He told them then what the maître d’ had told them in the kitchen.
As he spoke Beauvoir looked over and saw Chef Véronique standing at the kitchen door, listening. And he suddenly knew who she was, and why he’d cared for her.
THIRTY-TWO
The rain had stopped, but the grass underfoot was sodden. Sun shot through the clouds and beamed onto the lake, the lawn, the vast metal roof. Their feet squelched as the two couples and Beauvoir walked across the Manoir lawn toward the circle of chairs newly dried by the young staff.
“What do you think will happen to the Bellechasse?” Reine-Marie asked, holding her husband’s hand but talking to Clara.
Clara paused and glanced back at the grand and solid lodge. “This was built to last,” she said finally, her eyes catching a gleam on the old roof. “And I think it will.”
“I agree,” said Gamache.
Elliot Byrne was standing on the terrasse, setting out tables for dinner and directing some of the younger staff. He seemed a natural.
“How are you doing?” Reine-Marie asked Beauvoir, on her other side, as he batted away at the cloud of biting blackflies that had descended upon him.
“Did you know who she was?” he asked.
“Chef Véronique? As soon as I saw her,” said Reine-Marie. “Though I knew her by another name, she’s unmistakable, even after all these years. I used to watch her. Our kids were raised on her recipes.”
“So was I,” said Beauvoir, and he coughed up a bug. “Sorry.” He smiled ruefully at Madame Gamache.
The swarming flies and buzzing receded, and he could again smell the Vicks VapoRub, could taste the flat ginger ale and the crackers. He could feel the lumpy sofa and the soft blanket as he lay feverish, a sick day off school. Beside him sat his mother, gently rubbing his cold feet, as together they watched her favorite show on Radio Canada.
“Bonjour, mes enfants,” said the beefy young woman in the wimple. “Bless you for joining me. Let’s just hope I don’t burn the kitchen down today. Mother Superior is still angry about that frying pan I forgot on the gas last week.”
And she’d laugh. She had a laugh like a French horn and a voice like a root vegetable.
Soeur Marie Angèle and her famous cooking show. Midi Avec Ma Soeur.
It had become required viewing for young mothers across Quebec. Some to laugh at the old-fashioned, drab woman, no older than themselves really, who taught them how to make a perfect blancmange or rouille or poire Hélène. She seemed like something from another era. But below the laughter was admiration. Soeur Marie Angèle was a gifted cook who loved what she did, and did it with humor and excitement. There was a simplicity and certainty about her in a Quebec changing so rapidly.
Beauvoir could again hear his mother’s laughter as Ma Soeur made even the most complicated recipes seem easy and clear.
Enrollment in nunneries spiked, as did sales of her popular cookbooks, with the plain, happy woman in a habit with crossed baguettes on the cover.
How could he not have seen?
But there was a troubling edge to his memories. And then he remembered. The scandal when Soeur Marie Angèle suddenly left. In headlines and talk shows, in the streets and kitchens of Quebec, there was one topic. Why would Soeur Marie Angèle suddenly quit? And not just the show, but the order?
She’d never answered that. She’d simply taken her frying pans and vanished.
Into the wilderness, and here, Beauvoir knew, she’d finally found peace. And love. And a garden to tend and honey to harvest and people she cared for to cook for.
It was a small and perfect life. Away from the glare, away from scrutiny.
All the troubling little mysteries became clear. Why this wonderful chef was content to stay at the Manoir Bellechasse when she could work in the finest restaurant in Quebec. Why the Manoir employed only English kids, from other provinces.
So that her secret would be safe. Her peace unviolated. No one would recognize Chef Véronique as the infamous Ma Soeur who’d left the order like a thief in the night. And come here, to be taken in and protected by the fierce Madame Dubois. Her new Mother Superior.
“Why do you think she left the order?” he asked Reine-Marie, as they strolled down the lawn.
She paused to think about that. “Depends what you believe,” she said.
“What do you believe?”
“I believe this is where she belongs. For some, I suppose, this would be the wilderness. You walk ten feet into the woods and you’re lost. But for others this is heaven. Why look for the divine in a cold and cramped nunnery when you could be here? You can’t tell me God doesn’t have a home on this lake.” She smiled at Beauvoir. “Not a very original answer. But the simplest one.”