Chapter 22 "Mary, remember..."
“Mary, remember to prepare some extra embroidery thread, we’re going to school.” Until the day before school started, Charlotte asked a servant to tell Mary that Mrs. Price was already used to the close relationship between her two daughters and Miss Brown, and with only five children left at home, she was quite happy for them to go out and make more friends.
Once school started, Mrs. Price felt lonely. Mr. Price would leave and not return until the afternoon, leaving only Tom, Charles, and the maid in the house, which she found rather unsettling. The children, completely oblivious to their mother's loneliness, went to school happily.
The new semester's French classes were a bit of a struggle for the girls. Lacking a language environment, even Mary, who had some prior knowledge, had almost forgotten all the vocabulary and grammar after a while. Despite this, she thought, "Since I've already paid tuition, I might as well learn," and enrolled in Ms. Abbott's Latin course. Susan and Charlotte both declined, so Mary could only encourage each other to study grammar through correspondence with John.
Apart from that, nothing else at school bothered the sisters. Even Elizabeth Wesley and Catherine Green, who always liked to provoke the Price sisters, couldn't stir any ripples in their hearts.
“Liz, you have a new hat again today. Isn’t this the same hat that Mrs. Johnson is supposedly wearing? My mother insisted that I was too young to wear it and wouldn’t buy it for me.” Miss Green loudly complimented Elizabeth Wesley in the classroom. “Your mother is so good to you.”
“It’s nothing, just a 21-shilling hat. I bought it with my own allowance,” Wesley said casually, but the upturned corners of her mouth betrayed her. “My dad gives me a lot of allowance. I can easily buy a hat every week. I’m not like some poor girls who only wear two or three hats a year.”
Charlotte and Susan both lowered their heads, trying hard not to laugh out loud. Mary looked helplessly at Wesley and Green, thinking about how Elizabeth had unknowingly spent a lot of money on their hats thanks to Charlotte's constant sales pitch, and even felt a little sorry for the girl—how much of her allowance had she spent on hats!
Seeing Mary's wry smile, Elizabeth Wesley became even more smug. Unbeknownst to her, she became Mary's best advertisement—for many days, Wesley wore a different hat to school each time, proudly showing it off to her classmates. Inspired by her, Catherine Green and others followed suit, indirectly boosting hat sales.
Charlotte even casually mentioned during break, "I heard these hats were designed by a French noblewoman in exile, and she has a tailor from the East with her..."
This carefully crafted lie shrouded these hats, which had been on the market for quite some time, in mystery once again. Aunt Taylor was repeatedly questioned by the ladies who came to buy them, asking if the hats were delivered there by the servants of that noblewoman.
About two weeks after the start of the school year, Mary received a reply from Mansfield Manor. Fanny wrote in the letter: "Dear Mary, Auntie and my two cousins all love the hats you sent. Maria wore one of them to a ball recently and received unanimous praise from those around her."
My aunt insisted that it was because Maria was beautiful, but my uncle and Edmund both agreed that your hat also added to Maria's charm. Sir, you are very grateful that you thought of your aunt and two cousins even though you are far away in Portsmouth. You specially asked me to send you ten pounds as pocket money.
My two older cousins asked you to buy them two more hats. They're willing to pay a bit more, as long as the style is trendy. Edmund insists on paying you first, so this letter contains sixteen pounds. Please keep it safe… Reply as soon as you receive it. Love, your sister Fanny.”
Mary gripped the letter tightly—doing high-end customization was definitely the right decision! Cousin Bertram was willing to pay three pounds a hat, which was three times the profit margin of ordinary hats! Susan exclaimed happily, "Thank you, Fanny! Thank you to our uncle and cousins! Mary, you succeeded! I knew you would succeed!"
“No,” Mary smiled, “it was the three of us who succeeded.”
After receiving this letter, contact between Portsmouth and Mansfield in Northampton became more frequent. Fanny, who had previously been embarrassed to write back so often, now had a "legitimate reason" that wouldn't be criticized by Aunt Norris.
The Bertram sisters even started recommending "overseas tailors living in Portsmouth" to their friends, and the profits from their hat business stabilized again.
What puzzled the two Miss Bertram was that, although they never cared what kind of life their cousins in Portsmouth were living, since receiving these stylish hats, they couldn't help but think that the Price sisters might have seen some of the world. So why did Fanny act so foolishly when she first arrived in Mansfield? It could only be, as Aunt Norris said, that their cousins were simply less gifted, and their worldly experience couldn't compensate for their lack of natural talent—just as even a beautiful hat needs to be worn on the right person.
Mary was unaware of her cousins' whispers about her sisters, even if she did, she probably wouldn't care. With the hat business booming again, Aunt Taylor could only occasionally meet with the two Miss Prices under the guise of going to the Prices' house to have clothes made.
“Miss Price, look how neat this stitch is! I learned this from my late husband, a craft from Savile Row in London. Most tailors in Portsmouth don’t have this skill and patience, which is why I always take longer to make clothes than most. Because of this, many ladies prefer to have their clothes made by the Blacks; his greatest advantage is speed, though his workmanship isn’t as good as mine.” After handing over the recent accounts, Aunt Taylor held the newly made dress in her hands and couldn’t help but sigh.
“What did you just say? Please repeat it.” Mary felt something was very close at hand, something she hadn’t thought of before.
Aunt Taylor looked at Mary with a puzzled expression and repeated, "Blake's work is not as good as mine."
“Not this sentence, it’s the previous one.” Mary shook her head.
His greatest strength is his speed!
That's right, speed is key! Mary finally grasped the crucial point. Despite making hats for so long, she and Susan had only been responsible for embroidery and decoration. Mrs. Price, apart from knitting sweaters at home, only did minor repairs on clothes. She had never seriously considered that every step of the process for making all the clothes was now done by hand by the tailors.
Without sewing machines and standard sizes, if she invented the sewing machine and produced clothes by machine, which tailor could be faster than her? Tailors like Blake, whose skills are not good enough, will only be eliminated by machines!
“Aunt Taylor, if there were a machine that could sew clothes…” Mary’s words were cut short as Aunt Taylor shook her head violently: “How could that be? Machines aren’t people, how could they sew clothes? If such a machine existed, what would happen to us tailors? You must be joking, Miss Price.”
"This was just an idea that suddenly popped into my head, please don't take it to heart." Seeing Aunt Taylor's strong reaction, Mary quickly changed the subject, "Just leave the clothes here for now, and we'll settle the bill at the end of the month as usual."
Aunt Taylor left, but Mary immediately went upstairs to draw the sewing machine she remembered—a foot-operated sewing machine. After thinking for a moment, she added a handle. But the sewing machines she used were electric. We were still in the era of the First Industrial Revolution, and the prototype of the electric motor wouldn't be invented until Faraday, another ten years later. It would be even longer before it could be put into use. What she needed to make wasn't that, but a more primitive manual sewing machine.
In order to improve her invention, Mary decided to go to the mobile library to find information about the current level of machine manufacturing. It took her almost two months before she stumbled upon an article about Thomas Sant's invention of the sewing machine in an old issue of the Journal of Mechanics in the mobile library.
Mary's fingers gently traced the yellowed pages, her gaze fixed on the brief entry: "In 1790, carpenter Thomas Sant invented a hand-cranked single-thread chain sewing machine, primarily used for sewing leather and canvas..."
Her heart suddenly raced, and her blue-green eyes shone brightly in the dim candlelight. This discovery was like a ray of light in the darkness: long before her, someone had already tried to make a sewing machine, and she could improve upon the most primitive machine.
Mary eagerly flipped open the sketchbook she carried with her, her quill pen flying across the paper. Combining her previous drawing of the foot-operated sewing machine structure with the principles of the Sant sewing machine described in the book, a completely new design gradually took shape: a delicate hand-cranked lockstitch sewing machine, with a metal body replacing the bulky wooden structure, and lockstitch replacing chain stitch for stronger and neater stitches.
"If we could manufacture it, it would drastically reduce clothing costs and completely transform the garment industry..." she murmured to herself, her fingertips gently tracing the mechanical structure on the blueprints. Perhaps 21st-century fashion designers pursue the pinnacle of craftsmanship through pure handcraftsmanship, but mechanized production will always have a greater market potential.
Immediately, a practical problem arose: how could such a complex machine be manufactured? Mary bit the end of the quill pen, lost in thought.
She couldn't ask General Maxwell for help—it was far too conspicuous for a nine-year-old girl to design such a sophisticated machine. Moreover, in this era of burgeoning Luddite movements, such an invention would undoubtedly provoke panic and resistance from tailors and seamstresses. When it comes to matters of vital interest, no one is willing to easily give up; another movement to smash sewing machines wouldn't be surprising, after all, these machines could indeed "eat people"!
Outside the window, the sea breeze of Portsmouth continued to howl. Mary carefully hid the design drawings inside a Bible, deciding to keep the idea hidden in her heart for the time being.
However, her mind was already racing with ideas: perhaps in the future, she could find a reliable mechanic in London to collaborate with through John? Or perhaps in a few years, after Richard had made his fortune in India, they could work together on the project? There was no need to rush; the perfect opportunity would come eventually.
A note from the author:
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Update at 9 PM the day after tomorrow. Hoping the traffic magic will work its magic. Compared to five years ago, the increase in favorites now is truly brutal. Dear readers, please add this to your favorites!
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