Two days later at four in the morning, with the sounds of his uncle’s snoring reverberating through the Ram’s Head, Jimmy slipped out through the back door into the dark streets. He ran all the way down to the market, only slowing down to side-step the porters pushing heavily laden carts of fruit, flowers and vegetables.
He went to Maiden Lane first, but as he expected the club door was padlocked. He then went round to the Strand, crossed over the road by the Savoy Hotel and looked up at the windows on the opposite side. Most of the windows above the rank of shops were part of the shop or storeroom beneath; in some cases the owners lived there. The office Jimmy wanted to reach was very obvious because the windows hadn’t been cleaned in years, and furthermore the smallest pane of glass on the end had been broken sometime and a piece of wood put over it, something he’d noticed when he was peering through the crack in the door.
There was a stout-looking drainpipe running from the top of the building right down to the street, and it was only a foot or so from the first-floor window sill. Even from across the street in darkness, Jimmy could see that the sill was a wide one. Stuffed into his coat pocket he had a bunch of keys, a couple of candles and a few tools for picking locks and prising doors open. He also had a length of stout rope wound round his chest beneath his coat. But he thought he could get into the office without using any of these things.
Checking first to see there was no one about, he crossed over, jumped to get a grip on the drainpipe and then began shinning up it. He had always been good at climbing; his mother had said he was like a cat.
Once up on the window sill, he examined the broken window and found to his delight that the wood was only tapped tightly on to the frame, to keep the rain and cold out rather than burglars. A little prise and a yank and it was off, but before leaving the window sill Jimmy took the rope from his chest and secured it tightly around the drainpipe in case he had to make a hasty exit.
Inside the office Jimmy lit his candle, then pulled the curtains across the window. They were very old, stiff with dirt and smelled bad, but at least they were thick and would stop anyone noticing the light from the street. Once they were pulled he lit the overhead gaslight, for he could be quicker if he could see well.
It was an untidy, jumbled office, and very dirty, with ashtrays piled high with cigar stubs, used glasses, cups and plates everywhere. The waste bin was overflowing with paper and there was cigar ash all over the floor. It didn’t look as if the place had been cleaned for months.
The drawers in the desk revealed nothing of interest, only some account books which appeared to be the club’s. In an unlocked cashbox there was close on fifty pounds, perhaps a few days’ takings. But he closed that up and put it back where he’d found it, for he wasn’t there to steal.
Next he opened the filing cabinet, but there was no organization there, just piles of papers shoved in on top of one another. Clearly the man who owned the place didn’t understand the concept of filing.
Jimmy lifted out a pile of papers and put them on the desk to go through. There was a variety of reasons for the correspondence. Some of the letters were about this building; it seemed Mr J. Colm was renting the property in Maiden Lane from a company in Victoria. They were writing to him to warn him they’d had complaints from other tenants about noise, drunks leaving the building and violence spilling out into Maiden Lane. Some of the letters threatened him with eviction, but Jimmy saw such threats went back over four or five years, so it seemed Mr Colm was either ignoring them, or paying his landlords something to keep them sweet.
The other correspondence was mainly from suppliers of drink. There was also a list of women’s names and addresses who Jimmy thought might be dancers or waitresses. He put that in his pocket.
He trawled right through the contents of the cabinet, but there was nothing that proved a link or partnership between him and Kent, or indeed anything other than stuff directly to do with running the club. He pulled the curtain back a little and guessed by a faint light in the sky that it was getting on for six, and he must leave before the Strand became busy with people.
He was just going to open the curtain before turning off the gas when he saw an address tacked on to the wall by the window. It was one in Paris, and he probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but the name was Madame Sondheim, and to an eighteen-year-old boy with imagination, that sounded like a brothel keeper’s. So, just in case, he snatched it down and stuffed it in his pocket, then opened the curtains and turned out the light.
Once out on the window sill Jimmy saw several people walking along the Strand. But it was raining and dark and they had their heads down, and delaying his descent to the street would do him no good as more and more people would soon be about.
He let the rope drop down over the sill, then nimbly went down it hand over hand. A man coming towards him looked shocked and surprised, and called out for him to stop. But Jimmy took off at speed, belting round the corner, then doubling back along Maiden Lane to Southampton Street. The man must have decided against giving chase, for there was no hue and cry or pounding feet following him, and by the time he reached the market, Jimmy slowed down to a mere stroll.
‘Where have you been, Jimmy?’ Mog asked as he walked in the back door. She had a wrap over her nightdress and her hair was loose on her shoulders. ‘You’re soaking wet! What time of day is this to go out?’
‘A good time if you want to get some information,’ Jimmy said with a grin.
‘You haven’t been getting into that man’s office again?’ she asked in alarm.
‘Not the one you mean,’ Jimmy said. ‘Why are you up so early anyway?’
‘I heard you slip out,’ she said reproachfully, and wagged her forefinger at him. ‘I was that worried I couldn’t get back to sleep. So I came down to make a cup of tea in the end.’
For just a brief second Mog had an expression on her face that was so like his mother’s it made a lump come up in Jimmy’s throat. ‘Don’t look like that,’ he whispered.
‘Like what?’
‘Like my mother used to.’
Mog came closer to him, took off his cap and ruffled his hair. ‘Looks like I’ve got to take her place,’ she said. ‘We’ll have a cuppa and you tell me what you found.’
Some half an hour later over a second cup of tea Jimmy had told Mog everything.
‘This Madame Whatsit might not be anything to do with Belle,’ Mog said sadly, but she continued to stare at the piece of paper as if willing it to answer her questions. ‘As for the list of girls or women, it’s far more likely they are girls that work for him.’
‘But I did hear him talking about getting girls, and he said someone had turned yellow-bellied on him. Garth said the man called Braithwaite was known as Sly, and we know Braithwaite went to France with Kent, so maybe it was him who turned yellow-bellied. If we could just talk to him!’
‘A man like that wouldn’t admit anything he’d done, not even after he was sorry he’d done it,’ Mog said sadly. ‘He’d probably cut your tongue out to shut you up if you got anywhere close to him. But this Madame Whatsit, she might be worth following up. Noah might be game for going there and finding out about it.’
‘Shall I run round to his place and leave a message for him?’ Jimmy asked.
Mog sighed. ‘I think we’d better talk it over with your uncle first. But let’s have another look at that list of girls. Some of them live close by here – I could make a few enquiries about them myself.’
Later that morning, with her chores completed and a steak and kidney pudding simmering in a pan on the stove, Mog went round to Endell Street to the first address on the list.
Endell Street was a mixed area. Some of the buildings and houses were in a bad state and poor people lived in them in overcrowded and insanitary conditions, but the rest of the houses were neat and tidy, homes to decent, hard-working people – cab drivers, carpenters and the like. Mog was very surprised to find that number eighty was one of the tidy ones, with snowy-white lace curtains at the window and a well-scrubbed doorstep.
She knocked at the door, uncertain about what she was even going to say, and when the door was opened by a plump woman around the same age as her, wearing a spotless white apron over her print dress, Mog was tongue-tied for a moment.
‘I’m sorry to call on you, but does Amy Stewart live here?’ she asked once the woman had enquired what she wanted and forced her to say something.
‘She did,’ the woman replied, but all at once her lips began to quiver and her eyes filled with tears.
‘Oh, please don’t take on,’ Mog begged her in alarm, assuming the girl had done something to upset her mother.
‘Why are you asking?’ the woman said, and there was a kind of plea in her eyes that Mog could identify with. ‘My Amy disappeared two years ago. She went to the shop for me and she never came back. She was only thirteen, too young to go anywhere on her own.’
Chapter Eighteen
‘I’m charmed to meet you, Belle. You must know your name means beautiful in French? You were well named for you are truly beautiful.’
Belle felt she was blushing from her hair to the tips of her toes, for this handsome man paying her such an extravagant compliment had a French accent like Etienne, with a deep, velvety tone that made her tingle inside.
‘Well, thank you, Mr Laurent, you are very kind,’ she said breathlessly.
‘You must call me Serge. Will you come for a little walk with me?’ he asked. ‘We could go to Jackson Square and get an ice cream.’
Belle realized as soon as Martha called her downstairs to introduce her to this man that he had to be the one Martha hoped would teach her to like lovemaking. She had come downstairs in trepidation, expecting him to be old and ugly. When she was confronted by a slim, tall man, beautifully dressed in a pale grey suit, with a captivating face, her heart lurched. His hair was black, his eyes like pools of melted chocolate, and his full mouth that turned up at the edges made him look as if he was smiling even when he wasn’t. She had never seen such a perfect-looking man; he even had a dimple in his chin and his teeth were flawless.
For a moment she could only stare at him. She might be scared stiff at the prospect of making love, but surely no woman in the world would be able to resist Serge Laurent. Even his name made her heart flutter.
‘I’d love to go for a walk with you,’ she said breathlessly. As they walked to Jackson Square, Serge told her many little stories about people who had lived in the houses they passed in the French Quarter. He introduced her to pirates, gamblers, Voodoo queens, madams and villains, along with a smattering of famous writers and poets. He made it all so colourful she felt sure he was making some of it up, or at least exaggerating, but that didn’t matter – she was enjoying his company and it was a lovely warm day.
Martha had said earlier today that soon it would turn very hot, and that was when people got too lazy to work, tempers flared, and sometimes people went mad because the heat got to them. Belle couldn’t imagine heat like that; back home the hottest days she remembered was when the milk turned sour and the butter melted in a dish. But hot weather in England never amounted to more than perhaps only seven or eight days in a whole year.
Serge bought them both an ice-cream cone and they went into the gardens on Jackson Square and sat on a bench in the shade to eat them. Belle had only been to this part of the French Quarter a couple of times and she really liked it. It was gentle, quiet and serene, at least compared with Basin Street which was always loud, hectic and rough.
There were a couple of musicians busking, a black girl was tap-dancing on a piece of board, and a strange-looking mulatto woman wearing a red satin cape over what looked like an old lace wedding dress was telling fortunes with some sticks she was throwing.
Many of the men walking round the square were likely to be down in the District later in the day; perhaps many of the pretty younger women walking under their frilly parasols were in fact whores by night too. But it didn’t seem that way. If Belle looked up she could see people sitting out in the afternoon sun on their pretty wrought-iron balconies, mothers nursing their babies. She could hear couples chatting together, and children squealing as they played ball games with their mothers, and it felt as if nothing bad could ever happen in the French Quarter.
Serge didn’t ask her any questions, not even about her background or how she came to be with Martha. He talked about general things and told her even more amusing stories, but all the time he was holding her hand and caressing it, and all she could think of was how much she wanted to be kissed by him.
They had come out of Martha’s at about three, and it was nearly five when he said he’d take her to his place to make her some mint tea. By then Belle felt she might just pass out with longing if he didn’t kiss her soon.
She didn’t have long to wait. They were barely in his small apartment with dark wood shutters at the windows, when he took her in his arms. As his lips came down on hers she felt as if she was losing all sense of her own will. She wanted nothing more than to be possessed by Serge.
‘Beautiful, beautiful Belle,’ he whispered as he nuzzled at her neck while unhooking her dress. ‘You know you were made for love, your hair, your skin, your body, all so perfect. And I will make you see how good lovemaking is for you. You might have come in here a young girl, but you will go out a woman.’
Belle wanted to believe him as he bent his head to kiss her breasts, murmuring that they too were perfect, that he’d never said this to another girl, and that he was falling in love with her. But she knew that wasn’t how it was, that he was just an actor who played his part superbly, and she didn’t really mind, for he was making her feel things she couldn’t have imagined before.
He removed all her clothes easily and quickly and moved her over to his bed while still fully dressed himself, apart from his jacket which he’d taken off as they came in. Then on the bed he kissed her ever more passionately while his fingers caressed her private parts. The astounding thing was that the stroking and probing which those other men had done back in Paris and had seemed so vile and painful, were now exquisitely lovely.
His lips moved down her body, kissing her breasts, her arms, her belly, and she was arching her back for more of his caresses for he had found a spot in her vagina which felt so wonderful when he circled it with his finger that she thought she might scream out loud.
He moved away from it, turning her over to kiss her back and her buttocks, then slid his hand beneath her again to play with her and make her gasp out that it was wonderful.
Belle didn’t remember him removing his clothes, he did it so seamlessly. One minute he was dressed, the next naked, and when she saw his erect penis, she wasn’t scared, she wanted it inside her.
She was beyond caring about how she was behaving or what he would think of her. She pulled him towards her by his hips, wrapping her legs around him like a vine, and as he slid into her she screamed out in pleasure.
Belle had witnessed the sex act many times now, but what she felt at this moment had nothing in common with the quick, unemotional procedures she’d observed. Both she and Serge were bathed in sweat, every stroke, squeeze, kiss or caress was intended to please, and it did, so much. He withdrew from her several times, on each occasion finding that little sensitive spot again. Then all at once she felt herself exploding under his fingers, and he drove himself in again, harder and harder, until it happened for him too.
Half dozing, lying in the security of Serge’s arms, Belle felt that at last she understood all those jokes the girls made. This was the state everyone wanted to attain, but perhaps few did, for she was sure not many men understood a woman’s body like Serge did.
He half sat up, leaning over her, his dark hair flopping over his tanned face. ‘You were made for love, Belle. And now you know how good it can be, make sure you have lovers worthy of you, for most men are selfish, thinking only of their own pleasure.’
Belle frowned. She remembered Millie saying something like that one day in the kitchen. Mog had shushed her, mouthing something to remind Millie that Belle was listening.
‘I doubt the men who will be paying me will want to please me,’ she said lightly.
‘Many will if you encourage them,’ he said with a smile, bending to kiss her again. ‘I learned all I know in cat houses. It is a fallacy that all men just want to spill their seed and leave. They may do that because it is expected, but a good courtesan will give them much more than that. Martha sees your promise, and I sense you wish to become rich. Is that so?’
Belle nodded.
‘Then be the best of the best,’ he said. ‘When a man wants you, you ask him if he wants heaven, or just a little release. You fulfil his fantasies and he will come back again and again to you, paying more each time.’
‘But how do I know what his fantasies are?’ Belle asked, puzzled because she didn’t really know what he meant by the word.
‘It is simple, you ask him.’ Serge laughed, his dimple deepening. ‘You see, my fantasy is just what I had, an inexperienced girl whom I take to heaven and back. Many men share that one, especially with a young, pretty girl like you. But some men, they like a girl dressed as a maid or a waitress. I have a friend who likes his lady to dress in a nun’s habit.
‘It doesn’t have to be about dressing up or acting though. Some men like a girl to be a tease, to walk around naked and show herself to him. Even to touch herself there so he can watch her do it.’ Serge put his hand on her vagina again and smiled down at her. ‘I would like to see you do that, just as I would like to see you suck my cock, and I would like to lick you there too. But I have to get you back now, and I have to leave something for other men to be the first with.’
Martha only smiled at Belle when she got back to Basin Street. Serge had brought her back at ten in the evening, kissed her goodbye at the door, and she knew deep down that it would be the last she’d see of him. She wondered as he walked away through the crowds on the street, so light on his feet, back straight, head held high, how much money he was paid for the time he spent with her.
She felt she ought to be ashamed, but she wasn’t. Serge was after all just doing as she herself intended to do. And if he could make her feel so good when he was being paid to do it, then she was sure she’d be able to do likewise.
She felt she understood all the mysteries of life now. Martha might have taught her the practical things like putting a little sponge deep into her vagina to prevent getting pregnant, the douching out afterwards, and what male infections looked like. But even if the men who paid her for sex could never make her feel the way Serge had, at least she knew now how good it could be with the right man.
The following afternoon Martha called Belle up to her room. ‘I think you are ready now,’ she said with a warm smile. ‘So tonight you make your debut.’
Belle’s heart fluttered nervously, wanting so much to ask for a bit more time. But Martha had already been incredibly patient and kind, and she had a feeling that might end if she didn’t get some return for her investment very soon. ‘If that’s what you’d like,’ she said.
‘Brave girl,’ Martha said. ‘The first time is always the worst, awkward and embarrassing, but let me show you the gown I’ve picked out for you. That should make you feel better.’
She went behind her dressing screen and brought out a red silk gown. Belle couldn’t help but gasp for it was beautiful. Sleeveless, with a low neckline, it looked as if it was designed to cling to the body rather than conceal it.
‘Try it on,’ Martha said. ‘Go on! There’s a new chemise behind the screen too.’
As soon as Belle had shed her own clothes and put on the new chemise, she sensed Martha didn’t want her wearing any drawers. The new chemise was red and white spotted crêpe de chine, barely covering her nipples and short, reaching only about two inches below her bottom. It made her feel wicked; she wished she could see herself in a mirror because she could imagine how Serge would have reacted to seeing her that way.
The dress was whisper-light, with whalebones in the bodice to support and shape her breasts. There were several rows of ruffles beneath the hem of the skirt which created the swishing sound and movement of petticoats, but the soft red silk clung to her body like a second skin.
‘Come out and I’ll fasten it for you,’ Martha called out.
She said nothing as Belle came out hesitantly. She secured the gown at the back in silence, tucking the straps of her chemise out of sight on her shoulders. ‘Take a look,’ she said then, pointing at the large cheval mirror.
Belle could hardly believe what she was seeing. She looked so shapely, so adult, she hadn’t known her body was so curvy and womanly. It was of course the cut of the dress, which clung to places that were normally well covered with petticoats and drawers. She hadn’t even realized her breasts had become so big; they were threatening to pop out of the bodice.
‘Aren’t I indecent?’ she whispered, looking at Martha.
The woman laughed. ‘Sure would be if it was church you were goin’ to. But for our gentlemen you’ll look like first prize. I think you like yourself a little in that gown, don’t you?’
Belle did a twirl in front of the mirror. All that she’d felt with Serge the previous day was still with her, and this dress made her feel giddy with expectancy. ‘I like myself a lot in it,’ she admitted, and laughed. ‘I think I already am a whore at heart!’
Martha came over to her and, putting a jewelled hand on each shoulder, kissed both of Belle’s cheeks. ‘Most women are, but they repress it and deny it,’ she said. ‘You’ll be one of the great ones, I sensed it when you first arrived. Now, let’s get that dress off, you can put it on later after you’ve bathed and Cissie has arranged your hair. You can have a little brandy tonight to calm your nerves, but don’t let Cissie tempt you into laudanum, that’s a bad road to take.’
Belle was astounded by how nice the other girls were to her when she came down to the parlour dressed ready for her first gentleman. She had expected sniping – after all, she was competition and younger than all of them – but they complimented her on how lovely she looked and everyone had a bit of advice.
‘Don’t let them stay over their time.’ ‘At the first hint of trouble, call Cissie,’ ‘Don’t kiss them, or forget to wash and examine their cock. Make sure you get the money before you undress.’
‘You look scared,’ Hatty said in sympathy. ‘Remember that we all were. You’ll be fine, the men are going to be so eager for you, they’ll come as soon as look at you.’
Martha watched when the first three men of the evening came in. Two of them were friends who had been here before, the third one she didn’t know, but he was young, no more than twenty-five, fresh-faced and fair-haired. She decided he was ideal for Belle, for he looked as nervous as she was.
Belle looked beautiful. The dress was a triumph, enhancing both her figure and her skin tone. Cissie had coaxed some of her hair back and fastened it with a thin red ribbon, then used curling tongs to give her ringlets bouncing on her almost bare shoulders. A touch of rouge concealed that she was pale with nerves.