Belle - Lesley Pearse [124]
Jimmy looked straight at him, his eyes flashing a warning to say no more on this subject. ‘I will find her, Noah,’ he said with conviction. ‘Maybe she won’t want me then, and I’ll accept that. I’ve met a few other girls since she went, but they didn’t mean anything to me, not the way Belle does.’
With that he said he had a couple of errands to run and went out through the back gate of the yard, while Noah went back into the pub. Garth hadn’t opened the bar yet, and he was sitting at the kitchen table smoking his pipe, while Mog sat across from him darning a pair of socks. Noah had observed that the pair always seemed to be together now, and Mog was a good influence on Garth, for he was a lot less fierce than he used to be.
‘Would you like a drink, tea or some beer?’ Mog asked.
Noah declined and said he’d better make tracks for home as he was taking a young lady out to the music hall in King’s Cross later.
‘Jimmy ought to be doing something like that too,’ Mog said.
Noah thought so as well, but he was a little surprised at Mog feeling the same.
‘Well, don’t look like that!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s nineteen, high time he had a sweetheart.’
‘She’s right,’ Garth said gruffly. ‘It’s not good for him mooning over Belle all the time.’
‘I just said something similar to him,’ Noah admitted. ‘But just because we all want that for him doesn’t mean he’ll take any notice.’
‘Maybe I make him worse,’ Mog said fearfully. ‘I mean, I do talk about Belle, I can’t help it. I don’t understand Annie. She never comes down here to ask if there’s any news, not even to see how I’m doing. And when I went up there last month the maid told me she wasn’t in. I know that was a lie.’
Noah had been to see Annie twice, and he too was baffled by the stony-faced reception he’d got. The house where she was taking in lodgers was a smart one, and she’d got the kind of lodgers who would be horrified to discover their landlady had once run a brothel, but surely she didn’t think Mog or he would say anything to embarrass her?
‘She always were a right cold fish,’ Garth said. ‘There were talk she blackmailed the Countess into leaving her drum to Annie.’
‘That’s malicious gossip and quite untrue,’ Mog said stoutly. ‘The Countess cared for her and Annie looked after her right to the end like she was her own mother.’
‘So why ain’t she more caring about her own kid?’ Garth asked. ‘It’s like you was Belle’s ma, Mog. What went wrong?’
Noah stopped both of them by holding up his hand. ‘I know Annie was forced into that line of work. It can’t be easy to love a child when she was born that way.’
Mog was biting her lip as if she had something to say but didn’t dare speak out. ‘Well, Mog?’ Noah said. ‘I can see you know something.’
‘It’s my fault,’ she whispered. ‘As soon as Belle was born I took her in my arms and did everything for her. I never gave Annie a look in. She was the Countess’s top girl, and I told her she must get back to it as quick as possible to stop anyone else stepping in.’ Mog began to cry, huge tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘If I hadn’t done that I reckon it might have gone differently. Maybe this is my punishment. I took Annie’s baby all those years ago so now I’ve got to suffer the pangs of grief losing her,’ she sobbed.
To Noah’s surprise Garth got up from his chair and went round the table to comfort Mog, and as the big man bent over her, his usually stern face full of tenderness, Noah suddenly realized that Garth had fallen in love with her.
‘Nothing’s your fault, Mog,’ Noah said over his shoulder as he began to walk to the back door. ‘You’ve been a good friend and a fine stand-in mother to Belle. But it’s time you made a life of your own, and it looks to me as if you’ve got the right man there to make it with.’
Noah smiled as he reached the back yard. He hoped that Mog and Garth would see for themselves that this was a bright new dawn for them.
‘Don’t cry, Mog,’ Garth said awkwardly. He’d never been comfortable around