The Quintland Sisters(91)
Only after supper did the maroon and gold Chevrolet pull past the private gates into the inner courtyard in a cloud of dust. The car is a gift from the Ontario government, specially fitted with seats for all five girls in the back and Dr. Dafoe in front. Six additional policemen arrived earlier today from Toronto, and they helped keep the crowds back when the government car pulled inside. As far as I could tell, the gawkers were pressed ten deep against the fence trying to catch a glimpse of the quintuplets.
Marie was watching at the playroom window and gave a shrill cry when she saw the gates open and the Chevrolet glide in. Without question this was the grandest, most beautiful car they’ve ever seen at their nursery, despite the many new cars their father and Dr. Dafoe have driven over the years, not to mention the comings and goings of film stars and politicians.
At 7:00 in the evening we shepherded the girls out to the car, and I felt my heart pounding in my chest at the idea of taking them out into the frenzied throngs beyond the gates. All these years, it’s been bad enough for me coming and going with Lewis or his father behind the wheel, but with the girls themselves? How on earth would we get away?
This was all planned out, of course. The policemen used their vehicles to block the road to keep anyone from following us to the train station, then escorted us away from the nursery, a whole flank of patrol cars in front and behind. One man tried to ride alongside us on his horse, but he was stopped by an officer who was waiting roadside less than a mile from the nursery. The man and his horse ended up turning north, trotting into a field, and waving at the girls as he did. I was being driven with George, Miss Callahan, and Nurse Corriveau in a car immediately behind the girls, so we watched them squirm in their seats, their faces pressed against the back window, to wave back at the horse and rider until they disappeared from view. I thought they’d be more nervous, but they weren’t. They were excited, through and through. Not a fearful bone in their bodies.
The evening was warm. As we drove along the road toward Callander, windows down, I could feel some bite in the air, but also the warmth rising from the road as the land gave up the heat it had been soaking up all day. Once we were on the open road I stretched my arm out the window, feeling the wind eddy over my hand, warm below, cooler on top. You could hear the crickets starting their evening tune-up and a chorus of frogs from the streams and bogs, which took me back to the night the girls were born—five years ago, almost to the day.
Before reaching town, the car turned off onto the wider road that leads toward North Bay instead of continuing toward the Callander train station. I exchanged a confused look with Miss Callahan and Nurse Corriveau, and we all looked instinctively to George, riding beside the driver.
He turned and flashed a smile.
“The Ontario government made a last-minute change,” he explained. “They’re anticipating thousands of well-wishers at the Callander station, so they are actually going to stop the Quintland Express at Trout Lake junction, between Callander and North Bay, and that’s where we’ll board.”
The Quintland Express. That’s what it’s called, this train carrying us through the night to Toronto, the words Quintland Express written in gleaming letters on every carriage. The paintwork is crimson and gold, the colors of the royal visit—same as the car that brought the girls. The sun was sinking in the sky when we pulled up at the junction, but it was bright enough that the gilded paint on the train looked wet to the touch, positively gleaming against the paler gold of the hayfields beyond.
I’d never thought about how people might board a train without a station, but sure enough all of us from the nursery as well as the policemen and newspapermen, plus the whole Dionne family, were swiftly ushered on board via a special staircase, and the train started up again within a matter of minutes.
Moments later we were swooshing through Callander. I’ve never in my life seen a railway station so busy. Crowds of people were lining the tracks before and after the stop, and on the platform itself, a line of uniformed guards, arms outstretched, were straining to keep people from pressing too close to the tracks or, worse, falling onto them. The train slowed down as it went through the station, and the crowd went berserk. A brass band struck up as we rolled through playing “Old Comrades,” and the girls, all five of them, looked like their eyes might pop from their heads.
They had scrambled to position themselves at the windows of the carriage the instant we boarded, and there they stayed, flattened against the glass. When we started to see the crowds along the tracks, they began waving of their own accord, smiling, their eyes dancing over the people and children waving wildly in return. I couldn’t help but wonder what they were thinking about all these boys and girls, most of them in clothes drab and worn compared with their own, but clearly at greater liberty than our girls have ever known, wriggling away from their parents and sprinting beside the tracks.
I’m so proud of my babies. They didn’t cry or flinch or lose their tongues. They looked entranced, not afraid. I don’t think they could have known that so many different humans existed in the world—people not dressed in nurses’ caps and doctors’ coats, or the top hats and fur coats of our celebrity visitors. They couldn’t know that people come in many different shapes and sizes, and with so little in their pockets and stomachs. More than the men and women, it was the children in the crowds that captured their attention, small girls and boys gesticulating frantically at the train and holding up signs and drawings they’d made themselves, wishing bonjour and bon voyage to the Dionne quintuplets.