Belle - Lesley Pearse [161]
Her eyes had grown used to the dark now and she stood by the bed for a moment or two looking down at Clovis. He was handsome, and it had been a fun night until she got too drunk, but he was no gentleman, behaving as he did. There had been around three hundred francs in his wallet, and he could count himself fortunate she hadn’t taken it all. But she wasn’t and never would be a thief.
Then, after tucking the money into her little reticule, she stole out of the room on tiptoe, leaving Clovis still snoring softly.
Downstairs in the reception hall a night porter was dozing at the desk, and Belle crept quietly past him and went into the small cloakroom where she had left her coat hours earlier, and which luckily was still there.
As she came out and was approaching the main doors, the night porter woke, sitting bolt upright.
‘Revenez au sommeil, doux monsieur,’ she said cheekily, and blew him a kiss. Madame Albertine had said this to one of the men on Christmas Day when he’d missed something she said, Belle was told it meant ‘Go back to sleep, sweet sir.’ Whether it did actually mean that she’d never know, but the porter grinned bashfully, and Belle slipped out of the door.
It was very cold out on the street and still dark. Belle followed the road down the hill because logically that had to lead to the harbour. She hoped a café would be open there, where she could get a hot drink and directions to the train station. It was fortunate her coat was long enough to hide her evening dress, as she would look very odd being seen in it by day. She would need to buy a warm everyday dress with some of Clovis’s money. She couldn’t of course go back to Madame Albertine’s to collect her belongings and her savings.
As she walked down the deserted street, she felt desperately ashamed of herself and foolish, too, that she’d taken people into her confidence and allowed them to manipulate her. She was tired and she felt like bursting into tears. That was hardly surprising as she’d had so little sleep and had had to part with all her clothes and belongings. But on the plus side she was sure a hundred francs would be more than enough to get to Paris, and she did have the lovely evening dress to keep.
*
It was late afternoon when the train pulled into Paris. Belle had been fortunate in that before she reached Marseille harbour, she saw a sign to the station off to her left, and found she was just a couple of streets from it. A train was due to leave for Paris at six, in just half an hour, and a café was just opening where she bought a cup of coffee.
She fell asleep almost as soon as the train started moving, and only woke at midday because the other people in the carriage were making so much noise. They appeared to be all from the same family, two women in their mid-twenties, a man of around thirty, and a much older couple who were probably their parents. They were arguing, but it seemed to be good-natured as there was a lot of laughter, and they were passing out food from a basket.
The mother said something to Belle, which she assumed was an apology for waking her, and a little later offered her a slice of a savoury flan from her basket, soon followed by bread and cheese. Belle smiled and thanked her in the little French she’d learned in the last few days, but she was relieved that none of the group knew any English, so she didn’t feel obliged to hold a conversation.
It was only as the train gradually chugged closer to Paris that she began to worry. To find a cheap room, a change of clothing and toiletries, all without speaking French, was daunting enough. But she knew she had to make some more money too, and somehow acquire some papers to get back into England. There had been no problem in Marseille, where an official had come aboard the ship to check on the crew’s papers; Captain Rollins didn’t mention