The Quintland Sisters(32)
It will, of course, be Dr. Dafoe’s only appearance, and it is his delight with his beautiful quintuplets’ first appearance on the screen, as artists, that persuaded the doctor to attend the premiere. It is the first world premiere of a picture Toronto has ever had.
In New York City on business of the quintuplets, Dr. Dafoe last night saw a private screening of the picture and expressed his boundless delight with it.
Although the plot and characters of “The Country Doctor” are wholly fictitious, still there can be no question that Dr. Dafoe’s character inspired this romance in honour of country doctors everywhere.
Used with permission.
March 6, 1936
A colossal dump of snow this morning and more coming down every minute. We woke to thick pillows of it heaped high as far as the eye could see. The girls, squawking with excitement, were tripping over one another in their haste to get bundled up and into the yard after breakfast. They know the words bottes and tuque and mitaines, but it’s a stretch to understand their funny pronunciation, the words laced into the vocabulary that is theirs alone. “Nay!” they squeak, for neige, and “fwa” for froid.
We got them swaddled in coats and woolens and out the door as fast as we could. In the swirling air, thick with flakes, you could scarcely tell where sky stopped and the downy drifts began. Ivy tried to teach them how to make snow angels, but whether it was the white-on-white or the joy of the morning, they couldn’t quite grasp the concept. Instead they would drop themselves backward in the soft heaps, flailing their arms and legs, then dissolving in giggles. Of course Annette and Marie both lost their boots in the deep snow, then stood there jabbering and pointing toward their feet, eyes wide: Bottes! Fwa! It was a shame to go back inside, but we have to be so careful that one of them doesn’t catch a chill. It is never the case that only one of them gets the sniffles.
I had planned to spend my weekend off in Callander with baby Edith and my parents, but when we woke to snow, I assumed I’d be staying put. In the end I was able to get a lift with Lewis Cartwright, so made it home just fine.
Lewis has rigged some kind of plow to the front of his father’s truck and spent the morning furrowing a path along the road, only to have Dr. Dafoe and Mr. Davis cancel their visit to the nursery. But Lewis came into the kitchen to warm up midafternoon and offered to run any staff into town who needed it. I found him perched by the stove on a stool far too short for him, his bony knees jutting up to his chest, shoulders hunched, and his long fingers curled around a mug of tea. He seemed delighted to hear that someone was taking him up on his offer, bobbing his head and smiling, then taking my bags for me as we slid and slithered through the drifts to get to the truck.
And now I’m home.
I’m glad I came. Little Edith is very funny right now, alert with big blue eyes. Mother looks tired, but blissfully content. And Father is clearly happy as I’ve ever known him to be, even leaping from the table to help clear the dishes after supper, which I’m sure I’ve never seen him do before.
March 11, 1936
THE STAR, WANTING special St. Patrick’s Day photos, sent out five of the sweetest little outfits, dresses, bloomers, and bonnets, all mint green in color and covered in tiny sprigs of emerald clover. Mr. Davis—Fred, as he’s insisting I call him—also had tissue-covered shamrocks for the girls to hold for the photos. Annette is always the ringleader, and the rest scrambled to mimic her, putting the shamrocks on their heads like crowns or in front of their faces as if they were peering through the portholes of a ship, then waving them wildly over their heads like they were going to lasso a steer. They are such clowns.
This was all going on in full force when the Dionnes made their appearance. Nurse Nicolette, despite being fully aware that the Dionnes are to visit only during their allotted hours, allowed the parents into the playroom, thinking, I suppose, that they would also enjoy the fun. Instead, Mme. Dionne’s face clouded, dark as a storm. She started shouting in French and stomped over to the girls, snatching away their shamrocks, one by one.
She was angry—we were swiftly made to understand—because St. Patrick’s Day is a religious holiday and should be marked more solemnly, not with trinkets and symbols and horseplay. She turned on Fred with a stream of angry French that I knew he would scarcely have understood. Meanwhile, the girls, who had been having such fun, broke into sobs, tottering over to me and Ivy, arms outstretched. This of course infuriated Mme. Dionne even further. She grabbed at Cécile, who has always been her favorite, and clamped her tightly to her breast while Cécile wailed and wailed. I hope Fred got enough of his photos before the Dionnes arrived, because the girls were a blotchy mess when they finally settled down again for lunch.
April 3, 1936
A FUNNY CONVERSATION with Ivy tonight. If we are both working the evening shift together, which we often are, we’ll linger for a while in the girls’ bedroom until they’re all asleep. We started doing this back when Yvonne and Annette first learned to climb in and out of bed like monkeys and would scamper over to one of their sisters to try to get a game going. Some nights we’d pop in to check on them only to find Yvonne in émilie’s bed, or Annette snuggled in with Cécile. I was all for letting them sleep like that, but Dr. Blatz believes it’s confusing for the subconscious to not have consistency each night. Whatever that means.
So Ivy and I will get them all tucked in, then we’ll seat ourselves on the bench under the windows. If it’s been a long day, we often sit in silence, listening to the girls muttering to one another and settling themselves down for the night. Other times we’ll talk about pretty much anything, silly or solemn, keeping our voices low and mild. I think the girls find it soothing, hearing us close at hand. This is the time of day when our home, the nursery, seems to pull away from the rest of the world and dips below the horizon so that all the squinting eyes that follow us every hour of every day can’t quite make us out. We’re left in peace.