Belle - Lesley Pearse [134]
She walked into the parlour, slumped down on one of the chairs and gave way to tears. The empty fireplace was a reproach – back home at this time of year there would be a blaze in every fireplace in the house. She imagined Mog in a clean white apron preparing the evening meal, chatting as she stirred pots on the stove and laid the table. Annie would be up in her parlour going over the household accounts; the girls would be doing their hair for the evening ahead.
Belle wished she was back there, reading bits out of the paper to Mog, or just telling her gossip she’d picked up while out running errands. She missed home so much. Life had been so simple back before Millie was killed; maybe it was a bit dull, but she had felt safe, aware what was expected of her, and knowing too how Mog and Annie felt about her.
She thought back to the day she’d met Jimmy and how good it had been to make a real friend. He’d made London seem such a wonderful place, and she’d had such high hopes of exploring more of it with him.
Would she be walking out with him now if she hadn’t been taken away? What would it have been like if he’d been the first to give her an adult kiss?
She sighed deeply, not just because she was sure Jimmy must have forgotten all about her by now, but because she doubted she could ever fit back into that life she’d left behind in England.
What was she to do? She couldn’t afford to leave Faldo, not when she hadn’t got a paying job or anywhere else to live. And her savings weren’t enough to get her home.
Tears ran down her cheeks unchecked. She was trapped.
Chapter Twenty-three
‘Bonsoir, Cosette,’ Noah said to the small, mousy-haired girl. He had thought her the plainest girl in Madame Sondheim’s last time, and that hadn’t changed; she was like a little brown moth trapped in the parlour with five flamboyant and vivacious butterflies. ‘Repellez moi?’
He wasn’t sure if that was the right word for ‘remember’, but she smiled as if she knew what he meant. ‘Yes, I remember you, Englishman,’ she replied in English. ‘No friend thees time?’
Noah said he’d come alone to see Cosette, and accepted a glass of red wine. Two of the other girls were making eyes at him from across the room, but he turned to face Cosette and smiled at her in what he’d been told was his most beguiling way.
She took his hand as they went up the stairs later, and she seemed more animated and light-hearted than the time before. She was clearly flattered that he’d come back and picked her out, and he hoped that would make her amenable for telling him what he wanted to know.
‘Your wife make you angry?’ she said as he handed over the money. He remembered then that his excuse for not having sex with her last time was because he was happily married. He felt this time he must be more straightforward, so when she’d passed the money to the maid outside the door, he held out twenty-five francs to her.
‘I asked you last time about young girls brought here. This time you must tell me more, the girl I ask about, her mother has broken heart and very sick.’ Noah said putting his hands on his heart to make it clearer. ‘You said they take girls to couvent, but I checked every convent in Paris. No girls there. Please, please, Cosette. Tell me what you know. I will not betray you.’
She was frightened, looking towards the door as if imagining someone was behind it listening.
‘I will never say you told me,’ he assured her, taking her into his arms and cuddling her. ‘This is a good thing for you to do. Belle’s mother may die if she doesn’t know where her daughter is. You know these are bad people!’
‘I have no work but thees,’ she said, tears filling her eyes. ‘My mother is sick too, I can send money home to her now, but if I lose this work, she may die.’
Noah realized that he had to offer her more money. He opened his wallet and brought out fifty francs more. ‘Take this for her. But tell me, Cosette, what I need to know! I promise I will not tell