Belle - Lesley Pearse [238]
Belle had thought she and Mog might find conforming to polite society’s mores very difficult, but to their surprise it wasn’t that hard. If asked, Mog told people she had been a housekeeper and Belle had been a maid in the same household. When they were alone they often laughed about this for in many ways it was true. Mog had always been rather genteel and she had brought Belle up to be the same, so there weren’t too many pitfalls for them to tumble into. The only thing they found really difficult was getting used to their landlord and other men they came into contact with treating them as if they were delicate little flowers without a brain in their heads or an opinion of their own. Yet three months with little more to do than go for walks, read and sew, had given them both time to study the middle classes, adjust their behaviour accordingly, and have a well-earned rest while they planned for the future.
But now, as Belle watched Mog walk up the aisle to the altar rail where Garth was waiting with his best man, John Spratt, an old friend, she knew Mog would be delighted that the enforced idleness had come to an end. At last she could turn the rooms above the pub into a real home and have Garth beside her for ever.
‘Mog looks lovely,’ Annie whispered to Belle. ‘And her hat looks as if it came from Bond Street. You really have a flair for millinery. And you look so pretty too!’
Belle glowed at her mother’s praise. She was wearing a pale pink artificial silk dress with ruffles at the hem, and a white hat, all of which she’d made herself. She knew she would never become as close to Annie as she was to Mog, but they were both trying hard.
After that terrible day with Kent, Garth had gone to Annie and insisted that she came and saw her daughter to explain her part in it. Belle had seen a different side to her mother then: a vulnerable woman who had built a hard shell around herself, believing that by staying aloof, she could protect herself from further hurt.
It transpired that a man who had known Annie in the past had come to stay as a guest in her boarding house. Because this man knew so much about her anyway, and he seemed so kindly, Annie confided in him about Belle, and also told him that she hadn’t seen her daughter since she got back from France.
Once Annie was told about the letter which was supposed to have come from her, she realized her guest must have been an associate of Kent’s, sent to her with the sole intention of getting information about Belle. He clearly relayed this to Kent, who then forged an appropriate letter from her.
Annie admitted she should have come straight to the Ram’s Head when Belle returned from France, but some of the sentiments in that letter were based on truth. She was ashamed she’d abandoned Mog and thought only of herself, but a year ago, when Jimmy had upbraided her for this, she felt everyone was against her.
‘I couldn’t bear to think that you would be submitted to the same terrible things as I was as a young girl,’ she sobbed to Belle. ‘It was less painful to think you were dead and had been saved the torment I went through. Each time Jimmy, Mog or Noah came to see me, I felt they were opening up my wounds again. I couldn’t believe, as they did, that you would be found.’
Belle understood. Perhaps if the bond had been as strong between them as it was between herself and Mog, Annie might have known in her heart she was alive. She felt her mother was to be pitied, not to be pilloried further by being shut out of her daughter’s life. Since then Belle had visited her in King’s Cross every two or three weeks. As Annie had shared so many similar experiences in her past to Belle’s in her two years away, they discussed them, sometimes crying, sometimes with laughter. Belle felt it had been very good for both of them to confide in each other.
She couldn’t help but admire her mother’s head for business and how hard she worked. Her two houses offered clean and comfortable rooms, and she offered breakfast and an evening meal for her guests. She did all the cooking herself