‘You find something nice?’ she asked.
Belle was so delighted with her purchases that she was only too happy to show them off, and as she showed them to the hotel owner, she could feel the woman growing warmer. She held the red costume to Belle’s shoulders and smiled.
‘It is your colour,’ she said. ‘I think it will bring you good luck.’
‘
Merci, madame,
’ Belle said, and she was rewarded by a smile which lit up the woman’s face and took ten years off her.
Everything Belle knew about working hotels came from one of the girls back in New Orleans who claimed to have lived this way for several months in Washington and made a great deal of money. But however brilliant a plan it was in theory, Belle found the prospect of it terrifying. She was well aware that prostitution was illegal in Paris, even if the city did have a reputation for tolerance. She had visions of a couple of gendarmes frogmarching her off and throwing her in a cell. Obviously there were thousands of whores in Paris, whether walking the streets, in brothels or working hotels, and she just wished she knew some of them to find out how it all worked.
On her second day in Paris Belle bought a street map and checked out some of the hotels near the Champs-Elysées, assuming this would be where the best ones were. Some turned out to be seedy-looking, others she dismissed because they had very alert-looking doormen and she felt she’d never be able to pull her plan off there. Other hotels looked smart on the outside, but while watching people coming and going she found the guests were very ordinary, and she needed a hotel that catered for the seriously rich.
In the end she asked a doorman about hotels, pretending that she was looking for a place for her aunt and mother to stay. He gave her a list of four hotels, then added the Hôtel Ritz in Place Vendôme. He smirked as he did so. ‘
Vous devez être très riche pour y rester
,’ he said.
She was fairly certain he’d said you had to be very rich to stay there, so she immediately felt that had to be the right place for her.
Place Vendôme was a large square, which looked almost circular as the buildings were bevelled at the corners with just two entrances to the square, one on each side. Belle knew right away that it was a very special place as the beautiful symmetrical buildings were possibly two centuries older than the ones on the wide boulevards she’d seen while she was walking about, and only four storeys high rather than the six that appeared to be the norm in the city. In the centre of the paved square was a huge bronze pillar, and as she stood there looking up at it, wondering if it was Napoleon on the top, she overheard an English gentleman in a frock coat and top hat explaining to his wife that it had been made out of hundreds of cannons that Napoleon had captured in his battles. As she watched, the couple went into one of the many jewellers around the square. Anyone could see just by looking at the displays in the windows of these shops that they were not for ordinary people: sparkling diamond necklaces, rings with huge sapphires, emeralds and rubies so magnificent they almost took her breath away.
The Ritz did not shout its presence in the square, in fact she had to look quite hard to see the discreet gold signs above the doors. She remembered Mog telling her that the very best hotels in London were the ones that had quiet dignity. The Ritz certainly had that, and she hoped that because it was so grand and expensive few other girls would have the nerve to try their hand there. Whether this was a wise plan she didn’t know, but Martha had always said her girls should aim high.
By the time Belle got back to the Mirabeau to change she was tired as she’d walked miles following her map. She knew that soon she must learn to use the Métropolitain train – after all, people in London used the underground all the time and the one here couldn’t be that different. But she had only been on the underground once with her mother, and she’d found it very confusing.
Yet walking had been good as she’d seen the Arc du Triomphe and caught sight of the amazing Eiffel Tower, which she remembered being told at school was the tallest building in the world. She’d also wandered into places that were every bit as squalid and frightening as their counterparts in London. She told herself she would explore the whole city bit by bit and learn to love it. She would go into milliners’ shops and look at their hats to get ideas, and indeed study all aspects of French fashion. But before all that, she had to take the plunge and go back to the Ritz tonight.
Belle’s nerve almost left her when she got back to Place Vendôme at seven-thirty. She knew she looked good in her red costume with her hair pinned up, but the enormity of what she intended to do, and the possibility she might be forcibly thrown out of the Ritz, made her knees knock together.
She had thought the Place Vendôme intimidating enough by day, but seen by gaslight, with dozens of private carriages waiting, some of which even had coats of arms on the doors, and a sprinkling of gleaming motor cars, she felt out of her depth. Just the way the light from the twinkling crystal chandelier in the entrance hall of the hotel shone out through the glass on the shiny wood doors, or the huge flower arrangement she caught a glimpse of as she walked by, spoke of famous guests, possibly even royalty.
Belle took a deep breath, put her head up and walked purposefully towards the door. She was terrified, but she wasn’t going to back away now. Rich men always wanted women. She could do this.
‘
Bonsoir
,
mademoiselle
,’ the liveried doorman said with a smile as he opened the door for her.
She tried to act as if she frequented such places all the time, but before her was a long, wide corridor of white marble with the thickest, most sumptuous cobalt-blue carpet running down it she’d ever seen. There were marble statues, more huge displays of spectacular flowers, glittering chandeliers, and all the wood doors gleamed like looking-glasses. It made her think that this was how the Palace of Versailles must have looked back in the day of Louis XIV.
Fortunately there were dozens of people around, which made her feel a little less uneasy. Some were checking in at the desk, others just leaving or arriving for dinner. The women were all very elegantly dressed, dripping with jewels, and many sporting the kind of fur coats Belle guessed cost hundreds of pounds. She saw porters wheeling trolleys piled high with leather luggage, a poignant reminder of how she’d left her cardboard suitcase in Marseille. The richness of it dazzled her, and she felt profound envy for people who lived this way and knew no other. Yet looking at the women objectively, she saw that none were that beautiful, and some were even very plain.
Two men in early middle age were standing together talking. Out of the corner of her eye she saw them interrupt their conversation to look at her, and she turned slightly, keeping her head down, then lifted it and smiled mischievously at them before dropping her eyes again.
She knew that it would be impossible to solicit directly here in the foyer of the hotel, but that wasn’t her plan. She had been told that all hotel concierges had girls they could supply to residents for a large fee, and she believed the concierge here would be no different, except that he would be more discerning than those in less grand hotels.
Belle positioned herself by an ornate gilded demi-lune table and stood there looking around as if waiting to meet someone. She caught the eye of another man and smiled, then dropped her eyes. Even with her eyes cast down she could feel he was studying her, and she sensed that he liked what he saw.
She was taken back momentarily to Martha’s. She had always felt powerful when men came in and gave her that look which said they wanted her. She felt it again now and it stopped her being afraid. She felt good.
‘
Est-ce que je peux vous aider
?’
Belle was startled by the question. She hadn’t seen or heard the man approach her. He was around fifty, slim, with greying hair and a neatly trimmed moustache and goatee beard. His eyes were small and very dark and he wore a plain black suit. She couldn’t tell from his clothes if he worked for the hotel or not, but she sensed that he did.
‘I don’t speak French,’ she said, though she was fairly certain he’d asked if he could help her.
‘I speak English,’ he said, almost as if he was English himself. ‘I am Monsieur Pascal, the concierge. I asked if I could help you. Are you waiting for someone?’
‘Yes, maybe it’s you,’ she said flirtatiously, batting her eyelashes at him.
He almost smiled, but checked it. Belle guessed he had come over because he was suspicious of her, but he couldn’t be sure whether she was a whore looking for business, or someone genuinely waiting for a friend or family member. She thought it was good he couldn’t tell. From what she’d been told, the average concierge could always sniff whores out, so her clothes and demeanour must be pretty convincing.
‘Are you waiting for someone who is a guest here?’ he asked.
Belle knew she had to take a chance. It was a case of heads she would win, tails she would lose. He might have her ejected forcibly, but on the other hand he might see her as a little extra income.
‘I could be,’ she said, looking right into his eyes. ‘I think that might depend on you.’
She saw his Adam’s apple leap up and down. Gulping was usually a sign of uncertainty, and she guessed he was pausing while he considered what she’d said. She continued to look him in the eye, a confident half-smile on her lips.
‘I think we should continue this conversation somewhere less public,’ he said eventually, his voice dropping.
Belle felt like cheering. He wouldn’t take her anywhere if he wasn’t half-way interested in her. He’d just usher her to the door and tell her to leave or he’d call the gendarmes. ‘That’s fine with me,’ she said.
Some twenty minutes later Belle was walking back to her hotel. She thought Pascal would make a good poker player as he hadn’t revealed anything about himself, or even compromised his position at the hotel. He had taken her to a small room along the long corridor which looked as though it was used by guests for business meetings, furnished with a large table and eight chairs. He asked her to sit down, then sat down opposite her and asked point blank what it was that she wanted. She said she wished to be put in touch with gentlemen who wanted a partner for the evening when they were alone in Paris. He responded by asking her why she thought he or anyone else in this hotel would wish to get involved with such arrangements.
‘To make your guests happy,’ she said, trying to look as if she’d done this before.
He made no response to that, which puzzled Belle even more. He had no real reason to bring her to this room; he could have put these questions to her in the foyer where there were so many people milling around that they wouldn’t have been overheard. She hadn’t even vaguely alluded to sex, nor had she said anything about a fee for her services. If she had been more naive she might have thought he didn’t understand what she meant.
But experience told Belle he not only knew exactly what she was offering, but he also wanted her for himself. His dark eyes might have no expression, and his manner was starchy, but he had very fleshy lips, something she had often observed meant a passionate nature.
‘I believe a concierge can earn more than his regular weekly wage just by helping a guest out with something special,’ she said with a smile. ‘Isn’t that enough reason to get involved?’
‘So you think you are special?’ he sneered.
‘Of course, that’s why I came here, to the place where all the most special people stay.’
He looked at her without speaking for what seemed at least five minutes, though it was probably only seconds. When he finally spoke his tone was very curt. ‘Give me your address. If I have anything for you I will send a message to you.’
Belle had a moment of fear as she handed over a slip of paper with the address of the Mirabeau, realizing he could merely pass it on to the police and get her arrested. But her instinct said that was not his intention; he was interested in making some money but he just wasn’t prepared to admit it yet.
It was a cold night and she shivered as she walked home, wishing she’d worn her coat. But however cold she was, walking up Rue de la Paix towards Boulevard des Capucines, she was seeing the Paris she had always imagined, with its wide, tree-lined boulevards. She thought of all those women in the hotel foyer in their fur coats and glittering jewels and how much she’d like to live their kind of life, and she felt utterly certain that Monsieur Pascal was going to contact her and make it happen for her.
‘
Un message pour vous, mademoiselle
,’ a young boy’s voice trilled out.
It was three in the afternoon the following day, and very cold. Belle was lying under the eiderdown on her bed, reading an English novel she’d found on a shelf in the dining room. She was almost asleep, but at the boy’s call she was wide awake and leaping to her feet.
The dark-haired boy was Gabrielle’s thirteen-year-old son, Henri. Belle had seen him briefly at breakfast that morning.
‘
Merci
,’ she said, almost snatching the envelope out of his hand. But then, remembering her manners, she beckoned for him to wait and got her purse. She gave him a centime, and thanked him again.
The note was short but to the point. ‘Monsieur Garcia would like your company tonight at six-thirty for supper, followed by the theatre. Be at the hotel restaurant at six-fifteen pm and say you are meeting Monsieur Garcia. I shall come in to speak to you before he arrives.’ The note was signed Edouard Pascal.
Although Belle was full of trepidation on arriving at the Ritz, she needn’t have worried. She just smiled at the doorman and asked him to direct her to the restaurant, where she told the maître d’hôtel Monsieur Garcia had booked a table. Her coat was taken, she was shown to a corner table and offered a drink while she waited, and just a minute or two later Pascal came in. He greeted her for the benefit of the dining-room staff as if she were a relative he’d just dropped in to see for a minute or two. In a low voice he told her he’d already dealt with the fee with Garcia and he discreetly handed her an envelope which contained her share, a hundred francs.