The Tale-Teller (17 page)

***

NOW THAT SHE WAS feeling better, Esther spent more and more time out of bed, taking her meals with the family and sitting outside in the sun to watch Madame Lévesque work. Her new hostess shared Madame Duplessis's passion for gardening and was still fit enough to indulge it, but having only a small plot, she cultivated flowers rather than fruits and vegetables. She was as tender with them as if they had been children, deadheading the spent roses and picking aphids off the new buds, clipping away extra branches and yellow or spotted leaves, working compost into the soil with a trowel. Although she was a wealthy woman with a houseful of servants, she insisted that gardening was not a chore but her greatest pleasure.

Madame Lévesque had reserved a special area for herbs, many of which were medicinal such as the lavender used upon Esther's infected wound. She had gained a reputation as a naturalist, following the work of the royal physician, Michel Sarrazin, in order to assist her husband's practice. She was very interested in aboriginal remedies and cultivated some of their ingredients as well: maidenhair fern to treat respiratory ailments, wintergreen for pains in the joints, purple coneflower for ague, bloodroot as an emetic, and ginseng as an all-purpose tonic. She also scraped spruce gum off trees to use as a salve for wounds and as a cure for diseases of the bladder. The advantage of local plants was that they were adapted to the climate, unlike European herbs; even rosemary, a perennial in France, rarely survived the challenge of a Canadian winter. She was forced to bring a small pot inside before the first frost and replant it in the spring with marjoram, basil, thyme, and dill seedlings. On the other hand, cultivating these tender herbs kept her garden alive indoors when the land was frozen. The foreign plants and the native ones balanced each other.

For Madame Lévesque, the most important principle in life was balance. She held that the balance in Quebec's four distinct seasons paralleled that of the body's four humours: winter was cold and wet like the phlegmatic humour; spring hot and wet like the sanguine; summer hot and dry like the choleric; autumn cold and dry like the melancholic. Esther, she was convinced, had been melancholic for years; coming to Canada in disguise had only made this worse, the suppression of her true character resulting in an excess of black bile. For this reason the septicaemia she had suffered at the hospital — far from being a punishment for her wickedness, as the nuns had insisted — had actually been purgative, cleaning the cold out of her body by means of a blazing fever the way one cleared virgin land by burning stumps. Now she was ready to start life anew.

“It's too bad you weren't here for the feast day of your namesake,” Madame Lévesque remarked casually one day, as Esther followed her around carrying gardening tools and a basket.

“You celebrate Purim?” Esther replied, amazed. Though she had come to terms with the idea of the doctor being Jewish, there were few signs of observance in the family's daily life except for the way that he scraped the pork off his plate onto his wife's as soon as the servants left the room and stood silently praying, facing east, in the early morning. It was true that the family lit candles and drank wine on Shabbat, but since they did so nightly these practices did not stand out in any way. Anything else the doctor did he must have done alone and in secret.

“I don't myself, but Gabriel keeps the fast the day before — the better to get drunk during the festive meal.”

Esther had to laugh at that. “Purim is my favourite holiday. Not because you are required to get drunk, though of course that part is fun, but because Esther has always been my inspiration.”

“I thought so. In fact, I suspected you were Jewish as soon as I heard your name and learned that you had arrived here in disguise.”

“Really? Then why did you send me to Madame Duplessis's house, where I had to pretend to pray to Jesus all the time?”

“I thought you two would be good for each other. She was lonely, and so were you.” Madame Lésveque straightened up, groaning at the stabbing pain in her lower back. “Besides, one of the things I have learned from Gabriel is that God has many names; He does not mind which one you use in your prayers as long as your intentions are good. I myself would pray to any deity with the power to cure my arthritis.”

“Poor Maman,” said a man, coming into the garden with a travel-worn cloak and muddy boots.

“Joseph!” cried his mother, flinging her arms around his neck and kissing him. “When did you grow a beard?”

“It is the fashion in Montreal,” he smiled. “But I will shave it off if it displeases you.”

“No, don't; you look exactly like your father did at your age; even more handsome perhaps. But I am being rude. Do you remember Mademoiselle Brandeau, who was terribly ill the last time you visited us?”

“I am glad to see that you are recovered, Mademoiselle Brandeau,” he said, bowing. “My parents were very concerned about you.”

“Your parents saved my life, Monsieur,” Esther replied, curtseying.

“Do not be so dramatic, Esther,” Madame Lévesque said. “You are one of the family now.”

And with one arm around the waist of her son and the other around Esther, Madame Lévesque led the two young people, laughing, into the house. She knew it was bad luck to wish too hard for things, but somehow she could not help feeling that things were unfolding as the universe intended.

THIRTEEN

“Uno año mas, un sehel mas.”
(A year older, a year wiser.)

IT WAS A WARM August day. Even with all the windows open and the occasional breeze riffling the piles of paper on his desk, Hocquart found it necessary to strip to his shirt. Wet patches had spread under his armpits, beads of sweat rolled down his belly, and he had become uncomfortably aware that he stank. Another two hours of work, perhaps, and then he'd need a bath and change of clothes before dinner with Beauharnois.

He'd been putting off seeing the Governor General for weeks, knowing that their first topic of conversation was likely to be the fate of Esther Brandeau. His orders were clear: she must convert or be sent back to France immediately. When the girl had still been mortally ill the subject had been moot, but now that she had recovered a decision had to be made. She could not stay at the Lévesques' house as though the question of her status had been resolved. He had probably been remiss in allowing Madame Lévesque to take her home in the first place, but the woman had insisted that if Esther stayed in the hospital she would die and Hocquart had never been able to refuse Madame Lévesque anything. She was a force of nature.

He glanced at the letter sitting on his desk, as yet unanswered. A letter he had received in June, on the first ship that arrived from France. Like everyone else, he had been waiting at the harbour that day with great anticipation. Some people were welcoming friends and relations; some receiving trade goods; ladies were looking forward to the latest fashions from Paris and gentlemen to new shipments of wine and brandy. The army awaited fresh recruits, tradesmen new apprentices. He himself was most anxious to receive not official correspondence but a large quantity of superior chocolate. The chocolate had indeed arrived, but so had this letter, confirming the information that Varin had received from his spies. Esther Brandeau was a Jew.

Ordres du Roy et Dépêches aux Colonies
21 April 1739

 

I do not know whether one can trust implicitly the declaration made by the so-called Esther Brandeau, who went out to Canada last year dressed as a boy on the vessel ‘Saint Michel.' However that may be, I have approved of your course in placing her in the Hôpital Général at Quebec, and I shall be very glad to hear of her conversion.

 

— From the Minister of the Marine to the Sieur Hocquart, Intendant of the Government of France in Quebec

Damn. There must be some cologne around somewhere he could dab on; Marie-Thérèse would know where it was. He could not afford to smell bad in front of that peacock. And then it came throbbing back to him, like a toothache, that Marie-Thérèse had gone. It had taken him entirely by surprise when she had asked for his blessing. Who would have thought that such a homely woman, a woman thirty-six years of age, would receive an offer of marriage? Her new husband was respectable enough: a stout-hearted habitant, a widower with three daughters, farming a nice acreage on the Île d'Orléans. Apparently, they had struck up an acquaintance at the market while debating the merits of different kinds of cheese. Having grown up on a dairy farm, Marie-Thérèse was very knowledgeable about the subject. The farmer, who was a practical man, had discerned in her a hardworking woman who would make an excellent partner on his farm and mother to his children, and had proposed. If something so unlikely could happen to his housekeeper, Hocquart reflected wryly, perhaps there was still hope for him.

Marie-Thérèse had helped him find her replacement before she left, for he did not relish the prospect of interviewing a flock of clucking hens and then choosing the one he would have to look at and talk to for God only knows how long. Unfortunately, the best candidate for the job was a hatchetfaced widow named Madame Archambault. She did a good job of keeping the place in order — there was no more nonsense and waste from the other servants anymore — but in truth he wished for someone like Esther to keep him company: someone clever and entertaining who liked good food. But of course, Esther couldn't manage a household; the girl had no domestic skills at all.

At Marie-Thérèse's wedding, where he had been the guest of honour, she inquired politely how he was getting along. Having had more than his share of the potent local cider, he confessed his distaste for his new housekeeper. He wished she had found him someone who looked less like a hangman, someone more lively and interesting to be around. And, worst of all, no one in the kitchen could make a decent cup of chocolate anymore.

“Perhaps it is not too late to change that,” Marie-Thérèse replied, looking fondly at her strapping new husband waltzing his youngest daughter around the room, the girl's dainty slippers perched on top of his big clumsy boots.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Monsieur Hocquart,” she said hesitantly, recognizing the stiffening in his manner. “I could not help noticing how fond you were of Esther Brandeau. Well, she is all alone in the world and so are you. Maybe … maybe the two of you would be happier together?”

Fortunately for the Intendant, who was flushed with embarrassment and drink, the groom swung by with his giggling daughter and swept Marie-Thérèse away before he had to think of an answer. Almost immediately he called for his carriage and went home, grateful that no one else had overheard their conversation. But he found himself pondering what Marie-Thérèse had suggested.

Surely it was impossible?

He would first have to persuade Esther to convert to Catholicism, a task at which even the formidable Mother Claude had failed. On the other hand, he would be offering himself in return, which was a different kind of proposal than had ever been made to her before. She had nothing and no one; it was possible that marriage might appear a fair exchange, even if the husband were old and bald like him. They did have some things in common after all — they had the same taste in books and food. And similarity of taste was supposed to be a solid foundation for a domestic relationship.

Of course, there would be no way he could stay in Quebec if he wed Esther Brandeau; that much was obvious. Beauharnois would humiliate them both at every possible occasion and he would never be able to assert his authority among the man's followers. But why couldn't he start over with a new posting in some other corner of the Empire? With a wife such as her — young, charming, clever — he might actually rise further in the colonial administration. They would go somewhere less difficult to govern, somewhere warmer than New France: one of the prosperous sugar islands like Guadeloupe or Sainte Domingue perhaps. A place where she could recover her health swinging in a hammock all day, a place where they could eat exotic fruits, grow their own chocolate, bathe in a sparkling turquoise ocean. Esther had spoken often of how much she loved the ocean. Maybe he could tempt her with that prospect, if not with the prospect of having him as her husband.

He wandered over to a shelf and pulled down an atlas; thumbing through it he was gratified to see that the power of France spread across the globe. Not that he relished the thought of another long sea journey. But a thrill of excitement ran down his spine all the same. Reliable, dull Gilles Hocquart hadn't done anything unexpected in his whole life. He had simply laboured on diligently in the job his father had chosen for him, without asking himself whether he was happy, or lonely, or if, perhaps, he might have preferred a different way of life. Maybe he should have asked before, but at least he was asking now. And maybe it wasn't too late.

***

“I AM SPEECHLESS,” ESTHER said.

“Shall I take that as a good or a bad omen?” asked Hocquart.

The girl acknowledged his attempt at humour with a wry smile, then walked over to the window and stared off into the distance. Her movements were unexpectedly graceful and caught him off guard; somehow she seemed less encumbered by her clothes, more accustomed to walking in skirts, than he remembered. There was definitely something different about her. Her hair, of course, had grown much longer, and she now wore it combed over her high forehead and secured with a velvet ribbon, then tumbling down her back in long shiny waves. She had plucked and shaped her scraggly eyebrows, doubtless at the prompting of Madame Lévesque, who was nothing if not fashionable, and was wearing a pretty dress in a lilac colour that suited her complexion very well. In addition, she had gained weight since he had last seen her and looked less angular than before. All the ways Esther had changed made his proposal of marriage seem less absurd than he had feared it might, and gave him hope that she might be inclined to accept it.

The object of his silent scrutiny sighed, clasped her hands together as though to give herself strength, then finally responded, her back still to him, her gaze fixed on something outside.

“The last day I was living with Madame Duplessis, just before Monsieur Varin came to arrest me, I was telling her and my dear Madame Lévesque a tale of my adventures among the Tuareg, the blue men of the Sahara desert. I didn't get to finish it.”

“What of it?” he said, bewildered by this apparent change of subject.

“Would you like to hear the rest of that story now? It is quite interesting.” Finally she turned around to look at him. To his amazement, her eyes were full of tears.

“If it is that important to you, I will. You know how much I love your stories, Esther.”

She turned away from him again, her gaze fixed once more on the window.