The Quintland Sisters(21)

But yes, the tall wire fence is now finished, and we feel so much safer in here than we did in our shack across the street. Cars are driving from heaven knows where each day because the papers have reported that the babies take their afternoon nap in the sun on the south-facing porch and we’ll now get hordes of people lining up along that stretch of fence, trying to catch a glimpse. The Captain says we’ll have to put a stop to this soon, but they are so very dear in their itty-bitty cots, I understand why they are drawing such a crowd.

There is a superstition going around that will make you laugh. Visitors have started taking pebbles from the road outside the Dionne farmhouse: the myth is that the stones can bring prosperity and fertility—as if anyone else would want to have five babies all at once! I didn’t believe Nurse Clouthier when she told me, but I’ve since seen people hunting for the perfect stone. I’m waiting for M. Dionne to invite people into the scrub that borders his west pasture and tell them to take all the bushes and rocks they want. Not a bad way to get the field cleared.

Last piece of gossip, Mr. Davis tells me that a drugstore company is paying for Dr. Dafoe to travel to New York, where he will give a talk about our quintuplets at Carnegie Hall! The doctor will go first to New York City, then to Baltimore to speak at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, then to Washington, D.C., where—brace yourself—he is going to meet the president of the United States! It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? It never occurred to me that President Roosevelt would care so deeply about our girls.

Come and see us, Emma. We miss you, all of us. Come and change Little Em’s nappy for me, won’t you?

All my love,

Ivy

Dafoe Hospital and Nursery Callander, ON





November 15, 1934

Strange to be back in my old bedroom, sitting at my old desk, and I’ll be sleeping under my old eiderdown again tonight. Even having a spare hour for jotting something in my scribble book is an odd luxury. These days my notebooks are full of anatomical diagrams, but nothing more.

Have they missed me, Mother and Father? I truly can’t tell. Father had plenty of questions for me over supper tonight about school and the Sisters and what sorts of things I’m learning about. But as for the quintuplets and the day I spent with them today, he either feigns disinterest or truly doesn’t care.

The fact is, nursing school isn’t so much different from high school. The other girls are not unkind, but they are not particularly friendly either. And despite everything that’s happened to me in the last six months, I’m still on the periphery, someone they see but don’t. When word got out that I would be doing all of my practicum hours at the Dafoe Hospital and Nursery, they were positively gobsmacked and, for the first time, pressed me with questions. But it was too late, wasn’t it? I simply said it had been arranged with Dr. Dafoe and left it at that.

Today was the first day I’ve seen Ivy in almost eight weeks, and she looks happy and content, with lovely color in her cheeks again. I can see that she is absolutely smitten with Fred Davis, although she will never admit it and he’s at least fifteen years her senior. He comes every morning from 10:00 A.M. until noon and takes photos of the babies sitting in the sun, taking their breakfast, or lying on their mats in the playroom. They are just too sweet right now.

Ivy persuaded Dr. Dafoe to let me come to their christening—their second, technically: this time with a flock of reporters on hand and Fred snapping photographs. The babies themselves looked so plump and healthy, I had to fight back tears. My émilie is by far the feistiest and kept plucking off her white booties while Mr. Davis was trying to fix her in his viewfinder, which made us all laugh—with the exception of the Dionnes. They are such an unusual couple, I can’t help but think of Jack Sprat and his wife. Mme. Dionne looks like a different person from the weak and trembling mound who brought these babies into the world. She really is an imposing woman, not unattractive on the rare occasion that she smiles, but her resting face could snuff out a candle. She was none too pleased to see any levity whatsoever during the christening. She is a pious woman and clearly thought this was an occasion for solemn prayer, not joy. I disagree. I can’t remember a day I’ve felt so happy. It is my eighteenth birthday tomorrow. Mother will make a little fuss, I expect, but I feel as if I got everything I might want today.


December 25, 1934

A HORRENDOUS SET-TO with Father tonight. Not exactly Christmasy! I should never have agreed to spend the night here in town. I should have stayed out at the Dafoe Hospital and Nursery with Ivy and the babies, where I’m needed.

It all began after I’d sat down for supper with Mother and Father. I was telling them about Christmas lunch earlier in the day, out at the nursery: “The Dionnes—all of them: Maman and Papa and the five other children—came across the road first thing this morning and the tension was thicker than a plum pudding. They were very rude, insisting on reciting prayer after prayer and being quite rough with the older children. Madame thinks nothing of reaching out and cuffing them for the smallest misdemeanor, which makes her whole brood jittery.”

Father’s voice was quiet, but his carving knife started sawing the turkey faster and faster, as if it were a piece of timber. “Emma, surely even you can see that this is a preposterous situation for the Dionne family? Today, especially.”

Mother frowned at her mashed potatoes.

“But, Father, you of all people should understand. You’re always saying religion is too often used for the wrong purpose. The Dionnes are so intractably Catholic, they seem to employ their faith with the sole aim of sucking the fun out of everything.”