Belle - Lesley Pearse [44]
The door was opened immediately they rang by a big man in evening clothes. He looked down at Belle in some surprise, but Kent spoke in rapid French and the man indicated they were to come in.
Belle could hear music, chatter and laughter coming from the room on their left, but as the door was closed she couldn’t see who was in there. The man who had let them in disappeared into the room on her right; Belle got the briefest glimpse of a dark blue patterned carpet, but nothing else.
Waiting in the wide hall with an ornately carved staircase straight ahead of her, Belle noticed that the hall and stair carpet was threadbare, and that the dark wallpaper was stained with age. Only a chandelier above her was impressive; it was twice the size of the one back home, and the crystals were quivering and twinkling in the draught from the front door, but no one had bothered to fill all the holders with candles. Belle found the paintings on the walls very odd; they were all of naked women, but the artist had given them animal faces.
The doorman came out again and said something to the men, and still holding Belle’s arm in a vicelike grip, Kent led her into the room, with Sly taking up the rear.
Mog would have described the woman at a large, highly polished desk as ‘hatchet-faced’. No smile of welcome broke her long, thin face. She was tall, slender and very elegantly dressed in a midnight-blue taffeta dress, her dark hair elaborately curled and piled up on top of her head, but the eyes studying Belle were dead, like those of a fish on a marble slab at the fishmonger’s.
She spoke quickly, using her hands to express herself. Belle couldn’t understand a word, and she didn’t think Kent understood it all either, for every now and then he would stop the woman who would sigh deeply and roll her eyes, then repeat what she’d said more slowly. He whispered something to Sly a couple of times too, but Belle had a feeling this was so she wouldn’t hear, rather than him hiding something from the woman.
They eventually appeared to come to some sort of agreement, for the woman came round her desk to shake their hands. She then came closer to Belle, who was still standing between the two men, put her hand under her chin and lifted it to study her face more closely. ‘Très jolie,’ she said, and Belle guessed that was a compliment for both the men smiled.
There was a little more talking, and the woman poured the two men a brandy each, then she rang a little bell on her desk.
An older woman with greying hair in a plain black dress came in; Belle felt she must be a maid or housekeeper.
The woman at the desk rattled out some instructions and the older woman turned to Belle, smiled and held out her hand. Belle ignored her, even though the woman reminded her a little of Mog.
‘Madame Sondheim wants you to go with her housekeeper who is called Delphine,’ Kent translated. ‘She will give you some supper and put you to bed. She expects that you are very tired and hungry. Madame will speak to you later today when you are rested.’
‘You are leaving me here then?’ Belle directed her question at Sly. She hated Kent, but Sly didn’t seem anywhere near as cruel and ruthless, and he was at least English and her last contact with home.
‘Yes, Belle.’ As Sly spoke, his voice sounded a bit odd, as though he had something in his throat. ‘Do as you are told and you’ll be all right.’
‘Please could you get a message to my mother that I’m well?’ she begged him. ‘Only she and Mog will worry.’
Even as she made that plea, she knew how absurd it was. Two men who could snatch a young girl and sell her to a brothel weren’t going to lose any sleep about her mother’s anxiety. Tomorrow, though, when it was light, she’d find some way to escape.
But as Delphine caught firmly hold of her wrist and pulled her towards the door, Belle saw Sly’s sorrowful expression.