Belle - Lesley Pearse [174]
Belle sensed her landlady really did care about her and nodded agreement to her wish. ‘Last time.’
Gabrielle took her hand and squeezed it. Belle smiled weakly and broke away to go out to the cab.
Gabrielle’s words and her manner had stripped away the happy anticipation Belle had felt earlier. It had been a very mild day, and although it was growing dark now the streets were still very busy with both traffic and people. As the fiacre made its way to Montmartre all the sounds and smells unexpectedly reminded her of the day she was bundled into a carriage in Seven Dials. It wasn’t something she was in the habit of remembering – so much had happened since then that she tended only to look ahead, never glancing back over her shoulder. But now she had a queasy feeling in her belly, suddenly aware she had in fact been at risk each night she went out to meet a new man. She had trusted Pascal’s judgement about all of them, yet in reality any one of them could have been another Mr Kent.
She reasoned with herself that she’d be quite safe tonight; after all, she knew Philippe Le Brun. But she decided she would keep her word to Gabrielle and tonight would be the end of it. Tomorrow she’d pack her bag and go.
Montmartre, or La Butte as many people called it, was Belle’s favourite part of Paris. She loved the spectacular views of the city, the narrow, winding cobbled streets and the many cafés and restaurants frequented by free-thinking bohemians. She had been told that it had once been a very bad area full of thieves, prostitutes and anarchists, the sort of dangerous place upright Parisians steered clear of. But as artists, poets, writers and musicians moved in because of the cheap rents, it gradually became fashionable to be seen there. As a result rents went up, and many of the struggling artists moved to Montparnasse and St-Germain on the Left Bank. Now, with the beautiful Sacré-Coeur basilica near completion, and new houses replacing the earlier hovels, it was clear that a renaissance was on its way. Belle had told Philippe at their last meeting how much she liked Montmartre, and as one of his restaurants was just at the bottom of the hill in the Pigalle, she assumed this was why he’d asked her to meet him here.
The fiacre turned off the brightly lit and rowdy Boulevard de Clichy by the Moulin Rouge, then crossed another road which Belle recognized as one where she’d found a lovely hat shop. There were many good restaurants in this street and she expected the driver to stop there, but instead he turned right and drove up a steep, narrow, much darker cobbled street which was mainly just houses.
Belle was surprised when he reined in the horses almost at the top of the hill.
‘Voilà, madame,’ he said as he opened the door for her, pointing out a tall, thin house with shuttered windows on her right. She couldn’t see very well as the nearest street lamp was right at the top of the street by a café; she thought it was one she’d been in just a couple of weeks earlier.
The fiacre drove off as she was ringing the bell on the front door. Although she could hear an accordion playing somewhere near, the street was very quiet, so she surmised this was Philippe’s home, though he hadn’t said he lived in Montmartre.
The clanging of the bell had barely died away when the door was opened, not by Philippe or his maid, but by Edouard Pascal. Belle’s heart sank.
‘Monsieur Pascal!’ she exclaimed. ‘What a surprise!’ But assuming he was just visiting Philippe, because she didn’t wish him to sense her dismay, or offend Philippe, she smiled, and accepted a kiss on each cheek.
‘How beautiful you look tonight,’ he said, once she had stepped into the hall and the door was closed behind her. ‘Let me take your wrap.’
She thanked him politely and let him take her short silver fox cape from her shoulders. This had been her one extravagance. It was from Chantal’s, like all her clothes, but it had cost two hundred francs and she’d spent days agonizing over whether she should spend so much. But it was so beautiful, and when she wore it she