“——Does Your Highness find this amusing as well?”
“Adrian, what I mean is… you’ve talked so much, but you barely mentioned the most important person, Mrs. Clement.”
“Isn’t it because I trust my partner to fill in the details for me? Jack.”
The fine lines at the corners of his eyes relaxed slightly as he gazed at his bickering subordinates with the affection of an older brother looking at quarreling younger siblings. Duke Wilson had just opened his mouth to praise the two when a cough overflowed from his throat.
“Your Highness!?”
Jack and Adrian tensed up simultaneously. Duke Wilson waved his hand, signaling them not to come over and support him.
“It’s just a slight cold.”
Adrian and Jack exchanged a glance.
Duke Wilson had been frail since childhood, which was why he had been stripped of his right to inherit the throne and ended up sitting on the ducal seat as the king’s younger brother. His “slight cold” was absolutely never just a “slight cold.”
Avoiding talk of his own condition, Duke Wilson changed the subject: “Tell me about Daisy.”
Daisy was Mrs. Clement, and Duke Wilson was the “backer” behind her. However, contrary to what the world imagined, Duke Wilson was willing to be Daisy’s “backer” and elevate her to “Mrs. Clement” not because of any physical relationship between them.
In fact, the frail Duke Wilson, who caught fevers and colds every few days, was unable to enjoy male-female pleasures. Otherwise, he would not have reached the “advanced age” of thirty-five still without wife or children, living a more ascetic life than a priest.
What Duke Wilson valued was Daisy’s business acumen as a merchant and her eye for investments. With a “backer,” Daisy no longer needed to sell her body to gain the right to do business. The two each got what they needed, and their cooperation had always been pleasant.
Daisy had secretly given birth to a daughter. To prevent her daughter from being forced down the same path by those around her and also to keep her from being snatched away by the noble father who sired her, Daisy had registered the daughter as her “niece” on the household records.
Yesterday’s salon gathering was the first time Daisy had brought Charlotte out in public. Knowing how much Daisy cherished her daughter, Duke Wilson had sent Adrian and Jack to attend the gathering in their personal capacities. Secretly, they were to probe and see if anyone intended harm toward Daisy.
“Mrs. Clement is fine. The doctor’s diagnosis matched what Mrs. Hedelin said almost exactly. The doctor also said it was fortunate that someone tore open Charlotte’s corset right away. The young Charlotte has a tenacious life force. As long as she resumes a normal diet afterward and gradually strengthens her exercise, Charlotte has a high chance of recovering her health.”
“Adrian, in that whole speech of yours, only the first sentence was actually about Mrs. Clement.”
“Jack, are you planning to dissect every single sentence I said?”
Adrian and Jack started bickering again. Duke Wilson’s brows curved slightly as his thoughts drifted toward Mrs. Hedelin, who was like a prophet.
Though “one cannot judge by appearances,” and a person’s face does not represent their soul, it was still hard for him to imagine someone with a slightly harsh countenance, who did not look like a good person, performing an act of salvation.
Ye Tang, who had just bathed and sat before the mirror, shivered. She draped a slightly thicker garment over her shoulders before picking up the eyebrow knife.
Anna Rochel’s eyebrows had grown wildly and unrestrained. Judging from the emerging stubble, Anna Rochel had had a unibrow, and a thick, coarse one at that—like two pieces of seaweed stuck to her face.
Probably out of disgust for her own thick unibrow, Anna Rochel had trimmed her eyebrows thinner and sharper, turning them into something that could be plucked off her face and used as a hidden weapon.
Patiently scraping away the stray hairs without damaging the original shape, she let the wildly growing eyebrows continue their wild growth. No longer gloomily furrowing her brow every day with lips sagging as if they might smash into the ground, Ye Tang’s facial expression no longer appeared as harsh and malicious as it had when she first arrived.
Claudia and Gloria spent every day glued to Ye Tang, so to the two sisters, Ye Tang’s changes did not seem that drastic. Cinderella had never seen the former Anna Rochel and thus had no way to compare Ye Tang to the past Anna Rochel.
Hans… before Ye Tang kicked him out of the house, he had never properly looked at his wife; after being kicked out, he drowned himself in the laps of beauties in other cities every day and would not care what his wife had become.
On the contrary, the women of Soho District had noticed the changes in “Anna Rochel.” Some sent their servants with copper coins and sweets to pry words out of the Hedelin House maids, while others tried to get their children close to Claudia or Gloria to dig the secret to their mother’s beautification from the sisters’ mouths.
By now, no one cared anymore whether Hedelin House had an extra Cinderella.
Another week passed, and an extremely luxurious carriage stopped at the door of Hedelin House. The women of Soho District, bored from the winter idleness, perked up at their servants’ words. Peering at Hedelin House from windows and over courtyard walls, they wished they could hurl their eyeballs into Hedelin House for a better look.
“Mrs. Clement.”
Ye Tang, lifting her skirt hem, curtsied to Daisy along with the three girls.
Daisy smiled warmly: “Just call me Daisy, Anna Rochel.”
“Then please call me Anna as well.”
A drizzling light rain began to fall outside. Leading Daisy into the house, Ye Tang instructed the maids to stoke the living room fireplace even hotter.
“Anna, I’m here today to thank you.”
After sipping half a cup of tea with Ye Tang, Daisy finally spoke slowly. In order to personally care for Charlotte, she had barely slept at all that week.
It was only yesterday, when Charlotte finally regained full consciousness and spoke to Daisy, that Daisy was willing to return to the bed she had not seen in a week and sleep soundly for a night.
“Is there anything you want? Connections, money, or perhaps a business license to let your husband open a shop on Queen Road?”
Ye Tang smiled upon hearing this. It seemed Mrs. Clement had done her homework before coming.
Hans had indeed wanted to open a shop on Queen Road. Unfortunately, shops on Queen Road were not something one could open just by affording the premises. They required review and approval, and only with a license personally signed by the governor could one qualify to start business.
Hans had put in much effort for this, but in the end, his attempt to open a shop on Queen Road concluded with him being swindled out of a considerable sum of money.
“I do want a shop, but Daisy—”
Seeing the relief reflected in Daisy’s eyes, Ye Tang, knowing this lady feared “free lunches from the sky,” smiled and asked: “What I hope more is that you can join me in eliminating corsets.”
“What… does that mean?”
The most expensive thing in the world was “no strings attached.” Daisy did not want to owe Ye Tang a favor—time would only make the debt snowball larger and harder to repay.
Whether Ye Tang was shortsighted or knew when to quit while ahead, Daisy was glad she was willing to accept her thanks.
But Ye Tang suddenly saying “I hope more that you can join me in eliminating corsets” planted a seed of wariness in Daisy’s heart.
“The literal meaning.”
“Daisy, girls like Charlotte are not isolated cases. You know that, right? Once women put on corsets, they can’t stand for long; even sitting is uncomfortable, leaving them bedridden all day.”
Ye Tang took a sip of hot tea: “Women like Charlotte who suddenly collapse—there must be thousands, if not tens of thousands, by now.”
“…”
Daisy made no response.
Truth be told, after hearing the doctor’s diagnosis of Charlotte, Daisy herself no longer dared to wear a corset. But she did not believe that if she stood up and called out, the women of Osnabrock would stop wearing corsets from then on.
Moreover, cutting off someone’s livelihood was like killing their parents. If she stood up and declared corsets harmful, the manufacturers and merchants would not let it go easily. Doctors could take her money and testify for her. Or they could take money from corset makers and distributors and turn around to bite her.
For Anna Rochel to ask her to be this guinea pig was practically asking her to commit suicide.
Whether Anna Rochel was purely concerned for women and believed she could help thousands, or harbored impure motives and was acting on someone’s orders to eliminate her with this ploy, Daisy could not agree to the request.
“Anna—”
“So, Daisy, are you willing to open a clothing store with me and be the live endorsement for our clothing store?”
As she spoke, Ye Tang had Claudia fetch a sketchbook. Inside were draped-style dresses Ye Tang had drawn based on ancient Greek clothing.
The currently popular dresses looked rather rigid overall. After all, the wigs were hard, the hoop skirts were hard, and the hourglass waistlines cinched by corsets were hard too. This artificial rigidity did create a sense of opulent nobility, but seeing it too much made it feel monotonous and aesthetically fatiguing.
Ancient Greek-style dresses had two major features: first, they were form-fitting, revealing natural curves; second, the fabric’s drape and softness softened one’s temperament.
Ye Tang had worked in the clothing industry before, so dress design came naturally to her; her aesthetics were on point, and she would not draw anything pretty but impractical or unpromotable.
As for Daisy’s doubts, Ye Tang had considered them long ago. She understood that due to the era’s limitations, Daisy appeared untouchable but was actually walking on thin ice.
For Daisy, making money was not the most important thing, nor was being in the spotlight; the most important was preserving her current status and using it to protect her own life and those of the people she cherished.
Daisy would not take risks lightly. Convincing her could not rely solely on appealing to emotion or reason.
Moral blackmail was useless against Daisy.
“As long as corsets make money, convincing manufacturers not to produce them or merchants not to sell them is impossible. As long as manufacturers advertise corsets as making women beautiful, some women in the world will always buy them.”
“Reason doesn’t work in times like this.”
Ye Tang set down her teacup and looked into Daisy’s eyes as she held the sketchbook.
“But what if women no longer saw waistlines as narrow as saucers as beautiful? What if the popular dresses showcased the natural curves women already possessed?”
“If that stiff, taut aesthetic—like stuffing meat into casings to make sausages—became a thing of the past… Daisy, do you think anyone would still buy corsets?”
Daisy’s eyelashes fluttered. She knew what Ye Tang proposed was not easily achievable, yet she envisioned girls discarding their corsets, with corset producers and sellers abandoning them en masse to peddle trendy apparel instead.
“…But then, the people producing and selling corsets wouldn’t be punished.”
For some inexplicable reason, Daisy said this.
Charlotte’s ordeal left a lump in her chest. Though she knew that if she had not blindly chased fashion and made Charlotte wear corsets too, Charlotte would not be lying in bed. Yet under the manufacturers’ overwhelming advertising, how many could keep clear heads and not get swept up in the tide of trends?
Daisy could not help hating those who disregarded lives for profit, producing and selling corsets.
“Yeah.”
Ye Tang nodded: “But I think achieving the goal of eliminating corsets is more important first.”
“As long as corsets remain popular for a day, killing off ten or eight corset makers and sellers would only draw twenty or thirty more into the ranks. Only when corsets are spat upon by all will this industry truly vanish.”
“…”
Daisy fell silent once more. She gazed intently at Ye Tang for a moment before smiling. “Anna, you truly are an incredible person.”
A person with such profound eyes, a person with such exceptional foresight—why had she dutifully served as a small merchant’s wife for so many years?
It was a complete waste of her God-given talents.