Chapter 4

After a good night's rest and a long soak in the spacious bathtub, Belle felt a lot more positive about her new position than the night before. She might have made a horrible first impression on her employer, but there was always a second chance.

The night before Dove had shown her to a lovely tower room on the fourth floor of the dark castle - she was determined to call the house like that in her mind, it was just too fitting - and it was, all things considered really a very beautiful room.

There was a four poster bed with crimson, velvet drapery and a wonderful snug duvet, a small dining table with two chairs, a writing desk and - best of all - a lovely chaise lounge, right in front of the window. Upon first glance Belle had decided that this was to become her favorite reading spot. The window, shaped into a point with lead glass overlooked the extensive gardens and forest behind the house and Belle spend a good fifteen minutes after awakening that first morning gazing outside, taking in the beauty of her surroundings.

She dressed carefully that morning into a cream-white blouse with lace trimmings in the front and a simple, black skirt that started just underneath her bust-line. Underneath she wore shiny black stockings and black leather pumps with three decorative bands across her feet.

Dove had informed her she was supposed to have her meals in her room and so far that had been the only part of her new situation she disliked, feeling it would be dreadfully lonely after a few days to have no-one to talk while she ate.

At eight thirty sharp she knocked on the door of Mr. Gold's study, ready to start the day and change the man's opinion of her.

At his call for admittance she squared her shoulders and stepped in, greeting him with a wide smile. "Good morning, Mr. Gold."

He was standing in front of a large bookcase across from his desk and for a moment she was distracted, trying to read the titles on the back of the books.
"Miss French," he stated, his voice carefully collected.

Today he was once again clad in leather pants, black this time, a white shirt with a stiff board and a rather elaborate waistcoat with brown and golden patterns and black lapels.

He studied her for a moment and just as she was starting to grow uncomfortable under his gaze he indicated the door with a small gesture of his hand. "Shall we go to the factory?"

Upon her nod, he took a few steps closer towards her, faltering as he came nearer, his nostrils twitching.

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes at him, she looked him square in the face instead and said: "Don't worry, I've scrubbed it off as you've requested."

His eyes widened at her words before he nodded stiffly. "Very well. If you are so kind as to follow me…"

He limped out of the room, towards the hallway, leaning heavily on his cane. He led her towards the back of the house and then stopped in front of some kind of gilded cage, pressing a button. Seconds later a lift appeared and the fenced doors opened with a swoosh. He gestured for her to enter and she stepped inside, her eyes wide.

"Mr. Gold… where exactly is your factory?" she asked.

He looked at her in surprise, stepping into the elevator himself. "Below the house of course." Pressing another button, the lift soared down, leaving Belle with a feeling like her stomach suddenly jumped into her throat.

Once the lift came to a halt, Belle found herself into a long corridor, lit with gas lamps.

"First I'll show you the room where the chocolate is prepared," Gold told her, his voice chipped and business-like. "Before you even start to work with chocolate, you need to know how it's created."

She smiled slightly at his choice of words and followed him into the hallway. They passed several wooden doors, but he barely spared them a glance.
"Storage," was the only clarification he gave. "I always keep a vast supply of cocoa beans."

Then he pointed at a heavy, oak door at the end of the hall. "The steam engine is in there," he explained brusquely. "But I warn you, Miss French, no-one is allowed to go in there except for myself and Dove."

Nodding hurriedly, Belle followed him until he finally opened a door that revealed a large room and Belle's eyes widened in surprise.

The room was circular and enormous, alive with sound. The strangest machines and appliances she'd ever seen filled the room and there was bustling and clattering everywhere. Employers, wearing dark-green aprons fitted through the room, operating the machines, carrying trays and buckets and regularly checking the hourglasses that were connected to every appliance.

"It starts here," he began, leading her to the side of the room towards a gigantic stove. The surface of it was almost ten to seven feet with large, brass pans on them. Belle watched how one of the employees filled the pans with cacao beans, flipped an hour-glass and lit the fires. Then, taking a spatula he turned the beans rhythmically as they heated up.

After fifteen minutes or so, all the sand had transpired through the hour-glass and the air around the stove was filled with rich scent of roasted cacao beans.

Next to her, Gold inhaled deeply. "Just right," he murmured quietly. "Remind me to tell Jefferson we've finally discovered the exact time this particular brand of beans need to roast."

"Yes sir," she replied dutifully, wondering who Jefferson was and regretting to step away from the lovely smell as Gold moved her along to the next device.

It consisted of a large, copper ball on a tall, ornate pedestal, with two wheels with handles connected to it. The handles in turn were connected to a series of cogwheels that were attached to an Stirling engine.
The cacao beans that had previously been roasted were now loaded into the copper ball by a different employee and he too turned an hour glass before activating the engine. A harsh, grating sound started that only faded slightly as the minutes wore on.

"What's happening?" Belle asked curiously.

"This is how we get rid of the shells surrounding the beans," Gold explained, his voice slightly raised over the sound of the grinder. "It's the nibs you actually use to make chocolate."

Ten minutes later, the crusty, broken remains of the roasted cacao beans were taken out of the ball and carried over to yet another appliance.

A large, rusty-colored ceiling fan hung above a glass, polygonal box. Two linen hoses were attached to the top of the glass box, which in turn were connected to a set of vacuum cleaners.

The glass box itself was standing on a wooden stand and as an employee opened the hatchway and placed the pulverized cacao beans inside, Gold continued to explain.

"Now we need to separate the shelves from the nibs and that's where this is for."

It came to no surprise this time that the employee first turned the hourglass connected to the glass box before he yanked a handle. Immediately the van started rotating with a soft swish, picking up speed as it went along. Inside the glass box the scaly shells of the cacao beans started to twirl up inside the glass box, dancing and floating, almost like dark snow. With another press to a button, the vacuum cleaners were turned on and slowly all the waste material was sucked away.

Belle watched as the nibs were taken out of the glass box and brought to a set of very large, brass scales. Several badges of clean nibs were placed on one side of the scale while a series of golden weights were put on the other scale, together with just the right amount of sugar to even out the scales.

"You only use that much sugar?" Belle asked surprised, noticing that the amount of sugar was far less than the amount of cacao nibs.

"Never more than thirty percent," Gold answered, obviously surprised by her question. "Otherwise it wouldn't be fit to be labelled as chocolate, dearie."

Belle bit her lip, feeling oddly chastised. No matter how much she had disagreed with Gaston's method of producing food, she'd become accustomed to the amount of sugar, salt, artificial flavors and food dye he used to make the mass-fabricated dishes of 'French Fries' look more appealing.

She'd been inside Gold's factory for almost an hour now and she could already tell this was so much different from the 'throwing of ingredients together' she was used to, or even from the cooking her mother had done.
This was a craft. Almost an art in its expertise.

Meanwhile, Gold was taking her to another glass device, an hourglass shaped cylinder, enclosed in a spiral staircase with a silver grinder on top. The handle of the grinder was once again connected to a Stirling engine so it could be operated.
An employee clad in green climbed the stairs, pushed the grinder up and poured the entire contents of the scales into the cylinder until it was half full.

The hourglass adjourned to this device was considerable bigger than the other ones Belle had seen so far and she assumed this part of the process was more time consuming.

Next to her, Gold took a step closer and gestured for her to follow as the contents inside the glass cylinder started to swirl.
"Watch closely," he told her, his voice dropping and his accent becoming more profound. "This is what it's all about…"

Inside the cylinder, the nibs and sugar slowly mingled together until they begun to form a dark, crummy paste.
After a while the paste became smoother and started to shine, the soft yellow light of the many light bulbs hanging from the ceiling reflecting in the dark content.

Belle stole a glance next to her and was immediately captivated by the sight of the man at her side. His entire being was focussed on the process going on in front of him, his eyes slightly widened in awe as the chocolate started to form, strands of his hair falling across his temples without him noticing.

"It took years to refine the process," he said softly, his gaze still fully trained on the device in front of him as if he were in trance. "It takes such precision, such dedication. To many people chocolate is just a candy, a bit of sweet to brighten a rainy day, or an indulgence in a moment of weakness… but to me it's so much more than that. It is the richest, most tranquilizing taste mother nature offers us… it can cure ailments, lift the spirit, induce passion…" his voice trailed off and Belle felt a little flutter of something - something she couldn't yet identity settle in her stomach.

"I've watched this process countless of times," he continued, his dark brown eyes pensive, "but I never tire of it. It makes me forget…"

"Forget what?" Belle asked breathlessly, her heartbeat picking up.

"I…" He blinked, startled out of his reverie and for a second he looked disconcerted, as if he had revealed more than he'd intended to. Then his posture became more straight, his expression turning flippant.

"Well, I guess it worked."

Belle laughed, his sudden quip taking her pleasantly by surprise.

He stared at her for a moment, slightly shocked as if he was truly seeing her for the first time. Then he firmly fixed his eyes on the hourglass, his voice turning brisk and business-like again.
"Almost done now, a few more steps and then we have real chocolate."

And Belle was under the distinct impression he was very much trying to change the subject.


For the next step, he showed her a large, stone bowl with a golden, robotic arm attached to it, a stamper clenched in its hand.
The chocolate paste was transferred from he cylinder into the bowl and then paste was milled once again in slow, circular movements.

"This is done to release the taste molecules," Gold explained. "It's a rather delicate process… If the chocolate is handled for too long, the taste will go bitter.

"Which is why there's an hourglass to keep track of the time," Belle caught on. "I've noticed that there're a lot of them around."

"Timing is everything, Miss French," he replied cautionary. "Some parts of the process are reversible, like the tempering that you will witness in a moment, other stages require more subtlety, otherwise an entire badge will be rendered spoiled."

For the tempering, the chocolate paste, now shiny and of rather solid substance was spread out on a large, marble plate. An impressive system, mobilized by cogwheels covered the plate and operated a set of flat trowels that methodically scooped up the chocolate and turned it over until it became solid.

It was a fascinating process and even though it had taken over two hours, Belle had thoroughly enjoyed the tour, excitement beginning to pump though her veins as she began to realize that this apprenticeship might be exactly everything she'd hoped for.

As the freshly made chocolate was resting, Gold implored her to follow him up a set of staircases at the side of the room, leading up to a balcony that went all the way across the circular room.

It wasn't until she was upstairs and got a full view of the surface of the factory that she realized how all the different machines in fact formed a whole. In the center of the room, engraved in the floor was an enormous clock, it's golden arrows slowly but steadily ticking on in the warm light of the room. Attached to the large arrow was an oval mirror that reflected the hourglass of the appliance currently operating.

Belle watched how the arrow moved on and how the image in the mirror shifted from the hourglass connected to the stove to that of the grinder used to separate the shelves from the nibs.

It was all connected and working together like a big, well-oiled machine.

She turned towards Gold, her eyes beaming. "It looks amazing," she told him sincerely. "I've never seen anything like this… it's almost magical…"

He stared back at her, his eyes round in surprise, put a slightly pleased smile appearing around his lips.
"Well, I'm glad you approve, Miss French," he replied, the derisiveness of his tone tempered by the small tremor in his voice.

"Until further notice, you will work here and familiarize yourself with the process of chocolate making."

An employee came up the stairs, carrying a plate with a large chunk of the chocolate Belle had just watched being made.
Gold took the chocolate from the plate and broke it in two, offering one part to Belle.

"Make sure the chocolate always meets my standard, Miss French," he told her severely before turning around and stalking away.

Belle watched him depart, feeling even more conflicted about him than she had the previous night. Then she bit a small bite off the chocolate he'd given her and closed her eyes immediately at the sensation that washed over her taste buds.

It was warm and rich and utterly tranquilizing.

Just like he'd described it.


If you're not craving chocolate by now, I judge you. Don't forget to check out the matching Pinterest board (look for Miss Puppet) And of course, I'd love to read what you think!