Princess of the 19th Century Department Store - Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Mr. Nash had crawled out of the heaps of dead in Ireland and made his way to London some thirty or forty years ago.

He had seen every sort of grand occasion, and he had always had a good temper.

That was the only reason he had managed to live with Daisy’s firecracker of a grandmother and keep their days moving along despite all the chaos.

So this little experiment of his granddaughter’s was not something he found hard to accept.

“We’ll do it your way, then.”

Daisy nodded, then headed first toward a small wholesale shop specializing in soap products.

The shop was in one of the more conspicuous houses on the street, and the building looked much like Daisy’s own home.

Several brass plaques hung by the door, bearing the shop’s name: Fisher Soap Works.

The front door was narrow, and so were the windows. There was no way to see what it looked like inside, but once they stepped through the door, they could see solid wood cabinets on both sides that reached all the way to the ceiling, packed densely with all kinds of soap bars.

Some were loose, wrapped only in white paper and stuffed into the cabinets.

Others had two layers of wrapping: white paper inside, colored paper outside with a labeled nameplate. They were bundled by the dozen and tied very tightly with bleached fine hemp cord.

On the counter in the middle sat an unwrapped crate of soap. A middle-aged man sat behind it.

He wore a rough tweed coat in a color similar to Mr. Nash’s, with a single lens clipped over one eye.

He was dipping a quill in ink and entering accounts in a ledger. He seemed to be a full-time bookkeeper, and even when customers came in, he did not so much as lift his eyelids.

He merely called out casually, “Look around as you like. The boss is upstairs. Once you’ve chosen, I’ll call him.”

The room was filled with a rich smell of soap.

Daisy glanced at the bookkeeper’s ledger. It was not written very carefully, and his attitude was rather perfunctory. He was clearly not in charge.

She continued looking over the goods along the cabinets on both sides of the room with her grandfather.

What their own shop sold was loose soap wrapped only in white paper.

It was made from the fat of cattle and sheep from English farms mixed with chemicals. It was hard, strong at cleaning, and suitable for washing clothes.

On the shelves here were many soaps made from different raw materials and by different manufacturers.

The most exquisitely packaged one had a label that read Floral Olive Oil Soap. The manufacturer was Laville Banzes.

The soap was wrapped in white paper and placed in a tin box with patterns and a cardboard shell.

The retail price tag said one shilling.

The slightly less refined kind was wrapped in white paper, then covered with a layer of colored paper and tied with hemp cord.

This type of soap came in far more varieties of raw materials.

There was palm soap, coconut oil soap, hemp oil soap, and different fragrances as well. They were softer than soaps made from animal fat, and each manufacturer used a different chemical formula. Piles of them were crammed into every cabinet compartment.

One lavender-scented coconut oil soap even had a slogan printed on its colored paper: Softens the Shave, Cleanses with Civility.

The retail price was four pence.

In this era, soap was still mostly made by a mix of machine and handwork, and the quality was not standardized. For mid-range and low-end goods, the difference lay mainly in the raw materials.

After thinking for a moment, Daisy picked out thirty bars of the cheapest tallow soap and went to the counter to settle the bill.

The bookkeeper called upstairs for the boss, and then an old Jew slowly came down.

The old Jew also wore glasses and had a face full of white beard. He swept a glance over the goods and said, “Take another ten. Forty bars for thirty pence.”

“Forty bars at three farthings each?

Make it a little cheaper. How about fifty bars for thirty-four pence?”

Daisy spoke very quickly, her tone certain, as though she knew the costs perfectly well and haggling was only natural.

Even Mr. Nash beside her did not have that kind of presence.

The old Jew hesitated. Although this soap had a low cost, he would not make much profit if he went below three farthings.

“That won’t do. Fifty bars is thirty-eight pence at the very least.”

Daisy picked up a bar of soap from the table and pinched it.

“Thirty-five is enough. One look at this soap and I can tell it’s been sitting here for a month. You should be clearing space to buy fresh stock from the factory.”
“How about this: I’ll take sixty bars at once, and give you forty pence.”

Daisy had deliberately trained herself to speak quickly.

She put the emphasis on “one month” and “clear up space,” her tone all consideration for the other party.

Because she spoke so fast, the old Jew was still trying to work through the tangled sums in his head.

At first it had been thirty pence for forty bars of soap, then fifty bars, then sixty. The unit price differed by only the tiniest fraction.

Daisy tapped her fingers on the counter, as if she had all the patience in the world.

She looked him straight in the eye, not the least bit timid, as if she owed him nothing at all.

“Sell them to me. I’ll be back next week to buy just as many from you.”

The old Jew’s expression was none too pleased. His eyes dropped to the counter covered in bars of soap, and he clearly had no desire to keep arguing with her. In the end, he gave a reluctant nod.

“Deal.”

Mr. Nash, watching from the side, was rather stunned.

He quickly took out the burlap sack and packed in the thirty bars from the counter. Daisy then counted out another thirty from the shelf beside them and added those too.

Only then did she take forty pence from the safest pocket of her clothing and pay.

After leaving the soap shop and walking half a street away, Daisy glanced back, let out a soft laugh at her own conduct, then continued on to the shop that wholesaled cleaning powders.

On the way, Mr. Nash slowly did the math.

He remembered that the purchasing list had originally said they needed sixty bars of soap each month.

It took Mr. Nash quite a while before it clicked.

So Daisy had noticed that the young bookkeeper did not seem to be in charge, and that the old Jew did not have the patience for a long back-and-forth.

That was why she had deliberately started with thirty bars and raised the amount bit by bit.

She had used all that patter to distract the old Jew and lead him along at her pace.

A touch of surprise rose in Mr. Nash. He hurriedly shouldered the sack and caught up with Daisy.

After that, they went along the street and visited five or six wholesale shops, ordering a great many fast-moving sundries. They also filled two whole sacks with goods they could take on the spot.

They passed by the tobacco and liquor shop without so much as a glance.

Mr. Nash tied the two ends of the sacks together and slung them over his shoulder like a pair of saddlebags. Carrying them that way was hardly any trouble.

Daisy wanted to take one sack to help share the load, but her grandfather shook his head and waved her off.

“It’s easier to carry them like this.”

In his daily work, he had to carry large iron milk cans up and down, delivering milk to customers’ doors and measuring it out for them.

So Daisy let it be.

She focused on purchasing everything on the list, spending the budget down to the last penny.

Mr. Nash observed that the money on hand had been divided into three portions in a ratio of four to three to three, buying enough goods to sell for about a week under normal circumstances.

The first portion was for everyday consumables, such as supplies, lighting goods, and cleaning products.

For example, soap, soda powder, candles, kerosene, matches, laundry starch, bluing powder for yellowed fabrics, insect powder, hair oil, and tooth powder.

The second portion was for commonly used tools, such as can openers, buttons, safety pins, needles, spools of thread, notepaper, envelopes, ink, sealing wax, candles, and quill pens.

The third portion was for foods and seasonings that could be stored for a long time, such as ready-to-eat canned goods, sugar and salt, butter and flour, and cheap black tea.

For heavier items like flour and canned goods, once the purchase reached a certain amount, most wholesale shops could provide home delivery.

The household stationery was bought from a large wholesaler called Desita, which could also deliver it to their door.

The sack Mr. Nash carried contained only some small odds and ends.

He and Daisy walked briskly home. Though the load was heavy, he was delighted.

The goods they had bought this time were far better value than the last batch he and Fred had purchased.

Sure enough, when it came to bargaining and dealing with people, girls were the capable ones. They were quick too. It had only been a little over two hours since they left home.

As they were preparing to head back, the bell ringer in the Whitechapel bell tower slowly struck ten chimes.

…