The Quintland Sisters(95)
You may have heard some of the scuttlebutt around Nurse Inès Nicolette. The rumors are mostly true: when she left the nursery a year and a half ago she was indeed pregnant. According to Ivy, who heard it from Fred, who himself heard it secondhand from a newspaperman at the Star, Nurse Nicolette insists that the father is M. Dionne. You may not know this, but she actually came back here with her little boy last fall, and there was quite a scene. Now, Fred’s man at the Star says that Nurse Nicolette actually approached a Quebec newspaper to sell her story, but the Quintuplet Guardian committee was able to persuade her to keep quiet for the sake of the babies. Ivy says Fred’s contact believes she was paid a large sum of hush money and she’s now living out East, in Nova Scotia. I can’t quite believe it. M. Dionne seems very devoted to his wife and family, and Nurse Nicolette was often a guest in their home.
Ivy had other gossip, too, relating to M. Dionne’s demands that he be permitted to review all payments going in and out of the girls’ trust fund. So far the other guardians have refused, but Ivy believes the departure of Dr. Blatz represents a real change in the tide. If power continues to ebb away from Dr. Dafoe, who knows what will happen?
I haven’t told you, I don’t think, but I have been hired as the official artist for the quintuplets, or that is how it was explained to me. I can’t help but worry how M. Dionne would respond if he knew I was earning additional income through the commissions I receive for the paintings of his daughters. Ivy keeps telling me I need to leave the Dafoe nursery and lead my own life, not the lives of the Dionne quintuplets. I don’t know what to think. For years I thought this might be my true calling, helping raise these girls to be healthy and strong, protecting them from harm. But this presumes that menace is something we could keep at a distance with all our walls and fences. Is it possible, Lewis, that all the things we’ve been doing to help these girls might somehow be doing more harm than good? On the other hand, how on earth did one of us, on the inside, come to be pregnant with M. Dionne’s child or at least lay such a plausible claim to this that she could be paid to keep her peace?
Now I’m blathering. I sound certifiable. I don’t know whether to destroy this letter or send it. But I’m not sure where to turn.
Yours sincerely,
Emma
Dafoe Hospital and Nursery
Callander, ON
*
June 11, 1938
11 Rue Saint Ida
Montreal, Quebec
Dear Lewis,
You are a true friend to listen to the ramblings of what must sound like a mind deranged. It is just the constant uncertainty. And no, I don’t worry about the privacy of my mail. It has never been tampered with, as best as I can tell, and I trust George implicitly. He is a good man and this work is taking its toll on him too.
As for my art, I’m not sure I’m a “true talent,” but it is kind of you to say. By way of thanks, I’m enclosing a little sketch I made of the girls gathering daisies on the lawn. I hope it makes you think of home.
It was their birthday last month: four years old! It seems like just last week we feared they couldn’t survive four hours. I love them so much it feels sometimes like I’ve got more air in my lungs than I could possibly need for breathing: I might burst. The whole Dionne clan came over for lunch on their birthday, and it was hard not to think of Ivy’s stories. émilie ran to me when play got too rough, and the look on M. Dionne’s face when he saw her burying her head in my neck—I don’t think I’ve seen him look at me with such fury since that awful day in the courtroom when my silly doodle of a syrup tin seemed to sway the jury in favor of Dr. Dafoe. This time Oliva Dionne glared at me as if he could read everything I’d written to you in my last letter. Oh, Lewis—my whole life I’ve enjoyed a certain invisibility; I’m unsettled to think this protection may be wearing off here.
Last thing: these planes of yours with the retractable feet—what is their purpose? I assumed you were designing planes for commercial air travel, but I woke up this morning and realized with a start that you are probably building military planes. Is that right? Dr. Dafoe is receiving more and more letters from desperate families in Europe who’ve been caught up in Herr Hitler’s ambitions in some way. George and I argued about it yesterday: he insists the storm clouds are gathering and the armies whetting their swords while I “bury my head in the sand” at the Dafoe nursery. But I have to believe we’re doing important work right here, keeping the girls safe from all the evils outside the fence and behind the glass, at least until they’re old enough to understand how special they are.
So tell me: why does Canada need your planes?
Yours sincerely,
Emma
Dafoe Hospital and Nursery
Callander, ON
*
July 22, 1938
11 Rue Saint Ida
Montreal, Quebec
Dear Lewis,
Thank you for saying you think our work here is important. I believe this in my heart of hearts, but how will history judge us?
I had an odd run-in with Maman Dionne, who I startled, poking around my sketchbooks and easel. She swiftly shuffled off again, looking sheepish. First I worried she might have leafed through my private journal, but the fact is I don’t think she can read and scarcely speaks a word of English.
After she left I thought: what if she simply wanted to see a painting of her own children? Does she even have a true likeness in her home? No photographs are allowed of the Dionnes with the quintuplets—different agencies hold the rights to these photos. This means if the Dionnes wanted a photograph of the five girls, they’d have to clip it from the paper or buy it from their own souvenir stand—with most of the proceeds going to the Newspaper Enterprise Association. It’s absurd, I know. I’ve never warmed to Mme. Dionne. She’s not a warm woman herself—so strict and rough with the children and forever making the sign of the cross, surrounded by us sinners. But every now and then her stern veneer will fall away and you’ll glimpse the haunted look she wears underneath, as if she’s yearning for a different life.