Belle - Lesley Pearse [113]
‘But I need the money to get back to England,’ Belle argued, though what Hatty had said frightened her. ‘I’m scared I’ll be here for years and years.’
Hatty laughed at that. ‘Honey chile, none of us, not even the real pretty ones of us, will be here for years and years, not up this end of the town anyway,’ she said, condescendingly patting Belle on the head. ‘Best thing you can do is make it up with Martha, prove yourself here, then bide your time and look out for a rich man who might take you for his mistress, or even marry you. That’s the only way I’ve seen girls get out of it, and it’s what I’m gonna do.’
Belle thought about everything Hatty had said for a couple of days. The part which shook her most was the statement about flowers not staying fresh; it hadn’t occurred to her that there was some kind of time limit to this work. On top of this she remembered how Etienne had said that girls should always keep the madam sweet. Her mother used to complain about certain girls, and now she came to think about it, those girls always left. Probably not by their own free will either.
There was no doubt in her mind that Martha was very annoyed with her. She turned away when Belle came in the room, and hadn’t once spoken directly to her.
What with everything Hatty had told her, Belle realized she had no choice but to apologize and make everything smooth again; if not, she just might find herself sold on to someone else. Everyone in America was very eager to point out that slavery was a thing of the past, but while the slave markets for field hands and servants might be gone, here in New Orleans they still existed for whores, whether white, negro or mulatto.
Everyone accepted this arrangement; Martha’s girls talked about it all the time. At the high end of the market there was even a kind of kudos for a girl who had changed hands for a great deal of money. That girl could rely on being treated with kid gloves as long as men flocked to pay a king’s ransom for her. But further down the line the girls had no rights; no one cared how they were treated, least of all the police. And Belle was fairly certain that if a girl was to speak out about it, she’d probably end up silenced for good.
So Belle told herself that she must be glad she was in a good sporting house, and that she was considered a valuable commodity because she was young, pretty and English. She must take to the work, show real enthusiasm for it, and that way she could keep herself safe until she found a way out of it.
So she went to Martha and apologized.
Belle found she barely remembered incidents that had happened just a week ago, yet she could recall everything about that day sixteen months ago when she went down to see Martha in her parlour.
She dressed for the occasion in the pale blue frilly dress she’d been given in France because it made her look innocent. She left her hair down on her shoulders, and she put just a touch of rouge under her eyes to look as if she’d been crying.
It was almost noon and Martha was sitting on her couch wearing her apricot-coloured loose tea dress, her hair covered in a matching turban.
‘What is it, Belle?’ she asked in a chilly tone.
‘I came to ask your forgiveness,’ Belle said, keeping her head down and wringing her hands. ‘I know you are cross with me for asking about the money, I realize I must have sounded very ungrateful when you’d been so kind to me.’
‘I do not like being questioned by my girls,’ Martha replied. ‘This is my house and it runs by my rules.’
‘I was very wrong to question you,’ Belle said. ‘But I didn’t understand how it all worked, I’m so new to it. I wasn’t thinking