Belle - Lesley Pearse [78]
Chapter Fourteen
As the ship sailed south down the coast of America, the wind dropped, and gradually it became a little warmer and the skies bluer. On Belle’s sixteenth birthday Etienne bought a bottle of French champagne for them to celebrate.
‘I wish you’d told me that your birthday was so soon while we were in New York and I would have bought you a little present,’ he said apologetically. ‘You must be thinking of your mother and your Mog so much today?’
Belle had been thinking of home. Mog had always made her a special iced cake with candles, and there would be little presents from everyone in the house. Last birthday her mother had given her the grey cloak she was wearing when she was snatched, but even that had gone now, left back at Madame Sondheim’s.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, even though she did feel very sad. ‘In years to come I’ll remember where I was when I had my first glass of champagne.’
A few days later they were standing on deck looking at the coastline in the distance.
‘New Orleans is much warmer than England all year round,’ Etienne explained. ‘It has very mild winters and hot, sticky summers. But it has quite heavy rain too, and hurricanes, mostly at the end of August or the beginning of September.’
‘What else can you tell me about it?’ Belle was growing very scared now, for within twenty-four hours Etienne would be handing her over and he’d have to return to France.
‘It’s a place for fun,’ he said, his eyes lighting up as if he had good memories of there. ‘People come over the weekend to let their hair down, to dance, gamble, find a woman, and hear the music. The music is what stays in your head long after you’ve left New Orleans. It wafts out of every bar, club, dance hall and restaurant, follows you up the street and into your dreams.’
‘And if they make me do that thing?’ She blushed scarlet for she couldn’t bring herself to speak openly of what she knew would be expected of her. ‘Is there anything you can tell me that would make it easier to bear?’
He put his hand on her cheek, his eyes tender now as if he wished he could reassure her that wasn’t going to happen. ‘If I was you I’d try and think about the money. Slavery is dead, and you should get half of what you earn, if you stand up for yourself. And put the money somewhere safe, it’s your future you are saving for.’ He paused for a moment as if thinking what he could say about the actual act.
‘I think the real trick to it is making the men think they are getting something unique and wonderful,’ he went on. ‘This is easy because men can be fools, they’ll look at your pretty face and see how young you are, and before you so much as hold their hand they’ll believe you are a dream come true.’
Belle smiled. She loved hearing Etienne talk, even if the subject wasn’t all that agreeable. That hint of French accent was so compelling, and the more she looked at him, the sadder she was that she was soon going to lose him.
‘But above all you have to believe you are the best,’ Etienne said earnestly. ‘The top girls in New Orleans get as much as thirty or forty dollars a time, they wear the latest silk gowns, have a maid to arrange their hair, some even have their own carriage to drive around in. Many of these girls have wealthy patrons who pay them not to go with any other man. There are other top girls who get booked for all night, every night, yet often their clients only want to go to sleep with them in their arms. And so it goes right down the scale to the cheaper sporting houses, girls who rent out a room by the hour, until you finally get to the girls who do their work in back alleys. They are filthy, depraved and disease-ridden hags, charging only a couple of cents.
‘You must always remember that you are a top end girl. You will look beautiful, be sweet and charming to your clients even when you want to cry. You must try to love the men for the short time you are with them, and soon you will find that you really can love them a little and you won’t feel bad about your life.’
‘You sound as if