The Baker's Tale Read online

  We sat at the table in back. Mr. Joy looked at Ruby through gold-rimmed spectacles and patted her on the head.

  “What is your name, my dear?”

  “Ruby.”

  “A very pretty name.” Then he turned in my direction. “Perhaps Ruby would like another piece of bread and some strawberry jam.”

  I excused myself from the table and returned with the offering. Ruby’s eyes took on a questioning look.

  “When one is starving, jam is a luxury beyond reach,” Christopher said. “She has never seen jam before.”

  “Eat,” he told Ruby. “You will like it.”

  Ruby cautiously took a bite . . . Tasted the jam on her tongue . . . And her face lit up.

  This was a child who, for her entire life, had eaten only to survive. Mother’s milk in her first year. Then bread, gruel, and an occasional potato, green leaf, or piece of cheese. Now, for the first time, she was experiencing food as pleasure rather than just for sustenance.

  “Good!” she cried out. “Good! Good!”

  Octavius Joy laughed. Then he turned to Christopher.

  “Antonio visited me last night and told me of your circumstances. Tell me your history in your own words.”

  There was something so earnest in the way this was said and with such disregard of the class differences between them that Christopher felt at ease. He spoke. Mr. Joy listened attentively and, when the narrative was done, put his hand on Christopher’s shoulder.

  “Let me make an offer to you, something that may change your life for the better. I have made it my concern to place men and women who come from hard origins in situations where they can live decently as a consequence of their own honest labour. One of the people I assisted in this manner is a woman named Marie Wells. Marie and her husband were the proprietors of a bakery in a nearby part of London. Mr. Wells died suddenly four weeks ago. Marie is a good woman and in need of help. There is a job for you at the bakery. You and Ruby would live there. You would have food to eat, a small salary, and a home.”

  Christopher seemed at a loss for words.

  “I would like that very much,” he said at last.

  “And there is another condition of your employment. You and Ruby must learn to read.”

  “It is my dream that Ruby learn to read and write. But for me, it is beyond my comprehension.”

  “At the moment, it is also beyond Ruby’s comprehension. That will change for both of you. Reading will come more easily to her because she is young and will be without the fear that you bring to the adventure. But what a child can learn, you can learn too.”

  “And if I cannot?”

  “When the opportunity presents itself, learning to read is a responsibility that you have to yourself. Learning to read is like entering a dark room and lighting a candle. It will light the fire of your imagination. You need not learn to read well, only as well as honest effort on your part allows.”

  “I will try.”

  “Then it is settled. Marie must first approve of you, but I think she will. She needs a man’s help in the bakery, and she has long wanted a child in her life. I spoke with her this morning. She is expecting our visit now.”

  The most common form of public transportation in London is the omnibus. The public gets on and off as the vehicle is drawn along its route by horses. Hackney coach stands offer licensed public cabs for those who prefer their own coach and driver.

  Mr. Joy summoned a hackney coach. Christopher, Ruby, and I joined him inside.

  “We are going to meet a very nice woman named Marie,” Mr. Joy told Ruby. “Last night, Antonio told Marie that you are very nice, and she would like to meet you.”

  The cold of the previous day had lifted a bit. Mr. Joy and Ruby got along exceedingly well as the carriage clattered through the streets of London. Of course, Mr. Joy got along exceedingly well with everyone. Fifteen minutes after our ride began, we arrived at Marie’s bakery.

  I have known Marie for many years. She is two years younger than I am and one of the kindest people I know. Anyone who casts even a casual glance upon her can discern that she has a loving heart. Her serene blue eyes and gentle face bespeak her nature. She has the good opinion and respect of all who know her.

  Mr. Joy introduced Christopher to Marie, and she explained the operation of the bakery to him in simple terms. Then she and Ruby played together.

  “You and the child are to be here tomorrow morning with all of your belongings,” Mr. Joy told Christopher at day’s end.

  Marie added a promise to that instruction.

  “If you live in my home, Ruby will have the best of care and the most love that I can give her.”

  The following morning, Christopher and Ruby arrived at Marie’s bakery with a small cloth bag. The whole of their worldly belongings—the discarded clothes of others and a tiny doll not much more than a rag—were inside.

  Octavius Joy had given money to Marie to buy Ruby some better clothes. Christopher would wear the clothes that had belonged to Marie’s husband.

  “It would make you sad to see me in them,” Christopher protested.

  “It would give me pleasure to know that they are well used.”

  Marie led Christopher and Ruby to the floor above the bakery and showed them the living quarters. There were two rooms, each with a simple wood bed that consisted of a platform and mattress filled with straw. Like the beds, the other furniture was of little worth but sufficient and neatly kept. Christopher and Ruby would sleep in one room. Marie would sleep in the other.

  Ruby had never seen a bed before.

  Marie washed Ruby’s face, combed her hair, and made the rest of her as fresh and clean as a child can be. At day’s end, she prepared dinner.

  There is a soft place in my heart for Marie. She is like family to me. I had been invited to share this occasion with her and her new family.

  The fire burned clear. The kettle boiled. The table was set.

  Ruby did not know what it was like to sit down for a meal at an appointed hour. In the past, she had eaten whenever there was food.

  “This is where we eat our meals,” Marie explained.

  “Every day?”

  “Every day.”

  If a child of three can be said to contemplate, Ruby contemplated the meaning of those words.

  After dinner, Christopher moved his chair closer to the fire and sat with a look of contentment on his face. The room was warm. One of the logs broke in two and blazed up as it fell. Another log was thrown on.

  “I am grateful beyond anything that I can express,” Christopher said as he pondered the change that had come upon his life. “If ever I can prove to you the truth of those words, I will.”

  Seen with the fire behind her, Ruby looked as though she had a glory shining round her head.

  Then it was time for her to sleep. One night earlier, Ruby had shivered in the cold on rags placed on a hard dirt floor. Now she would slumber in the warmth of her bed, as humble as it was.

  Marie lay Ruby down on the bed and wrapped a blanket round her. Warmth, shelter, and peace were there.

  Then a look that I am unable to describe stole across Ruby’s face.

  “Ruby and uncle stay,” she said.

  The words were spoken as both a question and a plea.

  “Ruby and uncle stay,” she said again with anxiety rising in her voice.

  “Ruby and uncle stay,” Marie pledged.

  Ruby smiled a smile of relief.

  There are moments of unmixed happiness in our lives that cheer our transitory existence on earth. This was one of them. Marie had the child that she had longed for but thought would never come. And Ruby Spriggs had a home.

  I made a silent promise to myself that, whatever happened in my life, I would help care for this child.

  “Good night, little one,” I said. “Pleasant slumber. Happy dreams. May angels guard your bed.”

  Ruby fell asleep with a smile on her face. I fancied that she was dreaming.

  C
HAPTER 3

  Christopher had sought honest labour. Once it was found, he adapted well to the demands of a baker’s life.

  He learned first to mix yeast and water with grain—wheat, rye, barley—and to bake the dough for bread in the large brick oven. Before long, he was able to make rolls, muffins, and pastries. He had a way with people and engaged naturally in conversation with customers without lingering too long.

  When I was a child, my father taught me to be industrious. I appreciate that quality in others. It is, in my opinion, one of the most charming qualities of the human character. Christopher applied himself to his new job with industriousness and effort. He was always active. When not otherwise engaged, he was cleaning. The tile floor and table in back and chairs and walls and oven were as clean as scrubbing could make them. Twice a day, he took a broom and swept up crumbs until there was not a speck on the floor. He showed intelligence by asking how things worked and fixing them when they were broken.

  With his mind at ease and with adequate food, Christopher passed into a new state of being. His body filled out. The colour that had forsaken his face returned. Sometimes a look came into his eyes as though he were remembering the hardships of his past. He wrestled at times with the understanding that he could not give bread to every beggar who came to the door. But he seemed at peace with himself.

  “I have never seen a man more hard working than he,” Marie told me. “He does each thing until it is done right.”

  Reading came slowly. Christopher went to the learning center in the early evening twice each week. Marie and I did the best we could to help with his lessons. There was a wish on our part to teach and a desire on his part to learn. But at age twenty-seven, he found the road difficult to follow.

  Often at night, he would stare at the symbols on a piece of paper that had been given to him:

  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

  a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

  The alphabet is the building block for the English language. Christopher struggled with it as though each letter were a bramble-bush that scratched until it drew blood. He could not see the forest through the trees. When he tried to read, his bewildered eyes fixed on each letter rather than connecting the letters to syllables and the syllables to words and the words to sentences.

  “It is hard to learn at this time of my life,” he said.

  “If you learned to talk, you can learn to read,” Octavius Joy assured him. “I know you are struggling, but you must keep at it. If you entertain the notion that any great success was, or ever will be, achieved without effort, leave that wrong idea behind. Perseverance will gain the summit of any hill.”

  It is hard for people without hope to learn. They cannot see accomplishments and success in their future. But Christopher’s new life had given him hope, and he soldiered on. When studying a lesson, he would take up a piece of chalk as though it were a large tool and roll up his sleeves as though wielding a crowbar or hammer. Then he would square his elbows, put his face close to his copy slate, and labour.

  “Well, Christopher,” I said on one occasion while looking over several copies of the letter “O,” which he had represented as a square, a rectangle, and a triangle. “You are improving. If only you can get it to be round, it will be perfect.”

  A man must make the most of every opportunity he has in life. In time, Christopher began to read and write on a small scale. Letters became words. Words became sentences. Sentences fit into the context of passages that were understandable to him. From time to time, I saw him glance at the front page of a journal or the cover of a book with a curiosity that went beneath the binding.

  He also showed a modest aptitude for fractions and decimals, which enabled him to weigh each loaf of bread in the presence of the buyer. Taken together, his newly acquired skills allowed him to master the sign on the bakery wall:

  There are many kinds of pride. Christopher took pride in his labour. He took pride as he learned to read and write. But the greatest pride and joy in his life was Ruby.

  Night after night, he sat with her. No matter how tired he was after a long day’s work, he would take her on his back and carry her round in play. When he spoke to her, his voice was never rough or angry. His hands were large but never heavy when he touched her. Her smile always brightened his face, as if, when she smiled, they were coining gold.

  A man of noble lineage loves the mansion of his inheritance as a trophy of birth and wealth. The root of a poor man’s attachment to his home grows deep into purer soil.

  Christopher saw his new home as a grandly furnished palace. And Ruby was as much at home as if she had lived there for her entire life. She knew nothing in a philosophical way about the inequities of society. But she knew that the world she had once lived in was a very hard place and her new world was very unlike it. Soon, all trace of the deprivation of her early years was gone.

  Marie had lost the love of a husband but now had the love of a child. To see her walk hand in hand with Ruby, to watch them together in the home, warmed the heart. She would sing to Ruby when putting her to sleep. Ruby would smile and close her eyes. At times, I wondered if the child’s mind might not be journeying back to the earliest years of her life when she was sung to by another woman who held her in her arms and called her “my child.”

  If a good fairy had built a home for Ruby with the wave of a magic wand and made her a princess in the bargain, she would not have been happier. Each day began with three eggs on the table. One for Ruby, one for Marie, and one for Christopher. There was bread, milk, and coffee. On Sundays, bacon or sausage hissed in a pan.

  Children move back and forth between being free spirits totally immersed in a doll, a flower, or whatever has captured their fancy in the moment and, when sad, the most heavily burdened souls on earth. But the world was full of happiness for Ruby. She took joy in every tree, in every bird, in the sun by day and the stars at night. Her childish eyes opened wider and wider as she discovered more of the world round her. She was inquisitive and playful. She loved the church bells when they rang.

  Unlike Marie, I lived alone. I have had some ladies on my arm and kissed more than a few in my time. But I never married. Marie and her husband were my family. Now Christopher became my brother and Ruby my child. I was invited often to join them for dinner. Marie made an honest stout soup with potatoes, rice, and barley. There was bread, cheese, greens when in season, and, once a week, meat.

  Ruby frequently visited my bakery. On these occasions, the words “Ruby help,” spoken by her with enthusiasm, inspired both a smile and dread. Invariably, she was soon up to her elbows in flour with more flour in her hair.

  “Young lady,” I told her. “You are not easy, but you are worth the trouble.”

  On one of her visits, I asked if she would like to help make strawberry jam. Not just eat it, but make it from scratch. A cry of joy escaped her lips, and two bright eyes fixed upon me in expectation.

  We washed the strawberries, crushed them, and mixed them with sugar. Then I poured the mixture into a pan and stirred it over a flame until the sugar had fully dissolved.

  The jam boiled for five minutes. As it was cooling, Ruby reached for the pan.

  “Young lady; if you place a matter in the hands of a professional, you must not interfere with the conduct of his business. The pan is hot. Leave it alone, do not burn yourself, and we will get along exceedingly well. But if you try again to touch it, I am going to eat you up like a big piece of bread with jam.”

  “I’m not bread with jam.”

  “No?”

  “No! I’m a girl. I’m Ruby.”

  After the jam cooled, I spooned most of it into jars, sealed them with wax, and put the rest on bread for Ruby.

  Here, I might add that jam has many uses.

  “Ruby, we are going to clean the room together,” Marie said one day.

  “No!”

  Marie’s suggestion was repeated more strongly, this time as a
command.

  Ruby’s “no” was repeated with equal conviction.

  “No jam for you today,” Marie warned.

  “I do it! I do it!”

  With Ruby under the same roof as Christopher and Marie, the smile of Heaven shone on the chamber. With her golden hair and sparkling blue eyes, she was like a beautiful springtime morning. Drops of rain that fell on her hair looked like dew freshly gathered on a flower. Smiles played upon her face like light upon jewels. She was affectionate and sweet-natured with a musical little voice. I do not know how she came to be that way. I can only say that she was blessed and that, in her earliest years, she must have been very much loved by her mother.

  I loved that little girl so much. She could have been the daughter of a king.

  We celebrated Ruby’s fourth birthday in July. Christopher was crying that evening at dinner.

  “She was the only thing that made this world of value for me,” he said through tears. “And now, to see her so happy . . .”

  Summer passed. Autumn leaves fell. Then came winter and Christmas.

  Christmas encircles the small world of a child like a magic ring. This was a Christmas unlike any that Ruby and Christopher had known before.

  Marie’s bakery and my own opened for business on Christmas morning at the normal hour of seven o’clock. Three hours later, we closed our doors and I went to her home where gifts were exchanged.

  Marie gave Ruby a pair of red mittens that she had knitted while Ruby was sleeping. Christopher gave her a doll. I brought a miniature rocking horse about the size of my hand. Then we left for a special occasion. Octavius Joy had invited us to his home for Christmas dinner.

  The streets were sprinkled with clusters of people wearing their gayest faces and dressed in their finest clothes. I could only imagine how the sights and sounds echoed in Ruby’s mind. The colours, the smiles, the good cheer.

  We passed a group of carolers, singing in a language that Ruby did not understand:

  Adeste Fideles laeti triumphantes,

  Venite, venite in Bethlehem.