Belle

by Lesley Pearse

The light was behind him so she didn’t know it was Jimmy, not until he spoke. She thought of how an entire police force hadn’t been able to catch Kent and arrest him, yet Jimmy had managed it all on his own.

  ‘My Jimmy, a hero,’ she murmured to herself.

  He was shouting now to someone below the window. He was telling them to come to the back door. ‘Smash it down!’ he shouted. ‘I can’t leave this bastard. And one of you cut Miss Cooper loose when you get up here. She’s tied up.’

  Suddenly the stink of this place and the terror she’d felt disappeared. It was almost as if she was floating among clouds, and she could look down and see her past spread out before her. Kent was the man who had caused everything, and now he was caught, she was free. Free to put it all behind her, free to make a life of her own choosing.

  Jimmy was right in saying that one day she’d find herself realizing that some good things had come out of all she’d been through. She knew about people now, the wicked and the good and all those in between who were a bit of both because they’d been damaged by the bad things that had happened to them. She understood how greed could distort people’s thinking, and how lust without love would never completely satisfy anyone.

  Truly wicked people were quite rare, she realized. Kent was one, Madame Sondheim and Pascal another two. But people like Martha, Sly and perhaps Madame Albertine in Marseille had probably become bad through greed and association with wicked people.

  Yet on balance there were many, many more good people. Aside from Mog and Jimmy, there were Lisette, Gabrielle, Philippe, Noah, Garth and Etienne. Maybe some would argue that like herself, most of them were not entirely pure, but they stood up for right when it was needed.

  Belle heard the sound of wood splintering, then the comforting tread of heavy boots on the stairs. It was all over now: she and Jimmy could go home very soon, and she could start her new life.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Epilogue

  The Wedding March began, and as Belle turned to look at Mog coming into the church on Jimmy’s arm, her eyes began to prickle with emotional tears. She’d already seen Mog in her finery when she’d helped her to dress earlier. She’d fastened the long row of tiny buttons down the back of her pale blue dress, and placed the blue and white hat she’d made on Mog’s head, but to see her now, blushing and smiling like a young girl as she walked towards her man, was very moving.

  It was early September and a glorious warm, sunny day. Outside All Saints Church on Blackheath families were having picnics; courting couples were strolling together, and old folks sitting on benches in the sunshine. And down the road, just waiting for Garth and Mog to become Mr and Mrs Franklin, was the Railway Inn, the public house of their dreams.

  For three months now Mog and Belle had been living in a couple of rooms in Lee Park, a quiet, tree-lined road, so that Mog and Garth could be married here in Blackheath. Garth and Jimmy had remained at the Ram’s Head, not only to sell it and to wait for the legalities of the Railway Inn purchase to be finalized, but for propriety’s sake. Back in Seven Dials, no one worried much about such things. But they were all aware that starting a new venture in a very respectable area meant they must be seen to be respectable too.

  Belle had thought she and Mog might find conforming to polite society’s mores very difficult, but to their surprise it wasn’t that hard. If asked, Mog told people she had been a housekeeper and Belle had been a maid in the same household. When they were alone they often laughed about this for in many ways it was true. Mog had always been rather genteel and she had brought Belle up to be the same, so there weren’t too many pitfalls for them to tumble into. The only thing they found really difficult was getting used to their landlord and other men they came into contact with treating them as if they were delicate little flowers without a brain in their heads or an opinion of their own. Yet three months with little more to do than go for walks, read and sew, had given them both time to study the middle classes, adjust their behaviour accordingly, and have a well-earned rest while they planned for the future.

  But now, as Belle watched Mog walk up the aisle to the altar rail where Garth was waiting with his best man, John Spratt, an old friend, she knew Mog would be delighted that the enforced idleness had come to an end. At last she could turn the rooms above the pub into a real home and have Garth beside her for ever.

  ‘Mog looks lovely,’ Annie whispered to Belle. ‘And her hat looks as if it came from Bond Street. You really have a flair for millinery. And you look so pretty too!’

  Belle glowed at her mother’s praise. She was wearing a pale pink artificial silk dress with ruffles at the hem, and a white hat, all of which she’d made herself. She knew she would never become as close to Annie as she was to Mog, but they were both trying hard.

  After that terrible day with Kent, Garth had gone to Annie and insisted that she came and saw her daughter to explain her part in it. Belle had seen a different side to her mother then: a vulnerable woman who had built a hard shell around herself, believing that by staying aloof, she could protect herself from further hurt.

  It transpired that a man who had known Annie in the past had come to stay as a guest in her boarding house. Because this man knew so much about her anyway, and he seemed so kindly, Annie confided in him about Belle, and also told him that she hadn’t seen her daughter since she got back from France.

  Once Annie was told about the letter which was supposed to have come from her, she realized her guest must have been an associate of Kent’s, sent to her with the sole intention of getting information about Belle. He clearly relayed this to Kent, who then forged an appropriate letter from her.

  Annie admitted she should have come straight to the Ram’s Head when Belle returned from France, but some of the sentiments in that letter were based on truth. She was ashamed she’d abandoned Mog and thought only of herself, but a year ago, when Jimmy had upbraided her for this, she felt everyone was against her.

  ‘I couldn’t bear to think that you would be submitted to the same terrible things as I was as a young girl,’ she sobbed to Belle. ‘It was less painful to think you were dead and had been saved the torment I went through. Each time Jimmy, Mog or Noah came to see me, I felt they were opening up my wounds again. I couldn’t believe, as they did, that you would be found.’

  Belle understood. Perhaps if the bond had been as strong between them as it was between herself and Mog, Annie might have known in her heart she was alive. She felt her mother was to be pitied, not to be pilloried further by being shut out of her daughter’s life. Since then Belle had visited her in King’s Cross every two or three weeks. As Annie had shared so many similar experiences in her past to Belle’s in her two years away, they discussed them, sometimes crying, sometimes with laughter. Belle felt it had been very good for both of them to confide in each other.

  She couldn’t help but admire her mother’s head for business and how hard she worked. Her two houses offered clean and comfortable rooms, and she offered breakfast and an evening meal for her guests. She did all the cooking herself and a great deal of cleaning too as she had only a maid-of-all work to help her, yet she seemed far happier than she had been in the old days back in Seven Dials.

  Annie had been the one Belle turned to for advice when Etienne finally wrote to her, because Mog’s loyalty would have been with Jimmy.

  Etienne’s letter was an odd one, not just because he found it hard to write in English, but because Belle felt he was hiding his true feelings for her. He said how he had given what evidence he could to the French police about the trade in young girls, and Madame Sondheim and many others in the chain had been arrested and were awaiting their trials. Pascal too was still awaiting his, and Etienne thought there was no doubt he’d go to the guillotine.

  Etienne went on to tell Belle about his small farm, and that he had chickens and some pigs and was planting lemon and olive trees, and he had made his cottage more comfortable. He had read in the newspapers that Kent had been arrested, tried
and found guilty of murdering three girls, Millie and two others, and he asked how Belle felt now that Kent was to be hanged. He wound up the letter by urging her to put the past away, that she was in his heart, and he wished her every success in the future.

  Annie studied every word of the letter carefully. ‘I’d say he does love you,’ she said at length, ‘but he knows he is not the right man for you. He is an honourable man and feels that he can only bring you more unhappiness. I think by the way he describes his little farm, he knows too that he couldn’t settle in England and that you wouldn’t want to live in France. But reading between the lines I’d say he is hoping he is in your heart.’

  ‘Should I go to him and see?’ Belle asked.

  Annie shrugged her shoulders. ‘If you were to do that I’m sure he would welcome you with open arms, and that for a time you could be very happy. But you would have to pay a high price, Belle. He is well known in France, and because of his past you would be tainted with that too. Then there is the problem of his deep sorrow at losing his wife and children. Could you live alone in isolation with such a man and never regret leaving the people who love you here? Or your dream of having your own hat shop?’

  Belle was touched that her mother had not ridiculed the idea of her feeding pigs and chickens, of watering Etienne’s trees and living the life of a peasant. She felt that Annie even understood her physical desire for him, yet she didn’t say that was not enough to keep her happy there.

  ‘I believe you can feel the way you do about Etienne with a man who can give you all the other things you want too,’ Annie said gently. ‘I fear you have shut your mind to that. But you have to open it, be receptive and let love in.’

  Kent’s trial had taken place just before Belle moved to Blackheath. She was called as a witness to the Old Bailey, but because of the two other murders, and a dozen or more other witnesses, including Sly who had turned King’s Evidence against his old partner, her role in the trial was less important than had been anticipated. Because of her tender age and being as much a victim of Kent as Millie had been, she wasn’t subjected to rigorous cross-examination, and with Noah’s connections with the leading newspapers, very little was said about her by any of the journalists who covered the trial.

  Kent was hanged a couple of weeks after he was sentenced, and Belle made a point of not reading any of the newspapers at that time. She didn’t want to hear his name again, much less read about him.

  Now here in the church, listening to Mog and Garth making their vows to each other, all that darkness and brutality seemed a lifetime ago. Belle was the happiest she’d ever been, every day seemed to bring new joy, and she felt her heart was open again.

  She looked at Jimmy up ahead in the front pew, straight-backed, his dark red hair looking like burnished copper in a ray of sunshine slanting in. He was several inches taller than the men near him, with wider shoulders, and was stronger and kinder than anyone else. He made her laugh, she could talk to him about anything, and he had proved that day he leapt through the window that he was every bit as valiant and tough as Etienne. He still had little scars on his cheeks and neck to remind her; some of them had been so bad he’d spent two days in hospital having pieces of glass removed from the wounds and having them stitched.

  He knew everything about her, but she was still finding things out about him. He certainly wasn’t just the devoted puppy dog trailing after her that she’d first thought when she came back to England.

  Annie nudged her, and Belle came to with a start, suddenly aware that while she had been daydreaming, Mog and Garth had completed their vows, and everyone was getting down on their knees for prayers.

  She quickly followed suit, but peeped though her eyelashes at Noah and Lisette and little six-year-old Jean-Pierre across the aisle. Jean-Pierre wore a white sailor suit and looked adorable. He had the same dark hair and big dark eyes as his mother. Lisette looked beautiful in a silver-grey dress and the matching feathery hat which Belle had made for her. She loved her new life in London and had taken a job as a nurse in a small nursing home in Camden Town. She was most definitely as much in love with Noah as he was with her, and Belle thought it was only a matter of days before he would announce when they were going to be married.

  Noah had become a very successful journalist. He’d made his name this year with his hard-hitting articles about human trafficking. Thanks to his dogged persistence and motivating others, three of the girls he’d had on his list of those abducted by Kent and his cronies had been found in Belgium and were now reunited with their families. Now he was writing a series of articles about survivors of the Titanic. He’d told Jimmy recently that he was also writing a novel, but couldn’t be drawn as to what it was about.

  The other twenty or so people here today were Mog and Garth’s more respectable friends from Seven Dials, shopkeepers, other publicans, a lawyer and a doctor and their wives, but Garth and Jimmy had thrown a riotous leaving party a week ago back at the Ram’s Head so that the rest of their old customers wouldn’t feel left out by not being invited today.

  Two days ago a carter had brought all their furniture and belongings over to the Railway Inn, and Mog and Belle had arranged it in their new home. Tonight and for the next four days Jimmy would stay there alone, while Mog and Garth had a honeymoon in Folkestone. Belle would stay in Lee Park until then too. She smiled to herself at Mog’s insistence that she and Jimmy should not be alone under the same roof. Considering Belle’s former career that seemed ludicrous, but since they moved to Blackheath, Mog had become a stickler for her having a chaperone. She said it was to safeguard her reputation.

  The final hymn, ‘Love Divine All Love Excelling’, was sung, and Mog, Garth, John Spratt and Jimmy went off to the vestry to sign the register. The organist was playing something gentle and there was a low buzz of conversation.

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ Annie said. ‘I’ll say it now before all the hoo-ha of people kissing one another and photographs being taken. I want you to go into the solicitors Bailey and Macdonald in Montpelier Row on Monday or Tuesday, to sign the lease for that shop.’

  Belle frowned. ‘I told you they wouldn’t let me have it as I was single.’

  She had seen the empty shop in Tranquil Vale, the main street in Blackheath Village, a few weeks ago and got the agent to show it to her. It was perfect, a small shop complete with a pretty bow-fronted window, and a room behind big enough for a workroom, plus a lavatory outside in the back yard. The rent was reasonable too. But Belle had been turned down flat as a tenant.

  Annie smiled. ‘They will now, I persuaded them to let me guarantee the rent. As I own a property and they think I’m a widow, they couldn’t really refuse.’

  If it hadn’t been for the bride and groom coming down the aisle with the widest of smiles on their faces, Belle would have thrown her arms round her mother. Instead, she quietly squeezed her hand in thanks and whispered that they’d talk later.

  The wedding breakfast was in the Railway Inn. It was a traditional old pub with slate floors, a huge fireplace and a long curved bar. It had been neglected over the years, but once Garth had taken it over he closed it for a few days before the wedding to smarten it up.

  He’d got in a team of people who scrubbed the floor, revarnished the bar, doors, tables and chairs, and repainted the smoke-stained walls in cream. Now, with gleaming mirrors behind the equally shiny bar, arrangements of flowers and new chintz curtains at the windows, it looked a different place. A local catering company had laid up two long tables in a ‘T’ shape, and placed the two-tier wedding cake made and iced by Mog as a centrepiece. Belle had been in from six that morning making little flower arrangements for the table to match Mog’s posy of daisies and pink rosebuds and she’d also made all the gentlemen’s carnation button-holes.

  ‘It won’t look or smell as pretty as this once we open for business,’ Garth joked as he directed the caterers to give everyone a glass of champagne before sitting down to eat.

&nbs
p; ‘If you think I’m going to let you turn it into a rough house, then think again,’ Mog retorted. ‘And there’ll be none of that “men only” business in here either. As I understand it, some of the ladies in Blackheath like to come into the snug for a glass of sherry.’

  She had re-upholstered the cushions on the settles in the snug, which was separated from the main bar by a partition with attractive stained glass at the top.

  ‘Now we’re married, Mrs Franklin,’ Garth said, looking at her tenderly, ‘you’ll do as I tell you.’

  Everyone laughed, for it was patently obvious that Garth worshipped Mog and consulted her about everything.

  ‘It’s difficult to believe those two are the same people we lived with when we first met,’ Jimmy whispered to Belle. ‘My uncle was so fierce and grumpy and she was like a little grey mouse.’

  Belle giggled. She had only known Garth then by repute, but it was said that if anyone upset him he’d boot them out into the street. Mog had been old beyond her years, she wore dowdy clothes and rarely contradicted anyone.

  Love had made Mog blossom and gain confidence, and since Belle came back she’d encouraged her to wear more fashionable clothes that showed off her neat little figure. She no longer scragged back her hair so severely, it was as glossy as new conkers and fixed in a much softer chignon. When she let it down and brushed it to go to bed she looked no more than twenty-five.

  Lisette came up to Belle just before they sat down to eat. ‘You look so chic today,’ she said in her delightfully accented English. ‘It is no wonder Jimmy has eyes for no one else.’

  Belle laughed. She had told Lisette about Jimmy at the time she was ill in the nursing home after her ordeal at Madame Sondheim’s and Lisette was convinced they were meant for each other. ‘There aren’t any other unattached women here to compete with me,’ she said.

  ‘That is true, but if there were, you would still have all his attention,’ Lisette insisted.