As she followed Betsy down a flight of steps into their suite of rooms in the basement, she recalled that Nancy, George’s wife, didn’t want her dependent on him, but set up in an establishment of her own. She had insisted Magdalene would have a happier life that way. Thankfully Nancy was too ill to know that George had spent everyone’s capital. Being a maiden aunt did not hold much appeal, but it was still better than marrying someone who spent most nights out with other women, as George had until the money ran out. In her experience, that seemed the way of Society men. Marriages were only for the begetting of heirs, not for love. But she hadn’t found love or marriage, only insulting propositions from men even baser than George.
The cakie uniform was easy to put on, once Betsy helped her with removing her dress, and as she tightened it at the waist using the cord provided, she wondered if any girl with a romantic heart ever won in the marriage mart. Frankly, a girl without a dowry didn’t have much hope at all. A love match might be her only option, unlikely as that seemed.
“So, here I am.” Come down in the world.
“Yes, you are,” Betsy said with a bright smile. She opened a drawer and pulled out a pin, securing her curly hair. “Starting a new position is a bit frightening, I know, but it is very nice here. You’ll have two uniforms, so you’ll always be able to wash one out at home when it needs doing.”
“I won’t be changing here?”
“If you want to do that, you’ll have to wear a simpler frock. No lady’s maid here.” Betsy smiled brightly again, but Magdalene took the meaning. They were equals at best; she might even be inferior. She had much to become used to in this world.
“I have simpler clothing,” she assured Betsy. “Please be patient with me. I am new to employment.”
“But you’ve baked?”
Magdalene felt her cheek begin to itch, just under her eye, always a sign she was nervous. She clasped her hands together to avoid unladylike scratching. “I’ve become a good plain cook.”
“It’s a good thing we don’t need to do much baking at the moment, mostly decorating. But for now, I will handle the mixing and baking, though I will let you measure the ingredients. We shall mostly focus on decorating.”
“I am looking forward to that.”
Betsy walked over to a sheath of papers in cubbyholes at one end of a long counter. “These are our orders by day. We have room for a month of orders. Then we have a standard production schedule for inventory items.”
“But this department is all specialty items?”
“It is mostly wedding cakes, but we do have a rough idea, from experience, of what we’ll need. The marchioness started making wedding cakes as soon as Redcake’s opened. She taught me over the spring.”
“Now it is my turn.”
“This sheet here with blue ink shows us what to make today for the inventory. Everything with black ink is a specific order, mostly for decorating. I think this morning, we’ll make second best wedding cakes. They don’t soak in brandy so we can’t store them as long.” She showed Magdalene the blue ink sheet.
“Who makes up all the sheets?”
“My father is the bakery manager and he gives them to us. There is an order book upstairs. Sometimes orders come in through other means, but in the end the payment has to be made at the bakery and then the order makes it to us.”
Magdalene stared at the complicated order sheet, her stomach churning. “What should I do first?”
“Let’s assemble what we need on a tray, then we’ll take it to the mixing room. We don’t have one of our own. This room is mostly for decorating.” She took two trays labeled “Fancy” and handed them to Magdalene.
“We do keep our spice mix in here. Ladle a sixth of a cup out of that jar, would you?” She pointed to a large brown glass jar that had a paper “Wedding Cake Two” label glued to it.
Magdalene took a scoop and eyeballed the correct amount. Betsy nodded, then led her out of the room and down a long corridor.
“This is where we store ingredients. Eggs and butter are delivered fresh every day.” She pulled a key from her apron pocket, unlocked the door, and pushed it open.
Inside was a neat variety of casks, racks, bottles, and other containers.
“On your tray, now. One block of butter, and an egg.”
Magdalene complied while Betsy measured out sugar and flour. “Now for the fruit. For this we need currants, golden raisins, lemon and orange peel.”
Magdalene continued to assemble from Betsy’s list.
“Last, we’ll need rum, but that is kept under lock and key for obvious reasons. I’ll get you started, then ask Mr. Melville for the fourth of a cup we need.”
She followed Betsy out of the room, each holding a tray. Betsy deftly relocked the door while balancing. They went down a couple of corridors, then they entered a nightmare.
Or so it seemed. So many men, so much machinery. The noise of gears made a dark musical beat straight from Hell, and steam heated the room to an unpleasant level that made her feel instantly damp.
“Now, you’ve seen hand-cranked egg beaters, correct?” Betsy did not seem perturbed by the cacophony.
“In a store, I think.”
“Well, Lewis Noble did us better than that. He made us a motorized version. It saves so much time.” She waved at a man with a long apron like they wore and he pointed them to a cabinet. On top of it was a large beater, screwed into some kind of mechanical device.
“It looks dangerous.”
“You can make quite a mess,” Betsy said cheerfully.
Magdalene bit her lip. “How do you use it?”
Betsy set her tray on one of the scrubbed wooden tables nearby, then took a sturdy bowl and knife from a stack inside the mixer cabinet. “Let’s cream the butter and sugar.”
Magdalene poured in her measure of sugar and added the block of butter.
“Cut the butter into chunks. It lessens the risk of disaster.”
While she did that, Betsy pulled a lever on the side of the machine from “off” to “warm.” A motor began to whirr behind the beaters. Then, she opened the cabinet and pulled out a flat wooden spoon.
A man, about her age, with a round, cheerful countenance and flour in his hair walked by, then stopped with a big grin that exposed his buckteeth when he saw Betsy bending into the cabinet. He lifted a finger to his mouth when he saw Magdalene.
She wasn’t sure if she should obey, but Betsy seemed the type to like a bit of fun. While she went back to cutting, the man leaned over the mixer and shouted, “Ti Hi Tiddelly Hi!”
Betsy’s body jerked and she heard the girl’s head hit the top of the cabinet. She came out rubbing it with one hand, and a pair of egg beaters in the other. She brandished them at the man.
“Tom Mumford, you had better not walk down any dark halls when I’m about. I’ll get you!”
He burst out laughing and gave her a bow. “Ti Hi Tiddelly Hi!”
“Off with you and your dance hall rubbish!”
He pretended to doff his hat, then made a comical face when he found the flour in his hair and rubbed it off, creating a little whirly fog in the air. Then, he capered off.
“Thinks he’s a comedian, he does,” Betsy said.
“Did you hurt your head?” she asked, anxious.
“No, I’m made of sturdier stuff than that.”
“Is he a beau of yours?”
Betsy sniffed. “He’d like to be, that one, but I like a man with more businesslike prospects.”
“I have the butter cut.”
She glanced into the bowl. “You don’t have to do it that fine next time. Now bring the bowl over and hold it under the beaters.” After she showed Magdalene the correct placement, she pulled the lever up to “mix.”
The engine sounds grew louder, but to Magdalene’s amazement, the egg beaters began to churn in the bowl. She struggled to hold the bowl in place as the beaters churned. Betsy watched intently and used the wooden spoon to scrape down the sides of the bo
wl as needed. When she was satisfied, she reached for their egg and cracked it in one-handed. Slowly, she added in the rest of the ingredients while Magdalene held on to the bowl.
“I’m going to turn it off now. Take the bowl back to the Fancy while I get the rum.”
“What about the beaters?”
A middle-aged man stepped forward. He had an odd cast to his face, as if his features moved more slowly than most people’s.
“This is Benny. He’ll take care of tidying. That is his job. Right, Benny?”
The man smiled, revealing a mouth full of broken teeth.
“This is Magdalene. She’s new here.”
The man made a garbled noise.
Magdalene smiled at him. “Thank you, Benny. I’ll go back to our room now.”
Betsy glanced at the bowl. “The mixing went well enough. When you get back, pull three times the measure of the spice mix and we’ll start again.”
She nodded and slowly stepped through the maze of corridors until she found the Fancy. The tray went on one of their wooden tables. She measured out the spice mix and put it on a new tray, then looked around while she waited for Betsy to appear.
In an alcove she discovered they had their own gas oven. A pocket door currently in the wall would close the alcove off. She expected that was to keep the heat away from the area where they iced the cakes.
When she opened cupboards, she found an amazing assortment of decorative supplies as well as the products they needed for icing. Soon this would become as familiar as the kitchen in George’s home, but at this moment the materials intimidated her. She wondered if Captain Shield would make an appearance. After all, he had hired her.
Betsy came in with a half-filled bottle of rum and measured some into the prepared batter. “I’ll finish up here. You practice getting out ingredients and mixing them. One step at a time, I think. And I need this batter in the oven. Irene came down to get something from her coat and said a lot of orders are coming in.”
“When I triple everything, do I mix it all in one bowl?”
“Yes. That’s the maximum you want to do at once. Here is my key. We’ll have one made for you.” Betsy took the correct key off her ring and handed it to her.
Magdalene thanked her and threaded her way back to the ingredients, holding her tray. She wondered how long it would take to build up her muscles. Somehow she had only thought of the artistic aspect of this job, yet that hadn’t even been discussed. At least the money would pay for Nancy’s beloved Mrs. Gortimer to visit every day. She hated to admit to the pleasure of being away from the sickroom.
In the ingredients room she gathered everything she needed, pounds of raw stuff that was hard to manage. No one saw when she had to put her tray on the floor to lock the door, but she nearly lost everything when Tom barreled by, and whistled almost directly into her ear.
He righted her, laughing. “I do apologize, miss.”
“Cross,” she said.
“Here, I’ll carry that for you. You’re a bit delicate?”
She stiffened. “Not at all, just new.”
“You’ll be tough soon enough, or you won’t last,” Tom said. “They insist on hiring ladies here, but baking is heavy work and no mistake.”
“I was meant to do the decorating,” she ventured.
“Ah. Maybe when you’ve learned the basics.” He broke into a whistle.
“I expect so.” She sighed, pointing him to the table in front of their mixer. Benny had taken away the dirty beaters as promised, so she opened the cabinet and pulled out a couple of bowls, a knife and a spoon, as well as new beaters. The mixer was still set to “warm” and she wished she had another set of hands to set the lever and scrape down the bowl but she managed well enough.
When the butter and eggs looked well creamed, even she had to admit the machine did its job very quickly. She had brought double what she needed, afraid she’d make a mistake, so she found another bowl and made a second batch. Betsy would be pleased to have twice as much since they had so many orders coming. She set her bowl of chopped butter and sugar under the beaters and used her elbow to set the machine to “mix.”
This machine didn’t drum too loudly, unlike others she could hear farther down the cavernous room. In fact, she picked up the beat and began to hum an old Arthur Lloyd tune as her gaze wandered.
One of the bakers caught her eye. He waggled his ears at her. She turned away, horrified, and saw her batter needed scraping down. Feeling quite competent, she balanced the bowl against her chest and managed the entire process without having to turn the mixer off. She started her tune again, tapping her foot against the floor.
When the creaming was done, she worked her way through the first batter, then the second, her arms starting to ache. Benny waddled by, glancing at her curiously. He probably did not appreciate her not very musical humming. If only she could remember the actual words to the song, but they’d lost the sheet music when they moved three years ago. The piano had been sold soon after.
Unexpectedly, her tune went funny. She tried to pick up the rhythm again as she rebalanced and pulled the wooden spoon from her pocket. Her song no longer fit. When she put the spoon into the bowl, she noticed the beaters had slowed down. She smelled burning, then a loud popping noise sounded and the machine jerked.
She glanced from side to side, wondering if she should run away. No one was watching. She pulled the bowl away, sidling back to the table, then, gathering her bravado when nothing else happened, went back to it, put her hand to the lever and shoved it all the way to “off.” Sparks burst from between two panels.
She cried out and backed away as a lick of flame poked its way out of the top of the machine. The rude baker ran at her. She froze, terrified, but he went right past her and kicked open the back of the machine. The flame doused and smoke rose into the air. They both coughed.
“Good heavens, woman!” shouted a man in a checkered waistcoat, dashing down the room. “Who are you and what have you done?”
“I’m Miss Cross, new to the Fancy.”
“Who is your supervisor?” he roared.
“Miss Popham?” she ventured.
He pointed a finger. “Go. Now.”
She swallowed hard, doing her best to hold back tears, and grabbed her bowls, ignoring the trays and containers. At least she could rescue the cake batter. She crept away, sniffing, and expecting to be fired.
“We’ll have to call in Lewis Noble,” said the man who’d ordered her away. “Go tell Mr. Hales.”
“Yes, sir,” said the rude baker, rushing past her as she made her slow way down the hall with the heavy batter.
When she reached the Fancy, she had to set down the bowls to open the door. Betsy stared at her in the doorway.
“Your arms are shaking! Why do you have so much batter?”
“I thought I would help by doing double,” she said, holding back a fresh wave of tears with great difficulty. “But I broke the machine. I saw fire! Oh, they are so angry.”
Betsy’s eyes rounded. “You can’t overtax the mixers. They are fragile beasts. When we are working in volume we use multiple machines. But, fire?”
“I panicked when it started acting funny. So I turned the lever from ‘mix’ to ‘off.’ ”
“Not ‘warm’ first? You have to take it down by degrees.”
She sniffed again. “I didn’t know, I’m sorry. I suppose I’ll be sacked now.”
Betsy patted her on the shoulder. “You were just trying to help. But you’re like a baby. You don’t know anything about how to do things around here, so don’t assume.”
She wiped her eyes and nodded. From now on she would follow instructions. Betsy sighed and measured rum into the bowls. For the rest of the morning, she showed Magdalene how to sand trays and lay down paper, then put cake rings on the paper and ladle in the batter. She learned how to operate the gas oven.
At one, Betsy sent her home, saying the cakes needed to cool before she could learn to decorate them. “S
ince no one has come to sack you, be here at eight—the back entrance, mind.”
“I will not make the same mistake twice,” Magdalene promised. She took off her apron and tied it around her dress, too tired to even consider taking off the cakie uniform. She wouldn’t dare ask Betsy to help her change.
Slowly, she hobbled her way up the stairs to the employee door, hoping she wouldn’t see Captain Shield in her bedraggled state. Her wish was granted and she made her slow way home through a light September drizzle, feeling both exalted and shamed by her first day as a working woman.
Judah heard laughter as he entered Redcake’s basement late the next morning. Female laughter at that, not at all what he would expect in the male-dominated bakery. He had come to hand Lewis Noble his shillings, feeling honor-bound to provide immediate payment in the hopes of keeping relations cordial with the inventor. Apparently, making Noble happy wasn’t a matter of prompt payment though; a pretty girl would do just as well.
The back of one of the mixers hung open, but Noble’s wrench was slack in his hand as he chatted to a slim blonde in a cakie uniform.
“No, I haven’t seen the paper this morning, but I can’t believe His Royal Highness would do that,” she said.
“This country can do better than its degraded nobility,” Lewis said.
Odd talk for a flirtation. No wonder Alys had rejected him in favor of Hatbrook.
“There are many wonderful people with titles,” said the cakie. “Why, this bakery is owned by one of them.”
“My point exactly. Alys is only an aristocrat by marriage.”
“I have numerous title-holders in my family tree,” she said. “They aren’t all bad people by any means.”
“Miss Cross!” Judah interjected, startled as he realized who the blonde was. “Is this how you learn to decorate cakes?”
She turned in a flash, her cheeks reddening as she lost her flirtatious smile. And here he’d thought she found him of interest, but he and Lewis Noble were so different as to be separate species entirely.
“I broke the machine, Captain Shield. Betsy said I should learn from Mr. Noble what I did wrong.”
One Taste of Scandal Page 6