Belle - Lesley Pearse [173]
‘No, Monsieur Pascal, I am very happy with how our arrangement has been, and I do not wish it to change.’
She didn’t mind that his cut from what she earned was probably far bigger than hers. She understood too that to keep his job he had to be obsequious to important guests and the owners and managers of the hotel. But there was something more about him which she couldn’t quite put her finger on, something dark and perhaps dangerous.
‘You must call me Edouard,’ he said, putting one of his soft white hands over hers and leaning so close to her she could smell garlic on his breath. ‘I could give you so much more than you have now.’
Belle felt the only way out of the situation was to make light of it.
‘I have everything I want,’ she said, removing her hand from his. ‘And I think, sir, that you are a little drunk and might regret saying such foolish things tomorrow.’
She left the café soon afterwards but with a heavy heart because she sensed that was not the end of it.
Everyone said Paris in the spring was not to be missed. There were already daffodils in window boxes, green shoots on trees, and the days were getting warmer. Belle resolved that night that the incident with Pascal was a timely reminder she must go home. She decided she would just stay another couple of weeks, until after Easter which fell at the end of the first week in April, then slip off without telling him she was going.
On the Tuesday morning after Easter young Henri brought her up a note which Pascal had sent round. It said that she was to be ready at seven that evening when a fiacre would pick her up to take her to meet Philippe Le Brun in Montmartre. Belle was delighted as she’d already had three nights with Philippe and liked the big, jovial man who had vineyards in Bordeaux and owned two large restaurants in Paris. She had bought a beautiful second-hand silver evening dress with matching shoes from Chantal’s just the week before, which she’d been waiting for the right opportunity to wear. Philippe was the kind of man who liked to be seen in public with a pretty girl, so she knew he’d take her to a cabaret show, and the evening would be about eating, drinking, dancing and having fun, not just sex in a hotel room.
She went straight out and got her hair washed and put up at the hairdresser’s near the Mirabeau, then during the afternoon had a leisurely bath as for once the water was hot.
Belle went downstairs to wait for the cab just before seven. Gabrielle was writing something at her desk and looked up and smiled as she saw Belle. ‘Vous êtes belle,’ she said.
Belle blushed at being told she looked beautiful – it was the first time Gabrielle had made any kind of personal comment. She thanked her and said she was being taken out for dinner.
Gabrielle looked at her so long and hard that Belle felt a shiver of fear go down her spine. ‘Be careful,’ the older woman said softly, this time speaking in English. ‘I fear you are playing with fire.’
There was something in the woman’s eyes that told Belle she not only knew what Belle was doing, but had been on that road herself.
‘I shall be going back home soon,’ Belle replied.
At that she heard the clatter of the cab outside on the street and moved towards the door. Gabrielle got up from her desk and caught hold of Belle’s arm. ‘If you get in trouble is there anyone you trust that I can contact for you?’ she asked.
The question chilled Belle still further, for she couldn’t think of anyone. She shook her head, but a second later thought of Etienne. ‘I once knew a man called Etienne Carrera,’ she said, but made a helpless gesture with her hands. ‘But he came from Marseille and I have no address for him.’
‘Then you must keep safe and go home soon,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Tonight