Belle - Lesley Pearse [5]
A plain, slight woman in her late thirties, with dull brown hair and pale blue eyes, Mog had worked in the house as a maid since she was twelve. Maybe it was her plainness that kept her cleaning rooms and lighting fires, wearing a black dress and white apron and cap rather than the gaudy satin and beribboned hair of the girls upstairs. But she alone in the house was constant. She didn’t throw tantrums, argue or fight. She went about her household duties with serene happiness, her loyalty and devotion to Annie and her love for Belle unwavering.
The front door of Annie’s Place was in Monmouth Street, at least tucked back in a small alley off it, but it was only the gentlemen callers who entered that way, up four steps to the front door and into the hall and the parlour. The entrance used by all the residents was around the corner in Jake’s Court, and they came into the small yard, then down six steps to the back door into what was a semi-basement.
Mog was cutting up some meat on the kitchen table as Belle came in through the scullery. The kitchen was a big, low-ceilinged room with a flagstone floor, dominated by the vast table in the centre. A dresser along one wall held all the china and on the opposite side was the stove, saucepans and other pans hanging above it on hooks. It was always warm because of the stove but a little dark because it was in the basement. During the winter months the gas lighting was on all the time. There were also several other rooms on this floor, a laundry room, Belle’s and Mog’s bedrooms, and several storage rooms as well as the coal cellar.
‘Come and warm up by the stove,’ Mog said as she saw Belle. ‘I don’t know what you find to do out on the streets! I can’t bear all that noise and pushing and shoving.’
Mog seldom went further than the immediate area because she had a fear of crowds. She said that when she went to watch Queen Victoria’s funeral procession nine years earlier, she was so hemmed in by people that she got heart palpitations and thought she was going to die.
‘There’s a lot of noise here too but that doesn’t seem to bother you,’ Belle pointed out as she took off her cape and scarf. From upstairs she could hear Sally, the newest girl, screaming about something.
‘That one won’t last long,’ Mog said sagely. ‘Too much fire in her belly!’
It was rare for Mog to make any comment about the girls and Belle hoped that as she’d said this much, maybe she could get her to continue.
‘What do you mean by that?’ she asked, warming her hands on the stove.
‘She thinks she ought to be the top girl,’ Mog replied. ‘Always arguing, always pushing herself forward. The other girls don’t like that, or the way she plays up to the gentlemen.’
‘In what way?’ Belle asked, hoping she didn’t sound too obvious.
But Mog stiffened visibly, clearly suddenly aware she had been talking about something her charge shouldn’t know of. ‘That’s enough, we’ve got jobs to do, Belle. As soon as I’ve put this stew on I want to give the parlour a real bottoming. You’ll help me, won’t you?’
Belle knew that she didn’t really have a choice, but she liked the way Mog always put orders to her as if they were requests.
‘Of course, Mog. Have we got time for a cup of tea first?’ she replied. ‘I’ve just met Garth Franklin’s nephew. He’s a really nice boy!’
Over the tea Belle told Mog all about Jimmy, and how they’d gone for a walk in the park. She always told Mog everything, for she was far closer to her than to Annie. In most people’s eyes Mog was an old maid, but Belle saw her as very modern in many ways. She read the newspapers and was keenly interested in politics. She was a supporter of Keir Hardie, the socialist MP, and of the suffragettes who were campaigning