The Quintland Sisters(19)
“We have made the health of the girls our absolute focus,” she said, “but we’ve struggled to keep up with the premises and the laundry.”
The Captain said nothing for a moment, her eyes blazing at Nurse Clouthier. Then, as if struck with a premonition, she marched down the steps and past the section of field that we’d commandeered for our laundry lines. That’s how she came to make the discovery in the stables.
We were back indoors with the babies when we heard her stomping up to the porch and calling all staff to join her again, tout de suite. We hustled back outside to find her, arms crossed and gnashing her large teeth, dark curls springing indignantly from her head. Her impeccable nurse’s apron was missing, and we saw now that she’d used it to bundle up a wad of soiled and reeking cottons that she held at arm’s length.
“Who is responsible?” Her dark eyes flashed. “Who has left the babies’ things, this filth, to pile up in the stables?”
A glance flickered between me and Ivy. Week in, week out since Nurse de Kiriline first set the rules, all of the girls and women in that farmhouse have spent some part of their day soaping, scrubbing, boiling, wringing, and hanging every diaper, blanket, blouse, bib, and bonnet that has passed through this nursery. Some of the neighboring farms, we understood, had been taking in some of the laundry, particularly since the hired girls brought in to help Mme. Dionne have proved so unreliable—here one day and gone the next.
“We had no idea that any of the babies’ things had even been taken to the stables,” Ivy said finally. “We don’t go elsewhere on the farm.”
Lauren, the pleasant, fresh-faced orderly who joined us this week, also expressed surprise, saying she herself had taken a load of cottons back to St. Joe’s Hospital laundry when she went off shift yesterday morning. Nurse Clouthier, blinking rapidly, also shook her head. I believed her. She’s not the kindliest, but she’s honest and has worked very hard, all of us have.
“There are more in the stables,” the Captain said in her terse French. “See that they are burned. All of them.”
This time there was no mistaking whether she might have more to say. She stalked off the porch and across the yard, pausing to cram her bulky load, apron and all, into the big B/A oil drum that M. Dionne uses to burn waste. Then, dusting off her hands, she marched into the rocky fields, presumably in search of Mme. Dionne, a stern word, and a matchbook. Her own burns still raw and smarting, I don’t expect a bonfire was something she herself intended to set alight.
Ivy and I went out to the stables, and sure enough, a rank mound of unwashed diapers and other cottons had been stashed in a corner of the far stable, now crawling with flies and maggots. My stomach heaved at the sight, and Ivy’s pretty face was as cross as I’ve ever seen it.
“And we wonder why the babies are ailing,” she said, spluttering. We were using rakes to coax the pile into a burlap sack rather than touch it with our hands. “These are the same flies that come into the house day and night, that alight on our pots and kettles, that crawl on the babies.”
She twisted her head sideways, trying to avoid the stench. “Dr. Dafoe will be furious,” she said. “Mark my words. Heads will roll.”
September 21, 1934
AFTER DR. DAFOE found out about the soiled cottons in the stable, he didn’t shout or get angry, but we could see his chin pucker and he grew very quiet, then marched out of the farmhouse and across the dusty street. As usual, he was pestered by the flock of newspapermen twittering along the fence line, but for once he didn’t stop and take their questions. All of them want to know if the babies are any better, if their fevers have come down, if they’ve managed to take in any food. The truth is, little Cécile is hanging by a thread and the others have lost all of their pep, their skin turning ashen gray, their cries so plaintive it is squeezing our hearts of all hope.
Dr. Dafoe did deign to speak with the men in blue coveralls who have been erecting the electrical poles around the new hospital across the street. Mind you, the wires themselves are nowhere to be seen. Nor has any of the furniture and supplies arrived. Ivy and I wandered through the new building just yesterday, and, apart from shelving and cabinetry, everything is gleaming white but completely empty.
Within a few minutes, Dr. Dafoe had beetled back over to the Dionne property, heading first to the fields, where we could see him speaking with Oliva Dionne and his father. What passed between them we couldn’t hear, but whatever the doctor said, the Frenchmen seemed to offer little in the way of protest, although I saw the senior M. Dionne rest an arm on his son’s shoulder and he didn’t shrug it away. Returning to the farmhouse, the doctor gathered us all together in our charting quarters beside the kitchen, the air stale and heavy in our lungs. “We are moving the babies today,” he announced, rocking from heel to toe, chest out. “They need clean air, sunshine, and some peace and quiet, away from the dust and germs and crowds. The longer they stay here, the slimmer their chances of survival. I’ve informed M. Dionne, it is my belief, in fact, that some or all of them will perish today.” He paused, and his deep-set eyes roved over each of us in turn, registering our looks of horror. “The hospital is not ready, but it is hygienic and bright. This is the best chance we have to save the quintuplets.”
At 2:00 in the afternoon, we bundled the babies in fresh sheets and blankets and readied ourselves to rush them across the street. A steady drizzle was falling, and the wind had whipped up, carrying the first real sting of autumn frost. Oliva Dionne stood with his father in the shadow of the porch, their faces inscrutable. None of the children came to watch, which was a blessing—perhaps they’d been herded upstairs by Mme. Dionne, because she, too, was absent.