Lace (35 page)

Just before Judy flew back to America, Guy drove out to the chateau from Paris. It was the chef’s evening off, and a cold meal had been left in the library. As she took a
slice of ham, Judy felt an odd, school-girlish, conspiratorial atmosphere of suspense and smothered giggles, as if a secret was about to be revealed. Maybe they were going to give her a present?
After all, opening the chateau had been her idea. . . . She took her plate and sat on the footstool in front of the log fire at Aunt Hortense’s bony feet, the metatarsals bulging after a
lifetime spent in too-high heels. It wasn’t really cold enough for a fire but Maxine always kept one burning in the little library.

“Something’s going on. What’s up? What are you hiding from me?” Judy said suspiciously.

Aunt Hortense gave a smothered laugh and almost dropped her plate. Guy looked at Charles, who gave an odd grin—Charles now enjoyed Guy’s company, although at first he had resented
this dressmaker who had been in the nursery with Maxine and who consequently knew what she was thinking far better than her husband.

Now Guy nodded his head at Charles and turned to Judy. His face was serious. “We want to discuss a business proposition with you, Judy. We want to suggest that you open your own office and
handle our publicity in the States.”

Judy was astonished. “That’s very . . . that’s wonderfully flattering and very generous of you.”

“Not at all, it would be in
our
interest,” said Guy. “I need my own PR in the States, and I’ve worked with you for years in Paris. You know my business.”

“And we are obviously going to rely on American visitors to the chateau,” added Maxine. “So we need someone we can trust to handle us in America.”

“Don’t think that the idea hasn’t crossed my mind! But I’m far too young and I haven’t any capital. Maxine, you know I need every cent I can save for mother’s
medical bills. I’ve no money.”

“We’re paying other firms to do this work now,” Charles said. “We might as well pay you. To be frank, I
also
thought you might be too young, but we
all
started young. You’re nearly twenty-three, Judy. A woman of that age is not too young to be responsible for little children, so why not for a little business? You don’t have to start
immediately. We could plan for six months’ time.”

Judy turned to Guy. “Was this what was at the back of your mind when you first came to New York? Was this what you were hinting at on the East River?”

“Of course. You’ve helped us to start. Now we intend to help you.” He stood and raised his flute of champagne. “To Judy!”

They all echoed his toast. Judy cried.

Charles allocated nearly all his small publicity budget to PR, rather than to advertising. He quickly became intrigued by Judy’s ideas, by her straightforward approach
and the impressive results. At first he found it difficult to work with a woman who talked in such a brusque, forthright fashion: Charles was used to business conversations that were more
circuitous and women who flattered men, but he realised that to survive, new ideas were needed; he also realised that as Judy was starting her own business she would work as hard as she could on
his account. Which she did.

It was not difficult to promote an account as glamorous as champagne; had Judy been trying to sell brushes or sensible walking shoes, she might have had a far more difficult time. From the
beginning she pushed three linked words:
“Paris-Champagne-Maxine.”
She used Maxine rather than Charles because Charles hated publicity. Maxine understood it much better and
enjoyed being a professional celebrity. The second reason was that “Maxine” was very similar to “Maxim’s,” the name of the world-famous Parisian restaurant. When Judy
devised a new letterhead that read
“Paris • Champagne • Maxine”
, there was an immediate, reproachful protest from Maxim’s restaurant, which felt that
they
were inextricably associated in the public’s mind with Paris, and that the use of Madame la Comtesse’s Christian name might confuse the public. But Judy—delighted—begged to
disagree and refused to change the letterhead.

Maxine became increasingly well-known as a French celebrity. She was always able to provide a quotable sentence, a joke or a shrewd comment when it was needed. Judy warned her never to talk in
public about money, politics or religion and never to complain to the press about anything at all; when the odd spiteful article appeared, she was to ignore it. “Yes, I know that there are
boxes and boxes of splendid press cuttings,” said Maxine sadly, “but unfortunately, it’s only the bitchy ones that one pays any attention to—these are the only ones that
upset me.”

“Well, you’ve got to learn to live with it,” Judy said firmly. “I don’t mind how loudly you voice your feelings in private as long as you don’t
ever
try to get an apology out of a newspaper. Sue them or forget it.”

Judy also stressed that Maxine should always be beautifully dressed. Maxine did not find this instruction difficult to obey. As soon as she could afford to, Maxine also shopped at Christian
Dior, although at first she could only afford a couple of outfits a year. After visiting Dior, Maxine would take a leisurely stroll up the rue du Faubourg St. Honoré to choose a few boutique
items and restock her lingerie drawers.

Maxine needed a great deal of underwear for a very private reason.

Charles was an affectionate and indulgent husband. After a certain amount of initial irritability, he let Maxine take over the organization of their lives and was both proud of
and quietly amused by the way she did it. Once in a while he put his foot down, but this happened rarely. Most of the time she had her own way and was allowed to win their occasional arguments, but
Charles liked her to remember that this was not because he was doting or henpecked, but simply because he chose to indulge her. He had a special way of reminding his wife of this.

Sometimes on formal occasions Charles would make Maxine gasp or blush or even forget what she meant to say. He could manage this by directing one meaningful look at her. It was a power that he
had over her and he enjoyed it immensely, this ability to destroy her calm with that one look that, he knew, made her heart lurch and her groin moisten. Maxine knew exactly what the look meant.

One night, shortly after they were married, Charles had murmured, “I don’t want you to wear any underwear to the de la Fresange ball tonight. I want to know that if I care to feel
you at
any time
, you will be ready for me.” Maxine thought he was joking, but during the course of the evening he danced her out of the ballroom and onto a dark corner of the terrace,
then swiftly felt beneath the pale-pink net layers of her ball gown.

Maxine was wearing panties.

Charles ripped them off and flung them to the ground and then, with his left arm, he held her pressed against the stone balustrade. From the back they looked like any courting couple, but his
fingers were feeling fiercely for her. She was terrified that they would be seen, that she was going to fall backward over the low stone balustrade as he pressed against her, but she could not
resist Charles’s rhythmic fingers. Quickly he undid his clothes and she felt him inside her body, demanding her with a selfish fierceness that she had never felt from him before. After he
climaxed, he kissed her gently on the lips and said, “Darling, in just a few matters, I expect to be obeyed by you without question.”

After that, upon occasion, he would casually ask Maxine not to wear underwear, particularly if they were going to a very formal function. When this happened he gave his driver the evening off,
somewhat to the man’s surprise. In the car, Charles’s hand would search under Maxine’s skirt and feel between her quivering white thighs to find out whether he had been obeyed.
Once when he hadn’t been (because Maxine wanted to see what would happen), he had stopped the car and roughly told Maxine to get out. There on the grass verge of the country road he made her
wriggle out of her panties, then he threw the flimsy scrap of peach chiffon over the hedge, pulled Maxine into the backseat, put her over his knee and spanked her. He was not joking.

A few days later, after they had dined
à deux
at home, Charles took her by the hand and led her to the office that they shared. The deserted room was like a comfortable drawing
room, although around it were spread typewriters, tape recorders and filing cabinets. In the middle of the room was a six-foot-square green leather-covered antique partners’ desk, with
drawers on both sides so that two people could work at the one desk.

Charles threw himself onto his office swivel chair.

“Get your clothes off,” he said softly, “
now.
I want to see you naked.”

“But the servants haven’t gone to bed yet. Can’t we go upstairs?”

“Now! Here!”

He watched with a slight smile as Maxine undressed, then he leaned forward and tugged roughly at her neat chignon so that the blond hair tumbled forward and over her heavy breasts. Then he
pulled her onto his lap so that she sat astride him, facing him, nervous, puzzled and more than a little worried. He bent his lips to one full, blue-veined breast and sucked passionately until
Maxine, arching her back so that her tangled straw hair fell toward the floor, no longer knew where she was or what she was doing. Then he lifted her buttocks and pulled her body gently onto his,
starting slowly to thrust inside her, until, as Maxine was about to climax, he murmured in her ear, “Do you care if the servants hear?”

“No, no,” she gasped, “don’t stop, don’t stop!”

“Do you care if anyone sees us?”

“No!”

On another moonlit night in the office, he again made her undress and sit on the edge of the great desk. He caressed her back with silken strokes, voluptuous and oddly objective; softly he ran
his fingertips over her rounded belly, tasted her warm, musky female odour. Then he gently pushed her backward so that she was quivering naked on the leather desk and strands of blond hair fell
over the dictaphone as Charles bent his head and flicked his tongue over her pale body. Afterward, when she lay still and gasping, he quickly tore off his clothes and mounted her on the desk. Then
he tantalizingly stopped and said, “You wouldn’t
mind
if Mademoiselle Janine were to see what happens here out of office hours?”

“No! Oh,
please
, darling Charles, come back inside me.”

“You don’t mind if she knows that Madame la Comtesse, so correct, so elegant, turns into an abandoned hussy if I simply slip my hand between her thighs?”

But Maxine was groaning too hard with pleasure to answer.

As Maxine became more and more famous in France, as she was courted and quoted and photographed with this or that celebrity, Charles loved to think that he could shatter her poise with a single
glance. He would look hard at her, across a room full of impeccably dressed, important people, and he would have the immediate satisfaction of seeing Maxine give a little jump and blush.

Later that night he would tear off her thin nightgown—he rather liked to tear fragile, lace-covered garments off his wife—and say, “
That
was what the General wanted to
do to you, wasn’t it?” Or he would roughly grasp her breasts and bury his head between them muttering, “Was
that
what you wanted from the Newman man?”

Maxine had never dreamed that married life would be so laced with hazard and surprise or that her lingerie bill would be so large.

She loved every dangerous moment of it.

Most of Maxine’s married friends had been involved with other men, but Maxine had long ago decided to be faithful to her husband—an unusual decision for a
Frenchwoman of her class. Maxine felt—hoped—that she did not need any added excitement in her life.

In spite of Charles’s amiability, he turned out to be an exceedingly jealous husband, but only if he saw—or thought he saw—that some particularly handsome man was interested in
Maxine. He was not the sort of husband who checked her every movement.

With one exception.

In the winter of 1956, without warning, without mentioning her intentions to anyone and leaving only a brief message with Charles’s secretary, Maxine suddenly went away for a week. Just
before her little green MG disappeared, there had been much long-distance telephoning in the privacy of her boudoir—a room that she rarely used.

After seven days, Maxine returned looking white and haggard, distraught and tearful. She told a furious, worried Charles that she’d suddenly decided to see Colette Joyaux, an old school
friend in Bordeaux who had suddenly been taken ill.

Her husband exploded with jealous rage. She couldn’t even be bothered to
lie
to him with her usual efficiency. He sarcastically said that he found it hard to believe that a friend
whom she rarely saw, who was little more than an acquaintance, in fact, should suddenly be stricken with an illness that required the presence of Maxine.

What was the illness? What was the name of Madame Joyaux’s doctor and his telephone number? Why did Maxine leave without warning, but with a packed suitcase? Why had she packed her own
suitcase instead of asking a maid to do it? Why hadn’t she told him of Colette’s illness before she left? Why had she telephoned during the morning when she knew that Charles was never
in the Epernay office to say that she’d be away for a few days? Why hadn’t she telephoned
once
in the morning or the evening when she might assume that he’d be at home?

Maxine tried to answer his angry barrage of questions. Clumsily she clambered out of one lie with an answer that immediately plunged her into another, but she stubbornly refused to give any
explanation of her absence. She looked white and ill, and Charles had never seen her look so sad. She seemed not to care what Charles felt, thought or said. She didn’t even bother to hide her
indifference. Although she was physically present, Charles could see that her mind was far away. With somebody else.

He strode out of her boudoir, charged down the circular staircase, jumped into his Lagonda and drove to Paris for a week, giving no details of his whereabouts to Maxine. After his departure she
found that two photographs of Pierre Boursal had been taken from her school scrapbook and had been left, in torn-up shreds, on her dressing table.