Becoming Belle

  ALSO BY NUALA O’CONNOR

  Miss Emily

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2018 by Nuala Ní Chonchúir

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: O’Connor, Nuala, author.

  Title: Becoming Belle / Nuala O’Connor.

  Description: New York : G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2018.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017033071 | ISBN 9780735214408 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780735214422 (epub)

  Classification: LCC PR6114.I23 B43 2018 | DDC 823/.92—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017033071

  p. cm.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Karen, my best reader, and for Belle, who lived her best life

  CONTENTS

  Also by Nuala O’Connor

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue 1887 | AldershotA Promise

  A Card

  A Handout

  Spring and Summer 1887 | LondonAn Audition

  An Appeal

  A Baron

  An Arrival

  A Performance

  A Coupling

  A Discovery

  1888 | LondonA Turn

  A Birthing

  A Baby

  A Foray

  A Bargain

  1889 | LondonAn Encounter

  A Name Change

  A Kiss

  An Absence

  An Excursion

  A Conversation

  A Note

  A Reflection

  A Heart-to-Heart

  A Baby Show

  A Proposal

  A Realization

  A Consolidation

  A Ceremony

  A Union

  An Interview

  A Meeting

  A Turbulence

  A Disappearance

  An Apparition

  A Domicile

  Fall and Winter 1889 and Spring 1890 | LondonAn Outpouring

  An Exhibition

  A Counsel

  A Writ

  A Den

  A Reunion

  A Report

  A Severance

  A Rejection

  A Delay

  Summer 1890 | LondonAn Encounter

  A Case

  A Tip

  A Witness

  A Pause

  An Examination

  A Summing-up

  A Reconciliation

  Summer 1891 | London and GalwayA Death

  A Beginning

  A Home

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Heart, are you great enough

  For a love that never tires?

  O heart, are you great enough for love?

  ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON, from “Marriage Morning”

  She determined at any rate to get free from the prison in which she found herself, and now began to act for herself, and for the first time to make connected plans for the future.

  WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, Vanity Fair

  PROLOGUE 1887

  Aldershot

  A PROMISE

  Isabel Maude Penrice Bilton.

  Isabel Bilton.

  Issy Bilton.

  Belle Bilton.

  All she could think to write was her name. She dipped her pen into the ink bowl and wrote again:

  Miss Isabel Maude Penrice Bilton.

  Father had taken away the pencil she had clung to and bid her practice her penmanship with ink. “A woman needs varied skills to march through this world,” he’d said. “Pert figures and pretty tunes only carry ladies so far. Accomplishments, my dear Isabel. Gather a diversity of accomplishments.”

  “Yes, Father,” she had replied, and wondered if her skills on the stage would be enough to see her adequately through the parade of life. Might they get her to London as she so desired? Lovely, wretched, teeming London, so distinct and exciting, and as far as the moon from Hampshire and her garrison home, it seemed.

  Isabel laid down her pen and took her card case from her pocket; it held a single calling card—a grimy rectangle—which she took out and studied. The name upon it might determine her future. She slotted the card back into the case and snapped shut the lid. Retrieving her pen, she wrote on her page:

  London. Isabel shall go to London. Isabel shall dance in London.

  In the yard beyond their quarters the bugle sounded the mess call and Isabel put away her paper and pen; it was time to serve dinner. Mother and Father would dine with the regiment this evening, which meant Isabel and her two sisters would sup alone; this was a relief. Two fewer mouths to feed and no Mother to find fault with everything from the tenderness of the meat to the thickness of the potato slices.

  Isabel went to the kitchen, plucked her apron from the back of the door and fastened it over her gown. She had already made their meal—a Lancashire hot pot—and it simmered now in the oven, its meaty scent filling the room.

  “Flo! Violet!” she called. “I need you both. Come this instant.”

  Instead of her sisters, Mother appeared in the doorway, shifty as a spirit; she had a habit of gliding into view when one of her girls was doing things of which she would disapprove.

  “Why must you shout, Isabel, like some Portsmouth fishwife?”

  “I’m sorry, Mother.” Isabel lingered by the oven, hoping her mother would leave and let her get on with dishing up the meal.

  Kate Maude Penrice Bilton looked majestic in a square-collared gown with sparkling studs on the bodice; her hair was a coil of braids that looped upward like a nest of snakes. Mrs. Bilton had an austere beauty that was much admired among the soldiers at Aldershot Garrison. It had been noted, too, that Isabel, at twenty, now surpassed the comeliness of the wife of John Bilton, artillery sergeant. Isabel’s beauty was a rare kind: though full of face, she had a miniature frame so she looked at once sturdy and graceful. Her lips were generous and she had lavish nut-gold hair, though her large eyes sometimes took on a liquid air that spoke of melancholy.

  Flo and Violet came into the kitchen and, seeing their mother had come before them to inspect the hot pot, they set the table withou
t prompting from either mother or sister. Flo laid three places and Violet, the youngest, trailed her and planted the cutlery discreetly by each plate—any clanking might provoke their mother’s ire.

  “You look very fine tonight, Mother,” Flo said, and she unfurled a piece of lace on the sleeve of her mother’s gown that had curved in on itself like a fern.

  Kate Bilton sucked air through her nose. “I thank you, Florence.” She patted her hair. “See that you girls ignore any callers,” she said.

  The sisters never admitted anyone to their quarters on the evenings their parents dined with the regiment, but Mother repeated this warning always, as if she feared she would one night return to find her daughters languishing in the laps of a trio of brigadiers, seduced, compromised and ruined. Kate Bilton knew what men were. And she knew that Isabel, though eldest, was the least sensible of her girls and, worryingly, the most handsome. Their father kept the soldiers at bay, but Isabel had a fanciful nature and her tender heart, combined with her lust for experience, might bring her to grief all too soon. How long would she and John be able to keep the rough culture of Aldershot from tainting their daughters?

  Mrs. Bilton watched Isabel lift the dish from the oven and set it on top of the stove; her movements were swift and graceful, dancing had made her lithe and she carried herself elegantly. Kate Bilton felt a rare maternal gush; Isabel truly was the most fetching of girls, she had inherited the Penrice good looks. She went and stood beside her daughter, took up a knife and poked at the browning potato slices atop the hot pot; she sniffed approvingly.

  “I rather wish, Isabel, that your father and I were supping at home tonight.”

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  Compliment given, Mrs. Bilton pulled on her shawl, rushed from the kitchen to the hall, secured her arm into her waiting husband’s and left.

  Flo and Violet sat. Isabel placed the hot pot onto a trivet on the table and began to serve her sisters. Only when they were fully sure that their parents were safe at the sergeants’ mess, did they uncrimp and begin to enjoy their meal.

  Violet spoke through a wad of lamb. “I rather think I shall have servants when I’m a married lady.”

  Isabel and Flo laughed.

  “I rather hope you can afford them,” Flo said.

  Violet forked a potato slice into her mouth and looked aggrieved.

  “Do not speak until you have swallowed, Violet,” her eldest sister warned.

  The girl chewed rapidly. “I shall marry a very rich man,” she said, “and I will have oodles of servants. Shan’t I, Issy?”

  Isabel smiled. At fourteen Violet occupied the bottom step of their sisterly stairs and they coddled her always, tried to keep her young. “You shall certainly marry a wealthy man, Violet. And he will supply oodles, heaps and masses of maids of all work, butlers and footmen. No doubt.”

  “You see, Flo. Isabel says it, so it must be true.”

  Flo snorted. “If any one of us Biltons snares a rich man, Vi, it will be our darling Issy. Mark me.” She pointed her fork from sister to sister for emphasis.

  “Why do you say that?” Violet pouted. “Why not me?”

  “Oh, perhaps you’ll find a wealthy suitor, too, but Isabel longs for love.” Flo grinned. “And she will make very sure that her love is given only to a man suitably well supplied”—she patted her gown—“in the pockets.”

  “That’s enough now,” Isabel said. “Eat your dinner. Mother’s left Eve’s pudding for us.”

  “How delicious,” Violet said, and galloped the rest of her hot pot into her mouth.

  Isabel rose, took her own plate and scraped the leavings into the bucket. She thought about what Flo had said and wondered how her sister knew so much about everything when she—Isabel—seemed to know so little. She made cocoa for her sisters, pouring directly from the saucepan into three cups, as they did not own a chocolate pot. When she lived in London, Isabel decided, she would have so much money that she would own a gilded chocolate pot, blooming with red roses, and a coffeepot besides. And she would have three teapots, too, if the fancy took her.

  The girls spooned the tart-sweet apples and buttery sponge into their mouths and supped their hot cocoa. They sat and talked until the bugler sounded the triumphant notes of last post. Mother would soon return; Father would follow once he had checked all his men had returned to their barracks. The three sisters moved swiftly to have the kitchen clean for Mother’s inspection and they retired to their bedroom before she came in, eager to give the impression they had not lingered over their pudding. Mother said only slatterns idled away their evenings in small talk and chatter.

  Kate Bilton entered her home and sighed. She longed for the day when confined military quarters would be a memory and she would have a house of her own. She slipped off her shawl and hung it in the wardrobe in her room. The kitchen was in good order when she looked it over. Her girls were not bad girls, though they tried her; motherhood was a vexatious calling, something she had not realized before marrying. Children were there to consume and drain one, it seemed. Her girls certainly confounded her at least once a day and Mrs. Bilton discerned a certain skittishness in Isabel that the girl hid well; the other two were less inflexible, more obedient. She opened the door to her daughters’ room and all three were abed, Flo and Violet reading books by candlelight, Isabel tucked in but awake.

  “Did you have a pleasant evening, Mother?” Flo asked.

  “To be sure,” Mrs. Bilton answered. “As much as one can when surrounded by men who talk of nothing but artillery and horses. Sleep now, girls.”

  “Yes, Mother,” they chorused and the three moved as one to lift their snuffers and extinguish the candles.

  Isabel lay back and felt grateful that tonight Mother was benign. Too often she forced Isabel from her bed to rescrub a pot or empty the swill can. She thought again of what Flo had said; Isabel did mean to marry for love, that was true. But wouldn’t it be a lark if the one she loved had money, too? She would never meet any men in Aldershot, that was certain; her parents were too vigilant. She must get to London. Isabel listened to the sleep sounds of Flo and Violet—soft breathing, the odd rustle of moving limbs.

  “A promise to myself,” she whispered, “I shall go to London. I shall live in London.” She put her hand under her pillow to feel the cool, pearlized shell of her card case with its lone, worn calling card. “London,” Isabel said, and pushed her head into the pillow to bring on sleep.

  A CARD

  Isabel’s first taste of the stage had been as a stand-in for her mother. She was fourteen and she knew Mother’s small act in the variety show from start to finish, for the kitchen in their barracks home was her rehearsal room. It was not Mother’s idea to let Isabel perform—she was too ill to make such a decision—but Father insisted that Isabel take the role rather than disappoint the soldiers and locals who relished these performances.

  “Isabel, you must take your mother’s part tonight,” her father said. “You simply must.”

  “If Mother wouldn’t mind, Father, I should be delighted to,” the young Isabel had said, worried that her mother would mind very much indeed.

  “I shan’t tell Mother yet, my dear; her strength is not good. But you must do it—it’s the only thing, the right thing.”

  “If you think so, Father.”

  Isabel glowed inside; here was her chance to get onstage at last. She, Flo and Violet spent hours rehashing Mother’s routines to the daisies and cows at the edge of Aldershot’s North Camp and Isabel always took the lead. It was a little victory to get to perform in front of an audience at Farnborough town hall. What joy!

  But first Isabel had to soak Mother’s stained sheets in kerosene before she would scrub, boil and hang them out to dry.

  “Another baby lost,” Flo said, shoving the sheets into the dolly tub for her sister to deal with before attending to her own household duties.


  A baby lost? How? Isabel wondered. Was Mother to have a baby? She had not said so. She did not quiz her sister, for she was not sure she wanted the answer. All she knew was that Mother would not rise from her bed for a week or more. It had happened before. Mother would moan, weep and sigh there, and eat little of the food brought to her, though Isabel planned to buy currant-studded Welsh cakes from Clement’s to tempt her and make light soups that were easy to digest. When she was well, Mrs. Bilton was not an easy person; when she was ill she was intractable.

  Father sat by Mother in their bedroom, held her sobbing frame and murmured, “There, there, Kate. It will come right in the end, my love, you’ll see.”

  “It will never come right, John. I have failed you. Again.”

  “I am happy with my houseful of girls, you know that, my love.”

  Mother wailed and thrashed in his arms before slipping into a dull reverie where she neither talked nor moved; Father stayed with her, for he did not like to leave her alone. He sat on, cradling his wife, even when sleep overtook her.

  Isabel had witnessed this scene before and, though the three girls knew not to crowd or harry their mother when she was unwell, Isabel hung by the bedroom door. Mother’s costume was within and, in order to perform at Farnborough, she needed to get it. She waved to Father and he laid his wife back against the pillow, like a baby, and came to Isabel.

  “What is it, Issy?” he whispered. “Mother needs me.”

  “I know, Father, but I need the costume and it’s in the wardrobe.”

  “Ah.” Father glanced to where Mother lay with closed eyes. The door scraped as he opened the wardrobe and Kate Bilton was roused. She propped herself up.

  “John, what is it? What are you doing?”

  “I, ah, that is to say, Isabel . . .” He glanced to his daughter. “Well, the fact is, my love, Isabel is going to take your place onstage at Farnborough tonight.”

  Mother flopped back against the pillow, her raw eyes staring at the ceiling. “So this is what it comes to, John. You mean to let her eclipse me.”