The Baker's Daughter (7 page)

Doug, who could always make her laugh
with
his Charlie Chaplin imitations, or stories of the other lads at the garage—he looked as if his world had fallen apart.

Rona realised it was not so much the damage to the car that was upsetting him. That could be fixed, but the damage to his pride, the knowledge that Neela didn't care a bit for him, that she was only out for a good time—that was what hurt.

‘There're other girls,' she said a little timidly.

‘I never want to see her again. Her brother blamed me, for letting her drive the car, and you'd think it was my fault she steered into a ditch. She's got no sense at all,' he added morosely.

‘Oh, Doug, forget it. No-one was hurt.' Rona tried to cheer him.

‘That's right. Well, it's a good thing Aunt Lizzie is away. I'd never have heard the end of it.' He gave a weak attempt at a grin. ‘I'm away down to the harbour—there's some of the boats coming in.'

Rona waved and turned back into the house. Yes, she thought, Aunt Lizzie's absence was a blessing in disguise, even if it did mean extra work.

Washing, ironing, cooking—though Father was good and cleaned out the grate before he left for the shop, and made sure there was enough kindling, and the meals, well, they weren't bad at all. Rona had glowed with pride
when
Angus had commented, ‘Your mince is just as good as your auntie's.'

There had only been a brief postcard from Aunt Lizzie to say Maisie was still in hospital and wouldn't be home for another week. ‘We'll need to get someone to help in the shop,' said Angus thoughtfully. ‘Maybe a lassie to do some of the cleaning and serve, if you can manage the till,' he told Rona who was rather proud of her position .

*        *        *

Rona was wrapping up a customer's brown loaf the next day when she heard an apologetic cough.

‘Oh, good morning, Mr Grey. A fine morning,' said Rona politely.

The lawyer nodded pleasantly. ‘And good morning to you, Miss Maclaren,' he returned.

Rona liked Mr Grey, the lawyer who rented the floor above the bakery. He was middle-aged, with sparse greying hair and a neat moustache and she knew that day in, day out, he always ordered a small pan loaf.

‘The usual, Mr Grey?'

‘Thank you, yes, Miss Maclaren.'

Rona sometimes wondered what his wife was like. Was she as orderly, or would she perhaps have sometimes liked to throw caution to the wind and order a large brown wholemeal?

She
liked Miss Mackie, Mr Grey's secretary too—invariably trim and neatly dressed in a heather tweed suit and a grey jumper hand knitted in three-ply, her hair permed in small grey curls.

It seemed as if Miss Mackie had been there as long as Rona could recall—she remembered coming into the shop as a small girl and meeting the gentle-voiced woman, who'd seemed middle-aged even then.

Miss Mackie lived with an elderly mother, she knew that. Once or twice a week Miss Mackie would come down from the office upstairs and buy bread and scones. ‘Oh, and I'll take four pancakes, please—they're Mother's favourite.'

Every Christmas, Angus would send upstairs two boxes of shortbread, one for Mr Grey and one for Miss Mackie, and back downstairs would come a bottle of whisky for Angus—though he drank little and it would probably last a year or more, he appreciated the gesture.

Last Christmas, too, there had been a bottle of Yardley's Lavender Water for Aunt Lizzie and a box of handkerchiefs for Rona—chosen, she suspected, by Miss Mackie.

‘Will that be all?' asked Rona politely as she wrapped the loaf.

‘Thank you.' He looked rather preoccupied this morning, she thought. Could there be something wrong?

He turned and went upstairs again by
the
outside stair that led to the firm's rented offices.

Angus, coming into the shop, nodded to him.

‘I'm away on the rounds, Rona,' he said. ‘I'll need to send you along with the advert.

He sighed. ‘It makes extra work, your aunt Lizzie away, we could do with a message girl. Still, we'll just have to manage as best we can.'

He didn't add, ‘with you,' though Rona could see the thought crossing his mind.

‘I'm not that bad,' she told herself rebelliously. ‘I haven't made any mistakes for a long time. If he'd only let me do a bit more.'

‘Here you are,' he handed her the slip of paper.

‘I don't know why we put the advert into
The Advertiser
,' Rona muttered. ‘It never alters from week to week. Just
Maclaren's Baker's, High Street
and a line above.
Rhubarb tarts, strawberry tarts, black bun
. . . whatever the season. Father's got no idea.'

She took the paper as her father hurried out of the shop. ‘Rhubarb tarts,' she read. ‘How's that for an advert? Customers know we have rhubarb tarts. We have rhubarb tarts every year, and we'll have them till the end of time.'

She waited till her father had gone out of the shop and it was quiet and she picked up a pencil. After a moment's thought she scrawled on the paper and looked at it approvingly.

Then she collected her coat, turned the sign
to
Closed 1 till 2
, and made her way along the street to the offices of the local newspaper.

‘Right you are,' said the girl in the advertising department. She stopped filing her nails and took the piece of paper. ‘Same as usual,' she said in a bored voice, ‘and invoice at the end of the month.'

‘Thank you' As Rona set off along the street again she began to have misgivings. What if Father was cross with her? Well, she reasoned, it was worth a try. If it brought in new business, he would be only too pleased.

He kept saying that they had to do their best for the customers. Rona grimaced. That didn't mean he would allow her a free hand with the window—and those tins of shortbread had been there for ages, she thought, exasperated.

It wasn't till the local paper appeared at the end of the week that Angus saw what Rona had done. He was skimming through the pages, past accounts of retirements, town council business, sheep dog trials, that his eye was caught by Maclaren's advertisement down the page in the same place as usual. But as he read it, his face grew redder and he flung down the paper. ‘What's this?'

‘Oh, dear.' Rona in the front shop, knew what was corning. ‘Yes, Father?' she said trying to look unconcerned.

Hardly able to speak, he pointed at the advert. ‘This is your doing,' he said. ‘Am I right?'

‘Well
. . .' Rona hesitated. ‘I thought it might make it a little more interesting.'

‘Rhubarb tarts—the best you'll find in Kirkton from Maclaren's, the best baker in Kirkton! Fit for a Queen!'

‘I just thought,' said Rona in a small voice. She had been rather proud of that line,
Fit for a Queen
. Of course, it was unlikely that the new young Queen, Elizabeth the Second, would be passing through a small town in Fife and would stop to buy one of Maclaren's rhubarb tarts, but you never knew. And they were very good.

‘And this line,
the best baker in Kirkton
.' Angus thumped the paper. ‘We'll be in trouble—that's for sure.'

Trouble arrived a day later when Henry Duncan, owner of Keith's, the rival bakery in the Square, appeared in the shop.

‘Is your father in?'

‘I'll fetch him.' Rona knew very well what Mr Duncan wanted. Normally a cheerful, good-natured man today he scowled at her and she hurried into the back shop.

‘Well, Angus, what's this about?' Henry Duncan laid the paper on the counter. ‘I'm surprised at you putting out an advert like this.'

For once Angus had nothing to say.

‘I take it you don't know much about the law, the law of libel that is, for all you've a lawyer upstairs from your shop.'

Angus
started to apologise.

‘The damage is done,' said Henry Duncan. ‘It seems to me you've taken leave of your senses.'

Rona could bear it no longer. She took off her overall and stepped out from the back shop.

‘It was me, Mr Duncan,' she said, her voice quavering.

‘You?'

‘Father told me to take the advert along to
The Advertiser
's office,' she said, ‘and I thought . . .' she gulped, ‘I thought I'd make it a bit more interesting.'

‘Interesting!' Henry Duncan roared. ‘And you thought you'd ruin my business on the way?'

‘I'm sorry,' said Rona humbly. ‘I didn't think.'

‘Obviously not,' said Henry Duncan, and then because he was a fair man and had a sense of humour, he gave a roar of laughter.

‘You thought you'd do a bit of good publicity,' he said, chuckling. ‘Well, you're an enterprising young lady, that's for sure. Maybe you should come and work for me.'

Rona sighed with relief. ‘I'm truly sorry,' she said again.

‘We'll say no more about it,' said Henry. ‘Least said, soonest mended, eh, Angus?'

‘That's fair of you in the circumstances,' said Angus.

‘Ah,
well, let's hope it does no harm to my business, but local folk know a good rhubarb tart when they taste one.'

Still chuckling, he closed the door behind him.

‘Let this be a lesson to you.' Angus was not going to let Rona off lightly ‘Henry was fair about it, I'll give him that.'

He paused. ‘And another thing, I've been thinking. Now that your auntie's away, we need an extra assistant for the shop. I'd better draft the ad myself,' he said.

The door bell tinkled as an elderly woman appeared at the door of the shop. ‘Have you any of these rhubarb tarts—the ones that were in
The Advertiser
?'

‘Of course.'

‘
Fit for a Queen
, it said.'

‘They're—' Rona paused, not wanting to get into trouble again. ‘They're very good.'

‘I'll take one.' The woman paused. ‘I cut out all the pictures of the Queen—her and Prince Philip, and the Queen Mother too.'

‘Do you?'

‘She's a fine young woman and she'll make a grand Queen. My, I'd like to be at the Coronation come June, but we'll maybe see it on the television. And four of your soda scones, as well,' she added, changing tack.

‘Enjoy the rhubarb tart,' said Rona. If the ad was bringing in business, it hadn't hurt the baker's, she thought.

‘I've
come for one of your rhubarb tarts,' said the next customer. ‘Are they as good as it said in the paper?'

‘Every bit as good,' said Rona loyally.

At the end of the morning she told Angus, ‘We're sold out of rhubarb tarts.'

She would have liked to put one in the window, maybe with a ticket,
As advertised in the Kirkton Advertiser
, but felt that might be going too far.

‘It's the power of the Press,' she said to Angus. ‘They're all wanting these rhubarb tarts.'

‘Sold out, eh?' he said. ‘And to think I just fancied one for our tea.'

He shook his head at her and Rona knew she was forgiven.

HELP FOR RONA

‘A school-leaver would do us fine,' said Angus. ‘A bright lad, or a girl, willing to learn.' He paused his pencil over the sheet of paper. ‘No, a girl's better. A lad would be wanting to learn to drive the van.'

He wrote carefully,
Female shop assistant wanted
and added,
Apply to Maclaren's, High Street

‘There, we'll see what that brings in.'

The first applicant was clearly unsuitable,
though
Rona rather liked her. She was tall with a shock of red hair. She was wearing pale blue trousers which Rona recognised as the latest fashion,
pedal pushers
, she said to herself, a red and white striped top and large sunglasses, though it was a cool day with grey skies that threatened rain.

‘I've come for the job.'

‘This way,' said Rona, wondering with a grin what Angus would make of this apparition.

The interview didn't last long. The girl emerged from the back premises, she shrugged her shoulders and threw a pitying glance at Rona. ‘Do you work here all the time?'

‘Yes.' said Rona defensively ‘My father's the owner of the business.' She thought ‘the business' sounded grander than just ‘the shop'.

‘Is he now?' The girl shook her head slowly. ‘My, my. Poor you. I've other interviews so I'd best get along. Ta, ta.' She slammed the door behind her.

Rona was a little sorry that this was not to be the new assistant.

‘Wouldn't do at all,' said Angus. ‘There's bound to be other applicants.'

But there were not many, and none of them suitable, though Rona rather liked one girl who had a loud cheery laugh. She could see that they might have had a lot of fun together, but Angus shook his head. ‘Wouldn't do at all, that one,' he said firmly. ‘That laugh, it would drive me demented in a day.'

The
last applicant was a small girl with mousy hair and pale, sharp features. Her hair was cut short and she wore a grey knitted jumper and a pleated skirt, shabby, but clean.

‘I've come about the advertisement that was in the paper,' she said in a small voice.

‘You'd better come through.'

She was very slight, thought Rona, would this one be strong enough for the job?

‘I've got a reference. The girl produced from her basket a much folded piece of paper and thrust it towards Rona.

‘It's my father that's interviewing,' said Rona, a little regretfully. ‘You'll have to see him.'

‘Right then,' said Angus appearing from the back shop. ‘Now miss, what's your name?'

‘I'm Jean Ross,' said the girl, ‘but they call me Jeannie.' The words came out in a little squeak.