Chapter 12 The next day, Mrs. Price...
The next day, Mrs. Price accepted the invitation and took her two daughters to visit Mrs. Gregory next door. Although they lived in the same neighborhood, the Gregory's house, which they had built themselves, was clearly of much better quality than the Price's, and was meticulously maintained by its owners.
The living room was not as cramped as Price's house. The furniture in the room was obviously made a few years ago, with a trendy style and bright utensils. Everything was kept clean and tidy. Although it was not as exquisite and luxurious as the general's mansion, it was much better than Price's house.
Mrs. Gregory wasn't particularly pretty. Her ornate hat adorned with feathers didn't flatter her; in fact, it made her look somewhat comical given her short stature. When she stood next to the beautiful Mrs. Price, she appeared even less striking. However, she did look slightly younger than Mrs. Price. The Gregory household had four servants, so the mistress of the house didn't need to do any housework herself.
Her husband, Mr. Gregory, ran a spice shop, originally owned by his father-in-law, who unfortunately had only one daughter, so the shop naturally passed to his son-in-law. The spice shop was past its prime when he took it over, but through Mr. Gregory's hard work, he still managed to buy land and build the house they lived in, and prepared two thousand pounds each as a dowry for his two daughters. Considering that Mr. Gregory's annual income was about seven or eight hundred pounds, he treated his daughters quite well. As for the bulk of his fortune—the shop—it was naturally left to his only son.
It's no wonder that the two Gregory girls always acted superior; their dowries were the envy of most daughters in the neighborhood, let alone the Price girls who wouldn't receive a pound dowry. Lucy and Jane usually got along fairly well with William, and Fanny hadn't seen through the sisters' pretense, but Mary and Susan had disliked the sisters since childhood.
So while the two mothers sat in the living room exchanging meaningless pleasantries, Mary and Susan could only sit idly to the side.
After a while, Miss Gregory pulled them aside. "How is your brother William doing lately? I heard he's gained the favor of your godfather, General Maxwell. Is that true?" Jane, the second daughter, asked impatiently. Lucy, seemingly nonchalant, was actually glancing at the Mary sisters out of the corner of her eye.
“Thank you for your concern. William is doing well. He will be returning soon with the ‘Antwerp.’ You can ask him about it then. I don’t know the specifics of his situation; my godfather never talks to me about these things.” Mary didn’t want to discuss William’s situation with the two young ladies. Perhaps there was some affection between the young William and Miss Gregory, but she and Susan were not happy to have such a sister-in-law, and therefore had no intention of playing matchmaker for them.
Hearing Mary mention General Maxwell, Lucy finally spoke up: "Oh, you're all so lucky, especially you, Mary. I heard you were able to go to school this time entirely because of General Maxwell. Susan, you're really benefiting from Mary's connections. I thought you'd stay home like Miss Evans, but I heard... cough cough cough, I think you know, Mr. Evans never spends a penny on his daughters, as if he only has a few sons. My father never thought that way; he always supported us going to girls' school for a better education."
From this perspective, Mr. Gregory was indeed quite good to his daughters. Although his initial intention was for his two daughters to marry into wealthy families so that he and his son could also benefit from it, such a father was considered responsible in this era. In the United Kingdom, there were not only fathers who ignored their daughters, but also many who sold their daughters.
After the two ladies exchanged pleasantries, Mrs. Gregory had her servant call two carriages to take them to the market. The market wasn't actually far from their homes, but Mrs. Gregory clearly didn't want to walk; even with clogs, the excrement and rubbish near the street would easily soil the hem of her new dress.
Therefore, to determine whether a gentleman or lady is presentable, one cannot simply look at their clothes; one must look at the hem of their trousers and the hem of their skirt. In such situations, renting a carriage is essential for families like Gregory's, who are relatively wealthy but cannot afford to maintain one. Of course, nothing is as comfortable as owning one's own carriage.
Seeing that Mrs. Gregory had already boarded the carriage with her daughter, Mrs. Price reluctantly negotiated a price with the coachman: a full eight pence.
It was Susan's first time riding in a carriage, and she curiously leaned out the window. The carriage quickly took them to the market. This was Portsmouth's largest market, where Mr. Gregory's spice shop was located. Mrs. Price had also shopped here before, but unlike Mrs. Gregory, she didn't know the place like the back of her hand. With Mrs. Gregory, they could buy what they wanted from the familiar shopkeepers; otherwise, a stranger, especially a woman, would only be waiting to be ripped off.
At a stationery store, Mary and Susan quickly selected quill pens and paper, the cheapest kind. Mary looked around and picked out some paints (she didn't have enough left), a total of three shillings. She took out her pocket money and paid the bill.
The two Miss Gregorys, however, chose a different kind of patterned writing paper, and also bought some drawing paper and some more expensive watercolors. When Mrs. Gregory went to pay the bill, Lucy mentioned that although she had left school, she still corresponded with several well-off friends, and asked for some extra high-quality stationery. So Mrs. Gregory ended up paying twelve shillings.
"If you're going to use paper and pens of this quality, you'll probably be hard-pressed to be popular at school." After leaving the store, Lucy walked beside Mary when the two adults weren't looking. She raised her eyebrows, looking quite impatient, and said in a casual tone, "But I guess there's not much you two can do. You'll just have to do what you can."
“Anyway, these papers and pens are used for writing, so I don’t think there’s any real difference between them, good or bad.” Mary smiled. “As for other people’s opinions, perhaps your friends care whether the stationery is high-end, but Miss Maxwell doesn’t care about that.”
Miss Gregory was rendered speechless by Mary's words. Even though her stationery was of a higher quality than Mary Price's, she had not made a friend of the same noble status as Miss Maxwell, which made her words less convincing, especially in front of Mary Price.
Although she secretly hoped that General Maxwell's connection would help William Price's rapid promotion, at this moment, she undoubtedly wished that Miss Maxwell was a bad-tempered girl who would drive Mary Price out of the general's mansion forever.
Since they were at the market, Mrs. Gregory naturally wanted to visit her own shop. When they arrived, Mr. Gregory was attending to customers. Although he was a businessman, he looked very respectable and was quite polite; an outsider might even mistake him for a gentleman.
The shop may not look big, only seven square meters, but it is filled with spices from all over the world: pepper, cinnamon, cardamom and turmeric from East India; cloves and nutmeg from the North Maluku Islands of Indonesia; pandan leaves from Malaysia; myrrh and frankincense from the Arabian Peninsula and Africa; vanilla pods from the Americas... Thanks to the advantageous location of Portsmouth, a port city, almost all the world's famous spices can be found here.
The customer in the shop bought half a pound of pepper and left. Spices were no longer as unattainable for people in the 19th century as they had been in previous centuries, and people's enthusiasm for spices had gradually cooled. Most spices had gradually moved from being a luxury item for the nobility into the lives of ordinary middle-class people; otherwise, this shop wouldn't have made so little money. Mr. Gregory was already considering whether to sell something else in the shop, such as tea or coffee.
He was in a good mood after closing the deal and warmly greeted Mrs. Price, inviting her to choose whatever she wanted and promising her the best price. Mrs. Price, looking at the dazzling array of bottles and jars, felt a surge of excitement and decided to buy some spices she needed to take home.
“Oh, what’s that piece of rotten wood in the corner?” Mrs. Price asked curiously. “Mrs. Price, a sailor brought it back from Annam in Asia. He didn’t know what it was, so I bought it. I think it’s probably some kind of spice from the East. You know, those Easterners are obsessed with these things,” Mr. Gregory replied casually after glancing at it.
Clearly, the sailor hadn't gotten much out of Mr. Gregory; he probably hadn't paid much for the item. Mary was already intrigued by the "rotten wood"—it was obviously a piece of agarwood—and seeing Mrs. Price's lack of interest, she interjected, "Mr. Gregory, how much did this piece of wood cost? I think its shape is quite peculiar."
"Little Mary, just give me two shillings if you like it." Mr. Gregory bought this item from the sailor for only one shilling. If the sailor hadn't insisted that it was valuable, he wouldn't have even paid that amount. Unfortunately, it sat there for a long time without being sold.
Mary continued to haggle with Mr. Gregory over the price, while Mrs. Price clearly didn't understand why her daughter wanted to buy a piece of broken wood. "Oh, Mary, what use is this piece of broken wood? I think we should just buy some cinnamon instead."
Upon hearing this, Mr. Gregory, considering how long the piece of wood had occupied his shelf, sold it to Mary for one shilling and sixpence.
On the way back, Mrs. Price scolded her daughter for it: "I think Mr. Gregory is really ripping us neighbors off. This piece of wood is almost rotten. What good is it except for a little fragrance? Mary, you really shouldn't have spent this money."
Mary verbally agreed with Mrs. Price's sermon, but inwardly she felt that today's trip had been truly worthwhile. She had carefully examined the piece of agarwood; a portion of it was soft in texture, smooth and oily to the touch, clearly reaching the grade of Qinan, which explained its noble and elegant fragrance.
If she were in the East, this piece of agarwood would be worth more than gold. If she missed this opportunity, it would be almost impossible to find it again in the United Kingdom, and she would regret it for the rest of her life. Even if no one here recognizes its value, simply as a rare medicinal herb and spice, it is worth keeping for Mary.
A note from the author:
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