Belle - Lesley Pearse [245]
Etienne had no idea what a conker was, but he was glad the woman seemed prepared to chat. He hoped he might learn something more about Belle from her.
‘I live near Marseille. And that shop over there reminds me of the French milliners,’ he said, pointing to the hat shop.
She looked over to it and smiled. ‘I believe Belle learned her trade in Paris. All the ladies in the village love her hats,’ she said, with real warmth in her voice. ‘I’d have popped in there myself today if the weather wasn’t so bad. Such a lovely young woman! She’s always got time for everyone.’
‘So she has good business then?’
‘Yes indeed, she gets ladies coming from all over to buy from her, I’m told. But you must excuse me, I must make my way home now, or there won’t be any dinner tonight.’
‘It was a pleasure talking to you,’ he said, and helped her put her umbrella up again.
‘You should go over there and buy your wife a hat,’ the woman said as she began to walk away. ‘You won’t find a better shop, not even up in Regent Street.’
After the woman had gone he continued to look across the street, hoping for a glimpse of Belle. The older woman’s praise for her was evidence that the more scandalous episodes of her past hadn’t followed her here, and that she was liked and respected in this genteel village. His mission had been accomplished and he knew he ought to go straight back to the station and catch a train into London.
The tinkling of a doorbell alerted him that someone was leaving Belle’s shop. Both the ladies he’d glimpsed inside emerged – he guessed that they were mother and daughter for one looked to be in her forties, the other no more than eighteen or so. The younger one ran to a waiting automobile with two pink-and-black striped hat boxes in her hands, the older woman looking back into the shop as if saying goodbye. Then, suddenly, he saw Belle in the doorway. Slender and as lovely as he remembered, wearing a very demure high- necked pale green dress, her dark shiny hair piled up on her head with just a few curls escaping around her face.
At once he knew he had to speak to her, just one last time. Rumblings of war had become increasingly loud in the last year, and since the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria had been assassinated back at the end of June, war seemed inevitable. Germany was bound to invade France and Etienne knew when that happened he would have to fight for his country, and might never get back to England again.
The two women got into the automobile and were driven off. Belle closed the shop door, and on impulse Etienne darted across the street through the rain. He paused to look through the window before going inside. Belle had her back to him, arranging hats on little stands. There was a row of tiny pearl buttons down the back of her green dress, and he felt a pang of jealousy that he would never be able to unbutton them for her. She bent forward to pick up a hat box from the floor and he caught a glimpse of shapely calf above pretty lacy ankle boots. When he rescued her in Paris he had seen her naked and felt nothing then but concern for her, yet now even a few inches of her exposed leg was arousing.
She turned as the doorbell tinkled and on seeing him her hands flew up to her mouth and her eyes opened wide with surprise. ‘Etienne!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing here?’
He immediately saw the wedding ring on her finger and realized that she must have married Jimmy Reilly, the childhood friend she’d so often spoken about and who he knew had settled in Blackheath too.
‘I’m flattered that you remember me,’ he said lightly, hiding his disappointment. ‘And you are looking even more lovely. Success and married life clearly suit you.’
He took a couple of steps nearer her, intending to kiss her cheeks, but she blushed and backed away as if nervous. ‘How did you know I was here in Blackheath?’ she asked.
‘I called into the Ram’s Head in Seven Dials. The new landlord there