Belle - Lesley Pearse [34]
‘We’ll be there soon,’ Kent said curtly.
About five minutes later the driver reined in the horses. The gypsyish-looking man got out first and beckoned to Belle that she was next. The rope between her two ankles wasn’t long enough for her to step down from the carriage, but he reached up, caught her by the waist and lifted her down.
Frost lay as thick as a light fall of snow on the ground, sparkling in the light from the carriage lanterns. It was too dark beyond the little pool of golden light to make out the surroundings, but Belle felt it was a farm, for the smell of animal dung was very strong. It looked like a very old place, but then the only light came from one lantern by the front door.
Belle could hear Kent speaking in a low voice to the carriage driver as the gypsy man took her arm and made her hobble along beside him to the house. He didn’t have to unlock the front door, he just pushed it and walked in. It was pitch dark within and he fumbled around, muttering under his breath for a few moments. But then he struck a match and lit a candle, and Belle saw they were in a wide hallway with a stone floor.
Clearly it was a house he was entirely familiar with for even in the gloom of the single candle he found an oil lamp and lit it. Suddenly there was enough light to see an imposing oak staircase before them and several doors on both sides of the hall. To Belle it seemed to be a rich person’s home, but a smell of damp and a film of dust on the huge sideboard spoke of long-term neglect.
Belle was just opening her mouth to ask the gypsy man if she could go to the lavatory when Kent came in through the front door. From behind him Belle could hear the carriage leaving.
‘Through to the kitchen,’ gypsy man said. ‘Tad will have lit the stove and left us something to eat.’
He picked up the oil lamp and carried it down the hall past some very gloomy paintings of horses, leaving them to follow.
The kitchen was warm and there was an appetizing smell of soup or stew, but the room was very dirty. There was a loaf of bread on the table in the centre of the room, and presumably the good smell came from the blackened saucepan on the top of the stove.
Belle plucked up courage to ask if she could go to the lavatory, Kent nodded and told the other man to release her hands, but not her feet, and take her out there.
It was the most stinking privy Belle had ever been in, and as it was pitch dark in there, and the gypsy man pacing around outside, she didn’t linger. He whisked her back indoors quickly but didn’t retie her hands.
Kent ladled out the stew into three bowls and placed them on the table, shoving the smallest one towards Belle. He then poured some wine from a bottle into two glasses for him and his companion and gave Belle a glass of water.
At first Belle was far too scared to eat, then when she cautiously tasted the stew she found it wasn’t very nice, for the meat was fatty. But she forced herself to eat it anyway; if nothing else it warmed her.
The two men ate in silence but now and again Belle felt them glancing at her and then looking at each other as if making a silent comment. It was agony not knowing what was going to happen to her. Part of her thought they wouldn’t bother feeding her if they were going to kill her right away, but the way the gypsyish one kept looking at her, she thought maybe he intended to have his way with her. That thought was almost worse than dying. Her stomach knotted up again, the cold sweat came back and she couldn’t stop tears running down her cheeks.
Seeing Kent now at close quarters, she realized he was older than she had thought back at Annie’s: late thirties, maybe even older. If it hadn’t been for his hooked nose, cold, dark eyes and sullen expression, he would have been handsome. He wasn’t a big man, perhaps only five foot eight, and quite slender, but he looked strong and she remembered that when she saw him