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you are all right,’ she said. ‘I expect the young lady will be fine, I’ll take care of her.’
    The big man was just putting the woman down on a chair as Belle got to the shop. She thanked him before he left, and then turned to the injured woman. ‘I’m Belle Reilly,’ she said. ‘Can you tell me your name?’
    ‘Miranda Forbes-Alton,’ she said, lolling back in the chair. She was very pale and the graze on her forehead had a lot of grit in it.
    For some reason the name Forbes-Alton rang a bell, but Belle couldn’t think why that was. ‘Right, Miss Forbes-Alton,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m going to shut the shop door and bathe your forehead.’
    Instinct told her that as the woman was badly shocked it might make her sick, and she wouldn’t want an audience to it. So as she shut the door, she pulled down the blind.
    First she got the woman a drink of water, and waited for a moment to check she wasn’t going to be sick, before fetching a bowl of water and a clean cloth to bathe her forehead.
    ‘I was terribly hot coming up the hill,’ Miss Forbes-Alton said as Belle began to clean her wound gently. ‘I was thinking I must get some water, but I don’t remember anything after that. Why was I in the road?’
    ‘I think you fainted,’ Belle said. ‘Have you ever done that before?’
    ‘Not since I was at school,’ she said, wincing as Belle got out a piece of grit. ‘I did it several times when we had to go to communion before we had breakfast. Did that carriage hit me?’
    ‘I don’t think so,’ Belle said. ‘Do your arms or legs hurt?’
    Miss Forbes-Alton ran one hand down her legs through her dress. ‘No, it’s just my head.’
    ‘You were lucky the driver managed to stop in time. He said you walked out and dropped down right in front of him. If those horses had hit you it might have been very serious.’
    Once the wound was clean, Belle went into the back room and put the kettle on to make some tea. As she waited for it to boil she looked round the door and studied the woman a little more closely. Although she was stunned and shaky, it was obvious from her voice, demeanour and clothes that she came from the upper classes. Her dainty cream shoes alone would have cost more than the most expensive hat in Belle’s shop, and her blue dress was real silk.
    ‘I have always admired your shop,’ Miss Forbes-Alton called out, surprising Belle as her voice had become much stronger. She had that clipped manner of speaking that so many of her class used. ‘Someone told my mother that you were French, but you aren’t, are you?’
    ‘No, I just learned millinery in Paris,’ Belle called back. ‘Do you live nearby?’
    ‘Yes, in the Paragon,’ she said. ‘Mama bought a hat from you when you first opened. It’s her favourite, purple velvet with sprigs of violets around the brim.’
    Belle suddenly knew why Forbes-Alton sounded familiar. It was the name of a very snooty woman who had demanded that the hat she’d bought should be sent to her home. It was only because it was Belle’s first day that she’d agreed to it, and when she’d gone round there at the end of the day, the butler had taken the hat from her without so much as a word of thanks for her trouble.
    The house had been a very grand one, but then the whole of the Paragon, a Georgian terrace of three-storey houses linked by colonnades, was grand. It was probably the best address in Blackheath.
    ‘I remember your mother,’ Belle said. ‘I delivered her hat to your home in the Paragon. She’ll be worried about you, miss. Should I telephone so someone can come and take you home?’
    Belle had only had the telephone put on in the shop a few weeks before. She’d been told by the owner of the gown shop just a few doors down that she really should have one as rich women liked to arrange a time to come and shop for gowns and hats when they could be the only customer. Until then Belle had thought a telephone a fad that would never catch on