Lace (31 page)

On Saturdays her father taught Maxine how to plan a budget and how to plan a cash-flow forecast. He also taught her how to read a balance sheet, which was much easier and more interesting than
she had expected. To his surprise, and hers, Maxine turned out to have an instinctive business sense and a strong streak of frugality in her.

After she had worked at Maxine’s shop for six months, Christina presented Maxine with a request to become a partner, backed by a cash investment. Christina also had a father and she had
also persuaded him that a business with an income would be a better investment than a cash dowry, especially as, at thirty-four, Christina’s father was not entirely sure that she would ever
need a dowry.

After a year Paradis began to get bigger jobs—not just a bathroom here and a kitchen there, but complete apartments, small offices, even one country house. Paradis specified everything
from the door handles to the window frames, and although modern colours and lighting techniques were used, Maxine specialised in traditional design. Paradis now had two full-time designers as well
as part-time assistants.

Every Monday morning, Maxine and Christina planned the next week’s work and allocated the different jobs to their designers, and every Monday evening there was a short conference for all
their part-time staff. This was held after the shop closed at six o’clock, and the meeting was always followed by supper at the Beaux Arts restaurant, always full of cheerful, noisy students
eating hearty, traditional French food. Everybody enjoyed Monday evenings, because it was then that they felt the camaraderie, rather than the anxiety, of business; and they were able to relax and
gossip with each other about the jobs.

By 1953, when Maxine was twenty-two, she had attained a small but definite success; the shop was beginning to show a profit. Her father was delighted, but Maxine’s mother worried because
she wasn’t married and appeared to consider suitable suitors tiresome. “It’s so unnatural,” she wailed to Aunt Hortense, “the child’s not interested in any man
unless he’s a designer, or a client, or a potential client, or some grubby, bearded protege who’s still at the Beaux Arts.”

Hortense nodded sagely. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

A few months after this conversation, Aunt Hortense telephoned Maxine. “Maxine, my dear,” she said. “I have a client for you. The nephew of a friend of mine.
This poor boy has just inherited a decrepit chateau near Epernay; apparently it’s in utter chaos; nobody has lived in it since the war, and the poor man hasn’t time to deal with the
house—he has to take over an estate that has been shamefully neglected for the past fifteen years. I thought it would be an interesting project for you. So, my dear, if you are willing, I
shall collect you at nine o’clock tomorrow morning and we shall drive to Chazalle. I believe there’s also a vineyard attached to the estate—about seven hundred acres, also sadly
neglected.”

The next morning Aunt Hortense collected Maxine, who wore her client-trapping outfit—a stunning peach linen suit with shoes of a slightly darker shade; her hair, a shoulder-length hank of
heavy gold, was tied at the back of her head in a peach silk pussycat bow. They drove out of Paris toward Champagne. The de Chazalle estate was thirteen kilometers south of Epernay, on the edge of
the Cote des Blancs region that lay south of Epernay, between Vertus and Oger, to the west.

From just below the forest on the flat hill summit, vine-covered slopes stretched down to the yellow haze of corn on the plains below. The Mercedes turned off the dusty country road through a
pair of rusting, wrought-iron gates, one of them sagging from its hinges, and drove for half a kilometer up a neglected, weedy drive, past overgrown flower beds. Etched against the lavender sky was
the dark, turreted silhouette of a splendid chateau. When they came closer they could see that it, too, was shuttered and forlorn. Several smashed tiles from the roof lay in the courtyard, Maxine
noticed, as she and her aunt stepped up the chipped stone steps to the front door and pulled the rusting iron bell handle. Surprisingly they heard it clang down some distant corridor.

The door was opened by a tall, thin young man, wearing an old brown sweater. His fine-boned face was small and lean and his gray eyes had laughter lines at the corners. He looked surprised and
pleased, as if someone had just given him an unexpected present. He bowed, kissed their hands and invited them inside. “Everything is dusty, which is why I keep sneezing, but I’ve
cleared a space in one of the salons and a village woman comes up to clean it. The place is in a terrible state.”

The shuttered hall was depressingly dark and bare. The filthy paint was peeling and cobwebs laced across the corners. One of the dividing doors had been smashed and was lying on the floor.
German soldiers had been billeted at the chateau; the other beautiful carved doors had been chipped and broken, initials had been hacked in the antique panelling and obscene messages scrawled on
the walls. Most of the furniture had been used for firewood except for a few pieces bricked up in the attics by the
Kommandant
, who had hoped to liberate them for himself at a later
date.

“Apart from this, there are only four other good chateaus still standing in this area. Montmort is first class, so’s Brugny, but Mareuil is less impressive and I don’t
personally care for the design of Louvrois.” The Count had a slight stoop and a long neck. Occasionally, furtively, he looked toward Maxine. She thought to herself, He expected me to be
older—he doesn’t want to trust the job to someone so young—so look efficient. She started to make copious notes on the large pad of her clipboard.

Diffident and modest, Charles de Chazalle was attractive in his sheer helplessness. Whereas a more aggressive man might have considered Maxine too bossy, she was exactly what he needed and he
admired her increasingly as the day progressed. Maxine scribbled nonstop, and at the end of the afternoon she suggested a simple, but efficient, system for dealing with the chaos in which Charles
had so suddenly found himself.

Not surprisingly, she got the job.

After that, almost every afternoon she would bump up the drive in her little white Renault van, a different Parisian expert at her side. First a surveyor and an architect, a roof expert, a
drains expert, a furniture restorer and a picture valuer. Finally, an auctioneer.

In due course all the experts made their reports, and every Friday night Maxine and Charles discussed the project over dinner in an eighteenth-century post inn at Epernay. As summer faded, there
was local venison and wild boar and always the soft, white, tangy Boursault cheese; and of course they drank the local white wine, naturally dry and delicate with a slight taste of hazelnut.

Maxine might as well have been eating dry bread and water. Despite a great deal of discussion before giving their order, she was hardly ever aware of what she ate; she thought only of how she
longed for him to like her.

Charles always enjoyed every mouthful of the meal. He didn’t eat out much. He liked his quiet life in the country and didn’t want to sparkle around Paris, prattling at smart dinner
parties. During the day he worked hard, tending his neglected vineyards. On the whole he preferred to spend his evenings alone by the fire, stretching out his long, thin legs, reading or listening
to music. Maxine amused and intrigued him, partly because she was
une sérieuse.

“There’s such a lot to be done,” he sighed, one Friday evening as they finished their meal. “For a start, we aren’t producing nearly enough wine at the moment. The
average yield from each hectare should be about 5,600 liters of champagne.” He signalled for coffee. “How do I know? Well, it’s not
surprising
that I know a lot about the
theory of the champagne business. After all, my family has lived here for centuries. But I’ve only been able to put my theories into practice since my father died.”

He paused as the waiter poured his glass of brandy, then laid the snifter sideways on the table to check the measure; it should almost spill, but not quite. “Most Frenchmen want their sons
to join the family firm, but my father was so anxious to demonstrate his independence that he didn’t let me take any real part in the business. On the other hand, he wouldn’t let me
work for any other firm. This was very frustrating, because he was resolutely opposed to using new methods. I knew he couldn’t live for long—he’d been badly tortured by the
Gestapo in the war—so I never went against his wishes.”

Country restaurants closed early, and the Royale Champagne was emptying, but Charles continued to turn the empty brandy glass in both hands. “I suppose it’s natural that he should
have felt nostalgic for the prewar days. He liked to pretend that
he
hadn’t changed, that
nothing
had changed.” The bill was brought on a plate. He glanced at it (He
can’t
have added it that fast, thought Maxine), signed it and continued. “Unfortunately, his business methods were also old-fashioned. When I tried to discuss work with him, I
was put firmly in my place. ‘There is plenty of time for you to alter things when I’m dead,’ my father used to say. Those were his wishes and I respected them, but now I intend to
work as hard as possible to restore the de Chazalle firm.”

He hesitated, looked at Maxine and then said, “Our champagne is no longer considered one of the very best, but I’m determined to change that.” As if expecting to be
contradicted, he continued, speaking fast and rather defensively. “It’s not such an insane ambition; the Lansons were originally a tiny firm and their premises were virtually destroyed
during the First World War, but the two sons—Victor and Henry—travelled all over the world in pursuit of orders and their success has been amazing.”

The waiter started to switch off the lights. Charles took the hint.

“Shall we go?” With concealed reluctance Maxine nodded, stood up and another waiter leaped to pull back her chair. Charles nodded good-night and followed her toward the door, saying,
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t try what the Lansons did. They made their champagne world-famous in half a century that included two World Wars—
and
a long period of
depression.”

They both secretly looked forward to Friday evenings and Maxine’s return trips to Paris got later and later. She found it hard to leave Charles, who started gently to
tease her about her efficiency, and who could make her laugh at herself or at nothing at all. Charles could make her giggle as she had not done since she left finishing school.

To other people he appeared quiet, reserved and almost dull, but not to Maxine. The power to make a woman laugh is a strong aphrodisiac, and she couldn’t wait for Friday nights. She always
felt excitement in the air as she dressed that morning; she always changed her mind at least three times and left her bedroom untidily strewn with clothes. Her mother cheered up wonderfully at
these unusual signs. Indecision in one’s wardrobe always meant a man.

On the following Friday, as they sat over coffee and brandy at the Royale Champagne, Maxine longed for Charles to touch her. But he didn’t. There seemed to be a barrier of embarrassment
between them. Maxine was acutely aware that, to her, Charles was no longer just a client, and she felt very self-conscious whatever she was doing, whether scratching her head with a pencil (a habit
much deplored by her family) or eating and drinking with suddenly noisy swallows.

By the end of the following week, Maxine felt so agitated that she could hardly bear to stand next to Charles. That evening she had shown him a group of battered oil paintings, horse portraits
that she had collected from different areas of the house and stacked in a corridor, they were very similar to the ones that Jack Reffold had started to sell to America. They were late for their
dinner reservation at the hotel, but she had particularly wanted him to see them, as she wondered whether it was worth sending a couple over to Jack for appraisal.

“Why don’t you come back after dinner?” Charles asked. “We can decide then which ones to send to London.”

“I’ll be too tired and I’ll get back to Paris much too late and the van will probably weave all over the road on the return journey.”

“I’ll drive you back,” Charles offered.

“It’s too far, you won’t get back to Epernay until dawn.” Privately, she thought he might never get back—the only thing she disliked about Charles was his reckless
driving.

They continued their meal. Then, after the waiter poured their coffee, Charles leaned across the table and slowly, deliberately stroked her thick, newly corn-coloured hair. Maxine felt the shock
waves on her scalp, in her breasts, in her groin. She couldn’t breathe properly, she was panting as if at a high altitude. Charles let the strand of hair drop back into place, and a little
moan left her lips. Charles noticed. “These late journeys are too much of a strain for you,” he said. “Why don’t you simply move in with me?”

“Because my parents would have a fit!”

“They wouldn’t if we were married,” Charles said, not taking his eyes off her face but lifting her left wrist to his mouth and, very softly, kissing the pale blue veins that
led to her palm.

Maxine, who was always in command of a situation, who always knew exactly what she wanted to do, was speechless. She felt short of breath. She didn’t dare move. She felt so weak that she
didn’t know whether she’d be able to walk out of the restaurant. She couldn’t take her eyes off his face. He was not smiling for once; instead, he seemed oddly impassive.

After they left the restaurant, Charles drove back to the chateau at breakneck speed without saying a word. He grabbed Maxine’s hand and—still without a word—tugged her after
him as he leaped up the steps toward the main entrance, oblivious of nocturnal scents of warm earth and hot grass. He was conscious only of the tense, expectant, determined passion that passed like
an electric current through their clasped hands.

Once inside the front door, Charles pulled Maxine to him and kissed her hard on the mouth, as with one hand he held her to him and with his other explored her body. Gently he traced the outline
of her spine down to its base, then softly felt the shape of her buttocks. Crushing her against his body so that she could feel his mounting excitement, he slowly pulled up her skirt and she felt
his hand on the naked flesh below her panties, then he slid his hand under the delicate lace. Maxine was shaking. She wanted him as she had never wanted anyone before, her knees were trembling and
she didn’t think that she could stand much longer. She felt him hard against her stomach as his fingers caressed her quivering white buttocks and firmly pulled her against his body.