“Being married means we must set an example in the village,” Apolline continued. “For younger girls like Claire.”
Claire rolled her eyes.
“You are acting like Old Poulin’s widow,” Marthe told Apolline as she wiped her hands on her apron. “She’s been talking of organizing a charivari to put Anne Lamarque de Folleville in her place.”
“She wouldn’t dare!” Thérèse said. “Would she?”
“No, she would not,” Marthe agreed. “Folleville’s tavern is our greatest customer.” Still, Marthe was not entirely confident in what she said. The way the widow’s eyes lit up when she described the slights she was dealt at the hands of others and how her enemies should suffer made Marthe worry she was the kind of woman who would set fire to her home—Marthe’s home—just to watch it burn.
“I think the canoe is pretty enough. Let us go and see if Lili is ready,” Marthe said. She led them off the village pier and back towards the bakehouse. She was glad of the company of the other girls, though in her heart she wished it were Rose and Lou who had stayed in town to marry a nail smith or a cobbler, rather than heading out for the farthest côte on the island with their farmers and leaving her with only prudish Apolline and the others.
They arrived at the bakery and went straight into Maman Poulin’s salon. Élisabeth wore a clean chemise and cap and an uneasy expression. The widow sat opposite her. Marthe beamed at her encouragingly while Maman Poulin, seemingly not to be outdone, placed her hands on Élisabeth’s knees.
“Ville-Marie has never seen a more beautiful bride,” she said, her chest puffed out, as if Élisabeth were her own daughter. Marthe wondered if the widow’s words were meant kindly, or if she had found a way to slight the rest of the recently married women.
“Your shop is divine, Marthe,” Claire said, gazing at the hutch with its baskets of bread and the warm fire in the hearth. “Just what you always wanted.”
“Wait until you see the improvements I intend to make,” Marthe said. “I want to put a shelf up over there.” She motioned to the far wall, over Maman Poulin’s head. “And I wonder if we might stock a little jam and honey for the convenience of our customers. Maybe even some small beer.”
“Jam and honey?” Maman Poulin recoiled. “Are you mad? This is abakehouse, not a farmer’s gate. Andbeer? People will not buy such a thing, little mistress, they make it themselves!”
“What’s all the ruckus?” Verger had woken. He shuffled across the room to place a kiss on Marthe’s cheek, his face creased with sleep.
“Your wife has ridiculous ideas that you must put a stop to, Verger. Selling jam and small beer. Of all things!”
“Jam?” Verger chortled. “Who would want to buy jam from a bakery?”
“I was thinking of ways to increase our profit,” Marthe mumbled, embarrassed to be told off in front of her friends.
“Maman Poulin,” Élisabeth interrupted. “Surely in a bakehouse the notion of brewing one’s own bouillon is not such a terrible idea, for do you not already have the knack of fermentation?”
“Silly Lili.” Maman Poulin turned and placed a kiss on her forehead. “What a thing to be thinking of on your wedding day. Ignore your sister, for she is full of nonsense. Her husband will need to take a firm hand with her. Or else who knows where her wild ideas will end.” The widow glared pointedly at Verger, who scratched his stomach.
“Marthe, may I see you in the workroom?” he said. Marthe could feel both shame and the heat of her temper rising in her chest. She flashed Maman Poulin a glare and stomped across the hallway to the other side of the house. Her husband shuffled after her.
“Have patience,” he whispered when they were alone. “New France is desperate for wives. A widow is as good as a maid here. Maman Poulin will marry soon enough and leave you to direct all manner of improvements in the bakery.”
“When?” Marthe demanded, ignoring his gentle tone and arranging her features in what she hoped was a look of disapproval, the same face she had seen Apolline make many times. “She is already forty. And she was not capable of providing Old Poulin with any children. Who would want her?”
Verger gave her a reproachful look. “Be generous. I do not want to force her from the home and enterprise she has spent her life building.”
“But it ismyhome now. I am your wife. And yet she picks at me every day, like a sore that will not heal. What about me?”
“Enough, Marthe,” Verger said, his voice uncharacteristically stern. “Stay your plans until Maman Poulin leaves. Let’s have no more talk of jam.”
“And what if she does not leave? What if she does not marry,ever? What then?” Marthe’s cheeks were red with frustration.
Verger dismissed her concerns with a swish of his hand by his ear, like a dog rooting for a flea with its hind leg. He shuffled towards the back door, off to seek solitude by his bread oven in the yard.
Marthe tried to compose herself. Her humiliation thrummed all the way down to her curled toes. She could not bear to walk back into the widow’s salon, so clearly chastised and defeated. She patted her cheeks to test their temperature, willing herself to calm down.
It was no use.
She realized she had married for neither love, nor money, and in the widow Poulin, she had a demon of her own she must defeat.
20
Then they were alone, yoked together with as little notion of how they came to be bound to each other as a pair of dumb oxen.
