it.
Funny for them both to scribble three lines like that, she thought, both to say “not mind” to each other.
She had meant for Meg not to mind her having the honour of attending quads ... but what had Meggy meant?
She snapped her case closed, pulled on a stocking turban of matching jersey. Of course Margaret had only meant seeing Mummy and Father... Crescent Island... Lopi... that was what Meg had meant.
Five minutes left—and one more thing to do.
She raced along to do it, to say goodbye to the Perfesser.
At the corner of the long corridor she overtook the lanky, gangling figure. Hearing her approach, he jumped cautiously aside, then grinned. When he smiled he looked like when he took off his glasses—like a small boy again.
“We’re both going the same direction today, thank goodness,” he said. “This time I will not be bowled over, Nurse Jess.”
She slackened her speed to a more womanly pace and walked quietly beside him. “I’m going along to Master X,” she said sedately, and then, unable to keep her exhilaration to herself any longer, “To say goodbye to him for a little while.”
“Yes, we will both say that to him,” agreed Professor Gink.
She looked at him without surprise. He was always going away, he was always either departing or returning. “And where are you off to this time, Professor?” she asked politely.
He said, “Curry Bulla,” then asked politely back, “And you, Nurse Jess?”
She did not answer him, she could not, she simply nodded dumbly. Matron Martha had said Belinda was sending a specialist, but Professor Gink was not attached exclusively to Belinda, to anywhere particular, and she had rather expected Doctor Elizabeth, Doctor Mary, some highly-thought-of honorary—she had not thought of him.
He was looking at her very oddly. In anyone else she could have called it almost a dog-like expression, but to couple such a look with a famous scholar would be quite absurd. “Didn’t you know?” he asked a little gruffly. “Didn’t Matron tell you that I—well—that I—well—?”
“No, I didn’t know, Professor,” she answered promptly to help out his awkwardness. Really, for a clever man his speech was lamentable, not at all clear and concise.
“Does it matter?” he blurted clumsily. “I mean, is it a shock that the other traveller for Curry Bulla is old Prof Gink?”
“Why, of course it doesn’t matter,” she said uncomfortably. “I mean it’s not for me to say, anyway, is it? It’s—it’s simply just “
“Yes, Nurse Jess?”
She kept on walking in silence a moment. She was thinking to herself how all her schemes were going awry once more... what was it again? “The best-laid plans o’ mice and men...”
Margaret was off with Ba when She should be off with the Professor, and she, Jessa, was off with the Professor when... oh, everything was the wrong way round.
And then all at once, quite spontaneously, a little rapturously, she was thinking that she didn’t very much care about the plans-gone-wrong ... in fact she didn’t care at all.
It was only “quad excitement,” of course. One didn’t have multiple births everyday of one’s life. It made one too happy to think seriously and with suitable dedication about serious dedicated subjects like Margaret and Professor Gink.
The Professor was still looking down at her. Perhaps he sensed some of her spontaneous happiness, for suddenly he lost his air of anxiety and became very relaxed—for him.
“We’ll have to hurry,” he almost shouted. “Plane leaves sharp on the hour, Nurse.”
“It doesn’t take two jiffies for a kiss,” assured Jessamine, and forgot about being womanly and began to run to her special baby again.
Then the Professor said a strange thing. She caught the words as she raced down the corridor, her unaccustomed high heels tapping on the polished floor, and instinctively her mind tucked them away for future consideration.
He called, “Two jiffies, Nurse Jess? But surely you’re wrong. Already it has taken me a thousand years.”
CHAPTER XII
IT was dusk when the plane put them down on the airfield at Curry Bitilla. Jessa stood waiting for the hospital car, Professor Gink by her side.
It had been a good trip. Losing that odd awkwardness of his, the scholar had proved a pleasant companion. They had talked and laughed together, and later he had confided something over afternoon, tea.
She had started the topic. She had said, “I can’t see why I was chosen to come when there are so many others.”
“Are you complaining, Nurse Jess?”
“I’m rejoicing, but I still can’t see “
“Perhaps you were specially requested.” He was lighting a cigarette. She had never seen him smoke before. He looked more like a pipe man, like her father was, and she told him so.
“Do I seem old enough to you to be your father?”
“I never said so, Professor, I said—”
“Yes, but do I?” he persisted with that stubbornness she had met occasionally in him before.
“Of course not.”
“Are you just being polite?”
“No, I’m not,” retorted Jessa forcibly. “I mentioned my father simply because he smokes a pipe.”
“We’ll forget the pipe and concentrate on the age. Is thirty-five very old to a girl who hasn
’t yet forgotten her nursery rhymes?”
“I’m in my fifth year of training now, so you can work how old I am out for yourself,” said Jessa with dignity.
“You once told me, it’s twenty-two. But surely a very young twenty-two, little Jess.”
She looked at him uncertainly. It sounded “little Jess,” but it probably was “Nurse Jess.” These local planes were not as silent as one would wish, words weren’t always clear. Of course it must be Nurse Jess.
“I’m not young,” she told him earnestly, “and when you see me professionally at Curry Bulla I’ll be a sister. Matron Martha promoted me just for the few days I’ll be here.
“And that,” she went on, “is what puzzles me. Why am I here? Who would request me? A demi-semi-trained prem nurse with a formidable record of chids?
“Of course,” with a rueful smile, “Matron Martha did say that the babies should not present any problem, I mean not prove beyond my very limited capability, but how could she know that when they’re not even born yet?” She frowned.
He said quietly, “But they are. That’s why we flew at such short notice. That’s why Matron did know, my child. Everything’s all right, but we thought we’d like a little breathing space before we announced it to the press and all the publicity begins.”
Jessa gave a soft whistle of admiration. “So Matron wasn’t taking a risk after all sending a junior nurse, she was speaking with authority when she said it would all be just a piece of cake.”
“A piece of what?”
“I’m sorry, Professor Gink.”
The Professor rubbed the end of his nose, then grinned. After a moment Jessa had asked of him, “The Mother, Professor?”
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