The Quintland Sisters(25)
May 15, 1935
I’M FINISHED! GRADUATION is not till the end of the month, but I’ve already started on a regular schedule out at the Dafoe Nursery. It is so, so good to be with the girls and working with Ivy again, almost every single day.
All of the babies took ill last month—Marie quite seriously: she needed a mustard plaster—but they are busy as a hive of ants again now, crawling to and fro and causing no end of trouble.
The Captain has put a stop to the visitors tramping through the nursery to peek at the girls. Ivy says it was getting ridiculous, with hordes of visitors tracking grime and contagion into the building.
This is the strategy the Captain has devised to keep the public happy, without unduly disturbing the babies. Four times a day, before we put them out to nap on the private porch and before we bring them back in, we detour out the front door and hold the babies up, each with a sign bearing her name, one after the other. The times for the showings are posted on a big clock out on the road, and visitors must stay on the other side of the fence. The distance is not so great that people complain, but it is far enough that the babies are not quite so discomfited as they were by the taps and calls on the windows right above their heads in the playroom.
It’s a perfect solution. If all of the girls are already getting dozy, or they’ve all had a good nap, we take each one in turn and display her to the crowds that are inevitably waiting at the scheduled time. The other day I was concerned that Marie’s infection was returning, and both émilie and Cécile, too, seemed very out of sorts—the last thing I wanted to do was send them out to be displayed to the mob out front.
“No matter,” said Ivy. She gathered up Annette and all five of the signs and stepped out on the porch five times, always with Annette, but with a different name on the sign each time.
When she came back in the fifth time with Annette blinking in her arms, we both were biting back our laughter in case the Captain had seen what she’d done. But when we glanced at Nurse de Kiriline, we could see that she’d put two and two together and she had a sparkle in her eyes. She’s under no small amount of stress, keeping everything running shipshape here. I was pleased to see we’d actually given her something to smile about.
May 17, 1935
THE CAPTAIN REFUSED to allow the Dionnes up on the porch today when the quintuplets were asleep in their prams—their outdoor nap is a medical necessity, as far as the doctor is concerned. The exchange turned very ugly, and one of the constables had to step in and escort the Dionnes off the property. All of the babies woke up and started crying. Marie and Cécile settled back down to sleep, but we had to bring the others indoors.
May 20, 1935
IT’S HARD TO believe that the babies’ first birthday is just around the corner! If someone had told me last June that this day would come, and that all five babies would be here to celebrate it, I wouldn’t have believed it. Gifts have been arriving for the girls from all over the world. It’s astounding. King George and Queen Mary sent five sterling silver rattles emblazoned with the royal coat of arms. President Roosevelt sent a set of five wooden cars with wheels that swivel, all of them in different colors. We nurses have spent hours rolling these around and pretending to crash them into one another, which sends the girls into peals of laughter. Then there were gifts of clothes and candy and toys that have come from people near and far, rich and poor. One little girl drew a birthday card and sent it with a nickel, saying she had nothing else to spare.
How do we know all of this, when the birthday is still a week away? In fact, we’ve celebrated early. The girls are none the wiser, of course, but the world is so eager to see and read the news of the quintuplets that Dr. Dafoe arranged for Fred Davis, two dozen reporters, and the newsreel people to come early, so that the papers can run the news and photographs on the day itself. So we had cake, presents, and dignitaries last week. The Dionne parents came across, and Mr. Davis took roll after roll of photos. It must be said, the girls looked happier crawling over Dr. Dafoe than they did their own mother and father, who scarcely mustered a smile for the cameras.
Needless to say, tensions remain thick between the Captain and the Dionnes. My guess is the papers will want to run the photos of “the Quints,” as they’ve started calling them, clambering all over the doctor or puzzling over their presents. It’s sad, but the frowning Dionne parents likely won’t be pictured at all.
May 22, 1935
THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY thing today: I painted the girls. I held a paintbrush, its tip as soft as a lock of hair from émilie’s head. I dipped it in paints and dabbed it on a palette. I mixed thirty shades of skin and forty shades of sky. A year ago, what I wanted most in the world was to leave school and become an artist—a total delusion, I realize now. And yet there I was, not an artist by any stretch, but sitting in a warm, bright room, steps from those I love, dotting my brush at a canvas and thinking that maybe, just maybe, dreams can come true.
I will read this later and roll my eyes until they fall out of my head, but I won’t think of that now. Here’s what happened.
Today the girls had a much quieter day, although it was all the more thrilling for me. The famous American painter Maud Tousey Fangel visited this morning. She is to be the official artist of the quintuplets, if you can believe it. To be honest, I’d never heard her name before the Captain explained who she was—she is the painter responsible for all of the portraits you see on the covers of Ladies’ Home Journal and Woman’s Home Companion. She’s also painted the babies for Colgate’s talc powder, Squibb cod-liver oil, and Cracker Jack. It never occurred to me that those paintings were done by a woman, but of course, now it’s been explained to me, it makes so much sense. How could a man have painted anything quite so sweet?