Belle by Lesley Pearse

slipped out of the back door. No more snow had fallen in the last three days, but it was still too cold for the snow and ice to melt. It was no longer a beautiful sight; the snow on the roads and pavements was now black with filth, strewn with horse droppings and furrowed by wagon and cab wheels. Many of the shopkeepers had sprinkled sand and salt outside their establishments for safety, and that added to the ugliness.
    Belle picked her way carefully along Monmouth Street, lifting her skirts up a little away from the filth. It was just on nine in the morning, another grey, very cold day, and it seemed to her that the sun hadn’t shone for weeks.
    ‘Belle, wait on!’
    At the sound of Jimmy’s voice from behind, her heart quickened and she turned to see him racing recklessly along the street towards her, then going into a slide on an icy section of hard-packed snow.
    He was wearing a shabby blue jumper that looked a couple of sizes too small for him, and his grey trousers were a little too short. He had a checked muffler round his neck but no coat. Belle suspected he didn’t own one.
    ‘How are you?’ he panted out as he reached her. ‘It’s a terrible thing about the girl being murdered, everyone is talking about it. But someone said you’d been sent away. I would’ve been glad for you if it made you feel better, but I didn’t like that I might never see you again.’
    Belle’s eyes filled with tears involuntarily for he was the first person to sound concerned about her. Even Mog had avoided all reference to her ordeal, and she knew just how much Belle had seen.
    ‘Yes, it was terrible,’ she admitted. ‘I liked Millie and it’s all been such a huge shock.’
    ‘Don’t cry,’ he said, stepping closer to her and taking one of her gloved hands in his. ‘Wanna talk about it? Or shall I try and distract you?’
    His tawny eyes were full of concern for her yet he gave an impish grin which showed a dimple in his chin.
    ‘Distract me,’ she said.
    ‘Then let’s go down to the Embankment,’ he suggested. ‘The snow’s still pretty there in the gardens.’
    Holding her hand tightly, he made her run and slide with him down through Covent Garden, past porters carrying boxes of fruit on their heads and others wheeling trolleys laden with sacks of vegetables. He took her into the flower section of the market and the banks of brilliant colour along with the perfume immediately lifted her spirits.
    ‘Where do they get flowers in the middle of winter?’ she asked. He had picked up a pink rosebud from the floor and was sniffing it.
    ‘Hot countries maybe,’ he replied, coming closer to her and pushing the flower through the fastener of her cloak. ‘Or perhaps they grow them in hothouses. I dunno really. But I love to come here and see ’em an’ smell ’em. It makes me forget all the ugliness around me.’
    ‘At your uncle’s?’
    He nodded and looked thoughtful. ‘Yeah. The men who drink away the money they ought to take home for their wives and children. The ones who boast of hitting their wives to keep them in line. The thieves, pimps, liars and thugs. I’m beginning to think there isn’t an honest, good-hearted man in Seven Dials. I don’t even know that Uncle Garth is one.’
    ‘He can’t be all bad. He took you in and paid for your mother’s funeral,’ Belle reminded him. ‘My mother isn’t what you’d call a good woman either, but perhaps neither of them had any choice in it.’
    ‘You might be right. I suppose it is pretty hard to claw your way up to get a business of your own. Don’t suppose many people could do it and remain whiter than white,’ Jimmy said with resignation.
    As they walked across the Strand and then down to the Thames Embankment Jimmy told her how in the Ram’s Head they’d got news of the murder the same night it happened. ‘We didn’t know what girl it was then, but someone said they hoped it wasn’t Millie because she was a good girl. If I hadn’t met you I