The Quintland Sisters(79)

Warmest wishes, Maud Tousey Fangel





145 East 72nd


New York, NY





December 7, 1938

I was planning to speak with Dr. Dafoe today about Mrs. Fangel’s pamphlet. I scarcely slept, trying out what I might say or how I might phrase it in my head. It all comes down to the plans for this new house for all of the Dionnes and whether that’s real or not. If there’s a chance I’ll be out of a job next fall—because there is no way M. Dionne would keep me on staff—well, it would make sense to plan ahead. On the other hand, I desperately don’t want to go. Anywhere. Despite everything, I’m happy here and I feel like I’m still needed. Ivy would tell me I must absolutely apply, but then, Ivy took to New York like a duck to water. All of her thrilling stories! How on earth could someone like me get along in a place like that? I could ask George for his advice, but I worry it might sound like I’m trying to nudge him toward a different topic altogether, which I’m not. Truly. Odd as it sounds, I don’t feel like asking Mother and Father. They are so bound up with little Edith they’d prefer to think of my life as settled on its course, their parental duties discharged. Not to mention they’ve come to depend on the income I send home. That leaves me with Dr. Dafoe. He might not be the most thoughtful, but at least he’d be objective.

I needn’t have stayed up half the night worrying about it. Dr. Dafoe has left again for New York, George told me when he arrived today. Meanwhile all of the doctor’s correspondence, newspaper articles, lectures, and whatever else fall to poor George. He has dark shadows under his eyes these days and needs a haircut desperately, not to mention a secretary of his own. He’s working late most nights, leaving to drive back to North Bay long after the rest of us have headed to bed, no doubt taking a stack of unread mail along with him. It’s too much, I think. Too much for one man.

I’ve done a small pastel of George “taking tea” with the girls in the playroom, and I’m going to give it to him for Christmas. I hope he likes it.


December 20, 1938

I’M NOT SURE I can even set this down in print; my hands are shaking, my thoughts tumbling all over the place. But I can’t sleep, can’t switch off the light, can’t cope with the dark, can’t lie down. I’ve been pacing back and forth in my tiny room, waiting for my heart to slow down and my breath to go back to normal. I feel trapped, but also tiny and small. Erased and invisible. Oh, yes. Invisible as usual.

As if I could ever be anything else.

I’m kicking myself for not going home tonight when I had the chance. But imagine if I had? Oh God. I feel sick and foolish and angry and sad. Desperately sad.

Let me try to write this down.

Nurse Corriveau left for her Christmas holidays yesterday, and I was to go tonight. A relief nurse is coming from the Red Cross tomorrow to help Miss Callahan through the Christmas week until Nurse Corriveau returns. The problem is, all of the girls are down with a terrible bug, and I’ve got it too. My head has been throbbing like someone is beating it with a mallet, and there is a heaviness in my chest that makes me fearful of inhaling too deeply. If Dr. Dafoe were here, I’d have him listen with his stethoscope, but he’s still away, of course. He is always away. Indeed, the doctor telephoned earlier in the evening, while George was still in the office, to say that he was extending his visit in New York until the New Year.

Mr. Cartwright came to the back steps at seven this evening to fetch me home with my bags, and Lewis was with him, which was a nice surprise. He looks well, Lewis, dressed sharply in a long gray topcoat with lovely, wide lapels, looking broader somehow—broad enough to match his height. And he looks younger too, if that’s possible. As if time at a desk has helped to erase a year or two of worries.

Oh, Lewis. He’s been so droll and candid in his letters with his talk of pigeons and planes. Perhaps we could have picked up from there if I hadn’t been feeling so out of sorts and he looking less like a city man, so polished and poised. Instead it was as if we’d changed roles and it was I whose rough tongue was tripping all over itself, my eyes unsure of where to look. When I first came into the kitchen, Lewis smiled his broad smile, as open as I’d ever seen it, and it lingered on his lips until I said I wasn’t going to go with them this evening. The thing is, I was feeling so poorly, and the girls were so sickly themselves I told them I’d better stay to help Miss Callahan through the night. I knew that the Cartwrights would be coming back in the morning to bring the relief nurse to the nursery, so it wouldn’t be yet another special trip. I apologized profusely, and they were both very kind, saying not to worry, and of course I must get some rest and so on.

I left the kitchen, telling Marguerite that I wouldn’t be needing anything more. Then I stopped by the girls’ room, and they were all snuffling and snorting, but seemingly asleep. I poked my head into the charting area to let Miss Callahan know that I had decided to stay, if she needed me, but she wasn’t there and I didn’t think to leave a note, I just climbed into my bed and was out like a light, I’m sure, within a matter of minutes.

Sometime later I was woken by some thumps and muffled voices. My heart started racing. I switched on the bedside lamp and checked my clock: just after 11:00 P.M. My first instinct was for the girls’ safety, so I crept to their room as quick as I could. The five of them were sleeping soundly, and I could still hear murmuring and something being nudged across the floorboards somewhere at the other end of the corridor, toward Dr. Dafoe’s office.