Belle was in fact very worried about Jimmy as she could sense the misery between the lines in his last letter. He had said he’d been to see the MO about trench foot, but then added his wasn’t anywhere near bad enough to get him sent to hospital like some of the other men. He’d said it was lucky Mog had knitted him so many pairs of warm woollen socks as he’d been able to change them frequently, but drying them out was the problem.
Belle knew trench foot was caused by standing in water for long periods. It made her shudder to think of the conditions the soldiers lived and fought in over there.
There was so much about a soldier’s life that was unfair. If they were wounded in battle they would get an army pension, but those who became disabled in some other way or just became sick through the conditions they lived in, got nothing.
Jimmy had made what passed for a joke in his letter about how the only way to get home was on a Blighty ticket. By that he meant a serious wound or an ailment that couldn’t be treated at the front. He’d said that one man in his regiment had shot himself in the foot, and claimed it was an accident while he was cleaning his gun. Another soldier was seen waving his arm above the trench, clearly hoping the Boche, as the soldiers called the Germans, would shoot him.
Belle didn’t think he’d mention such things unless he too had toyed with the idea of doing something similar. He’d also told her about being part of a patrol sent over into No Man’s Land at night to reconnoitre, and how one night the Germans had sent up flares and he described himself like a rabbit stunned motionless by a bright light when he should have dropped to the ground. He’d gone on to joke that it seemed the Boche couldn’t be bothered to shoot him.
But Belle realized that there was nothing funny about it; he’d clearly frozen with terror. Bad as it was to imagine him that way, somehow it seemed worse to think he didn’t dare admit it for fear of being seen as a coward.
Belle was horrified by the way most people were glorifying the war. She wondered if they’d still feel the same if they lost a family member. The newspapers veered between reporting German atrocities – everything from killing babies and raping women to torturing prisoners of war – and jubilantly encouraging everyone to believe the Allied armies were winning, regardless of the already horrific losses. As soldiers weren’t allowed to say exactly where they were, and wouldn’t be able to tell the truth about how the war was going, even if they knew, no one could be sure what was really happening there.
‘Are you all right, Belle?’
Mog’s voice cut through her reverie, and she looked up with a faint smile. ‘Yes, I’m fine. I think I’ll go up and light the fire in the living room and write to Jimmy. He’ll want to know how it was today.’
‘Don’t give that reporter another thought,’ Mog replied. ‘By the time he’s sat through the rest of the cases tried today he’ll have forgotten all about you.’
Belle wrote her letter to Jimmy. She told him nothing about Blessard, only about the other witnesses and the outcome of the trial. She mentioned that it had been snowing, which had now turned to sleet, and that she was opening the shop again in a week’s time. She had found a source of stylish fur hats and matching muffs which should sell well and give her time to design and make hats for the spring.
But as always, most of her letter was filled with little details of home life, how concerned she, Mog and Garth were about him, and how much she missed him.
The picture she drew at the bottom was of a pig wearing a judge’s wig, as she’d noticed that morning that the judge resembled a pig, with very small dark eyes and a nose more like a snout.
On a separate piece of paper she sketched Blessard as she remembered him. A bony face, bad skin, thin lips and a small, light brown moustache, but she found she couldn’t remember the shape of his eyes, only the cunning in them.
Was her past about to come back and haunt her?
Six weeks after the trial at nearly four in the afternoon Belle wrapped up warmly in her brown fur hat, brown tweed coat and a thick blue scarf Mog had knitted for her, to go up to the shop. As it was snowing hard that morning, Belle had remained at home to work on some new designs and left Miranda to open the shop. In the dark the snow looked very pretty; there had been so little traffic all day that even the road was covered in a good two inches. Mog had said it was daft to go up there as there wouldn’t have been any customers in this weather, but Belle needed some fresh air, and she wanted to see Miranda.
The bowed shop window always looked inviting in the dark as the light from the shop streamed out on to the pavement. Belle paused for a moment, looking at the display of the fur hats and muffs in the window.
Beyond the window display she could see Miranda standing on a stool, rearranging hat boxes on a shelf. She looked elegant as always in a plum-coloured wool dress with a matching small jacket trimmed with velvet and her blonde hair plaited and wound around her head.
She jumped down from the stool as the shop bell tinkled and Belle came in. ‘I didn’t expect you to come up today,’ she said, looking both surprised and pleased. ‘But I’m very glad you have because I’ve had some hideous people in here today and I wanted to share the experience with you.’
Belle smiled. Miranda liked dramatic words; hideous was one of her favourites.
‘In what way hideous? Ugly, rude, badly dressed?’
‘Hideously boring mostly. One woman regaled me about her precious cat who had just passed on. I ask you! How can anyone expect me to listen to the virtues of a ginger tom for over an hour without yawning? Then there was that woman that wears a kind of turban and sniffs all the time.’
Belle laughed. She knew exactly who Miranda was referring to, the woman came in all the time but had never once taken off the curious turban to try on a real hat. Belle had always suspected she might be bald. ‘I take it business has been hideous then?’
‘On the contrary, I’ve sold four fur hats and three muffs,’ Miranda said gleefully. ‘Also, that ghastly Miss Orwell who looks like she has a permanent bad smell under her nose came in with her mother to see if you would make her a headdress for her wedding in April. She also wants something for her bridesmaids. I said you’d telephone her and arrange an appointment to discuss what she wants.’
‘That’s marvellous,’ Belle said. ‘We must endeavour to try and like the ghastly Miss Orwell. Fortunately she is quite pretty, so one of my stunning designs won’t look out of place on her.’
They both laughed. One of their delights was to ridicule the customers they didn’t like, even though they were always charm itself to the women’s faces. Belle went through to the work room to check on the little stove that kept the shop warm and banked it up for the night. ‘Shall we have a cup of tea before we shut up?’ she called back.
Belle often wondered what she would do without Miranda as her friend. They had a similar sense of humour, conversation never dried up between them and she trusted her completely. Much as she loved Mog and Garth, they were rather limited as they had little interest in, or knowledge about, anything beyond the pub and family. Miranda on the other hand had travelled; she was interested in all kinds of things, and had a joyous nature that even her overbearing mother had not been able to subdue.
‘Or we could shut up the shop and have a glass of that sherry left over from Christmas,’ Miranda called back.
‘I knew I hired you for more than your good looks,’ Belle said, taking the bottle down from the shelf. ‘Lock the door and pull down the blind.’
A few minutes later they were both in the work room, sitting by the stove with a glass of sherry in their hands.
Belle had admitted to Miranda a few days earlier that her heart wasn’t in the shop any more. Miranda hadn’t taken her seriously then, assuming she was just having a bad day. Belle knew she had to make her see that it was more than that.
‘I wish I didn’t have to bring this up again, Miranda,’ she said. ‘But I really don’t want to carry on with the shop. I know you love it, and that you think I’ll get my enthusiasm back, but I won’t. I’d sooner do something for the war effort.’
‘But it’s such a success!’ Miranda protested. ‘I can run it for you. You just stay at home and make the hats.’
‘I don’t even feel the same about the hats either,’ Belle admitted. ‘And the lease will be up for renewal soon. They are bound to put the rent up and I really can’t bear to commit myself for another three years. Especially if the war drags on.’
Miranda looked at her appraisingly for a moment. ‘Even when we re-opened at New Year I did notice a slump in your flair and your enthusiasm. I didn’t remark on it because I hoped it would come back eventually.’ She paused for a moment, as if thinking what to say. ‘But if you feel it is never going to, I can see why you would want to give up. But war work! I know they want people in munitions, but I can’t see you doing that. They need nurses too, but you aren’t one. I suppose you could volunteer as an orderly, but do you really want to do the mucky jobs?’
‘I wouldn’t mind.’
Miranda looked shocked. ‘You’re completely serious, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I am. I don’t want to do you out of a job, but my heart really isn’t in this any more. I used to love designing and making the hats, but now it’s a real chore. Maybe if I volunteered at the hospital and gained some experience, in a few months I could join the Red Cross.’
‘You mean go to France?’
Belle hadn’t actually thought of that, but suddenly that seemed to be exactly what she did want. ‘Yes, I think I do.’
Miranda stared at her. ‘And what would Jimmy have to say about that?’
Belle pulled a face. ‘He’d be horrified. And so would Mog and Garth. There would be hell to pay. But it’s my life and they need every pair of hands they can get over there. You can’t tell me I wouldn’t be more useful than some of those dopey society women who’ve never even dressed themselves or drawn their own bath water. Someone like me wouldn’t faint at the sight of lice or a man’s naked body.’
‘Like me, you mean?’ Miranda grinned. ‘Mind you, I wouldn’t faint at a naked male body.’
Belle giggled. ‘I didn’t mean like you, and you know it. But we’ve both read in the paper about such women becoming VADs and assisting trained nurses. If they can do it, why not me?’
‘Well, for a start you have to be twenty-three and I doubt they’d take you as you are married.’
‘I could lie about that,’ Belle said.
Miranda tutted and waved a finger disapprovingly. ‘What is it in your past?’ she asked. ‘Whenever you say something like that I always get the feeling you’ve done so much, seen so much. We’re friends; you can trust me, so why don’t you tell me about it?’
Belle half smiled. ‘You might not want to be friends if I told you the whole story.’
Miranda reached out and took Belle’s hand. ‘There’s nothing you could tell me which would stop me liking you. Besides, I can’t fall out with you, you know far too much about me. So tell me, and I promise I’ll join you in this mad idea of going to France.’
‘You wouldn’t want to do that surely?’ Belle exclaimed. ‘Cleaning up vomit, cutting blood-soaked uniforms off wounded men?’
‘I’m not too wild about any of that.’ Miranda winced. ‘But God knows I could do with some excitement, and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather throw my lot in with. I could drive an ambulance maybe? My father has all sorts of connections, and as you said we could get experience at a local hospital, maybe do a first aid course?’
Belle felt a warm glow spreading through her. She didn’t think it was quite as simple as Miranda made it sound, but the possibility of doing something different and reckless was thrilling and drove away the melancholy that seemed to have settled on her for so long.
‘You’d really join me?’
‘Yes, I would. What have I got to lose? You helped me when no one else would. In truth I know now that you are the only true friend I have, or have ever had, the rest are mere acquaintances. You are inspiring, funny, kind and you have a core of steel that makes me feel braver and better for being with you.’
Belle’s eyes prickled with tears at such a sincere compliment. ‘It could be the greatest adventure,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Maybe a bigger and far more worthwhile one than anything that’s ever happened to me before.’
‘Now, about that “before”.’ Miranda picked up the bottle of sherry and poured them both another glass. ‘Tell me about that.’
Belle recalled how one afternoon just before Christmas she had been feeling desperately low and had told Mog that if Miranda called round she was to say she had gone out. Miranda did call, but she wouldn’t be fobbed off and insisted on seeing her. All she did was come into the living room, plonk herself down on the couch by Belle and put her arms around her.
In that hug was a wealth of understanding. She hadn’t listed all the things Belle had to live for, no platitudes, no pep talks, she just offered herself as a prop, a listening ear, and a true friend, the kind that asks for nothing in return. Belle felt that perhaps she did owe her the truth about herself.
‘All right then, if we are getting into this together, then it is best you know. To start with, I was born and brought up in a brothel.’
Belle told her story as simply and concisely as she could: Millie’s murder, and how she was abducted by her killer and sold into prostitution in France. She was aware as she continued on to how Etienne took her to Martha’s sporting house in New Orleans, that Miranda’s eyes were wide with shock, but she did not falter.
‘I decided there that as there was no way I could get back to England I might as well accept it and be the best of whores,’ she said plainly. ‘I was the top girl, and at times I even enjoyed it.’
It was only when she got to the part about Pascal, who had locked her in the attic room in his house in Montmartre, that Miranda gasped.
‘If it was anyone else telling me this I’d think they were making it up,’ she said.
Belle continued with how Etienne rescued her, and finished off the story with her being a witness at Kent’s trial.
‘That is some story,’ Miranda exclaimed. ‘But it explains lots of things about you which have puzzled me. I’m so glad you felt able to tell me.’