Louise Laraque disptached a messenger to summon the local undertaker while the male staff shepherded nosy guests away from the woman now lying dead in the hallway.
Well, most of the male staff shepherded the guests. The porter that everyone called Woj glared at her, as if to say, "Why are you giving the directions here?" As if Louise owed it to Woj to explain why the other staff took directions from Louise. As if Louise needed to explain to Woj why she, a black woman, held her head high at this hotel.
That porter, Woj, hadn't even worked for Chateau Frontenac for very long. Hell, Woj hadn't even been in Quebec City for very long. Woj had been born in Poland. At some point, he arrived in Chicago with his family. He worked at some ritzy hotel there. He fell in love with a French-Canadian woman who worked at the same Chicago hotel. Followed her back home to Quebec. That's the gossip that Louise heard about Woj.
Louise heard all the gossip. She knew all the stories about Chateau Frontenac. She knew most everything that went on in Old Quebec. She had been born and raised here. Her own father, Charles, escaped from a South Carolina rice plantation as a boy. Settled in Boston until the United States government passed the Fugitive Slave Act. Bounty hunters could abduct him in the North and send him back to enslavement in the South. It was all perfectly legal after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act. Charles fled to Canada. Eventually made his way to Quebec. Married Reine, Louise's mother, a woman whose own family had been in Quebec since the 1600's. Assume Reine's maiden name as his last name since he had none of his own. (The family name of the white people who enslaved him at the plantation didn't count.)
Louise shook her head at Woj.
"Va te rendre utile." Go make yourself useful.
Louise heard Woj mutter something about this happening on the "most haunted floor of Le Chateau," but in Louise's opinion, the ghosts haunted this entire place. Louise might herself haunt this hotel after she passed. Depending on whether she received any better offers in the afterlife.
"Qu'as-tu?" she said.
"Tant pis, Madam," Woj said as he walked away.
One would think that folks had never seen a dead body before. Look at the way that they reacted over this. Louise had seen plenty of them - mostly here at this hotel. Guests died here all the time. Usually not out in the hallway, though. Most of the time, people passed away peacefully while taking a bath, or sleeping, or using the water closet. Occasionally, the guests passed while making love. Though their spouses or mistresses (or male companions) wouldn't admit this to Louise's face. She could tell by the state of the body and the state of the bed. The staff found bodies while cleaning rooms. Sometimes the deaths appeared self-inflicted or inflicted at the hands of others. Sometimes people died alone and nude. Sometimes people died dressed and in the company of others. People died here.
Last winter, a guest found a body under a bed. Oh, the uproar that this caused. You should have heard Monsieur Blanchet that day. Mais comment cela a-t-il ete possible? Monsieur had to pay the guest – a Yankee! – to keep his mouth shut.
Well, hopefully the woman who died tonight would find peace in the afterlife. That doctor – the one who pronounced the dead woman in the hallway as dead – had shook his head sadly when he realized that he couldn't save her.
"I am so sorry," he said to the woman's husband.
After the woman's husband left, the doctor told Louise, "I've seen a lot of death that happens just like this."
"So have I," said Louise.
After Gilbert returned to his hotel room, he said to Anne, "You game for another round?"
Anne expected this. Gilbert often requested sex after he attended a patient, and then the patient died. This even happened sometimes after deaths that Gilbert admitted were just "meant by God to happen this way." Something about the Circle of Life, Anne thought. That's how Rilla had been conceived.
Anne once let this slip to Diana.
"How is Gilbert able to maintain his stamina like that?" asked Diana. "Fred is completely beat after he works in the field all day. How is Gilbert able to tend to sick folks from dawn to midnight, then come home and get you with child so easily? Is it all the cocaine that he uses?"
"What do you know about cocaine, Diana?" asked Anne.
Diana said, "Mrs. Harmon Andrews read an article in a journal about Dr. Osler. The article attributed his good health and strength to cocaine and morphine. Said that he uses cocaine every day and encourages his patients to do so as well."
"Er – never mind about Gilbert's cocaine use," said Anne.
Now Anne berated herself. What was she doing right now, thinking about Diana and Mrs. Harmon Andrews? She had Gilbert here right now, rubbing her nipple through her negligee.
Anne kissed Gilbert. Removed his jacket. Stroked him.
The couple forgot about the dead woman in the hallway.