Nurse Jess Read Online Free PDF Page B

lectured. It was really an achievement for that large important bosom and straight ramrod back. Jessa was very impressed.
    She was more impressed still when Matron Martha took up a baby and cuddled him to her. Yes, Margaret had been right, she saw, there was only comfort there.
    The comfort was strictly for her prems, though. She turned and looked coldly on Jessamine.
    “ Couldn ’ t you see this baby needed mothering, Nurse Jess? Nurses who care for premature babies must understand that such children are fully-dependent creatures. Their wits must be sharpened to all that a baby might need. They cannot ask. This child has an emotional side as well as a physical. Remember that in the future, and you can let Nurse watch the special case now, it ’ s time for your tea. ”
    “ That late? ”
    Matron Martha was grudgingly pleased at this unmistakable evidence of Jessa ’ s absorption in her work. In her usual “ tinder with you ” one moment, “ rescued ” the next, she replied, “ Yes, time goes, doesn ’ t it? Go and have your break, then come back and feed babies Brent, Carter and Jones, and after those I believe your day will be done.
    “ And don ’ t forget, Nurse Jess, in the second hall tonight, Professor Gink. ”
    Professor Gink... Uniform of pink... Jessa found herself walking to the absurd time of it, then telling herself not to be silly, that it was evening, not a.m., that she should not permit rhyming at this hour. She drank two cups of tea and ate three buns.
    Brent, Carter and Jones were all bottle types, and presented no feeding difficulties. She stopped right on time and went down with Margaret for tea.
    “ Do we change for the lecture? ”
    Margaret said, “ I asked Matron Martha that and she said only if we wanted to. I ’ m not going to. Once I get out of this uniform it will be to get into bed. ”
    Jessa nodded feelingly. “ I ’ m done, too. I expect we ’ re both slack. Three weeks away from a ward is disastrous to the energy. ”
    “ Especially three weeks ’ lotus-eating, ” suggested Margaret slyly.
    “ No, not lotus, only pawpaw and pineapple and buttered yams. However, this stew isn ’ t bad, is it? ” Jessa ate heartily, as though two cups of tea and three buns were many hours away instead of only two.
    The lecture was at seven. Even those who presumably might have been going out for the evening made it clear that this was one thing they would not miss.
    Margaret and Jessa followed the little crowd of sisters and nurses to the second hall. Because they were new and did not want to intrude they chose seats at the back.
    Matron Martha was there already, and a pretty, youngish woman whom Margaret whispered was Doctor Elizabeth. “ I met her when you were at tea; she came up to see Baby Birdwell, he wouldn ’ t suck. ”
    Professor Gink had not arrived. Jessa shut her eyes and tried to imagine what the professor would look like. Slim? Or matured? Made-up or left shiny? Hat on or beautifully salon-ed hair? Flat heels or very high and French? It was no use, she simply could not visualize the woman.
    All she kept picturing was her Gink, Daddy-long-legs Gink—and, of course, the youngest of his large quiver-full, the Perfesser as she had named him, the little boy with the small lost face.
    “ Up, ” whispered Margaret urgently, and Jessa obeyed mechanically. How often had she “ upped ” at lectures at G.S.!
    And then she was staring. She was staring so hard that Margaret had to nudge her down again.
    “ It ’ s—it ’ s a man, ” she said.
    Margaret said, “ Ssh, ” then nodded. “ I rather expected it, ” she whispered under cover of picking up something from the floor. “ Didn ’ t you? ”
    “ No, no, I didn ’ t. I though this hospital was female to the core. ”
    “ Perhaps he is the core, ” decided Margaret shrewdly. “ By the importance surrounding him I could quite believe that. ”
    —Yes, but he hadn ’ t been so important doubled up peeking