Chapter 17 Just as Mary was hesitating…

Just as Mary was hesitating, John and Richard arrived, bringing news that confirmed Mary's thoughts.

“Mary, we finally found out from a senior student that he overheard shopkeepers saying that they should watch out for people buying large quantities of ordinary hats when they were buying handkerchiefs. If they do, they should raise the price and sell them to them. This happened before the news of the merchant ship capsizing came.” Richard pulled his sister aside and told her the information he had gathered.

John analyzed from the side, "These hat shops must have made arrangements. Richard and I went to the market separately to inquire, and it's said that recently all the hat shop customers have been attracted by a female tailor, and they want to teach her a lesson. Isn't that talking about Aunt Taylor?"

“Susan and I asked Mr. Brown, and the price of ordinary cotton fabric has not increased at all; in fact, it has decreased. Now we are worried that we will not have a place to put so much fabric when we get home, and we don’t have that much time to make hats. We have to go to school during the day, and we can’t keep candles burning for long periods of time at night.”

“Why keep the fabric at our house? Didn’t you give Aunt Taylor a commission? Why not talk to her and leave the materials there? We can even outsource the basic hat-making process to her. As long as you control the core decorative techniques, she can’t leave you out.” Richard had been thinking about this for a long time. Mr. Price was, after all, a former lieutenant, and Aunt Taylor didn’t know that the siblings were acting in secret. Her tailor shop’s business had been almost entirely dependent on Mary lately, so he wasn’t worried about her disagreeing.

“Richard is right. This is good for you too, Mary. You are a girl of status after all. It’s best to avoid doing business in public as much as possible.” John had never approved of his sister working so hard to earn money. In his opinion, William was already working and had General Maxwell’s support. His future was bright, and the family would naturally be better off then, unlike their current situation.

Mary knew John meant well, but she naturally disliked relying on others, even her brother William. After careful consideration, she realized Richard was right; selling one's own labor and working hard was nowhere near as lucrative as exploiting someone else's cheap labor. She decided to talk to Aunt Taylor now and see what kind of terms she would accept.

Before discussing it with Aunt Taylor, Mary left the fabric at the fabric shop, and the siblings said goodbye to Mr. Brown and Charlotte. If all went well, they would be Mr. Brown's regular business partners from now on. Although there was prejudice against women doing business, Mr. Brown didn't mind earning a little extra profit each month.

Upon arriving at Taylor's tailor shop, Aunt Taylor quickly came out to greet the four Mr. and Miss Price. She was only thirty-three years old, about the same age as Mrs. Price, but she didn't look like someone of Mrs. Price's age at all. The harshness of life had left its scars on her face, making her look much older than people in their fifties or sixties in later years. Fortunately, she was not defeated by life and stood up strong, supporting herself and her children through her own labor.

The tailor shop was located on the ground floor of a building on the street. The shop was on the street side, while Aunt Taylor's home was further inside—a typical family workshop of that era. Old Taylor had returned to her hometown of Portsmouth from a large tailor shop in London, married a seamstress, and the two of them supported the shop together.

For this impoverished family, life was bittersweet at first, though. The couple had four children, and their room gradually became cramped. Old Taylor began to dream that if business continued to thrive, they would rent the upstairs apartment, using the downstairs as a shop and the upstairs as their living quarters. However, hardship struck again. An illness tragically killed three of their children, and even more tragically, before young Taylor could grow up, an accident took Old Taylor's life as well.

Aunt Taylor alone couldn't possibly support a shop. Although she inherited her deceased husband's skills, she constantly faced exclusion from other tailors like Blake, and could only make a living by doing subcontracting for larger tailors. When Mary chose to have her clothes custom-made at Taylor's, this poor woman was almost destitute and could only do business with the poor using cheap fabrics.

Therefore, she was always grateful to Miss Price. During this time, Mary's hat business was booming, and Aunt Taylor had been working diligently. By sheer coincidence, ladies had also started patronizing her tailoring business. When Mary proposed changing the hat business from a commission-based system to a partnership for making hats, the woman quickly agreed.

After discussing it together, they decided to first divide the profits from the hats sold according to their previous agreement. In the past two months, they had sold a total of sixty-three hats, leaving seventeen remaining. These seventeen hats needed to be divided among Aunt Taylor, amounting to sixty-three shillings, or three pounds and three shillings. Mary received thirty-one pounds and ten shillings, leaving a net profit of twenty-seven pounds after deducting costs. Although Susan and the others had initially helped voluntarily, their contributions shouldn't be forgotten. Mary took nine pounds and gave them to Susan, John, and Richard, making their allowance more plentiful than ever before.

As for the future, John and Richard, representing the Price siblings, signed a new contract with Aunt Taylor: Mary would provide all the production costs for the hats and be responsible for the design drawings; Aunt Taylor would be responsible for the initial production and final sale of the hats; Susan and her sister would be responsible for the secondary decoration; and John and Richard would be responsible for purchasing, handing over, and counting the fabrics. After the sale, 60 percent of the profit would belong to Mary, 25 percent to Aunt Taylor, and the remaining 15 percent would be split equally among John, Richard, and Susan.

Since half of Taylor's tailor shop had been transformed into a hat shop, Aunt Taylor naturally had to express her thoughts. She reminded her, "Miss Price, these expensive hats are indeed very profitable, but we can't just sell these expensive hats. Just like when I sell clothes, customers are often only willing to order one set of a good outfit! Cheap hats may not have as much profit, but more people buy them."

Mary smiled and said, “You’re right, that’s true for ordinary people. But for wealthy people, they might even think our hats are too cheap and not classy enough. If a rich person from London is willing to spend ten pounds on a luxury hat, then the middle class in Portsmouth won’t think a hat that costs less than a pound is expensive.”

I plan to design several hats with the same elaborate embroidery and luxurious decorations as the one for the General's wife, priced at two to three pounds, and placed in the most prominent spot in the shop window. Even if no one buys them, it won't matter. Hats decorated with whelks and other overseas seashells will be priced at twenty-one shillings, while the remaining hats with ordinary seashell decorations will continue to sell for sixteen shillings. If customers ask, I'll tell them that the seashells were transported from overseas, and the previous low price was a promotional tactic. That way, everyone will think that sixteen shillings is not expensive at all.”

Aunt Taylor was stunned by Mary's words. She had originally planned to make a batch of cheap hats, selling them for only six to eight shillings, but Miss Price had done the opposite.

Richard clapped his hands in agreement: "Mary is right. As long as they feel it's worth it, those rich people won't care about spending a few more shillings. They might even think it's good value for money! I think the 21-shilling hats will sell very well. I'll go to the port and contact the sailors to buy seashells from overseas." John and Susan nodded in agreement after hearing this.

Since Price and the others had reached an agreement, Aunt Taylor naturally had no choice but to comply.

To allay her concerns, Mary gave another analogy: "Since the same hat was worn by the General's wife, it has become a must-have fashion item for all wealthy ladies. How can it be confused with ordinary hats? Even girls who don't have that much money right now are willing to save up to buy the same hat that the General's wife wore!"

Now that you mention it, Aunt Taylor understands. If she weren't the only one supporting her family, she would also want to save up to buy such a beautiful hat. Young girls are definitely more likely to be blinded by greed! Miss Price is indeed worthy of being the general's goddaughter; she knows so much!

After leaving Aunt Taylor's, John went to Mr. Brown's fabric shop to tell the clerk to deliver the fabric to Taylor's tailor shop. Richard, Mary, and Susan went home together. On the way back, Richard suddenly said, "Mary, I don't understand. You could have negotiated a lower price down for Aunt Taylor. I think even if you gave her fifteen percent, she would have agreed..."

“I don’t want to do that. Aren’t we relying on her to make this business possible? You know, we don’t even have a shop yet,” Mary interrupted Richard.

“But her shop is also rented. With the current profit, we could easily rent our own shop in the market and ask Aunt Taylor to take care of the basic hat making…” Richard tried to persuade his sister.

“Would Aunt Taylor agree? I don’t think so. Even if the hat business is very profitable, it’s my business, not hers. She won’t give up her tailor shop; that’s her livelihood. Should we hire someone else? Who can guarantee we’ll find someone equally reliable?” Mary was referring to both Aunt Taylor and herself. Both Mr. Brown’s implicit disdain and her brother John’s sincere persuasion only strengthened her resolve.

The next day, Mary sewed together fragments of blue abalone shells cut from the waters off New Zealand into a butterfly. As the butterfly fluttered on the brim of her photo cap, Portsmouth Harbor, shrouded in morning mist, welcomed a newly launched three-masted warship, the salty sea breeze carrying the scent of hope.

A note from the author:

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