Chapter 3 Since Mrs. Price...
Since Mrs. Price wasn't as unwilling to relinquish control of the kitchen as some women these days, she couldn't maintain her principles for very long.
Although Mrs. Price had some doubts about whether her five-year-old daughter could manage the kitchen and the maids, she decided to give it a try at Mary's repeated pleas. After all, the outcome couldn't be worse; with her daughter keeping an eye on things, the servants would slack off much less often. If the expenses really did come down, she promised Mary a tenth of the money saved. Even ten pence less would be good, Mrs. Price thought to herself.
Mary decided to first check what was in the kitchen and pantry. The Price family's pantry was located between the kitchen and dining room. It wasn't very big and contained everyday items such as tableware and tea sets, as well as food such as flour, cheese, butter, and sugar, and various wines that Mr. Price loved.
Mary started with the simplest things, reducing the frequency of buying spirits and wine from that day on. To deal with Mr. Price, she had her maid Kate inform her when guests came, and whenever the lieutenant and his friends drank too much, Mary would secretly add more water to their drinks, so the drunkards couldn't tell the difference. Another maid, Eva, who was only sixteen, thought Miss Mary was a very strange girl, always helping out in the storeroom when guests came, which she was happy to use as an opportunity to relax.
Although Mr. Price would sometimes grumble that "Jack the Liquor Dealer's liquor is getting worse and worse," he never suspected an inside job. As a kitchen maid who often spent her time in the kitchen, Ava found Miss Mary strange, but she rarely had the opportunity to interact with Lieutenant Price, so Mary's little tricks remained undetected.
Not only was it enough for Mary to seek benefits for Mr. Price (considering the harmful effects of alcohol, Mary felt her actions were perfectly justified), she also hoped to secure some benefits for herself. The cuisine of the United Kingdom was renowned even in the 21st century, and coupled with Kate's terrible cooking, one can imagine how difficult Mary's life was; her malnutrition was not without reason.
Mrs. Price did notice her second daughter's pickiness, but she didn't take it seriously. At this time, a thin, slender figure was becoming fashionable, and young ladies were all slender and frail. Although Mary was just a little girl, her early signs of beauty meant she was likely to find a good husband, and eating less was a good thing. But Mary never considered dieting; she wanted to grow up healthy.
The Price family ate two meals a day, with afternoon tea. Except for Mary, who found it a little strange, no one else thought it was odd. Breakfast was alright; the staples were white bread and brown bread. Thank God, they weren't so poor as to eat black bread. While the white bread couldn't compare to the processed breads of later generations with their large amounts of milk, sugar, and other additives (Mary really missed those additives after returning to the 19th century), it wasn't bad either. The brown bread was somewhat similar to whole wheat bread of later times, but because the flour wasn't ground finely enough, the texture was, in Mary's opinion, terrible.
Every day, there would be butter or molasses (the sugar residue left over from refining cane sugar in the 19th century, which was very popular among the poor because it retained its sweetness and was cheap) on the table to spread on the bread. Sometimes there would be milk, coffee, tea, boiled eggs, etc., and occasionally there would be bacon, ham, etc. No matter when, such a breakfast could be considered rich.
Dinner was different. Vegetables included mashed potatoes, cabbage, peas and other beans, while meats included stewed potatoes, gravy pudding, and sausages. These dishes sounded delicious and were often on the Price family's table. Because Portsmouth is by the sea, grilled fish was also a frequent dish. As for beef and lamb, they were usually served when Lieutenant Price's friends came over.
But Mary never envied her father's ability to eat lavish meals like John and Richard did. She had noticed on several occasions that the maids hadn't washed the dishes properly. Besides, Kate's cooking was truly terrible. Take the simplest mashed potatoes, for example. As someone who loved potatoes, Mary couldn't understand how anyone could make them so awful—a mixture of sweet and salty, with an indescribable, strange taste.
Kate couldn't be blamed for this. The previous housekeeper had been dismissed by Mrs. Price because her salary was slightly higher. Of the two remaining maids, Kate was nineteen and had more work experience, so Mrs. Price "entrusted her with an important task." Having accepted the benefit of lower servants' wages, the family had to endure the disadvantages. It's just that Mary, seemingly inheriting the tastes of her previous Chinese heritage, found it particularly unbearable.
"My dear lady, what are you doing in the kitchen again? The bread isn't ready yet!" Kate asked, puzzled, when she saw Mary in the kitchen again.
Mary replied, "I'm curious to see how you make mashed potatoes."
Kate placed the washed potatoes in the oven to bake until cooked, then transferred the soft potatoes to a large bowl, along with butter, salt, cheese, and other seasonings. "Stop, stop! Good heavens! You're going to put Stilton cheese in! Why are you putting it in?"
“Miss, Mrs. Price specifically told me that the Price family’s mashed potatoes contain cheese.”
“There’s no need to put Stilton cheese in it, we have cheddar cheese at home.” Mary finally understood where the strange flavor in the mashed potatoes came from; she couldn’t stand blue cheese.
“Mr. Price always says, ‘A jug of ale and a spoonful of Stilton cheese every day, and you’ll have a body of old age.’” Kate didn’t find this strange at all; servants always had to do what their masters wanted, no matter how illogical it might be.
“Oh, I see. I think you misunderstood Mr. Price. He probably meant that he wanted to enjoy the cheese alone while drinking. Next time, you can scoop out a spoonful for him. That’s the treatment the head of the household should receive! As for us, we don’t need to. Just use the most ordinary cheddar cheese.” Kate nodded and followed her mistress’s advice to change the cheese.
Mary thought she had escaped a disaster, but then she saw Kate preparing to add molasses to the mashed potatoes: "Wait a minute, why are you adding molasses?"
“Oh, miss, what’s wrong with sweets? I love sweets, and I think Mr. and Mrs. Price do too.”
“Sweetness isn’t necessarily bad, but didn’t you already add salt for seasoning? I don’t think it’s a pleasant experience to find sugar bits in mashed potatoes. If anyone likes it, let them add it themselves.” Under Kate’s puzzled look, Mary repeated herself—she hoped to have a serving of mashed potatoes with only butter, cheese, and salt today.
Subsequently, after Mary repeatedly promised the maid that as long as she cleaned the kitchen and pantry properly and wiped the tableware and cutlery clean, she would definitely suggest to Mrs. Price that she give her a raise, the Price family's formal meals finally started to look presentable after continuous guidance.
Although the rest of the family felt the food was a bit bland these days, Mary couldn't stand the current eating habit of putting cheese and butter in everything. "Are white people's palates really that underdeveloped?! How are these dishes bland?!" Another major advantage of this approach was that it saved money; many things in the pantry were consumed more slowly, such as that expensive Stilton cheese.
When the accounts were reconciled at the end of the month, Mrs. Price was overjoyed: "My goodness! My dear little Mary! How come the housework expenses this month were only twelve pounds? That's four pounds less! How did you do that?" Mrs. Price exclaimed in surprise, "My darling, you will definitely marry a gentleman and become a good wife who is good at managing a household."
Mary took the four shillings Mrs. Price had given her, and instead of responding to her mother's fantasies about her future marriage, she said, "Mother, I've managed the kitchen quite well, haven't I? Now you can rest assured. If I can keep up this level of spending, you'll have to give me four shillings every month."
"What do you need this money for, young girl?" Mrs. Price asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion.
Mary paused for a moment. She didn't want to answer at first, but then she thought that she couldn't hide this matter anymore, so she answered Mrs. Price with a mix of truth and falsehood: "I want to go to school like my brothers. Mrs. Maxwell said that families with the means would send their girls to school. Of course, we can't afford a tutor, but aren't the two daughters of the Gregory family next door going to school?"
“But your father already refused last time; he felt it wasn’t necessary.” Mrs. Price was afraid her daughter would anger her husband.
“If I can save money myself without my father paying, he won’t stop me, will he?” Mrs. Price was relieved. It turned out that Mary was just being delusional. She had heard Mrs. Gregory boast about the tuition fees at the girls’ school that Gregory’s daughter attended. The tuition alone was twelve pounds a year, and then there were additional costs for books and meals. It wouldn’t even be enough for twenty pounds a year. Even if Mary saved four shillings a month, it would take her many years to save. By then, Mary would be all grown up, and there would be nothing to worry about.
To avoid discouraging her daughter's enthusiasm and to save herself the trouble, Mrs. Price and Mary made this agreement. The mother even thought that if Mary were the eldest daughter, or already Fanny's age, perhaps many of the worries could be left to her daughter; she really didn't want to worry about these household chores.
Mary, having received her mother's promise, didn't forget about the maid Kate: "Mother, Kate has been working quite a lot lately! She's helped me a lot too. If you don't give her a raise, I'm worried she'll apply to other places! Our other neighbor, Mrs. Evans, has been complaining about not having a suitable maid. If Kate went there, I reckon she'd be willing to pay seven shillings a week."
That's too much! Mrs. Price's eyes revealed her true thoughts; she was only willing to add sixpence, which was the amount the dismissed maid had received.
Kate was satisfied. The servants all knew that although the Evans family could afford seven shillings, Mrs. Evans couldn't stand the servants eating their leftovers. Occasionally, Kate would even get some leftover sausages and meat from the Price family, which was considered an extra perk of being a servant.
Mary's promise was fulfilled so quickly that Kate became even more convinced of the young lady's abilities, and she increasingly believed Mrs. Price's words: who knows, perhaps Miss Mary could indeed use her beauty and talent to marry into a wealthy family someday. If that were the case, Kate would have to cultivate a good relationship with the young lady; maybe one day she could also become a maid or even a housekeeper in a rich household. Born into a working-class family, her greatest wish since she was old enough to understand was to become a high-class maid with an annual income of over thirty pounds.
Mary wasn't aware of Kate's ambitions, but she could clearly sense that the nineteen-year-old was becoming more cooperative. Her brown eyes often sparkled with vitality, and she seemed full of hope for the future. Indeed, a raise was always the most effective way to motivate workers, Mary thought to herself. With this vivid example of a pay rise before her, the other maid, Ava, also became much more proactive in her work, especially when cleaning the three young ladies' rooms; she was much more diligent then.
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