‘We must be grateful Hazel has decided to cook instead,’ said Monsieur Béliveau. ‘She’s made us a wonderful casserole.’
It was very like Hazel, Clara thought. Always caring for others. Clara was slightly afraid people took advantage of Hazel’s generosity, especially that daughter of hers, but she also realized it was none of her business.
‘But we have a great deal of work to do before dinner, mon ami.’ Madeleine smiled radiantly at Monsieur Béliveau and touched him lightly on the shoulder. The older man smiled. He hadn’t smiled a lot since his wife died, but now he did, and Clara had another reason to like Madeleine. She watched them now holding their baskets of Easter eggs and walking through the late April sunshine, the youngest and tenderest of lights falling on a young and tender relationship. Monsieur Béliveau, tall and slim and slightly stooped, seemed to have a spring in his step.
Clara stood up and stretched her forty-eight-year-old body, then glanced around. It looked like a field of derrières. Every villager was bending over, placing eggs. Clara wished she had her sketch pad.
There was certainly nothing cool about Three Pines, nothing funky or edgy or any of the other things that had mattered to Clara when she’d graduated from art college twenty-five years ago. Nothing here was designed. Instead, the village seemed to follow the lead of the three pines on the green and simply to have grown from the earth over time.
Clara took a deep breath of the fragrant spring air and looked over at the home she shared with Peter. It was brick with a wooden porch and a fieldstone wall fronting the Commons. A path wound from their gate through some apple trees about to bloom to their front door. From there Clara’s eyes wandered around the houses surrounding the Commons. Like their inhabitants, the homes of Three Pines were sturdy and shaped by their environment. They’d withstood storms and wars, loss and sorrow. And emerging from that was a community of great kindness and compassion.
Clara loved it. The houses, the shops, the village green, the perennial gardens and even the washboard roads. She loved the fact that Montreal was less than a two-hour drive away, and the American border was just down the road. But more than all of that, she loved the people who now spent this and every Good Friday hiding wooden eggs for children.
It was a late Easter, near the end of April. They weren’t always so lucky with the elements. At least once the village had awoken on Easter Sunday to find a fresh dumping of heavy spring snow, burying the tender buds and painted eggs. It had often been bitterly cold and the villagers had had to duck into Olivier’s Bistro every now and then for a hot cider or hot chocolate, wrapping trembling and frozen fingers around the warm and welcoming mugs.
But not today. There was a certain glory about this April day. It was a perfect Good Friday, sunny and warm. The snow had gone, even in the shadows, where it tended to linger. The grass was growing and the trees had a halo of the gentlest green. It was as though the aura of Three Pines had suddenly made itself visible. It was all golden light with shimmering green edges.
Tulip bulbs were beginning to crack through the earth and soon the village green would be awash with spring flowers, deep blue hyacinths and bluebells and gay bobbing daffodils, snowdrops and fragrant lily of the valley, filling the village with fragrance and delight.
This Good Friday Three Pines smelled of fresh earth and promise. And maybe a worm or two.
‘I don’t care what you say, I won’t go.’
Clara heard the urgent and vicious whisper. She was crouching again, by the tall grass of the pond. She couldn’t see who it was but she realized they must be just on the other side of the grass. It was a woman’s voice speaking French but in a tone so strained and upset she couldn’t identify her.
‘It’s just a séance,’ a man’s voice said.
‘It’ll be fun.’ ‘It’s sacrilege, for Christ’s sake. A séance on Good Friday?’
There was a pause. Clara was feeling uncomfortable. Not about eavesdropping, but her legs were beginning to cramp.
‘Come on, Odile. You’re not even religious. What can happen?’
Odile? thought Clara. The only Odile she knew was Odile Montmagny. And she was –
The woman hissed again:
‘Each winter’s frostbite and the bug
That greets the spring will leave its mark,
As well as sorrow on the mug
Of infant, youth and patriarch.’
Stunned silence fell.
– a really bad poet, Clara completed her thought.
Odile had spoken solemnly, as though the words conveyed something other than the talent of the poet.
‘I’ll look after you,’ said the man. Clara now knew who he was too. Odile’s boyfriend, Gilles Sandon.
‘Why do you really want to go, Gilles?’
‘Just for fun.’
‘Is it because she’ll be there?’
There was silence, except for Clara’s screaming legs.
‘He’ll be there too, you know,’ Odile pressed.
‘Who?’
‘You know who. Monsieur Béliveau,’ said Odile. ‘I have a bad feeling about this, Gilles.’
There was another pause, then Sandon spoke, his voice deep and flat as though making a huge effort to smother any emotion.
‘Don’t worry. I won’t kill him.’
Clara had forgotten all about her legs. Kill Monsieur Béliveau? Who’d even consider such a thing? The old grocer had never even short-changed anyone. What could Gilles Sandon possibly have against him?
She heard the two walk away and straightening up with some agony Clara stared after them, Odile pear-shaped and waddling slightly, Gilles a huge teddy bear of a man, his signature red beard visible even from behind.
Clara glanced at her sweaty hands clutching the wooden Easter eggs. The cheery colors had bled into her palms.
Suddenly the séance, which had seemed an amusing idea a few days ago when Gabri had put the notice up in the bistro announcing the arrival of the famous psychic, Madame Isadore Blavatsky, now felt different. Instead of happy anticipation Clara was filled with dread.
THREE
Madame Isadore Blavatsky wasn’t herself that night. In fact, she wasn’t Madame Isadore Blavatsky at all.
‘Please, call me Jeanne.’ The mousy woman stood in the middle of the back room at the bistro, holding out her hand. ‘Jeanne Chauvet.’
‘Bonjour, Madame Chauvet.’ Clara smiled and shook the limp hand. ‘Excusez-moi.’
‘Jeanne,’ the woman reminded her in a voice barely audible.
Clara stepped over to Gabri who was offering a platter of smoked salmon to his guests. The room was beginning to fill up, slightly. ‘Salmon?’ He thrust the plate at Clara.
‘Who is she?’ Clara asked.
‘Madame Blavatsky, the famous Hungarian psychic. Can’t you just feel her energy?’
Madeleine and Monsieur Béliveau waved. Clara waved back then glanced over at Jeanne who looked as though she’d faint if someone said boo. ‘I certainly feel something, young man, and it’s annoyed.’
Gabri Dubeau vacillated between delight at being called ‘young man’ and defensiveness.
‘That isn’t Madame Blavatsky. She doesn’t even pretend to be. Her name’s Jeanne someone-or-other,’ said Clara, absent-mindedly taking a piece of salmon and folding it onto a pumpernickel. ‘You promised us Madame Blavatsky.’
‘You don’t even know who Madame Blavatsky is.’
‘Well, I know who she isn’t.’ Clara nodded and smiled at the small, middle-aged woman standing slightly bewildered in the middle of the room.