Free Nurse Jess by Joyce Dingwell

G.
    No one saw her do it and no one took any notice when it was there. Lots of letters and parcels were left at the office. It probably was assumed, if anyone bothered to do any assuming, that as it was stampless it had arrived by hand.
    The following morning the parcel was gone—but there was a similarly stampless letter for Miss J. Barlow.
    Jessa put it in her pocket and when she went upstairs she opened it.
    “ —As beautiful as an appendicostomy, ” wrote the Professor in very bad writing. “ My thanks, B. G. ”
    B, she pondered with warm interest... Bertram, Boris, Benedict? Then she wondered how he knew she was Miss Barlow when he had only ever met her as Nurse Jess. The knowledge that he must have enquired gave her a curiously satisfied feeling. It was a rather nice sensation, but it must not be permitted. She must remember what she had resolved for Margaret and the Professor, she must keep in mind the betterment of the cause that she had planned.
    Thus it was when the second letter came, and by the letter a similar envelope to the one in which she had slipped his first glasses, she only took away the letter guessing in advance what it would ask.
    It did.
    “ My second pair call also for operation. Could you again be Doctor, not Nurse Jess? Yours, B. G. ”
    She could—but she wouldn ’ t.
    It meant nothing to him save perhaps a few moments of idle amusement and another pair of mended glasses, but it could mean—and somewhere deep within her she admitted it uneasily—quite a lot to her.
    In which case she would stand firm right from the beginning. If Margaret had been anyone else but the sensitive soul she was, she would have taken the glasses and mended them blithely, thinking nothing—well, very little, anyway — of it all. But Margaret was Margaret, and one day she might not be happy if the Professor remarked, “ My dear, both these pairs of spectacles were salvaged by your friend Jess Barlow. It was amusing, really—we performed our commissions through the medium of the public notice-board and no one noticed a thing. ”
    So the larger envelope remained there long after the smaller one was taken. It would not have needed a psychologist to deduce that it remained on simply because someone deliberately had not wanted to take it away.
    No one pointed out to Jessa that she had not collected all her mail. The way it is with public racks one only looks for one’s own mail, the rest are simply letters. So the second pair of the Professor ’ s glasses needing attention stopped where they had been placed.
    Margaret had had a ring from Rene suggesting a reunion. Rene had done the organizing and it appeared that all the old girls with the exception of Jennifer, who, with her interne, was on honeymoon, could attend.
    “ Even Jan of the inland is coming down, ” said Rene, “ and Dinah ’ s ship will be in, and Glenda ’ s concentrating on night patients. ”
    “ Miranda and Della? ”
    “ They ’ re coming as well. There ’ s only you two—can you make it? ” Rene begged.
    Margaret and Jessa conferred anxiously and decided they could.
    To Jessa ’ s pleasure they met in a cafe. They all chose different teas as they used to in pro days, sharing for variety when the orders arrived.
    Rene was very proud of herself. “ It ’ s that veil and crimson cape that does it. Sometimes I have to turn away, the respect I get from the junior kids. ”
    “ I don ’ t get merely respect, I get adulation, ” said Jan gaily. “ You have to go outback for gratitude—it ’ s touching, really. And to think one year ago I was lisping ‘ Yes, sister, ’ just like Rene ’ s juniors to her. ”
    Della said, “ Anything I ask for arrives immediately. Incidentally, I ’ m called Matron by the factory, so how do you like that? ”
    “ I think it sounds very unromantic, ” put in Dinah. “ On the ship I ’ m Sister Allard, but of course ” —with a heavenly sigh— “ I ’ m not always on duty. ” She gave