Belle - Lesley Pearse [6]
‘I’m glad you’ve found a friend,’ Mog said fondly. ‘But you mind he don’t take no liberties with you or he’ll have worse than Garth Franklin to deal with! But we’d best get on with the parlour now.’
Annie boasted that she had the finest parlour outside of Mayfair, and it was true that she had spent vast sums of money on the Italian mirrors, crystal chandelier, Persian carpet and beautiful velvet curtains at the windows. But with upwards of twenty gentlemen a night visiting, the girls in and out and cigars and pipes being smoked, along with drinks spilt, it needed spring-cleaning frequently.
Belle thought the parlour might look good by night, but she didn’t think much of it by day. The curtains were hardly ever drawn back or the windows opened, and the gold paper on the walls just looked a dirty yellow when daylight entered. Likewise, the plum-coloured curtains had dust and cobwebs on them, and a stale odour of tobacco clung to them. But Belle liked spring-cleaning the room. There was something really satisfying about removing a month of dirt from the mirrors and seeing them sparkle, or beating the rug outside until the colours became bright again. And she liked working alongside Mog because she was a happy soul who worked hard and appreciated the help of others.
As always in a spring-clean, they stacked up the sofas and tables in one corner first, then rolled up the Persian rug and carried it downstairs between them.
The parlour took up most of the ground floor. There was a small area for hats and coats by the front door, which Mog answered when the bell was rung. Behind the staircase which led to the other three floors was what they called the office, which was an L shape, and was also Annie’s room. Tucked in here too, behind a door, were the stairs to the basement. Mog had often remarked that the layout of the house was ideal. Belle supposed she meant that Belle never saw who came calling, and the gentlemen never saw how they lived.
There was a lavatory on the ground floor too. It had only been installed a couple of years ago; before that everyone had to use the outside privy.
Belle often felt aggrieved that the girls didn’t always go to this lavatory, using their chamberpots in their rooms instead. She felt that if she could make her way on a wild, cold night to the outside privy and not use the pot under her bed, they could at least go down a couple of flights of stairs inside the house.
Yet Mog never backed her up when she grumbled about having to empty the pots. She just shrugged and said perhaps the girls had been caught short. Belle thought that was absurd; after all, if they were entertaining the gentlemen in the parlour it would take far longer to go to their bedrooms for a pee in a chamberpot than to use the lavatory by the parlour.
It was bitterly cold as they lifted the rug over the washing line in the back yard, their breath like smoke in the icy air. But once they began beating the rug with the bamboo paddles, they were soon warm again.
‘We’ll leave it here till the floor’s dry,’ Mog said when they’d finished and they both had a grey film of dirt all over them.
It was only as they went back upstairs that Belle saw her mother. As always in the mornings, Annie was wearing her dark blue velvet dressing-gown over her nightdress and she had her curlers covered by a lace cap.
Mog was close in age to Annie, both being in their late thirties, and they had formed what Mog called an alliance as young girls because they came to this house when it was owned by the Countess at around the same time. Belle often wondered why Mog didn’t say they had become friends, but then Annie was not a very warm person, so perhaps she didn’t want a friend.
Dressed up, with her face painted, Annie was still beautiful. She had a tiny waist, a firm, high bosom and a queenly air. But in her dressing-gown