Chapter 5

The man looked older than me, but I was a customer. His disrespectful manner convinced me he was not interested in selling.

If you don’t want to sell, then I won’t buy. There are many other shops besides this place.

I tilted my head and asked, “‘Such things’?”

“You said you’re looking for clothes, so you’re nosing around for clothing orders that have been canceled, aren’t you? Why don’t you go on to the end of this alleyway? You’ll find no such thing here.”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

He clicked his tongue and scoffed. “Truly, women these days have nothing inside their brains...”

The children were frozen. I doubted Mildred had ever faced such rudeness before, but I had.

I quickly searched through Mildred’s memories to figure out why the man was behaving this way.

Most clothes in this world were made to order. Customers select the fabrics and describe the features they want, then the designer draws a sketch. The clothes would then be fitted to the customer’s measurements and sewn.

It was a lengthy process. There were no ready-made things here.

Come to think of it, even in the fairy tale, Cinderella’s fairy godmother made her dress for her. The less fortunate bought fabric to make their own dresses.

Sometimes, customers ordered clothes but never picked them up. Because the clothes were made to fit the customer, they couldn’t be sold to anyone else. If another customer of just the right size and shape of the abandoned piece appeared, it was often sold to them cheaply to salvage the fabric costs.

Elitist shops simply destroyed the abandoned garments.

Fine. I recalled this much, then looked down at my clothes. They were soiled from my fall and tattered.

“Oh dear. I guess this shop is not good enough to make dresses to wear to the castle,” I said, and turned to go.

The man stared in disbelief, but I pretended not to see.

I took Iris’ hand and went on, “I should not be surprised when they use such cheap dyes.”

“Cheap dyes?” the man echoed.

I turned ever so slightly to glance at him. I tried to remember what sort of expression Mildred used when treating people with contempt. I did my best to wear her most well-used expression.

“I don’t see a single roll of red fabric here dyed with iso.”

The man’s face turned bright red. He tugged the fabric closest to him and yelled, “Th-that is preposterous! This one is dyed with iso—”

“Scam.”

I cut him off. It was certainly not dyed with iso.

As a wealthy baroness, Mildred had only ever worn clothing made from high-quality fabric. She could tell by the color that the man’s wares were a far cry from iso.

“I can see you use sappanwood dye.”

The man’s eyes bulged out. I was right.

I regarded the man and the fabric in his hands with contempt. “My father is Count Murphy. Did your father teach you to turn your nose at nobles?”

His face burned. His expression made it clear he hadn’t known that I was a noblewoman.

No matter.

Offended, I turned to Iris. “Let’s go, children. My first outing in so long and it’s one embarrassment after another.”

“W-wait.”

His efforts to stop me were in vain. I ignored him and left.

“I’m sorry, Mother,” Iris said. “I should not have wheedled you to come here. We should have called someone from White Dress to the house like we usually do.”

Hmm, where’s White Dress? I left the shop with the children while searching for the answer to my question.

The man from the shop scurried after us, yelling. “M-my lady! My lady!”

He followed us for a bit longer, but I walked on without looking back. Eventually, his voice faded away.

There are many shops to choose from. No need to buy from an idiot man like that.

“That was amazing, Mother,” Ashley, beside me, said with admiration.

Really? I chuckled as I looked back at her. Or at least I tried.

“Ow.”

I’d forced myself to keep walking out of anger, but now that I was relaxed, the pain returned. I paused and sighed.

“Mother!”

“Mother, are you okay?”

The girls circled me with concern on their faces.

I want to sit somewhere. I hope I haven’t twisted my ankle. I looked around for a place to sit.

The street was much narrower in this part of the market, and the only shops around us were small. What did that man who gave me the ring say again? Fairy’s Spring? I wondered if we had passed it already.

I was scanning our surroundings for a place to rest when the door of the shop next to us swung open.

“What is the problem here?”

The speaker was a woman slightly older than me. Her eyes widened when she saw me, then she turned to Iris, Lily, and Ashley. Her eyes returned to me, and she ran over.

“Oh goodness, are you all right?” She grabbed my dress when she reached me.

Oh, right. It ripped in my fall. I had been so angry that it had slipped my mind.

She took my hand and found my wounds. “Oh my, oh my,” she cried. She let go of me and returned to her shop, shouting, “Come inside!”

Iris turned to me. Her expression was asking, “Shall we go in?” I heaved a sigh and nodded. Honestly, I just wanted to sit somewhere. My knees were throbbing.

“This way.”

The shop was much smaller than the one before. There was barely space for all of us to stand inside, even though the walls weren’t covered with shelves of fabric like the other.

After hurrying back into her shop, the woman opened another inner door and quickly removed piles of paper from the table inside.

“Have a seat there, please! I will bring water and a towel.” Then, she left.

The room was smaller than the shop, and I could only get in after she left. Inside were two chairs and a small table. It was so cramped that if two people sat down, it would be hard for a third to remain standing.

“Why aren’t you sitting, madam?”

The woman reappeared while I was hesitating. She placed a basin of water and a clean towel on the table, then forced me into a chair. She gathered my skirts.

“I am going to take a look, madam.”

The scrapes from my fall weren’t as bad as I’d expected, but it was worse than the girls had imagined. Iris, who hovered anxiously behind the woman, flinched from shock and gasped for breath.

“A salve of rat droppings and honey will heal this right up,” she said as she cleaned the wound on my knees.

What now?

“A salve of what?” I asked in horror.

“Rat droppings with honey. If honey is too expensive, rat droppings alone should do well enough.”

Are you serious? I will never, ever put excrement on my wound. But at that moment, Mildred’s memories recalled to me that, in this world, this was a tried and true remedy.

Nooooo way, no way.

I sighed. I was thirty-seven, had three children, and had two dead husbands. Now I was putting rat poop on my wounds.

I suppose folk remedies existed in my old world too. There was a saying that even dog poop could be medicine, which probably meant that dog poop was sometimes used in the same way.

But! I will never put excrement on my body!

“That’s all right. Cleaning it well should suffice.” I could just clean it again with soap at home. Alcohol would also do a good job of sanitizing the wound, but I was doubtful whether I had pure alcohol there.

She nodded in assent and looked with pity at my dress. “It is a shame your dress is ruined.”

Oh well. I looked at my dress and sighed. My head shot up.

“Ah, thank you for your help. My name is Mildred Vans. These are my daughters.”

Iris, Lily, and Ashley greeted her in turn.

She turned to each of us, then beamed. “My name is Davina. I am a modiste.”

Ah, a modiste. I had been curious about what sort of shop this was. But shouldn’t a modiste’s shop be piled with fabric like the last one?

“What is a modiste?” Ashley asked.

Iris gave her a judgmental look for not knowing. I quickly replied, “A modiste is someone who makes clothes.”

“Oh, clothes. But there is no cloth here.”

At Ashley’s question, Davina stood. “The fabric is in another room. Would you like to see it?”

How opportune. I stood to follow her, surprising Davina.

“You should rest a while longer, madam.”

“We came to town today to shop for clothes, but I fell. Can we see your designs and fabric?”

Davina brightened. Huh? The degree to which her face perked up surprised me. She clapped her hands together.

“I see. Who will be wearing the dress? You, Madam Vans? Or one of these girls?”

All four of us. Unmarried young women were not allowed to be out alone. They had to be accompanied by an older or married lady. This rule also applied to debutante balls at the castle.

I tried to remember Mildred’s dresses. Tried is the keyword. I couldn’t remember. Hmm, I guess this world is no different in the fact that people don’t remember the things in their closets.

“These three children, for now.” I could think about my own clothes later. It wasn’t like I was debuting; I was just a guardian. A simple dress should suffice.

Davina looked at each of us in turn, then asked what the occasion was.

“They have been invited to the debutante ball at the castle.”

Davina turned to me, suddenly pale.

Huh? I looked at her, puzzled, as she trembled.

“Th-the debutante ball at the castle? B-but I can’t do that!”

“I thought you were a modiste.”

“Yes. Yes, I am. B-but you said the c-castle. And it’s a debutante ball!” A fresh wave of shock spread over her face. She bowed down before me. “M-my sincere apologies. I had no idea you were a noblewoman.”

Oh, right. I forgot this was a world ruled by kings.

I observed Davina’s demeanor and recalled that hierarchies existed in this world.

My specific position in said hierarchy was vague. Mildred was the daughter of a count and her elder brother had inherited the countship, but she had married a commoner. She still had one foot in nobility.

Iris and Lily were the same. Their father was a baron.

Ashley, however, was inarguably a commoner. A commoner like her could only marry a prince in a fairy-tale world.

I sighed and tilted my head to Davina. It would have been better if I could kneel next to her, but my knees hurt too much to do so.

“Stand up, Davina. I have noble blood, but my husband is a commoner.”