Lace (88 page)

Maxine summed up the financial situation on her fingers. “That’s fifteen hundred Swiss francs a year from each of us. Now the question is, can we afford it?”

“Only twice as much as stabling a horse in London,” Pagan offered. They all pondered.

The girls treated Judy’s pregnancy with the awed respect and horror of those who had narrowly escaped such a dreadful fate, and were therefore prepared to make a financial sacrifice to the
God of Luck. They regarded the situation as if it were a school escapade in a girl’s adventure book, desperate but not immoral. They, her friends, would stand staunchly by Judy. With the
cheerful idealism of girls who have never had to face a truly serious situation, they all agreed that they wanted to help support the child.

“I’ll have to tell some enormous lie,” said Kate thoughtfully. They all told lies and only regarded lying to each other as a sin. “I’m sure that if I can think of a
real whopper, I’ll get money from my father. The only problem is that he might be very inquisitive.”

Maxine said, “Aunt Hortense has promised me a dress allowance when I get back to Paris. It won’t be much, but I’ll also have an allowance from Papa. I’m sure that somehow
I can scrape up thirty Swiss francs a week.”

After a great deal of arithmetical plotting, Kate wrote and asked her father if he would send a contribution to the Gstaad Athletic Fund. As Miss Gstaad, she wanted to make a truly magnificent
contribution.

By return post came a letter from Kate’s father saying that he’d asked the headmaster to advance her four hundred pounds, and was delighted that his girlie was featuring so
prominently in local life.

The same evening Pagan clattered up the wooden stairs, burst into the bedroom and triumphantly flung a sheaf of francs onto Kate’s bed. “
My
contribution! Three thousand six
hundred francs.”

Maxine gaped at the notes. “But how generous of your mother!”

“Oh, I didn’t ask her! I wouldn’t have got a sou from
her.
No, I took my pearl necklace to Cartier. . . . I’ve always hated the bloody thing! Every birthday I was
given two extra pearls to add to it. . . . Cartier wouldn’t buy it—they only buy back their own stuff—but they were terrifically kind and that little man with the pince-nez took
me to another jeweler, who at first offered two thousand, but pince-nez beat him up to that.” She pointed gleefully to the money on the bed. “The only other thing I had to sell was
Grandfather’s signet ring, and that really would have been painful, so I’m glad it wasn’t necessary.”

Those two sums alone would take care of the first two years. They had plenty of time later to plot where they’d get the next payments.

Maxine was only able to pay three hundred Swiss francs in cash from her allowance. She couldn’t manage to squeeze another sou from her family, but she asked her papa if her stay at
l’Hirondelle could be extended so that she could sit for the French Commercial Diploma in the autumn. She was taking the course anyway, and as the class proceeded at the snail’s pace of
the non-French-speaking girls, it would not require much work to pass the course. Thus she could stay in Gstaad until Christmas and look after Judy until the baby was born.

Judy’s next visit to the gynecologist was calm and reassuring. Nothing is really important except birth and death, and the people who sat in that small consulting room
only thought hopefully and happily of birth. Other problems, such as money and danger, seemed distant and unreal. What was important to them and Doctor Geneste was that nothing should upset his
mothers and their babies.

By Judy’s third visit, Doctor Geneste had received a letter from Miss Post’s sister. She thought that under the circumstances, the doctor was doing the right thing for her sister
Emily. She herself had only recently married and didn’t want to take on someone else’s child at the moment, but Emily could rely on them for help when she returned to the United
States.

“She isn’t much of a letter-writer, but I knew I could count on her,” said Judy, whose parents had forwarded Doctor Geneste’s letter to her. She had immediately written
and thanked her mother for forwarding the letter—a dentist’s bill mistakenly sent to her U.S. address instead of the hotel. She then wrote a reply from her “sister” to
Doctor Geneste, addressed the envelope to Monsieur Geneste rather than Doctor, and sent it to a girlfriend in Rossville. Judy asked her to post it to Switzerland, explaining that it was a brush-off
letter to a boy and Judy wanted him to think she was back in the United States.

By her fourth visit, Doctor Geneste said he had heard of a suitable woman to be a foster mother. Farther along the valley in the village of Château d’Oex was a hospital where he
worked as a consultant. One of their ward maids, a young widow with a baby, had applied to be a foster mother. She was strongly recommended by the hospital as quiet and reliable. Would Miss Post
care to visit her?

The following Saturday, Maxine and Judy caught the little blue bus and travelled up the valley. It was a narrow valley, with low-lying fields and a few clusters of chalets around a gray church
with a very thin spire. It was midsummer and the cows had been taken up to the mountain pastures. The bus passed through fields thickly sprinkled with wild flowers under a sky that was the same
colour as the wild forget-me-nots at the side of the road.

Judy had felt miserable for months. She only felt calm in the doctor’s consulting room. But suddenly she felt indescribably happy and contented as they bounced along that little country
road. Furtively, she felt the hard curve under her coat. For the first time she longed for it to grow bigger.

Angelina Dassin was waiting for them by the fountain in the cobbled square. A young woman with dark hair drawn back in a bun, she had the rather gaunt, highly coloured face that is typical of
that region. She was carrying a black-eyed, solemn baby boy whom she shifted onto her left hip in order to shake hands with them.

They all walked through the village to the dark wooden chalet with the fishscale-tiled roof. Madame Dassin had been told the situation and felt sorry for this small, forlorn blond child. While
Madame Dassin went for glasses of fresh milk, Maxine and Judy sat in the barely furnished living room and looked at the spectacular view across the valley to the snow-topped mountains.

Both Judy and Maxine thought this rustic scene ideal. The atmosphere was one of serenity, the little boy seemed a lively child and Madame Dassin seemed to live up to her hospital recommendation.
So they arranged that Judy would move into the chalet for two weeks after she stopped work, before the baby was born. After the birth, she would then rest at the chalet for a month while she
breast-fed the baby. Both girls earnestly stressed that, when Judy was older and had a home of her own, she would wish to take back her child. Madame Dassin nodded.

Maxine added that, at the suggestion of Doctor Geneste, Judy did not want the child told any details about Judy, other than that one day his mother would come and take him to his real home.
There was to be no attempt to deceive the child by telling him that Madame Dassin was the natural mother.

Angelina Dassin agreed to this. “What do you intend to call your baby?” she asked.

Hunched in a shabby armchair, Judy looked out the window across to the sharp Alpine skyline and said, “If it’s a girl it will be Elizabeth after my mother. If it’s a boy it
will be Nicholas.”

Maxine wasn’t surprised.

By the end of September, Judy’s stomach seemed enormous. Her situation was apparent to the rest of the hotel staff, who sympathetically said nothing. She now walked with
an odd sway, a stiff-backed lurch and she found it hard to sleep the whole night through because of the baby’s kicking. She would lie in the moonlight, thinking how wonderful it was to feel
her own baby dancing under her heart.

On the seventh of October, two weeks before the baby was due, Judy said good-bye to the staff of the Imperial and caught the bus to Château d’Oex laden with gifts: a fine white
knitted shawl and two boxes full of baby clothes from Maxine, Kate and Pagan, a bottle of kummel, a jar of peaches pickled in brandy and a magnificent smoked ham from the head chef.

On the thirteenth of October Judy woke at five in the morning “Ouch!” She caught her breath. No, it wasn’t the baby kicking, it was pain in her back.

She sat up in bed, already feeling an excited thrill of achievement. She couldn’t wait to tell Angelina. She heaved her unwieldy body out of bed, wrapped the white lace shawl around her
shoulders and sat in the living room, twisting the twin coral rings, one for each middle finger, that Nick had given her just before he left Switzerland.

“I know you won’t accept a ring for the finger I want to put it on,” he had said, as they sat among the brilliant yellow king-cups that grew in the damp soil on the river bank,
“but I want to give you a ring, because somehow a ring is connected with a promise, and with this ring I promise that I’ll always love you.” He had slipped one rosebud on the
middle finger of her right hand. Then he picked up her left hand.

“Just a minute,” Judy had said, “what does
that
ring promise?”

“That I’ll always be ready to help you.” He had kissed the fingertip and slid the second ring on it. “You can always rely on me.”

Suddenly Angelina appeared in the living room and scolded Judy. “Back to bed! You don’t want a cold as well as a baby,” Angelina cried. She felt a proprietary interest in the
impending birth.

The flutters in Judy’s abdomen continued irregularly throughout the day. Doctor Geneste had been alerted and was quietly reassuring. “Nothing is likely to happen yet,” he
said.

Twenty-four hours later, Judy began to experience definite strong contractions.

By eight o’clock in the evening the contractions were coming at half-hour intervals and Angelina decided to take her to the hospital. They left Roger with the farmer’s wife next door
and two red lollipops, then together they walked down the main street in front of the arched town hall, where they waited for the bus.

Once inside the hospital, all romance was wiped from Judy’s mind. Angelina was not allowed to be present. She would have to wait in the waiting room. Judy undressed, had a bath, was given
an enema by an unfriendly nurse and then found herself lying in a small cubicle on an anonymous, iron-hard hospital bed, rather like her old one at the Hotel Imperial.

Nobody sat with her. Every half hour the nurse brisked in and bent to examine Judy. “Hmm, not time yet,” she always said.

At eleven o’clock, the nurse said “Hmmm, six centimeters dilated.” By then Judy’s contractions were between two and five minutes apart. It was agonizing. “Stop
making a fuss,” warned the nurse. “There’s worse to come.”

Judy felt oddly irritable and sick. She felt cold, shaky, and was getting cramps in her left leg. The pain in her lower back was now severe and she felt increasing apprehension and fright. She
wanted to stop this whole business. At eleven-forty-five p.m. Doctor Geneste was alerted, and at fifteen minutes past midnight Judy was wheeled into the labour ward. She was propped up in a
semiseated position, against a mound of pillows and under a blanket, with the soles of her feet together and her knees lolling apart. Already she felt tired and shocked. It was so much more painful
than she’d expected.

Again her body stiffened and arched, but this time with a different motion—it started to writhe in a compulsive manner, similar to that involuntary, expulsive feeling that meant you were
undoubtedly about to throw up. Judy felt that something inside her had to be violently, immediately expelled from her body. She began to feel slightly—then with increasing urgency—the
need to push downward. The muscles of her abdomen were jerking to expel something, like machinery that hadn’t been oiled or used for a long time.

Another spasm racked her body, arched it. Now her body was no longer controlled by her mind. Her gasps grew louder, then turned into screams. A second nurse appeared, held her hand encouragingly
and wiped her streaming forehead. Judy started to whimper as her body went out of control again. Why hadn’t anybody told her what would happen? Why hadn’t anybody explained? Why
hadn’t they warned her?

Another great pain tore at her body.

“Don’t push,” commanded the first nurse, “
don’t
push.”

“But I want to push, I can’t
not
push, my body is pushing, it’s irresistible, I can’t stop it, I can’t control it, I’m frightened.”

“Your cervix isn’t completely dilated, the aperture isn’t yet ten centimeters, you
mustn’t
push or you might hurt your baby’s head,
stop
pushing
.”

“Give her gas,” said the second nurse laconically, bending down to examine Judy. The first nurse wheeled over a trolley with six gas cylinders clipped on it and placed a rubber
mouthpiece over Judy’s nose. “When the pain gets too bad, take a deep breath, but use it as little as possible.”

Judy took a great greedy gulp.

Eventually, she heard the nurse’s voice again. “Try to go along with the contraction, but don’t force it.” It sounded as if the woman were speaking from the end of a
cotton-lined tunnel. “Right, now you’re ten centimeters. You can push, but only during contractions; try to relax between them. No! Take your hands off your stomach, no use pushing
there. You must let the perineum stretch naturally, otherwise your flesh will tear.”

By now she was very tired, and the area around her vagina felt as if someone was cauterizing it with a white-hot poker. She couldn’t stand much more of this burning pain that seared her
body. One nurse muttered to the other. “It’s about time the doctor arrived, I think this baby’s going to be born any minute.”

Suddenly Judy saw Doctor Geneste’s head above hers; over the surgical mask, his eyes were lined and looked exhausted. He had just come from his fourth birth of the day and hadn’t had
a proper meal since breakfast. Another scream was torn from Judy’s mouth, but she felt a sort of weak relief. Her friend had arrived.