She has. He asks if she’s read the caption. She hasn’t. He hands her the newspaper from the top of the pile.
Zoë sits on the bed and adjusts her bifocal pince-nez. Even with their help, she has to hold the paper close to the bedside lamp to make out the caption. It quotes The Times of London: “Mr. Laurier counts warm friends on both sides in politics. Many Conservatives will be found to echo the remark, once made with regard to him by Sir John Macdonald: ‘I can trust Laurier without the slightest fear. He is incapable of breaking his word even if he wished to.’”
“Do you think it’s true?” she asks.
“About my keeping my word?”
“Of course not. About the Conservatives feeling friendly toward you.”
“They may allow me a brief honeymoon, but it won’t last. Old Tupper is furious I blocked him from filling the Senate with cronies before he left office.”
“You can always blame Lord Aberdeen.”
“Not really. I expressly asked him to refuse assent to Tupper’s nominations.”
“I don’t like them comparing you to Macdonald.”
“But why? It’s a great compliment.”
“Look what being Prime Minister did to him.”
“What?”
“It killed him!”
Wilfrid laughs lightly. “My dear, Macdonald was twenty years older than I! And I haven’t been in better health in years.”
It’s true, considering he’s just been through a punishing election campaign: Wilfrid’s resilience is increasing with age. For the moment his bronchitis is in abeyance, although it always returns in winter.
“I already miss the children.” She’s referring to their dogs and cats in Arthabaska.
Wilfrid comes to sit beside her on the bed. He takes her hand in his and kisses it. “I know you do. But as soon as we can, we’ll find a house here—well, you’ll find us one—and we can bring all the children to come and live with us. A house with a pretty garden where they can be happy. Especially Mademoiselle Topsy.”
“It will be expensive.”
“Remember Mulock’s letter: there will be a trust fund. The party will look after everything. I know Silent Smith is too mixed up in it, but we’ll never need to worry about the bills again.”
“That was always the worst thing for you.” It pains her to recall the times Wilfrid tried to resign as leader: his desperate letters to the party president explaining the precariousness of their finances, how he no longer had time to practise law, how he lacked the private wealth to underwrite obligations on the party’s behalf. Even worse, he pleaded his personal inadequacy for the job: he actually felt unfit, a French Canadian in over his head in an English world. What if one of those resignation letters had succeeded? They wouldn’t be here now, they’d be back home where they belong. But would it be enough for him? Enough to stay home in Arthabaska with the old practice, the old friends, the old marriage?
Of course not. Anyone can see he’s infinitely happier now. Finally he feels the reins of power slipping into his hands. He vastly prefers power to being in opposition. When he lost the previous election to Macdonald five years ago, he erupted in expletives she’s never heard him use before or since.
“Besides,” he continues, “the Lavergnes will be moving their household here soon. You and Émilie will be able to reinvent a little of Arthabaska in Ottawa.”
Zoë feels her entire body tense, even as her mind fights to stay clear. “The Lavergnes? Both of them?”
“Of course. Now that Joseph is an MP—”
“Joseph has been an MP for years.”
“Yes, but now that he’s a member of Her Majesty’s government, he’ll need Émilie to help him entertain, and such. You know how it is.”
“Oh yes. I always have.” She feels the old, old anger begin to churn her stomach. And she thought she’d put it behind her long ago, locked away in its vault, along with the humiliation.
“Please, my dear, I thought you’d learned to appreciate Émilie’s friendship. You’ve said so yourself. It could get lonely for you here. Émilie will be good company in the long hours when I’m in Parliament.”
“So she’s coming for my benefit?”
Wilfrid kisses her cheek and squeezes her hand, kneads it slowly with his fingertips. “I have no illusions it’s going to be easy, being in power. This is an impossible country to govern. I’ll need a lot of help. I’ll have to be careful and patient and forbearing. I’ll need a strong cabinet, men I can trust. But I’ll have something Macdonald never had in all his long, long years in power, something I need more than anything: you.”
She lifts her gaze to those deep-set brown eyes flecked with yellow and green. They hold her fast.
Émilie Lavergne moves swiftly about her room at the Russell House. It’s a small confined space, and she covers it in a few strides. One more time she rearranges the showy white peonies, slightly past their prime, in the blue china vase. She approaches the open window as if expecting something new to materialize on the dust-streaked glass, something besides the dreadful heat, the endless overhead wires, the grinding streetcars of Sparks Street. She turns back to the double bed. The dowdy rose counterpane, shiny from the bottoms of prior occupants, distresses her: her sensibility demands finer things.
This dingy room is where Joseph has stayed since first being elected to Parliament. It’s less than half the size of Wilfrid’s sunny suite on the next floor down, and it simply won’t do. Joseph’s boiled white shirts and black suits hang in the narrow armoire like empty husks. There’s scarcely any space left for dresses or hat boxes or shoes. It depresses Émilie to think how long they’ll have to survive in this cell before they can afford a home of their own in Ottawa.
Never mind. She resolves to set the future aside, to dwell on the happy present. Wilfrid will be here at any moment. He wouldn’t be specific about the time, saying only it would be after the luncheon following his first meeting with his new cabinet. Meanwhile Joseph is spending the day across the river in Hull, putting his time to good use, sounding out legal acquaintances about his prospects for the bench.
Waiting for Wilfrid: the phrase sums up Émilie’s existence. How agonizing it’s always been to bring him to a new place, whether to bed or a belief in God. . . . Although it’s two years old, she’s chosen to wear the summer gown he likes so much, white peau de soie with short flounced sleeves and bare arms, several long strings of pearls draped loosely over the bodice. The neck square and deep, but not too—just enough to show off her shoulders. No earrings, since it’s still early afternoon. An antique silver bracelet on her left wrist.
She swings past the armoire’s oval mirror and doesn’t entirely like what she sees. She can accept the deepening furrows under her eyes but not the slight droop under her chin, nor the matronly thickness beginning to envelop her middle. The dress clings gracefully until it reaches her waist, where it loses its way. It was absurd of the Parisian designer to add that extraneous thin strip of fabric encircling her hips. She’ll have to have the gown remodelled as soon as she can find a stylish dressmaker in Ottawa. If such a thing exists.
“This dull, detested place,” Wilfrid once called the city, in letters