Belle - Lesley Pearse [68]
‘I don’t know how you can tell me to do this,’ Belle cried out.
‘It is because I like you, Belle, and must tell you the best way to save yourself. I get taken to ’ouse when I am young just the same as you. I know ’ow bad it is. But in time I don’t mind no more. I make friends, I laugh again.’
‘Do you still do it now?’
Lisette shook her head. ‘No more, I work here, nurse the sick people. I have a little boy of my own.’
‘You are married?’
‘No. Not married. I tell people my ’usband die.’
Belle silently digested all this information as Lisette tidied her room. The thought of any man even coming near her, let alone doing that awful thing to her, made her shudder, but common sense told her that most women didn’t fear sex, or loathe it, or there would be no romance or marriage. She didn’t remember any of the girls back at Annie’s Place saying they hated men; some of them even had sweethearts they went to meet on their nights off.
‘How can I learn to tolerate it then?’ she asked after a little while.
Lisette came closer to her and put her hand on her shoulder. ‘You might have a young man you like, then it is very different. Many of the girls will share their tricks to make the men so excited it is all over quickly. But I promise you, it won’t ever hurt the way it did the first few times.’
Tears came up in Belle’s eyes because she sensed the woman really did care about her. ‘I miss my mother and Mog who used to look after me,’ she blurted out. ‘They must be so worried. Can’t you help me to escape?’
Lisette looked stricken. ‘I weesh I could be brave enough, but they would hurt my Jean-Pierre. A mother with no ’usband must not take risks,’ she said. ‘But listen to me, Belle, even if you could get out somehow, without money you couldn’t get ’ome. Maybe very bad people get you, worse than here.’
Belle was far from stupid, and from what she’d already been through she realized that her ‘owners’ would turn very nasty to anyone attempting to set her free. So it was entirely understandable that Lisette should fear for her son’s safety. She knew too that even if she could find her way to the coast, she couldn’t get across the English Channel without money. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, giving Lisette a weak, sad smile. ‘You’ve been so kind to me, and I wouldn’t wish to get you into trouble. But why will they take me to America? That’s so far!’
Lisette shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe English girls are special there. But you will be with people who speak your language, that is good.’
Belle nodded.
‘If you keep your ’ead, you act sweet and good, while you watch the people around you. You find their weakness, and you use it,’ Lisette added.
Belle remembered how Mog claimed Annie discovered people’s weaknesses, then played on them. At the time it hadn’t made much sense to her, but now it was beginning to.
‘Is it Madame Sondheim that is sending me to America?’
‘Non.’ Lisette shook her finger. ‘She sell you on when you are sick. She made much money already, she have no weesh to keep you in her house.’
Belle struggled against bursting into tears for it was horrible to think she was being passed around like a side of beef in Smithfield market. ‘Then my new owner could be worse?’ she asked.
‘Your new owner pay for you to be here. They see you get good food, soft bed and nursed back to health. You are valuable to them, they will not harm you unless you fight them.’
Belle was too dismayed to ask any further questions. She couldn’t believe that anyone who could buy a sick young girl who had been systematically raped by several men and then plan to ship her to America to be a whore, could have even a shred of decency.
She hung her head and cried.
Lisette put her hand on her shoulder. ‘I have taken care of many girls like you in this house, but already I can see you are one of the strong ones. You are beautiful too, and I think a clever girl, so use your head. Talk to the older girls, learn from them, and wait for your chance.’
She left the room then, swiftly and silently, leaving Belle crying.
Belle had lost track