Princess of the 19th Century Department Store - Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Taking advantage of the midday lull, when there were no customers in the shop, Daisy packaged all the promotional goods for the afternoon ahead of time.

She carefully explained to Mary the differences between the seven types of promotional packaging, as well as the various samples, and asked her to watch the shop.

Then Daisy lifted the curtain, walked to the foot of the stairs, and called up to Penny, who was idling around at home nibbling on biscuits.

“Penny, come with me to restock!”

Penny immediately put down the secondhand novel in her hands, dawdled as she put on her dress, fixed her hat in place, and ran downstairs.

While waiting for her, Daisy had already gone through the inventory in the display cabinet and written down everything that needed replenishing.

Once Penny was ready and came down, each of them picked up a woven rattan basket, put on a wide-brimmed hat, then took some budget money from the drawer and tucked it safely away on themselves.

Daisy planned to pick up some new stock at the market, replenish what they were short on, buy a few items from her list, and take the opportunity to get a better feel for the city of London.

Before they left, Mary heard Daisy say that she not only intended to restock, but also wanted to buy biscuit ingredients and make them herself once she returned.

Mary felt it sounded rather unreliable.

But seeing how decisive Daisy had been these past two days, as well as the results right in front of her, she felt as though something really had changed.

So Mary swallowed her doubts and only said, “Go and come back quickly. Don’t stay out until dark.”

Daisy nodded. “We’ll definitely be back before dark.”

With that, she led Penny out of the house and headed in the direction of Jude Road.

Penny was in an excellent mood. She had eaten biscuits today, and now she even got to go out and play. She skipped ahead happily, leaving Daisy no choice but to tell her to slow down.

“Penny, we’re not just going to Albans Street today.”

Penny turned back in confusion and asked, “Where else are we going?”

No sooner had she asked than she saw Daisy stop and take several little paper rolls out of her woven basket. They had been cut from the newspaper.

Daisy unfolded one of the paper rolls with her long, pale fingers, her fingertip brushing over an address. It was the busiest department store in all of London at present, located on Oxford Street.

“After we restock today, we’re going to the West End.”

…

Half an hour later, the two of them arrived at the market near Whitechapel Road.

At several wholesale sundry shops that were familiar with their family, Daisy placed orders for every item that needed restocking and had the goods delivered straight home.

That included tea leaves.

After that, she took Penny onto the public horsebus on Whitechapel Road.

It was just after noon. The London sky was overcast, the cold wind biting. There were not many people outside, and even those who were out walked in a hurry.

There were only a handful of passengers on the public horsebus that ran along its fixed route. After paying one penny each, the sisters climbed to the upper deck and sat down.

The double-decker horsebus crawled forward, the streets of Whitechapel drifting away behind them. Daisy buried her face in her scarf and looked curiously at the roadside.

In late nineteenth-century London, most of the buildings and geographical layout were already not much different from later generations.

Only, compared to a hundred years in the future, the London of today was far more deserving of the title industrial capital, as well as the financial center of the world.

Beneath the gloomy sky, classical buildings flashed past along London’s streets, and shops of every kind lined the roads in a dazzling array.

As they traveled eastward from Whitechapel Road, she could observe the changes on both sides of the street more and more clearly.

After passing Aldgate, where merchants were everywhere, the horsebus continued west. Following a long journey, they entered The City of London.

The horsebus slowly pulled over at a busy crossroads to let passengers off. The next stop was St Paul’s Cathedral.

Once the vehicle stopped, Daisy looked toward the main thoroughfare of the nearby financial district.

This crossroads sat at the center of Cornhill, Threadneedle Street, and Lombard Street.

It was practically the hub of The City of London.

She looked toward the Royal Exchange and the Elawd Insurance Society on Cornhill.

Then she looked toward the crowds streaming out of the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street.

The people here were vastly different from those in the East End. Every one of them wore a solemn expression and a weary look. Men and women alike moved back and forth between financial institutions in leather boots.
Wealthy gentlemen in black swallowtail evening coats and tall black felt hats smoked as they carried decorative canes, ready to make their way to the coffeehouses.

Fine ladies in satin bustle dresses, fur shawls, and ribbon-trimmed warm bonnets stepped out of stockbrokers’ offices and quickly slipped into their private carriages.

Most of the young women wore neat, respectable dresses-the female typists who went in and out of the various companies.

At a glance, Daisy suspected nine out of every ten female clerks worked as typists.

The remaining one sent telegrams.

The crowds were packed shoulder to shoulder, making the financial district look like a giant beehive. Everyone here was one of the cornerstones of London’s prosperity.

The carriage continued on, passing St Paul’s Cathedral before arriving at Covent Garden.

Only then did the two sisters get down and head to the fruit, vegetable, and flower market to buy the ingredients on their list.

Daisy had already purchased two kinds of Indian black tea from a tea wholesaler on Whitechapel Road.

Each tea came in twenty-pound barrels. The wholesale price for Assam black tea by the barrel was eight pence a pound.

Darjeeling black tea was twelve pence a pound, bringing the cost to exactly four hundred pence.

Now, they needed to buy edible dried flowers from a dried flower wholesaler or herbalist in Covent Garden.

Daisy still remembered that in her previous life, she had attended many world-class commodity tea expos.

The flower best suited for blending with Darjeeling was, first and foremost, Damask rose.

Assam, meanwhile, could be blended with osmanthus, lavender, and jasmine.

If they could find suitable raisins, dried figs, dried apricots, and orange peel, those could also be added in appropriate amounts.

The Indian teas she had bought from the wholesaler in Whitechapel were not premium grade. Their aroma was lacking, the leaves were not especially attractive, and there was quite a bit of tea dust.

However, if she could scent the leaves with floral fragrance, then even these low-end teas could fetch a better price.

After Daisy and Penny got down from the carriage, they entered Covent Garden’s fresh flower, fruit, and vegetable market hand in hand.

In truth, it was not limited to fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Agricultural goods from all across London were gathered and distributed here, while small vendors were scattered through every corner of the market like blossoms strewn across a sea of flowers.

Once inside the market, the first thing to do was watch out for Gypsy girls.

But Daisy and Penny did not have to worry about that.

With their red hair, their half-worn dresses, and their accents, one look was enough to tell they were descendants of immigrants from Ireland.

Their parents were likely both textile workers, with a father who drank all day, and the whole family probably could not scrape together five pounds.

Even the most desperate Gypsy would not try to pick her pocket.

And so they safely arrived at a rather inconspicuous shop in the market that specialized in dried flowers.

In London at present, the market for edible dried flowers had already reached a certain scale.

Most were sold to French pastry shops and apothecaries, as well as wealthy people who liked to bathe in dried flowers.

It was not as though no tea merchants blended dried flowers with black tea.

It was just that those who drank floral tea were either the small, fashionable set within high society,

or the poorest of the poor, people who could only afford tea dregs and needed a bit of floral fragrance just to get them down.

Most of the time, merchants added unsafe artificial flavorings to both kinds of floral tea, a gray area born from the development of the chemical industry.

Moreover, when dried flowers and tea leaves were mixed together, the brew turned bitter if steeped too long, and the quality was unstable.

In most cases, merchants simply threw things together based on their own taste. The flavor was inconsistent, and none of them had ever studied floral tea in any systematic way.

That was exactly where Daisy’s selling point lay.

She wanted to sell a tea that ordinary people in the East End could afford, while still letting them enjoy a professional flavor without harming their health.

Daisy walked into the crowded shop and asked the clerk about the price of dried Damask rose flowers.

What she wanted to buy was crushed rose petals.

The clerk opened several metal tins on the counter and said, “The crushed petals are seven pence a pound. These two kinds are both five pence.”

“May I smell them?”

“Go ahead.”

Daisy lowered her head at the counter, chose the variety with the richer fragrance, bought two pounds of it, and did not forget to ask the clerk for a business card.
After that, she made a circuit of the flower market and, only after considerable effort, managed to find dried osmanthus flowers that were safe to eat.

The osmanthus available in London all came from the Qing Court. It was a rather niche product, and not cheap either-two shillings a pound.

After smelling the fragrance, Daisy calculated the proportions and bought ten ounces of dried osmanthus.

There were candied fruits at the market as well, so she casually bought some and packed them into her bag with the dried flowers.

Of course, if she wanted Penny to help carry the bag, she had to buy her some cheap little raisins too.

Not much time had passed yet, so she planned to walk with Penny to the busiest shopping district on Oxford Street and take a look at the famous department stores there.

In other words, the first place she had clipped from the newspaper and saved for inspection and research: Gaddlow’s Department Store.

Oxford Street was only a ten-minute walk from Covent Garden.

Along the way, she realized she had stepped into the consumer district of London’s late nineteenth-century middle class.

In this area, every shop was different from the cramped, crowded, damp establishments of the East End.

Even the roads were swept exceptionally clean, with a gas streetlamp installed at regular intervals.

Mounted street patrolmen in uniform rode tall horses back and forth through the district.

In the roadside restaurants, waiters wore short tailcoats. Most of the people going in and out of the coffeehouses were waiting for the nearby theaters and circuses to open.

On this street, most shops specialized in a single category of goods. There were no large, all-in-one department stores like those of later generations.

A small number were large department stores with limited categories.

London’s middle class at present loved a sense of ritual.

They liked buying fashionable hats from distinctive handmade milliners on Bond Street, French food from Regent Street, and household goods from Oxford Street.

Even belts and leather shoes were chosen from different shops, all for that one-of-a-kind sense of ceremony.

If one could wear a shirt made by a tailor, one would absolutely not wear a factory-made commodity.

As for the more famous department stores here, their range of goods was still nowhere near as broad as in later generations.

Daisy took Penny around Gaddlow’s Department Store. Although the shopgirls and waiters who brushed past them always looked somewhat wary of the two of them,

fortunately, because they were wearing full skirt outfits and hats and looked like some family’s maids, the waiters did not throw them out.

Daisy ignored those looks completely. She simply wanted to examine the sales model and the merchandise here, and once she had a good idea of them, she left.

Gaddlow’s Department Store occupied an entire building. The interior was very spacious, and each floor could accommodate dozens of people browsing at once.

The first floor sold daily sundries, the second kitchenware, and the third furniture and home textiles.

Many counters were arranged on each floor, with sales assistants helping customers package goods. The checkout counter was at the entrance, much like a supermarket.

Each counter section displayed high-quality household goods in neat order, but they were not the very finest merchandise.

For the very best goods, one had to look in the luxury shops on Bond Street and Regent Street.

Those who shopped on Oxford Street were either maids and housekeepers from wealthy households, or members of the middle class.

For example, the families of major shopkeepers and junior managers-people with annual incomes of more than six hundred pounds.

Anyone a little poorer would not choose this place.

Here, a pound of black tea from Assam sold for one pound sterling, while teas from better origins cost anywhere from several pounds upward.

Daisy and Penny left and went on to visit the nearby brand stores that specialized in individual categories of goods.

They passed an intersection, and Daisy noticed a conspicuous sign at the corner.

“Helconsa Spirits”

Daisy remembered that she seemed to have read a news report about this liquor merchant in the newspaper.

It was connected to the fraud case that had led to litigation between Chablis Bank and Ute Shipping Company.

…

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