But enough: I said I wouldn’t let my biases seep through. For now I will disappear. I’ll be as impartial as I can toward the two most important (although not the only) women in Laurier’s life, his faithful wife, Zoë, and their dear “friend,” Émilie Lavergne. I will tell my story through their eyes, based on their own accounts, confided to me later in life. Madame Lavergne and Lady Laurier knew their secrets were safe with me.
I am the only one who could have written this story, the only one with the requisite knowledge. Whether I have any insight into that knowledge I leave for you to judge. By the time I return, you’ll have made up your mind.
Pulling out of the wedding cake of Bonaventure Station, the Canada Atlantic Express lurches violently. Shudders, stops, lunges. Zoë wonders if something is wrong. But having promised him she’ll accept everything as it comes, she remains silent.
They sit side by side at the head of the parlour car. Their chairs are upholstered in plush green velvet. Zoë feels enthroned, engulfed. She glances sideways. His eyes are serenely closed, head leaning back against the antimacassar. His long tapered fingers cover the back of her gloved hand. The grey top hat sits upturned on his lap, the matching gloves nestled inside. The demanding day is far from over. She doesn’t need to study his beautiful profile to read his thoughts.
Passing the grey unpainted homes of Montreal’s working class, the train settles into a steady, rolling motion. Zoë watches lines of laundry snapping in the hot breeze, dangerously close to ashes spewing from the engine. Party workers have attached festive red, white and blue bunting to the outside of their car. She watches it fluttering madly beyond the curtained windows.
The party has booked them a private car, added to the regular five o’clock train to Ottawa. They have it all to themselves—along with the entourage, of course. For now the swarm of hangers-on keeps a discreet distance. They number at least two dozen, several of whom have inserted themselves at the last moment, desperate to be seen and, even better, photographed with their leader on this historic day.
It will be like this from now on: perpetually surrounded by stout, bustling, self-important men. These black-suited eminences will form the carapace of her life, the soft shell she moves within. Some of them can be pleasant enough, even strenuously gallant toward her, but they too are always in a hurry, always bursting with the urgency of the moment, so anxious for Wilfrid’s consideration that they barely spare her a glance. In that respect they’re all the same, English and French alike.
The only one who behaves any differently is Joseph-Israël Tarte. He, at least, is aware of her as a human being. Blessed with a feline intelligence, Tarte treats her as a compatriot, an equal, deserving of more than gentlemanly respect. Also, he isn’t stout. As Wilfrid says, Tarte has always been the exception, ever since their school days together at Collège de L’Assomption. She’s begun to find Tarte’s stutter rather charming.
The heat inside the car is withering, and Zoë longs for the cool of evening. She feels another rivulet detach itself from her armpit, slither down her side, soak into the tight binding of her corset. She whispers into Wilfrid’s ear that she’s dying to remove her long kid gloves.
Without opening his eyes, he murmurs, “Of course, my dear, you must do exactly as you please.”
But she won’t. There isn’t a single other woman in the car, someone who would understand. In any case she feels a fierce pride in her stoic denial of her body. With this unremarked sacrifice, this powerful act, she begins her defense of their union, their citadel, their ultimate salvation, against the onslaught of the world.
It’s a defense Zoë has been conducting all her married life. Innumerable skirmishes have taken place, some frightening, some painful. The all-too-predictable onset of Wilfrid’s illnesses. The constant, hurtful gossip and innuendo about Émilie Lavergne. The merciless attacks of his enemies, who aren’t above libel, bribery, even violence. Not long ago one of Wilfrid’s supporters was kicked to death at a rally.
In Ontario they still accuse him of being soft on Riel, a sympathizer with treason. In Quebec they accuse him of speaking English better than French. Even her beloved Church denounces him, painting him as an apostate, an atheist (a “Barabbas,” one curé called him), and declaring it a sin to vote for him. But those challenges are nothing compared to this one. After all the years as Leader of the Opposition, they’re plunging into the fight of their lives, a war to the finish: the holding and using of power. Zoë has only a shadowy conception of what it will mean.
Wilfrid has tried to prepare her. A few days ago they were at home in Arthabaska, recovering from the campaign, celebrating her birthday. After lunch on the rear verandah, they walked across the broad lawn to Zoë’s garden, and out of habit she picked up the small shears and began pruning her luxuriant pink climbing rose. He asked her to stop for a moment, to sit on the double swing and hear something he had to say.
As they swung back and forth, sheltered from the sun by tall maples, he spoke in a resolutely prepared voice. There will be enormous sacrifices to make in this new life of theirs. The demands on her time and patience and generous heart, already great, will only multiply. Absolutely everyone in Ottawa will seek her ear, her help, her intervention with her husband. Society will be relentless in expecting her presence, most importantly the vice-regal court presided over by Lord and Lady Aberdeen—and thank God the Aberdeens are staunch supporters, kind and loyal friends to them both, ever ready to make lively conversation in French. But always and everywhere will be the English. Every English hostess and charity queen will be consumed with curiosity and envy, anxious for the opportunity to size up the Prime Minister’s wife, to invite her to be their guest of honour at luncheons and receptions and teas, where they will simultaneously show her off to their friends and try to reduce her to their level.
Zoë must never, Wilfrid told her, ever allow her doubts about her fluency in English, or her fear of her hostesses’ motives and pretensions, to stop her from accepting their invitations. She must always remember: she’s a far finer, more gracious lady than any of them. They will be fortunate to have her under their roofs. It is she, with her unassuming dignity and thoughtful kindness, who will set the tone for conducting oneself in the Ottawa of his new regime.
Zoë heard no mention of the sacrifices Wilfrid would be making, but she let that go. Face to face on the swing, he addressed her with reckless abandon, his sincerity spreading such a passionate flush over his pale features that fine beads of perspiration appeared on the irresistible curve of his upper lip. Zoë wasn’t sure she believed his claims on her behalf, but she loved him for making them. Remembering those reassurances now, she feels distinctly better, physically relieved, as he squeezes her hand, excuses himself and leaves her to join the men.
The entourage has been kept waiting nearly an hour. Impatient as they are, they’ve learned to respect Wilfrid’s insistence on the solitude he needs to rest, to reflect, to marshal his thoughts.
In addition to Tarte, with his lithe frame and pointed goatee and quick, glittering eyes, Sir Richard Cartwright is here, large and immovable, the primordial politician of old Ontario. Cart-wright’s walrus moustache always strikes Zoë as silly, yet she feels intimidated by his aggressive, hungry laugh. Frederick Borden’s mutton-chop sidewhiskers are equally flamboyant and ridiculous: around the married Borden, however, rumours of women fly constantly, only the Lord knows why. And there