Belle - Lesley Pearse [241]
The wedding breakfast was in the Railway Inn. It was a traditional old pub with slate floors, a huge fireplace and a long curved bar. It had been neglected over the years, but once Garth had taken it over he closed it for a few days before the wedding to smarten it up.
He’d got in a team of people who scrubbed the floor, revarnished the bar, doors, tables and chairs, and repainted the smoke-stained walls in cream. Now, with gleaming mirrors behind the equally shiny bar, arrangements of flowers and new chintz curtains at the windows, it looked a different place. A local catering company had laid up two long tables in a ‘T’ shape, and placed the two-tier wedding cake made and iced by Mog as a centrepiece. Belle had been in from six that morning making little flower arrangements for the table to match Mog’s posy of daisies and pink rosebuds and she’d also made all the gentlemen’s carnation button-holes.
‘It won’t look or smell as pretty as this once we open for business,’ Garth joked as he directed the caterers to give everyone a glass of champagne before sitting down to eat.
‘If you think I’m going to let you turn it into a rough house, then think again,’ Mog retorted. ‘And there’ll be none of that “men only” business in here either. As I understand it, some of the ladies in Blackheath like to come into the snug for a glass of sherry.’
She had re-upholstered the cushions on the settles in the snug, which was separated from the main bar by a partition with attractive stained glass at the top.
‘Now we’re married, Mrs Franklin,’ Garth said, looking at her tenderly, ‘you’ll do as I tell you.’
Everyone laughed, for it was patently obvious that Garth worshipped Mog and consulted her about everything.
‘It’s difficult to believe those two are the same people we lived with when we first met,’ Jimmy whispered to Belle. ‘My uncle was so fierce and grumpy and she was like a little grey mouse.’
Belle giggled. She had only known Garth then by repute, but it was said that if anyone upset him he’d boot them out into the street. Mog had been old beyond her years, she wore dowdy clothes and rarely contradicted anyone.
Love had made Mog blossom and gain confidence, and since Belle came back she’d encouraged her to wear more fashionable clothes that showed off her neat little figure. She no longer scragged back her hair so severely, it was as glossy as new conkers and fixed in a much softer chignon. When she let it down and brushed it to go to bed she looked no more than twenty-five.
Lisette came up to Belle just before they sat down to eat. ‘You look so chic today,’ she said in her delightfully accented English. ‘It is no wonder Jimmy has eyes for no one else.’
Belle laughed. She had told Lisette about Jimmy at the time she was ill in the nursing home after her ordeal at Madame Sondheim’s and Lisette was convinced they were meant for each other. ‘There aren’t any other unattached women here to compete with me,’ she said.
‘That is true, but if there were, you would still have all his attention,’ Lisette insisted.
‘How is Jean-Pierre settling in at his new school?’ Belle asked. Both Noah and Lisette were always saying such things about Jimmy and it was a little wearing.
‘He is so ’appy there,’ she said with obvious delight. ‘His English is as good as mine now. He is reading well and likes to do sums.’
‘And are you happy you came to England?’
‘Oh yes, I do not miss France, except perhaps for the good wine and food. The butcher the other day say to me, “You Frenchies are too fussy.” ’
Both of them laughed. Noah often said how she picked over vegetables and fruit in the shops. By an unspoken agreement they never talked about how they really met. They both implied that Noah had introduced them, and only Mog, Garth and Jimmy knew the truth.
‘Well, it’s good English fare today,’ Belle said. ‘Roast beef with all the trimmings.’ She went on to tell Lisette that her mother had secured the lease for the