Laurier in Love. Roy MacSkimming
stone ones on Daly, not far from Sanford Fleming’s home. “Just think, you’d be walking along the sidewalk and Sir Sanford would step out of his garden and bow and present you with a long-stemmed rose. He’s wonderfully gallant, a true gentleman of the old school. That terrace, by the way, is named Philomene, after the original owner’s wife. Romantic, isn’t it?”
“I like the first house best,” Zoë offers.
“Oh, really? But stone is so much more distinguished than brick.”
“I don’t think I want to live in a terrace home. Too crowded.”
“Of course. It lacks grandeur.”
“There wouldn’t be room for a garden. Or our pets.”
“No, but the last occupant was the poet, Lampman.”
“The brick one is the prettiest. It reminds me of our house at home.”
“I suppose it does. But Zoë, at home you weren’t a great Prime Minister’s wife! Really, the nicest by far is the middle one. It has the most gracious lines and the largest rooms. You’d entertain splendidly there. You’ll have ever so many obligations to fulfil now, you must think of that.”
A brittle silence. “Since you like that house so well, Émilie, why don’t you buy it? I’m sure you and Joseph will want to entertain splendidly too, once you’re a great judge’s wife.”
Zoë stands up. An attentive young waiter rushes to pull out her chair, another hurries away to fetch their coats. She makes certain she exits the café first, as befits a Prime Minister’s wife, great or otherwise.
Émilie is jubilant. Joseph Lavergne’s appointment as a judge of the Quebec Superior Court in Hull is finally confirmed. She’s vindicated. She was absolutely right to persevere, to insist.
Her husband will no longer be merely a backbencher in Wilfrid’s government, invisible within the Quebec Liberal caucus. Joseph finds parliamentary work disagreeable in any case. With his sensitive nature, he isn’t cut out for the dirty work of politics. His talents and temperament suit him far better for the bench.
Of course the appointment, accompanied by a not incidental increase in salary, means they can finally begin looking for a home in the capital. Hull is out of the question, Émilie has assured Joseph: and in Ottawa there’s only one possible location, Sandy Hill. Wilfrid and Zoë have chosen a yellow-brick Second Empire house at 335 Theodore Street, now being renovated at party expense. It previously belonged to an Ottawa jeweller, and Émilie finds it rather staid and out of fashion, but Zoë is thrilled, saying the floor plan reminds her of her home in Arthabaska. Émilie doesn’t consider that a recommendation.
Joseph’s ascension to the bench coincides with the coming of spring, and both arrive just in time to save Émilie’s sanity. With Parliament recessed all winter, she’s been spending tedious weeks in Arthabaska confined indoors because of the extreme cold. Joseph has been carrying on the law practice, training a junior partner to conduct the day-to-day business. For Émilie, the whole winter has been a dreary reprise of her old existence, the desperate stretches without Wilfrid. But this time, coming after the high hopes of the previous summer, it’s been worse than ever. Wilfrid has practically disappeared into the fog of government.
When they return to the capital for the spring session, Émilie persuades Joseph to take a suite at the Russell in place of their old room. It has double the closet space and is located on the same floor as the Lauriers. It’s definitely too expensive, but, she reminds Joseph, it won’t be long before they’ll be moving into their own home, and with his higher income they can almost afford the monthly rate. Besides, they need the extra space now that Gabrielle is with them full-time.
Émilie is determined to make the most of living at the Russell. She likes to imagine its five storeys surmounted by ramparts as a chateau on the Loire, and herself and Joseph and Bielle as guests of a benevolent count. The fantasy is difficult to maintain. Streetcars screech around the corner at all hours, and above the main entrance an electric sign has been installed, red, white and blue light bulbs picking out a garish Union Jack alongside the words, “Victoria Regina 1837–97.” It’s impossible to escape the excesses of imperialists mad to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, equally impossible to avoid the barefoot urchins who swarm over the sidewalk below the sign, offering to shine shoes or perform errands or Lord knows what else. They speak both languages fluently, which tells Émilie they must be poor French from Lower Town.
Still, the Russell has its advantages. Modern steam heat makes the rooms comfortable. Of the stores lining the ground level, the milliner’s, men’s wear and florist shops are convenient, although uninspiring. Joseph likes to patronize the cigar store. The café’s menu is reliable, if repetitious. And so she makes a virtue out of necessity and decides to hold her first At Home at the Russell. It’s most irregular to hold an At Home in a hotel, but that’s the point: it will contribute a piquant novelty to the occasion. In any case, Émilie is too impatient to wait.
On the day of her At Home, Joseph has to be in Arthabaska to attend to the law practice. Émilie has seen him off on the train the night before, and now it’s two hours until the grand event, and it feels like the dawn of her new life. As she dresses, she keeps glancing through the window to reassure herself the sky is still blue, the sidewalks still dry, the trees still leafing out: a perfect May afternoon.
The At Home already promises to become exactly what she desires, the social event of the season. She’s had over six hundred invitation cards printed and hand-delivered across the city, saying simply, in flowing script:
Madame Lavergne
At Home at the Russell House
Saturday the 15 th
4 to 7 o’clock
In her boldly declarative hand, Émilie has written the guests’ names in blue ink across the top of each invitation. She’s invited senators and judges, poets and cabinet ministers, high-ranking militia officers and senior civil servants, all the most prominent and interesting people in Ottawa, with wives. The majority have replied in the affirmative.
Émilie smiles with secret pleasure. Perhaps her guests suspect, or even know, that the Prime Minister will be coming. The more knowledgeable will have perceived his guiding hand in the arrangements. Perhaps they’re curious about her, too: they’ve heard about this new arrival from Quebec, want to see for themselves what sort of woman has the Prime Minister’s ear. Even, it’s said, his heart.
It’s her salvation to be organizing such a major event. During the long winter months Wilfrid’s letters continued professing his adoration but rang hollow somehow, lacking the usual conviction and urgency. It all began to feel like a literary convention: his fulfillment of the forms of courtly romance, as if he was some medieval knight and she his unattainable lady locked away in her husband’s castle. Their passion was in danger of becoming a house of words. They needed something real and substantial to revive it, something to give themselves to, some shared adventure in which they could collaborate as equal hearts and minds. Otherwise they’d be restricted to meeting ever more fleetingly in the Russell’s lobby, or at formal dinner parties, or some Rideau Hall function, mouthing platitudes like mere acquaintances. What would it matter then that he’d once compared her to Josephine Bonaparte, invoking Napoléon’s description, “Elle était gracieuse en tout”?
Rather than surrender to despair, Émilie listened to her own resourceful nature. It wasn’t the same as listening to the distant violin, or dreaming of St. Ann’s Hill, but infinitely more practical. After considering various possibilities, some quite outrageous, she seized on the At Home. It will be as much