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 you really know what goes on. Have you been to these houses?’
‘Belle, I was a burglar, I always mixed with people on the wrong side of the fence. I got to know the girls in cat houses in Marseille like they were my sisters. They would tell me about their lives, their clients, the other girls and the madams, and I know from this that you must always keep the madam on your side. She is the one who can make your life hell if she doesn’t like you.’
‘You said sporting houses and cat houses – are they the same as brothels?’ she asked curiously.
Etienne smiled down at her. ‘They use these words more in New Orleans than the word brothel. Sporting houses are usually quite grand places, often with a band playing in the drawing room. They put a screen round the musicians so they can’t see the identity of the men who come in to dance and have fun with the girls.’
All at once Belle was overcome by emotion and she began to cry.
‘What is it?’ Etienne asked, putting his arms around her and drawing her to his chest.
‘I am going to miss you so much,’ she sobbed.
He held her tightly and stroked her hair. ‘I’m going to miss you too, little one. You have taken a part of my heart. But I may get sent here again some day and you will be so grand and important you won’t want to talk with me.’
‘I would never be too grand for you.’ She sniffed back her tears and almost laughed because she knew he was only teasing her. ‘But my admirers might be jealous as you are so handsome.’
He put his hands on either side of her head and bent down to kiss away her tears. ‘I think it might be better for me to stay away when you are older, for you will surely break my heart,’ he said softly. ‘Now, just remember what I told you, that you are beautiful and clever, and you must use that sharp mind to outfox any that would try to trap or hurt you.’
A little later Etienne left Belle on deck while he went down to their cabin for something. Aside from when he was suffering from seasickness, it was the first opportunity she’d had to speak to anyone she chose. There were dozens of other people on deck – respectable married couples, groups of young men, a few elderly people, and even two plainly dressed women who she felt might be the churchy kind. They would be ideal people to ask for help, and she had no doubt that if such an opportunity had arisen on the steamer from France, she would have gladly snatched it.
But she didn’t want any help now. While it was true that being delivered to a brothel wasn’t her ideal start in life, would London have been any better for her? While she was absolutely certain her mother and Mog would not have wanted her to become a whore, what else was there for a girl of her background except going into service or working in a factory? To stay at home for ever was an even worse prospect, for she’d never make any friends and the days would be endless.
Belle had often looked at the grand department stores like the new Selfridges which had opened just the year before in Oxford Street, or Swan and Edgar’s in Regent Street, and wished she could work in one of them. But even had she been able to get a good reference from someone, which was unlikely, everyone said the girls in those shops worked very long hours for very little pay and were bullied by the floor managers. She remembered how the other girls at the school she went to in Bloomsbury whispered about her. She had no doubt that kind of whispering would follow her to any job she might find. Just as Jimmy had assumed she had to be a whore because she lived in a brothel, so would everyone else.
So she had decided she was going to do exactly what Etienne had suggested and use her wits to make a good life for herself. She wouldn’t fight being a whore, just go with it and aim for the top spot. They wouldn’t lock her in or watch her like a hawk if they saw that she was willing. And it would be good to wear silk dresses and drive in her own carriage. In fact it might even be the greatest of adventures. She was after all in America, a country where dreams could come true.
One day, when she’d saved enough money, she’d sail home to England and open that little hat shop she used to dream about.
That evening in the dining room with Etienne, Belle felt oddly lightheaded because she’d become resolved about her future. It was warmer, and she’d put on a lighter, pale blue taffeta dress which she’d been given in Paris and hadn’t worn before because it had been too cold. It was very pretty, with white lace ruffles on the bodice and sleeves, and she’d put a blue ribbon in her hair to match. When Etienne offered her some red wine, she accepted it eagerly for it was all part of moving on to her new way of life.
‘You seem different tonight,’ Etienne said as he poured it. ‘You aren’t planning to bolt the moment the ship docks tomorrow, are you? Only New Orleans is a very dangerous place for an unescorted young lady to be.’
Belle giggled. ‘No, I’m not going to bolt. That would be silly. I’m feeling better about everything now.’
He smiled, and put his hand over hers on the table. ‘I’m glad of that. You know I will do everything I can tomorrow to make sure they understand how special you are.’
Etienne went out on deck to smoke a cigar after dinner, and Belle went down alone to their cabin and lit a candle to undress by. She realized that she was just a little tipsy, but she liked the feeling, just as she’d liked the touch of Etienne’s hand on hers.
As she started to unbutton her dress she was thinking of what it would be like to be kissed by Etienne. Not a kiss on the cheek, but a real grown-up one on the lips. The thought made her feel all hot and shaky.
She glanced at his bunk, and suddenly she knew she wanted to be in it, with him. With trembling fingers she undid the remainder of the buttons and stepped out of her dress, then took off her boots. Her two petticoats came next, falling on to her blue dress in a white froth. She paused then in her chemise, drawers and stockings, wondering how much more she should remove. She liked the chemise, it was the one which had been given to her in Paris, soft white cotton with pin tucks and rows of lace around the low neckline. Decided, she whipped off her drawers and stockings, threw all her clothes up on to her bunk, and climbed into Etienne’s.
Her heart was thumping, every nerve, muscle and tendon braced for his return, but fortunately she didn’t have long to wait before she heard his familiar footsteps coming along the corridor.
The cabin door opened and he came in, then stopped abruptly as he saw her in his bed. ‘Now, what are you doing there?’ he asked. ‘Too tipsy to climb on to the top one?’
She liked that he hadn’t assumed she was in his bed to be with him. ‘No, I’m in here because I want your arms around me,’ she whispered nervously.
He took off his jacket and hung it on one of the hooks at the end of the bunks, then he knelt down by the bunk. ‘Beautiful Belle,’ he sighed. ‘You are enough to tempt even the most holy of men. But what makes you do this? Are you practising being a temptress? Or maybe you think if you do this I won’t be able to take you to the house tomorrow?’
‘I know you will still have to take me,’ she said, a little daunted by his concerned expression. ‘But Lisette said to me in Paris that if I found a man I really liked, I would change my mind about it.’ She didn’t know what word to use, she couldn’t bring herself to use the word sex, or fucking, and if there was a less graphic word she didn’t know it.
‘With a man you really like it is called making love,’ he said, leaning forward so his face was very close to hers. ‘I am flattered that you like me, Belle, I never met a young girl I liked more than you. I will hold you and kiss you but that is all, for I have a wife at home who I cannot be unfaithful to.’
He leaned still closer and his lips met Belle’s, touching them with the softness of a butterfly’s wings. Belle’s arms came up to hold him and his tongue flickered into her mouth, making a little tremor run down her spine.
‘How was that?’ he said teasingly. With only one candle alight she couldn’t see his face clearly. But she reached out her hands and cupped it, using her thumbs to caress his lips gently.
‘It was good enough for me to want more,’ she whispered.
He moved and slid on to the bunk beside her, scooping her into his arms. ‘You are a little temptress,’ he sighed. ‘You will do well in New Orleans!’
He kissed her again and again until her whole body was aching to be caressed too. But though he kissed and nuzzled at her neck, her arms and fingers, he didn’t attempt to go any further.
Belle knew he desired her, she could feel his cock straining to be released from his trousers, but when she tentatively put her hand on it, he gently removed it.
‘Time for both of us to sleep,’ he said, kissing her forehead softly and getting off the bunk.
He took her clothes from the top bunk, blew out the candle and leapt up there, and Belle stretched out in the space he’d vacated and smiled to herself as she smelled him on the pillow.
No man would be so frightening now she knew how sweet it could be. She felt sad that Etienne wasn’t prepared to be the one to initiate her in the arts of lovemaking, but he had made her understand what desire was.
‘
Bonsoir
,
ma petite
,’ he said softly from above her.
‘Goodnight, Etienne,’ she whispered back. ‘If the gentlemen of New Orleans are all like you I won’t have any trouble loving them.’
Chapter Fifteen
Gold cherubs holding up an alabaster table, turquoise velvet couches strewn with gold and pink satin cushions, a white piano, and a life-size painting of a naked lady lying on a couch hanging above the white marble fireplace – these were just a few of the marvels in the drawing room of Martha’s
maison de joie
, as the woman had called it. Belle had to force herself not to be distracted by the splendour and to pin her ears back so she could hear what Etienne was saying to Madame Martha.
She was a very big woman of around forty-five. Belle thought she must be five feet nine inches or so, and at least fifteen stone; her hair was bleached a golden blonde and piled up on her head in elaborate coils. But however big or old she was, she was still beautiful, her skin like ivory satin, eyes so dark Belle could see no iris. She was wearing an apricot-coloured, loose-fitting tea dress with elaborate beadwork around the low neck, and her huge breasts billowed up and threatened to spill over. Her feet were tiny, encased in embroidered slippers the same colour as her dress, and her equally small hands had a ring on every finger.
‘Belle is very different from your usual girls, madame,’ Etienne said very politely. ‘She is intelligent, she has the poise and communication skills of a fully grown woman; she is also a kind, caring and sensitive girl. I wouldn’t dare to try and tell you how to run your house. But I got to know Belle well on the long journey here, and I believe it would be more fruitful for you to hold her back. Let her learn from the other girls and perhaps even tease the gentlemen a little with her.’
‘If I wanted your opinion, honey, I would’ve asked for it,’ Madame responded. Yet despite what she’d said, she looked amused at his cheek.
‘I wouldn’t dream of offending such a beautiful woman,’ Etienne said silkily. ‘It was just that I know sometimes girls are whisked so quickly into working that their true assets are not noticed. Belle has been treated very badly, abducted from her home and taken to Paris where she was subjected to the kind of thing I know you abhor. She could do with more time.’
Madame was nodding her head as Etienne was speaking, but once he reached the part about her being badly treated in Paris, she turned to look at Belle appraisingly.
‘Is that so, honey chile?’ she asked.
‘Yes, it is,’ Belle replied, surprised to be spoken to. ‘I was abducted because I witnessed a murder. In Paris I was raped by five different men, and then I became very ill,’ she admitted. But not wanting to look as though she was permanently damaged, she smiled at the older woman. ‘I’m all better now of course, and I would make a very good maid and I could help you all around the house with cleaning, laundry and even cooking.’
‘I sure didn’t pay for you to be brought all the way from Paris to be a maid,’ Madame said. Her tone was sharp but her dark eyes were twinkling. ‘My house is one of the best in town because my girls are happy, and I guess I can wait a little while to see how things go with you, and see if you can be happy too.’
‘You are a good woman,’ Etienne said, taking her hand and kissing it.
‘I think you are sweet on her,’ Madame said lightly, raising one eyebrow suggestively.
‘Any man would be,’ he replied. ‘She’s a little pearl.’
Etienne said he had to go then and Belle followed him to the front door to say goodbye.
The hall was almost as grand as the drawing room, with a huge chandelier, a black and white tiled floor and walls covered in an ornate red and gold raised paper. Everything Belle had seen so far seemed fine, but she was aware that appearances meant little, and once Etienne had left she would be on her own, in a strange country, without anyone to turn to.
Perhaps Etienne sensed how she felt for he stopped at the door and turned to her. ‘Don’t be scared,’ he said, caressing her cheek tenderly. ‘Although I’ve never met Martha before, I have it on good authority she is a good woman. You will be safe here.’
Belle didn’t want him to go, but she was too proud to cry or look distressed. ‘Tell me something, would you have killed me if I’d run away or sought help?’
He grinned boyishly. ‘How could I kill you if you’d run away? And I couldn’t have done it if you’d got help either. But I had to scare you into behaving. I’m sorry if I frightened you.’
‘I’ll never be sorry I met you,’ she said, and blushed a becoming pink. ‘You’ve got a piece of my heart now.’
‘Stay as beautiful and as sweet as you are now,’ he said. ‘I believe you will come to see New Orleans as your home, and you’ll forget the past. Just make sure you never let anyone push you around, and put some money away for a rainy day too.’
Belle moved forward so she could kiss him on the lips. ‘Safe journey home and think of me sometimes.’
His eyes, which had seemed so hard and cold when she first met him in Brest, were now soft and sad.
‘It will be hard to think of anything else,’ he said, then kissed her with such feeling that she felt her legs were going to give way.
*
By the time Belle fell exhausted into bed at first light the following morning, she almost felt she was at home. The atmosphere in Martha’s was similar to Annie’s Place, overcharged with expectancy, faintly hysterical, yet warm and welcoming too. It even smelled and sounded much the same – perfume, cigars, the rustle of taffeta petticoats and girlish giggling. She might not have spent an evening upstairs back home, but the sounds and smells permeated the whole house.
There were only five other girls here, all around eighteen or nineteen and exceptionally pretty: Hatty, Anna-Maria, Suzanne, Polly and Betty. In the early evening when Belle saw them coming down the stairs, each in a different vivid-coloured silk dress that revealed enough of their charms to tease any man, it was like looking at five rare and beautiful hothouse plants.
They hadn’t looked that way at their first meeting. Although it was the middle of the afternoon, they’d only just got out of bed, and they wore only a loose wrap over a chemise, with their hair all bedraggled.
As the girls ate fruit and pastries and drank coffee, Martha had introduced Belle. She suggested she tell them something about herself, and as Belle wanted them to become her friends and allies, she told them that she had been brought up in a brothel and about the murder she’d witnessed.
Afterwards she wondered if she’d said too much, and that it might have been better to have kept her own counsel, but they had hung on her every word, full of sympathy for her, and wanted to know all about England. She had been surprised at their concern for her, remembering that whenever a new girl arrived back home there was always backbiting and bad feeling.
Raven-haired Anna-Maria was Creole, and her French accent was comfortingly like Etienne’s. Hatty and Suzanne had come from San Francisco, and as with Belle, Martha had paid to have them come and work for her. They were quick to say they hadn’t got any regrets, and although their year’s contract with Martha had ended months ago, they wanted to stay on.
Polly and Betty had worked together in an Atlanta bordello but it was closed down by the police and so they came to New Orleans. They said they were fortunate in being directed to Martha’s, and in being taken on immediately.
All five were white girls. It seemed that mixed houses weren’t allowed, so the coloured girls were in different houses.
The pianist sat down to play in the drawing room in the early evening, the girls arranged themselves prettily on the couches, and soon afterwards gentlemen began to arrive. To Belle’s surprise they really did appear to be gentlemen. They were astoundingly well-mannered, they didn’t use any profanities, and treated the girls like real ladies. They all wore well-cut suits, boiled white shirts, highly polished boots, and had neatly trimmed beards and moustaches. There were a few who sported the kind of loud checked waistcoats and ostentatious gold watch chains that Etienne had pointed out as being markers of ‘white trash’ while they were on the ship from New York. But though these men were a little brash and flashy, they were still very polite. Belle thought it rather sweet that they asked the pianist for special tunes so they could dance with the girls.
The pianist’s name was Errol, and he was a negro, but apparently all pianists here were called ‘the Professor’. He knew hundreds of tunes, just playing them by ear without any music. Some got Belle’s toes tapping and made her want to dance. Betty told her it was called jazz, and she would be hearing a great deal more of it for it was
the
music of New Orleans. But the Professor sang too – he had a lovely deep, husky voice – and in some of the songs he’d changed the words to rather naughty ones about Martha’s house which made everyone laugh.
Belle offered the gentlemen whisky, wine or champagne, which seemed awfully expensive at a dollar a time, especially as she knew the ‘wine’ they bought for the girls was just red-coloured water. She thought it was nice that the men weren’t rushed up the stairs and that the girls sat around chatting and flirting with them, just as if they were at a party. But she realized later that all the drinks they bought added up to quite a lot, so that was why Martha encouraged the girls to keep them in the drawing room.
Asking a girl to dance appeared to be the discreet way the men picked their girl, and when they left the room together, hand in hand, they could have just been going to take an innocent stroll around the garden.
Belle wondered how the money changed hands, for apart from charging for the drinks, and seeing the gentlemen tipping Errol, she saw no other money. But Suzanne explained that the first thing the girls did when they got to their room with the gentleman was to ask for the twenty dollars. This they handed to Cissie, the upstairs maid, who passed it on to Martha who kept a record of what all the girls earned in an evening.
Cissie was a negro, a tall, thin woman with a cast in one eye. She had a very stern expression and rarely smiled, but the girls had said she was kindness itself, especially when they were sick.
Belle had been very surprised by what a short time the men spent upstairs with the girls, especially as they usually stayed in the drawing room chatting and drinking for over an hour. She thought the average time they spent in a girl’s room was only about twenty minutes; if they stayed as long as thirty minutes Martha began to look tense. Then as soon as the men came down they left the house. Belle had always assumed the sex act lasted at least an hour, for that was how long it seemed to be for her in Paris, and when Kent was with Millie. Now she was beginning to see that it had been a much shorter time than that, it was just the horror of it which had made it appear so long.
As each girl entertained about ten gentlemen during the evening, at twenty dollars a time, they were making a small fortune, even if Martha took half of it. Belle had thought it marvellous when Martha said she’d give her a dollar a day to serve drinks, and just this first evening she’d been given a total of two dollars, fifty cents in tips. That of course was small beer in comparison to what the girls got, or the tips the Professor received – almost every gentleman gave him a dollar. But it seemed to her that this was a place where anyone with the right attitude could get very rich very quickly.
The girls had said that tonight was a quiet night, and that on Saturdays it was packed out. Yet having watched the girls, seen their ready smiles, heard the peals of laughter, it obviously wasn’t as vile a job as Belle had imagined.
But she didn’t want to think about that just now. It was better to allow herself to sink into her soft feather mattress with just a thin comforter over her because it was so warm, and remember how cold it was back home.
She hoped that by now the postcard she had sent Annie and Mog in New York had reached them. Etienne hadn’t let her say where she was bound for, or what she was expected to do, just as she hadn’t said what had happened to her in Paris. But considering her mother ran a brothel, they were bound to realize the truth. All Belle could hope for was that they sensed she was happy when she’d written the postcard and that would stop some of their anxiety.
She had planned to write a proper letter home once she was settled here, but she wasn’t so sure now if that was the right thing to do. It might just make things worse; after all, her mother couldn’t afford to come here and get her, and even if she could, Martha would be bound to insist that she paid back however much she’d paid for Belle.
She wondered too about Jimmy. She so much wanted to write and tell him the whole story, but if she did, he might want to go after Kent, and then his life could be in danger.
So on reflection Belle thought maybe it might be better for everyone if she didn’t write at all. The truth would only make them fret. Yet if she was to lie and tell them she was working in a shop or as a maid, they wouldn’t believe that. After all, no one would ever abduct someone and then give them a nice, respectable life!
She fell asleep pondering on the problem.
Belle found herself wide awake the next morning at ten o’clock. It seemed odd that there was barely a sound from the street outside. The previous evening it had been even rowdier than Monmouth Street on a Saturday night.
She was dying to go out and explore, as all she’d seen of New Orleans so far was from the cab on the way from the ship. It had been quiet then too, as it was only nine in the morning, and all she saw were delivery carts, road sweepers and negro maids scrubbing doorsteps and polishing door brass. But she had been impressed by how old and attractive the city was. Etienne told her that the part they drove through from the dock was called the French Quarter, because back in 1721 the first twenty blocks were laid out by the French.
All the houses were right on the street with no front gardens, like many of the Victorian terraces back home, but these houses weren’t all the same: there were colourful Creole-style cottages with shuttered windows right next to houses of the Spanish style with dainty wrought-iron balconies on their upper floors, often with a profusion of plants and flowers growing there. Belle had glimpses of pretty little courtyards, there were squares with a central garden, and she saw many exotic-looking flowers and tall palm trees.