Belle

by Lesley Pearse

  Chapter Twenty-four

  ‘America!’ Mog spoke the word as if she was confirming someone’s sudden death. Noah put his arm around her shoulder to comfort her and tried desperately to think of something to add which would make the news less devastating.

  He had walked into the smoky fog of the Ram’s Head saloon bar just at closing time. Garth was chasing out the last of the drinkers and Jimmy was collecting up the glasses. Garth greeted him warmly, saying Mog was out the back in the kitchen getting some bread and cheese for a late supper, and asked if he’d like a glass of whisky to warm him up as it was a chilly night.

  As soon as the last drinker left and the door was locked, they all went through to the kitchen. Mog was delighted to see Noah and she took his coat and urged him to sit closest to the stove.

  Noah thought Mog looked radiant; before he’d gone to France she’d told him Garth had proposed to her and it appeared to have made a new woman of her. She was even wearing a different dress, light grey with shadowy white stripes. While it wasn’t a huge change, the colour suited her better, and she no longer looked like a down-trodden housemaid.

  She badgered them all to sit down at the table and to eat up as she poured them tea. Then she asked Noah to tell them about his trip.

  All the way home from France, he had told himself that it was a breakthrough to find out where Belle had been, and where she was now. But as he explained all he had discovered and saw the horror on Mog’s face, he almost wished he’d never met Lisette and had no new information about Belle.

  ‘At least America is a civilized country,’ Garth said, doing his best to cheer Mog. ‘She could run away from the people who took her there and ask for help from their police.’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ Noah said, glad that Garth was offering a positive view. ‘Lisette said that Belle was a strong-willed girl, you can bet she’ll think of something to do. Maybe she’s even been writing to you and the letters haven’t been delivered because Annie’s Place was burned down.’

  Mog’s face brightened just a little. ‘I hadn’t thought of that! I’ll wait for the postman tomorrow and ask him what they do with letters they can’t deliver,’ she said. ‘But where in America is she? It’s a big country.’

  ‘It’s bound to be New York,’ Noah said. ‘That’s where everything happens.’

  ‘I could go there and find her,’ Jimmy said.

  Noah noted that the lad had that crusader look in his eyes again. ‘You couldn’t,’ he said gently. ‘New York is huge, and you wouldn’t have the least idea where to start looking. The best thing we can hope for is that Lisette gets some further news from the man who took Belle there.’

  Everyone fell silent. There was not a sound other than chewing and coals moving in the stove.

  It was Mog who broke the silence. ‘Are we going to tell Mrs Stewart that you think her Amy is in Brussels?’ she asked Noah.

  ‘I suppose I must,’ Noah sighed. ‘But I don’t relish that chore – she’ll be inconsolable. As will the other mothers.’

  When Noah woke next morning at his lodgings, the first thing he thought of was Mog’s stricken face. He lay there for a moment or two, wondering if there was anything further he could do for Belle and all the other missing girls.

  He knew his editor would be delighted to publish a follow-up article based on what Noah had been told in Paris, but that would only please readers who revelled in white slavery stories. It wouldn’t bring forth any information on where any of the girls were being held, or get them released. In fact, if anyone involved with the abductions was to read the article, Cosette and Lisette would immediately be implicated as informers. This might also happen if Noah went back to the police, and it wasn’t as if he had anything concrete to give them to start an investigation.

  He couldn’t bring himself to risk Lisette or her son being hurt. He kept seeing her face, hearing her voice, and it was all very reminiscent of how he’d felt about Millie. He wished he’d asked for an address he could write to her at, that way he could at least say how much he’d liked her, and remind her that he’d meant what he said about getting her out of France. But it wouldn’t do to write to the nursing home – a letter from England was bound to be intercepted. He supposed he had no choice but to wait for Lisette to contact him.

  He wondered why it was that he seemed destined to fall for women with problems. Day after day he met girls and women who did ordinary jobs like nursing, needlework, working in a shop or an office. Girls liked him, he wasn’t ugly, he had good manners. So why was it he didn’t get that magical spark with one of them?

  Belle was considering her fate too, for Miss Frank had been given an order by the two sisters who owned Angelique’s hat shop in the Quarter for a dozen hats of Belle’s rose design.

  ‘I shall have to give you a paid position now,’ Miss Frank said with a smile as wide as the Mississippi. ‘Otherwise I couldn’t possibly use your lovely design or ask you to help me make them up. I boasted to the sisters that I had a new designer and they’re wild to see more of your work.’

  Belle wanted to be thrilled and excited by this, but instead she felt a pang of sheer terror that Martha might go into Angelique’s to look at their hats, and the sisters might tell her that their regular milliner had just found a new English designer.

  ‘Did you tell them my name or say that I was English?’ Belle asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t have told them you were English,’ Miss Frank responded. ‘They like to pride themselves on their stock being chic and French. But I was so happy they liked the hat I was quite talkative, so I might have called you Belle. But why do you ask?’

  ‘I would just rather my name or that I’m English was kept out of it,’ Belle said nervously, aware that might make Miss Frank distrust her.

  ‘You are an extraordinarily secretive girl,’ the older woman remarked, but she flapped her hands as if that didn’t concern her, and began talking about which colours they should make the order up in.

  A little later Miss Frank suggested she paid Belle a dollar a day, and that she would give her twenty-five cents each time she sold one of the hats she designed. ‘I know it isn’t very much,’ she said apologetically. ‘But it’s the best I can do for now.’

  As the weather turned cooler in October Belle could have been really happy but for anxiety about her relationship with Faldo. She loved working with Miss Frank, and she felt proud of herself for mastering the art of millinery, and that she appeared to be developing a real talent for designing hats. It was also good to be able to tuck away her earnings knowing that each dollar she got meant she was a little nearer to being able to leave New Orleans.

  But however hard she tried to please Faldo, it wasn’t making him any nicer to her. She was the perfect mistress; she flattered him, asked him about his work, tried to make him relax and made sure she was always looking her best in the evenings in case he turned up. But he still wouldn’t tell her when he was coming next, and now he was coming so late that he didn’t even bother with a few moments of chit-chat, just wanted to go straight to bed.

  He’d usually been drinking too, and if that meant he couldn’t get hard, he blamed her. Time and again she’d had to bite her tongue for fear of telling him just what she thought of him. In the morning he rarely stayed long enough for even a cup of coffee.

  One night she had tried to talk to him about why he was so different to her now.

  ‘You used to be so pleased to see me, you were kind and loving,’ she said, beginning to cry. ‘Don’t you remember what it was like those two nights you stayed all night? If you don’t feel like that any more then maybe I should leave this house and try and find some work to keep myself.’

  ‘The only place you could find work is in one of the cribs down in Robertson Street,’ he said with a sneer.

  ‘How can you say something so insulting to me?’ she sobbed. ‘I came here because I thought you cared about me. What have I done that is so bad you’d liken me to one of those disease-
ridden hags?’

  She thought he was going to strike her, for he took a couple of menacing steps towards her. But he stopped himself just in time and turned away. ‘I’m going to bed,’ he said. ‘I’m tired, and just remember that if it wasn’t for me you’d be servicing at least ten men a night.’

  He left the next morning at dawn – she woke and saw him creeping out of the room, his boots in his hands. She thought he was ashamed of himself and so she pretended she was still asleep.

  She fully expected that once he’d thought over what she’d said he would revert back to the way he’d been at Martha’s. But it wasn’t to be. Instead of improving, he’d grown steadily worse, becoming more taciturn and sharp each time he called. Belle thought he must be feeling guilty that he was committing adultery, that he wanted to end it, but didn’t know how to.

  She wished she had enough money just to go, and be done with it.

  One Wednesday night in early November, Belle was startled to hear Faldo opening the front door with his key. She was sitting at the kitchen table sketching a hat, still in the plain navy blue dress she wore daily to the hat shop. The dishes from her supper were unwashed in the sink, and there was washing drying in front of the stove. She hadn’t bothered to tidy herself or the house as he had been with her on Monday and she hadn’t expected him to return again that week.

  ‘Faldo!’ she exclaimed in surprise as he strode through the living-room and bedroom into the kitchen. ‘I wasn’t expecting another visit this week! But how nice!’

  He stood in the doorway, looking around the kitchen with a contemptuous expression. ‘So this is how you carry on when I’m not here,’ he said.

  Belle hastily shut her sketching pad and got up from the table to go and hug him. ‘I’d have cleared up and dressed in something less drab if I’d known you were coming.’

  ‘I can’t bear slovenliness,’ he said sharply, pushing her away from him.

  ‘Everywhere else but the kitchen is clean and tidy,’ she said defensively. ‘But what’s it to you anyway whether I’ve done the dishes or not? You never stay in the kitchen. You’re just using it as an excuse to be nasty.’

  ‘What d’you mean by that?’ he said, catching hold of her forearms.

  ‘You’ve been horrible to me for weeks now. Each time you come you are worse. You never take me out anywhere, or even talk to me,’ she said, trying to get away from him because his fingertips were digging into her flesh.

  ‘I got you this place, I come at least once a week, what more do you want?’

  Belle didn’t like the way his voice was rising, or his high colour.

  ‘I told you before, I wanted it the way it was at Martha’s,’ she said. ‘You seemed to really care about me as a person then, we used to talk and laugh together, it wasn’t only the sex.’

  ‘You expect five hundred dollars a night, do you?’ he flung back at her.

  She was so shocked at his words, and the spite in his voice, that for a moment she didn’t know how to reply.

  ‘You know I never got that money,’ she said eventually. ‘You know too how I came to be at Martha’s, it was never my choice.’

  ‘So you say, honey, so you say,’ he said in a sarcastic Texan drawl. ‘So are you writing a letter home, begging them to rescue you?’ He snatched her sketchbook up off the table and opened it.

  He looked at the first picture for a few seconds, then flicked through other pages.

  ‘What is this?’ he asked.

  Faldo’s features were very sharp, with a pointed nose and chin, and angular cheekbones too. But suspicion made them seem sharper still.

  ‘I like to draw hats,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  Belle shrugged. ‘I told you once before, when I was back in London I used to dream of having a hat shop.’

  She was scared now, afraid he’d somehow found out that she was never in during the day. Maybe he even thought she was seeing another man. She needed to calm him down. ‘Would you like a drink, Faldo, or something to eat?’ she asked, then went over to him, took away the sketchbook and put her arms around him. ‘You seem very tense.’

  ‘You are enough to make any man tense,’ he said, pushing her away from him. ‘What is it you want?’

  Belle didn’t understand what he meant, and his fierceness was frightening. ‘I’ve got everything I want right here,’ she lied. ‘A nice place to live, you taking care of me. I just wish you came to see me more often and talked to me. Why do you say I make you tense?’

  ‘Damn it!’ he exploded. ‘I know it’s not me you want. You just went along with it to get out of Martha’s. But like a fool I let myself believe you cared for me.’

  Regardless of him being right about her motives, Belle had wanted a loving relationship with him, and it was he who had failed on that count. At risk of making him still angrier with her, she intended to stick up for herself.

  ‘I did care for you when you brought me here, but you’ve managed to make me feel more of a whore than I ever felt at Martha’s,’ she spat at him. ‘How can you expect me to love you when you won’t come early enough to share a meal with me? When you don’t even ask what I do all day, and then you just fuck me like I was a dollar whore and clear off in the morning without even saying when you’ll be back? Why did you come tonight? To try and catch me with someone else?’

  He moved so quickly she didn’t even see his fist until it connected with her jaw. She reeled back from the impact and fell against the table, jarring her back.

  ‘How could you do that?’ she asked angrily, holding her jaw with one hand. ‘I took you for a gentleman. You disappoint me.’

  It hurt like mad and she thought that by morning she’d have a huge bruise.

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ he said, grabbing hold of her shoulders and shaking her. ‘You just make me mad because I know you’ll never be mine, not in the way I want you to be.’

  ‘What way do you want me?’ she shouted at him, angry tears running down her cheeks. ‘I’m always here for you, I do whatever you ask. What else is there?’

  ‘I want your heart,’ he shouted back, his face flushed and contorted.

  Belle was too angry and hurt to respond with any assurances that he had it. ‘You might have got it if you’d treated me like your sweetheart instead of a whore,’ she hissed at him. ‘We had something back at Martha’s, it was sweet and good. But the moment you brought me here it was gone. I’ve been so lonely, sad and frightened, and you must have known that unless you’re a complete fool. But have you ever shown any concern? Have you ever taken me anywhere to make me think you might want me for anything more than a fuck? No, you haven’t.’

  She flounced away from him towards the bedroom and began peeling off her clothes.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked as he saw petticoats dropping in the doorway.

  Belle came back into the kitchen without a stitch of clothing on. ‘What does it look like?’ she said curtly. ‘I’m a whore, you’re paying for me, so let’s get it over with, shall we?’

  In that moment Faldo realized he’d handled her all wrong. When Belle was dressed she looked sophisticated and poised. From that, coupled with her intelligence and the ease with which she could communicate with others, anyone would assume she was in her mid-twenties. She wasn’t just pretty, but devastatingly beautiful, with those black curls, eyebrows like tiny angels’ wings over deep blue eyes, creamy skin and such a wide, sensual mouth. He had called at Martha’s just after she had left there, and Martha had had a great deal to say about the girl, namely that she was a treacherous, conniving bitch, who would take any man for everything he had.

  Faldo hadn’t wanted to believe her; he tried to tell himself that Martha was just being spiteful because she’d lost her top girl, and a large chunk of income. Yet the poison she’d dripped in his ears, plus the knowledge that he was no great prize, and odd-looking too, all combined to convince him he’d made a fool of himself and Belle was just toying with him until someone
richer and more influential came along. It had spoiled everything, and the only way he felt he could keep face was by treating her harshly and never displaying any affection.

  There was so much about Belle which bore out Martha’s opinion of her. She was such a practised courtesan, always wearing the red and black lingerie he’d given her when he called. She let him take her any way he chose without protest, and often caressed, pleasured and touched him in ways that no decent woman would do. Stimulating and sensual as this was, it hurt because it was further evidence of the hundreds of other men she must have done it to.

  Martha had claimed that Belle was lying when she said she was abducted and forced into prostitution. She maintained that Belle was a cold-blooded predator who had been groomed to be a whore by her own mother who owned a brothel. She’d come to New Orleans because prostitution was legal here, knowing that she could make big money.

  But now she was naked in front of him, her eyes swimming with tears, he could see for himself that she was none of the things Martha had insisted she was and that he had chosen to believe. She was just a vulnerable young girl, slender and perfect, and though she had pert, well-rounded breasts, they only emphasized her youth. She might be striking the pose of a seductress but he could see her hurt, and the decent, kindly man within him was reminded that it was a series of men not that different to him who had stripped her of her innocence.

  For several weeks now he’d been noticing she had a kind of glow about her. He’d worked himself up today to believe that was because she had another man, and he’d come here tonight to catch her with him.

  It was when he saw her sketches that he knew he’d got it all wrong. It wasn’t another man who would take her from him, but her own intelligence and ambition.

  ‘Come on then,’ she said, ‘what are you waiting for?’

  He went towards her, intending just to take her in his arms and apologize for hitting her, but as his arms went around her slim, naked body he was instantly aroused and all he could think of was possessing her. He flung her on to the bed, unbuttoned his pants with one hand and then forced himself into her. He was aware she was very dry, and he knew he was hurting her by the stiffness of her body, but in that moment he didn’t care. She was his woman and he wanted her.