Belle (13 page)

He looked round at Madame Sondheim enquiringly, but she just shrugged.

‘She is bad woman, make five men do this.’ She pushed down the covers and indicated her vagina because she didn’t know how else to explain.

‘I weel see what I can do,’ the doctor said carefully, and put his hand gently on her cheek as if to reassure her that he meant it.

Belle felt just a little better after the doctor had gone, not because of the medicine he’d left for her, but because she felt help was at hand. She fell asleep imagining herself back home in the kitchen with Mog and her mother.

She woke later at the sound of someone coming into the room. On seeing a man advancing on the bed she screamed at the top of her voice. But Delphine was with him and she darted forward and put her hand over Belle’s mouth, making hushing sounds. She then gabbled away in unintelligible French, but the way she waved her hands at the man, then sat Belle up and wrapped a blanket tightly around her implied that he was going to carry her somewhere else.

Belle hoped it was a hospital for the shock of seeing the man was making her retch again even more violently.

She thought she was dreaming the ride in the carriage, yet the whirring of the wheels and the clip-clop of horses’ hooves seemed very real.

It was the silence which alerted her when she woke that she had indeed been moved somewhere else. In the other house there had been constant sounds – people’s voices, horses’ hooves out on the street, music, and by day a distant sawing and banging which might well have been a factory or workshop. Not necessarily loud noise, but always there like the buzz of insects in summer.

This place was graveyard quiet, as though there was no other human being or even animal for miles. Belle turned her head towards the source of the pale gold light and saw there was a large window with drawn, thin, peach-coloured curtains undulating in a slight breeze.

Her bed was warm and comfortable, but a slight fusty smell coming from beneath the covers suggested to her she’d been in it for some time, perhaps even days. She struggled to sit up, but found she felt so weak she fell back on to the pillow. The room was almost monastic in its bareness. Her bed was a narrow iron one, there was a simple wooden chair, a felt-covered card table next to her bed, and on it was a jug of water and a glass. The walls were whitewashed and there was a crucifix above her bed. No mirror, pictures, not even a washstand. She wondered where she was.

It came back to her that she had been very sick and a doctor had come to see her. She didn’t feel sick now, and as she moved herself a little in the bed she found that her private parts were no longer sore. She managed to reach out and pour herself some water: it felt good to drink, her mouth was so dry.

The sound of the door opening startled her and she cowered down involuntarily, hiding her eyes.

A woman spoke in French, a gentle voice that was as soothing as the silence here.

‘You are feeling better now,
ma chérie
?’ she asked then in English.

Belle’s eyes flew open to see a very pretty woman of about thirty. She had light brown hair in a chignon and wide grey eyes and was wearing a high-necked, grey wool dress with a pearl brooch at her throat.

‘You speak English?’ Belle said, and she thought her voice sounded cracked.

‘Yes, a leetle. I am Lisette, I have been nursing you since you came here.’

‘What is this place?’ Belle asked fearfully.

Lisette smiled. Her lips were plump and she had the kind of smile that would warm anyone.

‘A good place,’ she said. ‘Nothing for you to fear.’

‘No more men?’ Belle asked in a small voice.

Lisette took one of her hands in both of hers. ‘No more men. I know what they did to you. It will not happen again. You will get strong and well.’

‘Then I can go home to England?’

She knew just by the look on Lisette’s face that wasn’t going to happen. ‘Not England, no. Madame Sondheim has passed you on, so you will not go back there.’

That was good enough for Belle for now. She felt hungry, she needed to wash herself, and if she could sleep peacefully in this quiet place without threat of violence, that would do.

Chapter Eleven

Mog woke from a strange, somewhat disturbing dream, and lay for a moment in the darkness wondering what exactly it had been about, and if she should get up and make herself a cup of tea. But all at once she smelled smoke and leapt out of her bed.

Fire was an ever-present danger all over London, but especially in places like Seven Dials where the houses were so close together and so many of them in a bad state of repair. Mog had always made a point of making the girls aware of how easily a fire could start with a hot cinder falling on a rug, a lighted candle knocked over, or even long skirts catching on an open fire.

But by the time Mog had got three-quarters of the way up the stairs from the basement and saw the fire was by the front door, she knew it hadn’t started in any of those ways.

It was obvious that a flaming rag or something similar had been put through the letter box. It didn’t take much to deduce who was responsible either, but for now her only concern was getting everyone out of the house to safety.

Although the fire hadn’t yet reached the staircase which led to the upper floors, it would only take a few more minutes, so Mog knew it was foolhardy to go up there. Racing into the parlour, she grabbed the bell which they rang twenty minutes before closing to remind clients what time it was. She picked it up and rang it as hard as she could.

Annie’s room was on the ground floor just behind the staircase and she appeared almost the moment Mog had started to ring the bell. She shrieked in horror to see the hall on fire, but Mog knew there was no time for hysterics or explanations.

‘Take this!,’ she said, shoving the bell into Annie’s hands. ‘Ring and scream till the girls get down here. But don’t you go up, you might get trapped. I’m going down to get some buckets of water to try and slow the fire down. Tell the girls to go out into Jake’s Court and make them scream so the fire engine comes.’

As Mog disappeared down to the basement, Lily came running down the stairs. Sally shouted from the first-floor landing that she was going to make the others hurry. By the time Mog had staggered back up with two buckets of water, the fire was only three feet from the staircase and very hot, Annie snatched the buckets and threw the contents on to the fire, ordering Mog to refill them.

The fire retreated a couple of feet, but it was clear it was only a temporary reprieve. Lily and Ruby came running down the stairs with Amy, coughing from the smoke.

‘Outside,’ Annie yelled, pushing them towards the basement. ‘You too, Lily,’ she yelled to the girl who was just standing there gawping. ‘And raise the alarm!’

Sally still hadn’t reappeared with Dolly and Annie shouted for them to come at the top of her voice.

The fire was roaring now. It filled the hallway, licking up the walls. Mog came back with another two buckets of water, and she was just throwing it at the fire as Sally and Dolly appeared at the top of the stairs. They were clinging to each other and crying, afraid to come down because they thought they’d got to go through the fire.

Annie bravely ran up to them, took their hands and pulled them down. The fire suddenly licked forward to the bottom of the staircase, effectively blocking it off.

‘Over the side and jump,’ Annie ordered, bundling first Sally and then Dolly over the banister. Mog stood beneath to encourage and catch them, and Annie leapt nimbly after them.

The two young girls were coughing violently from the smoke, bent over double, and Mog had to take their arms and practically drag them down the stairs to the basement.

Mog was so caught up with getting the girls out into the yard, grabbing blankets, coats and anything else that would keep them warm out on the street, that she didn’t notice immediately that Annie wasn’t with them.

Horror-struck, Mog ran back up the stairs. She guessed Annie had darted back to her room to collect the cash box they kept the takings in. But as she got to the door she could hear gas mantles exploding in the heat on the other side of it, and she realized the fire must now be in the parlour and sweeping down the passage to Annie’s room, trapping her in there.

Mog’s heart was racing with fear for her friend, but she ran back downstairs, snatched up a blanket to cover her nightdress and ran outside, screaming at the top of her lungs for Annie to open her window and jump to safety.

The kitchen was only a semi-basement at the back of the house. From the back door six stone steps led down from Jake’s Court into a small yard. This meant that the windows of Annie’s room were not very high up, in fact the wall around the yard was just three feet lower than her window. But sadly the wall wasn’t close enough to the window to gain access that way. A ladder was needed.

The noise and commotion had brought quite a crowd out, but unlike Mog and the girls they had put coats, hats and boots on over their nightclothes. Mog glanced round at the girls and saw they were huddled together sharing blankets, just watching her.

‘Someone get a ladder!’ she yelled at the crowd, astounded that they were making no effort to help. ‘Annie’s still in there, we’ve got to try and get her out!’

But not one of them moved. There were big, able-bodied men among them, yet they stood there like so many sheep staring up at the house and pointing out that flames were already licking out of the parlour window which was right next to Annie’s window.

Terrified Annie would burn to death, Mog tossed aside her blanket, leapt on to a dustbin, and scrabbled up on to the yard wall. In bare feet she ran along it and on reaching the house wall tried to stretch out to reach the window sill of Annie’s room. But it was at least three feet too far away.

‘Let me through!’ a loud male voice suddenly rang out, and Mog turned to see to her surprise and relief that it was Garth Franklin carrying a ladder, assisted by young Jimmy.

‘Annie’s in there!’ Mog pointed to the window and came back along the wall to get down again. ‘I think she must be overcome by the smoke.’

Garth moved at great speed. He practically threw the ladder against the window sill of the room and charged up it. He took something from his pocket and bashed it against the glass, then banged it several more times around the edge to knock out the remainder. Then he climbed in. Jimmy shinned up behind his uncle and leapt inside equally quickly, then all at once Garth was out on the ladder again while Jimmy helped hoist the unconscious woman over the older man’s shoulder.

As Garth came down the ladder with Annie, the sounds of popping glass from within were as loud as fire crackers. Mog held her breath because Jimmy had disappeared from view. But just as Garth reached the ground, and Mog was twisting her hands in agitation because she feared Jimmy was overcome too, he climbed out of the window carrying the cashbox and Annie’s fur coat.

At that very moment the clanging bell of the fire engine rang out. The crowd cheered and moved back as the four horses pulling the fire engine behind them galloped into the Court at breakneck speed.

But Mog could only think about Annie, and took her from Garth, wrapped her in a blanket and laid her down on the ground, kneeling beside her.

She had no idea what you did for people who were overcome by smoke, but all at once Annie began to cough of her own accord and opened her eyes.

‘Oh, my sweet Jesus!’ Mog exclaimed breathlessly, clutching her friend in her arms. ‘I thought you were dead.’

‘I thought I was going to die too when I couldn’t get the window open,’ Annie wheezed out before another coughing fit overcame her.

Mog sat Annie up, patting her back to help her cough out the smoke, and wrapped the blanket round her more securely. Mog was freezing too in only her nightdress but her sole concern was for her friend.

‘Has the whole place gone?’ Annie managed to croak out a few minutes later.

Until then Mog hadn’t even considered what the loss of the house meant; to her it was the people who lived in it that mattered. But as she turned her head to look at it, her eyes filled with tears. Every window had flames coming out of it. She remembered how excited she and Annie had been when they went to buy the chandelier and the Persian rug for the parlour. She had loved polishing the piano and arranging fresh flowers on the hall table. Almost everything, bedding, china, pictures and just about everything else in the house, had some little tale attached to it.

Even the basement, which was her domain, was well alight now. All those little treasures, her sewing basket, a photograph of Belle in a tortoiseshell frame, the silver-backed hairbrush that Annie had given her one Christmas, a china cat and other little bits and pieces she’d collected over the years that made her room her home, had been burned.

Mog supposed most people would think it shameful to work as a maid in a brothel, but she never had – in fact she’d taken a pride in keeping it clean and comfortable. Annie and the girls were like her family; the brothel had become her life, and now it was gone.

‘Yes, it’s all gone.’ Mog struggled not to break down. ‘But let’s just be glad no one died in there. Someone was trying to kill us all.’

Garth came over and put a blanket around Mog’s shoulders as she knelt beside Annie. ‘You two had best come back with me,’ he said gruffly.

Mog looked up at the big, bearded, red-headed man in surprise. She had always heard that he was hard and mean-spirited. ‘That is so kind, Mr Franklin,’ she replied. ‘But you’ve done more than enough for us tonight. We couldn’t possibly impose on you. We’ll go to a rooming house.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ he said firmly. ‘Someone tried to kill you tonight, and there’s no prizes for guessing who that could be. You need to be somewhere safe, and you will be safe with me.’

People were drifting away now, for the firemen had the blaze under control and it was too cold to hang around. Mog saw that all the girls had gone – she supposed neighbours had kindly offered them a bed for the night. But she did think they might have come and asked how she and Annie were.

‘Come on, you’ll catch your death out here,’ Garth said impatiently, and picking Annie up in his arms as if she weighed no more than a small child, he began to walk towards the Ram’s Head.

‘Come on, Miss Davis.’ Jimmy smiled at Mog, putting the cashbox down on the ground and holding out Annie’s fur for her to slip into. ‘Home with us? Your feet must be frozen!’ He picked up the cashbox again and offered her his arm. Mog was glad to take it, for after the shock and exertions of the night it felt good to be able to leave decision-making to someone else, even if he was only a young lad.

Three days after the fire, Mog stood at the side of the bed, looking down at Annie in despair. She had steadfastly refused to have a bath, so she still stank of smoke and her hair fell in greasy rat’s tails on the shoulders of her soiled nightdress. Apart from getting up to use the chamberpot occasionally, she hadn’t left the bed since the night Garth put her in it.

‘I’m ruined,’ she sobbed. ‘What’s going to become of me?’

Mog automatically put a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder, but she was finding it hard to feel much sympathy, for physically there was nothing wrong with Annie. She ate everything put in front of her, and she’d stopped coughing. Mog had lost her home and livelihood too, but she wasn’t lying around crying and wailing, in fact she was trying to make the best of a bad situation by making herself useful around the Ram’s Head.

The room they were sharing was grim, very small, dingy, and until Mog got to grips with it, very dirty. But even if it didn’t have the comfort and style they’d been used to, it was very kind of Garth to take them in.

In return, Mog had turned to cooking and cleaning from the first morning in the Ram’s Head. And although Garth was a man of few words, and not given to praise, she sensed he was enjoying the home-cooked meals, and having cleaner living quarters. Jimmy had confided in her that his uncle had been much easier on him since they’d arrived and Mog had made it feel like a real home.

Mog liked being there. Jimmy was such a nice lad, and it was good to live without all the petty squabbles she’d been used to with the girls. But with Annie refusing to pull herself together and not even making a decision about her future, it was very likely Garth would soon feel he was being used, and would ask them to leave.

‘What do you mean, “What’s going to become of you?” ’ Mog retorted. ‘You’ve got your life. You will also get something from the insurance company. And there’s the cashbox!’

Mog had no idea exactly what the box contained, but it was heavy, and she knew Annie well enough to be sure she wouldn’t have risked her life to go back for it unless there was a considerable sum in it.

‘You wouldn’t understand, you’ve never had to furnish a house or take responsibility for the running of a business.’

‘I don’t recall you furnishing it either. Aside from the chandelier and the Persian rug, mostly everything else was left from the Countess,’ Mog snapped back. ‘As for me not running it, I’ve been there night and day, organizing the food, the laundry, cleaning the rooms, making the girls toe the line and looking after you and Belle. If it hadn’t been for me you would all have perished in your beds. So how can you suggest I know nothing of running a business?’

‘You’ve only ever been a maid.’

Mog looked hard at Annie. She had never been a beauty. She had been attractive, with a good figure, but her skin was sallow and her brown hair dull. What she had was presence. She had only to walk into a room and people turned to her; she was cool and poised, with a hint of something exotic about her. Back in the days when she was one of the girls, this presence made men feel they were getting something extra special, and as men asked for her over and over again, perhaps she did really have it.

Then, once the house was left to her, she made the transition from whore to madam seamlessly. Her natural dignity and poise commanded respect. She used just the right amount of frost with men who had once been her customers to make them know she was now off limits, yet they were still welcome in the house.

But now she was wallowing in self-pity her dignity was all gone. She looked and smelled as rancid as some crone in the workhouse. The sad truth of the matter was that women on the wrong side of thirty weren’t likely to get many new opportunities, and even though there was sympathy for Annie now because of Belle’s disappearance and the fire, that would soon wither and die if she didn’t get up and start fighting back.