The Quintland Sisters(94)

Miss MacGill has given me some days off next week, and I’m coming up to Toronto to see Ivy and Fred, whether they like it or not. I’ll go on to Callander afterward and speak with your parents, if that’s what it takes.

Please, Emma. This is no way to end this. We haven’t even made a proper start.

Please write.

Yours,

Lewis





11 Rue Saint Ida


Montreal, Quebec





August 27, 1939





21 Heath Street


Toronto, ON

Dear Emma,

I telephoned and spoke with Fred, who was very kind, but firm. You are well, he said, but he wouldn’t give me your forwarding address—a promise they made to you, I gather, Fred and Ivy. He did tell me you are enrolled in art school, although he said he couldn’t tell me where, and that pained him, I think. He’s proud of you. They both are. And they have a little girl of their own now, he told me. How wonderful. I forgot to ask her name.

Oh, Emma. How did I hurt you?

All of my letters to the nursery and to Callander this summer have gone unanswered. Did you even get them? I’m sending this last to Fred and Ivy so it will be sure to reach you, somehow, someday, wherever it is you’ve gone.

This will be my last letter: I leave for England tomorrow to do my part in the coming war. I hope to bury myself in my work and put all thoughts of you aside, impossible as that seems in this moment. Work has been the only thing that’s helped with my confusion—and my sadness—over your decision to vanish. We’ve done good work here with our planes, Emma. It has been some small consolation, to feel so needed.

I’d like to say: write to me. But my heart says you won’t.

Here’s another thing my heart says, Emma. I love you. I wish I’d found a way to tell you sooner. I love you, and I wish you well.

I’m enclosing the letters you sent me over these last 18 months. I can’t take them to England with me, can’t bear to, but I don’t want to leave them behind when there’s no telling when or if I’m coming back.

Yours always,

Lewis Cartwright





11 Rue Saint Ida


Montreal, Quebec





[ENCLOSURES: Letters from E.T. to L.C., February 1938 to May 1939]

February 18, 1938





11 Rue Saint Ida


Montreal, Quebec

Dear Lewis,

Of course I’ll write, but only if you address me as Emma! I’ve known you three years, you realize. No more “Miss Trimpany,” please.

I hope things are progressing with your airplane landing feet. I had never given a moment’s thought to what a bird does with its feet when it flies. I will have to remember to watch for this if a single feathered creature is fool enough to return to this frigid corner of the earth.

This winter has been particularly frosty in the nursery: Miss Tremblay was fired earlier this month and Nurse No?l got her marching orders yesterday morning. Dr. Dafoe was strongly opposed to some of the religious teachings they had taken to drumming into the girls, calling them little sinners and making them feel shy in their own skins. I am not a great believer in God—my father is “lapsed” (as my mother puts it) and he planted the seed of doubt in my heart—but I do believe, if God exists and had the gumption to give the world these miraculous girls and let them live and thrive, then surely he is proud of every square inch of them, clothed or not. I firmly believe they need to be taught warmth and kindness, not shame and guilt. Still, I can’t help but worry about how the Dionnes will react to the removal of staff they expressly wanted to keep. George Sinclair, Dr. Dafoe’s secretary, has told me that M. and Mme. Dionne have asked to have exclusive say over the choice of nursery staff in the future. If that happens, I can’t imagine I’ll last much longer in my post. I’ve lasted longer than anyone else as it is.

Yours sincerely,

Emma

Dafoe Hospital and Nursery

Callander, ON

*

April 21, 1938





11 Rue Saint Ida


Montreal, Quebec

Dear Lewis,

These days, as you know, I don’t even walk the short distance home to see my parents, let alone tramp to the top of a mountain. That sounded like quite the expedition. I hope your blisters healed quickly.

Here, as you’ve no doubt seen in the papers, we’ve weathered another dramatic departure: this time Dr. Blatz himself. I admit I was fed up by all the doctor’s rules and schedules, and abhorred his so-called studies. But, as my mother likes to say, better the devil you know . . . If things keep up the way they’ve been going and the Dionnes get their way, I suppose the girls’ next teacher could be Pope Pius XI. George tells me His Holiness has had so many run-ins with the German Reich, he may soon be looking for another job.

I don’t know why I’m making light of things. Nerves, I suppose. I had a long telephone call with Ivy tonight and she told me some truly disturbing things. I started writing them in my journal, but the fact is, her story was so sensational, I don’t feel like I can put it in a book that anyone might lay their hands on here. These days there is such a steady stream of strangers coming and going and staff who start and stop—it makes me think I should take more care. In any case, I’ll set this down for you and perhaps you can let me know if you think it sounds like utter nonsense, or whether it is something I should worry about. I may also run this by George, who I trust. I suppose I could also ask Dr. Dafoe point-blank, but it’s hard to imagine saying some of these things out loud.