Belle - Lesley Pearse [56]
This place was graveyard quiet, as though there was no other human being or even animal for miles. Belle turned her head towards the source of the pale gold light and saw there was a large window with drawn, thin, peach-coloured curtains undulating in a slight breeze.
Her bed was warm and comfortable, but a slight fusty smell coming from beneath the covers suggested to her she’d been in it for some time, perhaps even days. She struggled to sit up, but found she felt so weak she fell back on to the pillow. The room was almost monastic in its bareness. Her bed was a narrow iron one, there was a simple wooden chair, a felt-covered card table next to her bed, and on it was a jug of water and a glass. The walls were whitewashed and there was a crucifix above her bed. No mirror, pictures, not even a washstand. She wondered where she was.
It came back to her that she had been very sick and a doctor had come to see her. She didn’t feel sick now, and as she moved herself a little in the bed she found that her private parts were no longer sore. She managed to reach out and pour herself some water: it felt good to drink, her mouth was so dry.
The sound of the door opening startled her and she cowered down involuntarily, hiding her eyes.
A woman spoke in French, a gentle voice that was as soothing as the silence here.
‘You are feeling better now, ma chérie?’ she asked then in English.
Belle’s eyes flew open to see a very pretty woman of about thirty. She had light brown hair in a chignon and wide grey eyes and was wearing a high-necked, grey wool dress with a pearl brooch at her throat.
‘You speak English?’ Belle said, and she thought her voice sounded cracked.
‘Yes, a leetle. I am Lisette, I have been nursing you since you came here.’
‘What is this place?’ Belle asked fearfully.
Lisette smiled. Her lips were plump and she had the kind of smile that would warm anyone.
‘A good place,’ she said. ‘Nothing for you to fear.’
‘No more men?’ Belle asked in a small voice.
Lisette took one of her hands in both of hers. ‘No more men. I know what they did to you. It will not happen again. You will get strong and well.’
‘Then I can go home to England?’
She knew just by the look on Lisette’s face that wasn’t going to happen. ‘Not England, no. Madame Sondheim has passed you on, so you will not go back there.’
That was good enough for Belle for now. She felt hungry, she needed to wash herself, and if she could sleep peacefully in this quiet place without threat of violence, that would do.
Chapter Eleven
Mog woke from a strange, somewhat disturbing dream, and lay for a moment in the darkness wondering what exactly it had been about, and if she should get up and make herself a cup of tea. But all at once she smelled smoke and leapt out of her bed.
Fire was an ever-present danger all over London, but especially in places like Seven Dials where the houses were so close together and so many of them in a bad state of repair. Mog had always made a point of making the girls aware of how easily a fire could start with a hot cinder falling on a rug, a lighted candle knocked over, or even long skirts catching on an open fire.
But by the time Mog had got three-quarters of the way up the stairs from the basement and saw the fire was by the front door, she knew it hadn’t started in any of those ways.
It was obvious that a flaming rag or something similar had been put through the letter box. It didn’t take much to deduce who was responsible either, but for now her only concern was getting everyone out of the house to safety.
Although the fire hadn’t yet reached the staircase which led to the upper floors, it would only take a few more minutes, so Mog knew it was foolhardy to go up there. Racing into the parlour, she grabbed the bell which they rang twenty minutes before closing to remind clients what time it was. She picked it up and rang it