Frankie Pearson stood outside his new bakery on the Headrow and looked up with pride at the lettering up on the board above the window. PEARSON’S PATISSERIES. Now that was posh and swanky, and so it should be, because this was not going to be just any ordinary baker’s, he thought as he smiled to himself. His years in Paris with his father and mother both working as artists had given him a love of top-class patisserie and he was about to introduce the good people of Leeds to a finer side of life.
Choux pastry, light, and fluffy sponges, and delightful meringues would soon be displayed in the window and his two hand-chosen pretty girls, along with the older stickler, Brenda Jones, who would keep them both in line, would serve the masses of customers that he envisaged entering through his doors. He meanwhile would make creations that ordinary folk could only dream of, his early years working as a pastry chef in one of the leading hotels upon the Champs-Élysées teaching him all the tricks of the trade.
Six months earlier he had left Paris, a disillusioned chef deciding to make his own way in the world and to set up in business in the town of his mother’s birth. He’d been fortunate enough to be left a substantial legacy by his father with which he’d bought the dilapidated property on the Headrow. Now he stood with a huge smile upon his face on the day before opening the doors of his business to the first customer. It had cost him dear but every penny was worth it. He could bake and cook what he wanted and just to see his own name over the door was worth every moment that he had washed dishes, scraped leftovers into bins, and been screamed and shouted at while learning his trade.
He walked inside to his bakery and shop and looked around him. The clear glass shelves of the counter were waiting to be filled with the delicacies that were about to be made in the bakery and the mirrors behind the shelves reflected brightness and light into the bakery’s shop. On the top of the counter already, there were bakery-made brandy snaps and packets of tightly sealed almond-flavoured biscuits, dipped in chocolate. On the shelves behind where the customers would stand were boxes of chocolates from Terry’s of York, decorated with bows and kittens upon them, and tins of toffees and eclairs for the person who was looking for a gift for a loved one. At the side were three wooden sealed boxes from Carr’s of Carlisle holding scrumptious biscuits to be sold and weighed out at the shopper’s request.
The shop already looked wonderful, he thought, as he walked past the stairs which in time he hoped would lead to two floors of café space if his bakery and shop proved to be a success. He stopped and smiled again as he looked at the heart of his empire, his bakery. The two newly built gas ovens had already been tested and found to be more than adequate. He could control the temperature at a turn of a dial and there was enough room in both ovens to bake three or four products at once.
The surfaces to work on were spotless and smooth, one being marble to keep chocolate cool upon as he or his second in command moulded and poured it into shape. The walls were covered with shelves holding any ingredient that could be found in the finest of bakeries, along with mixing bowls, whisks, jugs and weighing scales. His bakery wanted for nothing, he thought, as he leaned against the doorway and felt a deep feeling of satisfaction. Now, he’d just to bake and prove his worth to the folk of Leeds – the upper end, he hoped, the ones with money. After all, there were plenty of backstreet bakers who supplied the basics but this one was going to be for the connoisseur. This would be the one to be seen shopping in. Well-dressed ladies and distinguished gentlemen buying that sweet treat for their wives or mistresses – that’s who he envisaged as he sighed and pulled and locked the door behind him.
It was time to make the final preparations before the big opening.
The next morning, Brenda Jones was casting an eye up and down the two girls who served behind the counter and scowled. ‘Now, Marie and Norah, remember the customer is always right. Remember your manners, keep a smile on your face and for heaven’s sake, Norah, put your cap straight on your head. Smart is what this shop is and don’t you forget it. Now, I hope that you have learned the pronunciations. It’s not a “stick of bread”, Norah, it is a “baguette” and it is not “Slippers a la cream”, it is “Slippers a la Crème” when it comes to the pastry fancy on the first shelf. I expect you girls to improve your French accents with every day’s work in this shop. Mr Pearson wants this shop to succeed and it is up to us to make sure it does. Now are we ready, girls?’
‘Yes, Mrs Jones,’ both girls said together as Frankie came out, carrying out his latest concoction of a tray of vanilla slices to be placed under the counter before the first customers came into the shop.
‘Are you ready, girls? My, you look so beautiful, just like my delicacies, how can people resist?’ Frankie said, and grinned as he saw Mrs Jones grimace at his flirting with his girls. ‘You too, Mrs Jones, very professional, just what the shop needs for it to be kept in order.
‘Well, that’s my last batch for this morning – let the doors be open. Mrs Jones, you do the honour: open our doors wide and let the customers come streaming in,’ Frankie said as he placed the last vanilla slice onto its shelf and looked at the laden shelves of baking that he’d been making since before early light. Slippers a la Crème, St Honoré Cake, Florentines, cheesecakes, gateaux and meringues were waiting to be sold, along with the fresh crusty baguettes which Norah kept calling sticks of bread to the displeasure of Mrs Jones.
‘Here goes, Mr Pearson, we all wish you well.’ Mrs Jones said as she unbolted the door and stood back as the first customer entered the shop. She nodded at the girls to see to their needs.
‘Can we help you?’ Norah said politely to the elderly woman who was looking at the things under the counter and shaking her head.
‘Have you got an ordinary loaf of bread? Them sticks wouldn’t feed my Arthur, he’d say they were all crust,’ she replied.
‘I’m afraid it is all we have baked today, but it is extremely fresh and tastes wonderful,’ Norah said and smiled.
‘Nay, I’ll not bother taking one of them. And your cakes look all sickly and rich – have you nothing plain? These are all too sweet,’ the old woman complained then saw the sultana biscuits made by Carr’s in the boxes by her side. She decided she’d better buy something from out of the newly opened bakery. ‘Give me a few of them. Not so many, though – by the looks of the price they must be made with pure gold!’ She opened her purse and found the correct money for her treat and put them into her basket.
‘Well, I hope that they aren’t all like that,’ Marie said once the woman had left. ‘You did well not to get rattled, Norah.’
‘We learn from everyone who comes in,’ Frankie said, trying to look cheerful. ‘There will be a few like that until folk understand what we sell. The right sort of person will soon be giving us trade, don’t worry, my girls.’
He could have done without someone like that for his first customer but he was sure the rest of the customers would be more grateful for the new delights within his shop. Or so he hoped.
Jenny Pratt, with all her aches and pains and an ailment for every member of her family, had become a regular since Meg had been in charge of the bakery. She spent quite a few minutes discussing the news from the streets and giving Meg the latest gossip, in between moaning about her ailments.
‘That new bakery on the Headrow has opened up,’ she prattled on. ‘It looked right posh when I walked past it, so I thought that I’d have a nosy. It’s not like here, Meg. The lasses that were serving on looked down their noses at me and I didn’t know half the things that they were selling, it all looked foreign to me. I’ll not be going back anyway, and don’t worry I bought nowt because there was nowt I could afford in the shop.’
Jenny folded her arms and waited until she got her loaf of bread handed over to her. ‘He’s not going to be a threat to you anyway, it’s far too posh. Working folk will not be giving him any trade whether his family is originally from Leeds or not.’
Meg didn’t know whether to take the fact that his shop was not going to be a threat to her as a compliment or not.
‘So, his family is from Leeds, are they?’ she asked with interest.
‘So I heard. His grandmother used to live out near Kirkstall near the iron forge and from what I understand, his mother ran away with an artist to Paris, of all the places, after leaving his father. That’s why his baking is all foreign rubbish and that’s why he’s here living in his father’s old house in Headingley. His father died two years ago and from what I’ve heard she left him a fortune.’ Jenny folded her arms even tighter under her bust and breathed in. ‘It always comes to those who don’t need it. It’ll never come to the likes of me and you, lass.’
‘You hear a lot, Jenny, I don’t know where you get all your news from. And unfortunately, you are right. I’ve nobody about to leave me a small fortune, else I wouldn’t mind buying this place of Ted Lund.’
Jenny tucked her bread under her arm. ‘If he’s any sense he’d rent it to you,’ she said. ‘He’d make as much money with the rent as he did with his baking and wouldn’t have the work. Let’s face it, he’s not keen on working. I’ve never known this bakery open as early as it has been of late and your baking is beyond beat. Think about it, Meg; renting off him could be the answer to both your worries and it would be nice to still to come in and have these natters.
‘Now, I must get back, I left my Jim with a mustard plaster on his chest. His breathing’s been really laboured of late but not enough to stop him from cursing me if I don’t get back. Ta-ra, see you in the morning.’ With that, Jenny scuttled off down the street back to Jim and his bad chest.
Meg watched her go. Perhaps she was right – maybe she should ask Ted Lund if he would rent her the shop. After all, she had proved to herself that the shop was profitable, but asking him to rent it and him agreeing would be another thing, but it would be worth trying. After all, if you didn’t ask in this world you didn’t get.
Then reality hit her: he’d not rent it to her and besides, she hadn’t got the money to rent it and never would have. She put a brave smile on her face as the next customer came in to be served. She was busy again and that was a good thing, it would stop her from daydreaming.
After closing at one, Meg decided to just take five minutes out of her day and quickly have a look at the new bakery on the Headrow. Curiosity was the main reason for her visit. Not one of her customers had said a good word about it, but she wanted to see for herself what it was like.
She stood across the other side of the street and watched people going in and out of the shop. They weren’t her sort of customers – they were far more refined and better to-do. Ladies so well dressed that she swore she had never seen anything like them before, with spectacular hats and gloves to match, were visiting the shop and coming out with little white boxes tied with a string containing whatever had caught their eye. No wonder her customers had reacted like they had: this was for the well-to-do and more refined tastes. The confectionery, as it was called, was what Meg had only dreamed about making as she crossed the road and looked through the shop window.
She found herself pressing her nose closer and closer to the glass to see what was under the counter as well as what was on the shop’s counter, not able to believe her eyes at the fancy pastries and overindulgent cakes. Her eyes rested on the St Honoré Cake, amazed at the pastry base with cherries glistening like jewels upon it, and then choux buns topped by white fluffy spoonfuls of meringue. They looked good enough for the queen herself to eat and was a million miles away from her baking. How she would love for someone to teach her the art of such baking, she thought, as she gazed into the shop window.
‘You like what you see, my dear?’ Frankie Pearson asked quietly as he stood on the steps of his shop trying to get a minute away from the heat of the bakery.
‘I do. I’m fascinated, everything looks so decadent, I don’t know hardly any of these cakes and they all look delicious,’ Meg said and turned to look at the man standing next to her. He had blond hair and a kind face with blue eyes that were sparkling as he talked with a hint of a French accent. It was then she realized that he must be the owner of the shop and the baker as he was dressed in an apron and had the accent that some of her customers had commented upon.
‘They are nothing really. I have made these many times, but you have to make them with passion for your love to show within your baking.’ Frankie smiled at the young woman fixated on his cakes.
‘Yes, I know what you mean – if you are not in the mood for baking, it always goes wrong. You have to love what you are doing else it is better not starting anything.’ Meg moved her gaze from the cake to the man who obviously thought the same way as her.
‘Would you like to come in and see what else we have to tempt you?’
Meg shook her head. ‘No, I’m afraid I have no money on me and even if I did I couldn’t spare it on such delicacies. Although it is beautiful and I would if I could,’ she said sadly and turned to walk away.
‘No, don’t go, wait there just a second.’ Frankie disappeared into the bakery and she watched as one of the serving girls reached down into the shop window and took the St Honoré Cake from out of the window to cut a slice for a customer.
‘Perhaps I can convince you to come back when you have some money in your pocket?’ Frankie said and passed Meg her own little white box tied with string and smiled. ‘I wish my baking to be for everyone to enjoy, not just the wealthy of Leeds. I aim to expand when the time is right and have a wider range of patisserie that will be attractive for everyone’s pocket. Please take it and enjoy.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t, I should pay you!’
Meg blushed but couldn’t resist taking the box from his hand.
‘Your smile is enough and to know that if you had the money, you would be a customer. Now enjoy,’ Frankie said and smiled at the girl with the bonny face. Even though she was dressed in rags, she was the most beautiful woman he had seen all day and he would have given her the whole cake if she had asked for it.
‘And he gave it to you?’ Agnes looked at the delicious cake that Meg had brought home with her.
‘Yes, he wouldn’t take a penny, which was good because I hadn’t a penny on me,’ Meg replied. ‘You should see the shop, Mam, it is so beautiful with all sorts of cakes and fancies in the window. He’s got three staff as well, all dressed in natty uniforms and their hair just so. It makes Ted’s bakery look like something from out of the dark ages.’ Meg passed her mother a spoon and smiled. ‘Come on, we will share, there isn’t enough for three, so what Sarah doesn’t know about she won’t miss.’ Meg put her spoon into the cake and took the first mouthful, not even bothering to take it out of the card box. ‘Oh Lord, it’s heavenly. If only I could bake like this. I know nothing compared to this man.’
‘You stop putting yourself down,’ Agnes told her firmly. ‘That bakery of Ted’s has never been as busy, and that’s a recognition of your skills. This is a different style of baking.’ She closed her eyes while she tasted the meringue and choux pastry. ‘Heavens, lass, you are right, it is heaven in a spoonful, but at a price, if what you tell me is right. He might have given you this slice but normal folk will never be able to buy it. You keep to the simple things – folk will always want them. He’s no competition to you. You are as different as chalk and cheese but both as good at serving your sort of people. You are both needed in Leeds.’
‘You might be right, but that doesn’t stop me from being jealous,’ Meg said. ‘Now, quickly let’s eat up and put the box on the fire before Sarah returns from school, else she won’t half moan when she finds out that we didn’t leave her any.’
‘She’s spoilt enough. I know you buy her the odd thing here and there. She should be thankful for having such a good sister. It’ll not hurt her to miss out for once. She’s growing up fast, thank heavens. Another few years and she’ll be nearly a woman. I only hope that I’m here to see it.’ Agnes looked across at her oldest with fondness.
‘You will be, Mam, you are not going anywhere just yet.’
But both Agnes and Meg knew that her words were hollow. Agnes was extremely ill, despite her good days, and her time was nearly at an end despite all the care and love that Meg lavished on her.