The Quintland Sisters(92)
The train gathered speed again outside of Callander, and, after watching the countryside flit by for thirty minutes, the girls were convinced to pull themselves away from the windows. In the half hour before bed, they joined their brothers and sisters in the compartment fitted out to replicate the quiet playroom at their nursery. Mme. Dionne, sitting in a low sofa against the windows, was beatific, close to tears with her whole family gathered around. Maman has the same soft eyes as her daughters, I realized. All the children do. I’ve never noticed that before. Something caught in my throat, seeing this, but the feeling fled the instant I glanced at M. Dionne. He had a different expression on his face, a wary jubilation.
Now all the girls are bundled into their own beds and sleeping as they haven’t slept in days. Weeks, probably. The excitement of the day has done them in. I’m beat too. It is almost 3:00 A.M., and we are due to arrive in Toronto before dawn. I’m going to set aside my book now and do a quick check to make sure the others are sleeping soundly. Then I’ll come back to my nest here with little Em and do my best to fall asleep.
May 23, 1939 (Toronto Star)
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QUINTS FELT RIGHT AT HOME WITH KING AND QUEEN
CALLANDER, Ontario—Happy and not the least bit sleepy, the Dionne quintuplets arrived at Callander station late last night after their visit to Toronto to meet the King and Queen. The five little girls, chattering eagerly about the trip by special train, wanted to know right away when they would be going back to Toronto. But they were whisked away in automobiles to their beds in the Dafoe hospital, where they will talk for days about Their Majesties.
A story about the Dionne quintuplets, since they have met the King and Queen, is worth more in England than anything about Hitler or Mussolini, or an international crisis. So, G. Ward Price of the London Daily Mail filed 3,000 words to his newspaper last night, the longest cabled story of his career.
Used with permission.
May 23, 1939
I jumped from the train.
It slowed to pass through the town of Barrie, and I jumped. I didn’t know it was Barrie. I didn’t know where we were. It was still dark. I wasn’t thinking straight. I’m not thinking straight now. I picked my way along the tracks in the sooty darkness, shaking, trying not to think of the pain. When I think of the pain, even now, my stomach heaves. I’ve vomited twice already. There is sick on my uniform, but that’s not the worst of it, not at all. I can’t think of this properly. Of what happened. Of what I’ve done. Of what was done to me.
I jumped from the train.
I followed the tracks in the dark until I reached the lights on the edge of town. I chose a quiet street with telephone lines, a house with a yard, well kept, a woman’s touch, no children’s toys on the lawn. A door where I might knock and feel safe. I waited in the bushes beside the house until dawn, until the door opened and a man, neatly dressed, kissed his young wife and strode off down the street. Then I knocked on the door. The woman took one look at me and her face stretched wide with dismay, but she said nothing. She hustled me inside, gently, gently. She looked quickly to the right and to the left, then closed the door fast behind me.
I’ve called Ivy. Ivy is coming for me. Ivy is coming.
The woman told me the name of the town, Barrie. And she told me her name, although I can’t remember what it was. She led me to a bathroom and she filled the bath and then she brought me these clothes. She said: Can I call the police? I shook my head so violently she laid her hand on my arm to settle me down and said she wouldn’t. The hospital? I shook my head again. Then I thought of Ivy. The woman called the operator, and, after a long time, the call was put through and the woman handed me the phone. Ivy’s voice.
I’ve called Ivy and she’s coming. She’s coming for me.
I bathed. The water was hot, but it didn’t help, didn’t make me warm. Didn’t make me clean. The woman has told me to lie down, and I have, but I’m shaking, everywhere. I can’t stop. I can’t sleep. I’m shaking. I’m so cold.
I stood and went to my ripped and bloodied uniform, bundled in a bag on a chair in the corner. I wouldn’t let the woman take it. My cap is gone and my shoes. Did I walk here in shoes? I can’t recall. But my notebook was still in the pocket of my apron, so he doesn’t have that. No one will find that. They won’t find me. But they won’t find my notebook either.
What will my babies do when they find me gone?
The woman has just brought me a cup of tea. She’s dismayed to see me sitting up. She sat at the foot of the bed and asked me again if I wanted to speak, and I shook my head. I want to write this down, that’s what I want to do. But I didn’t say that. I hid my notebook. I haven’t told her my name, not my real name. When she asked, quietly, as if she knew I might not want to tell her, I said “Emily.” It was the only name still in my head. émilie. Everything else in my head is shattered and throbbing. I need it out of my head.
Ivy will be here soon, the woman said. Ivy is coming.
IT WAS LATE, and émilie was fast asleep, and I was writing about the day because I couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to forget about how the girls and I were driven to the train in the warm dusk, about all the people who came out to see us off. So much joy. I wrote it all here, then I put down my pen and I must have slipped my notebook into my secret pocket, although I don’t remember doing it. The train was clanking and groaning like a ship, but émilie was sleeping like an angel. I bent close over her head, her sweet, sweet head, and I breathed her in. She didn’t wake. I unlatched the door to our berth and peered into the dark corridor, the motion of the train swaying me from side to side. To Yvonne and Marie’s berth first. Both were sleeping soundly, Marie’s lips parted—the shape of a small heart. No one sleeps as beautifully as Marie. I stepped into the corridor again and slid open the door to the third room, Annette and Cécile, sleeping as if drugged. Little miracles, all of them.