Chapter 128 "Perfect Dream Photo Gallery"
The Granser neighborhood in the central part of Innadri City is an upper-class neighborhood where middle-class families live.
The two-story townhouse does not have dozens of rooms like the mansions in the top wealthy areas, but there are still a dozen rooms. For example, the sixteen-year-old maid Claire can have a maid's room under the stairs, which was converted from a utility room.
At dawn, the little maid woke up, quickly changed into her maid uniform, ran to the sink in the yard to wash herself, and then went to the kitchen to get a basket. Then she ran to the room at the end of the corridor on the south side of the living room and knocked on it, whispering, "Ms. Will, I'm ready."
After a while, the housekeeper, Ms. Will, came out of the room with her hair neatly tied up, wearing a blue long skirt that fell to her calves and carrying an exquisite handbag.
Ms. Will looked Claire up and down critically, her eyes lingering on her messy braids for a while. She was a little unhappy, but she didn't say anything. She just said, "Let's go."
"Yes." Claire carried the basket and followed Ms. Will out the door.
The master of the house will get up in two hours, have breakfast and start his day; the maid Claire and the housekeeper Ms. Will need to iron the master's shirt and suit and prepare breakfast for the family before 8:30.
After seeing off the host, Ms. Will had to iron the long skirt and dress that the hostess would wear to go out to parties and prepare matching jewelry. Claire had to wash the dishes and clean everywhere. If the hostess wanted to hold a tea party at home, they had to prepare fruit snacks in advance.
It was just six in the morning, and the Mary Street Market adjacent to the Granser Street District was already bustling. Claire followed Mrs. Will on foot to the market, and a familiar vegetable vendor greeted them enthusiastically: "Good morning, Mrs. Will, come and have a look at today's celery. It was delivered from the countryside late at night, and it's very fresh!"
When Claire heard the greeting, she knew that there would be an extra celery salad for breakfast...Ms. Will really liked people calling her Madam, and if the food was fresh, she would definitely pay for it.
Sure enough, Ms. Will bought two large bunches of celery from the sweet-talking vegetable vendor, and also picked out a few tomatoes and a roll of cabbage.
People from several nearby blocks are accustomed to shopping at the Mary Street Market. The maids and housekeepers from the Granser District, who are well-dressed and do not haggle over a copper coin or two, are the favorite customers of the vendors on this street. Of course, they are also more picky than the housewives from the civilian blocks and will not accept goods that do not look good.
After walking half a street, Claire's basket was almost full.
"Why are there no fresh apples today?" Ms. Will was not satisfied after visiting several fruit stalls in a row. She took out her pocket watch to check the time. When she was about to go to the next one, a boy in a red cloak bumped into Ms. Will's elbow.
Just as Ms. Will was about to get angry, the little boy looked up in surprise. Under the cloak, his pretty, rosy, white face, which was obviously from a good family, was filled with shame. "I'm so sorry, ma'am. I was in a hurry to tell my sister the good news and didn't pay attention to the front."
When Ms. Will saw this boy who was more refined than the young master of the host family, her anger had already subsided by half. When she saw his formal suit which was obviously worth a lot of money, her anger completely subsided. She smiled and said, "You are so careless. No matter how anxious you are, you should still watch the road."
In this world, clothing is the most useful business card - a textured red half-length cape with a hood, a plaid jacket, vest, small shirt, and clean leather shoes. This boy will not look out of place at a tea party with respectable people, and Ms. Will's temper will naturally improve.
The little boy was probably very grateful for Ms. Will's generosity. He quickly dug into his suit pocket, and with the sound of silver coins colliding, he took out a business card with exquisite patterns and handed it over, saying sincerely, "Please let me tell you this good news, ma'am. There is a very wonderful store at 063 Plant Street that is suitable for an elegant lady like you to patronize. They have very magical technology that can help you spend the most perfect afternoon."
If this business card was handed out by a door-to-door salesman, Ms. Will would have rejected it impatiently - the housekeeper in the Granser district had to refuse such boring sales tactics on behalf of her hostess several times a week.
But the other party was a young master who came from a good family and whom she met by chance . He seemed to be in a hurry to tell his sister the "good news". Ms. Will's resistance was reduced to a very low level. She took the business card with a smile...
"Goodbye, ma'am, I'll take my sister over there, maybe we'll meet again." The little boy waved happily and ran away.
Ms. Will put the business card into her handbag, exclaimed, "What a polite boy," turned around and continued shopping, quickly putting the matter behind her.
For a middle-class family of only four people to maintain a daily life close to that of an aristocrat, the housekeeper and the maid were bound to be very busy - especially when ironing long skirts for the mistress. Those exquisite and intricate hand-woven laces were so troublesome to take care of that Ms. Will spent almost half the morning on this.
A carriage was called and the hostess, who was dressed in gorgeous clothes, was sent out. It was almost noon.
Next, it is time to prepare lunch to be delivered to the male owner who is at work and the two little owners who are at school.
Mrs. Will had just prepared three lunches and asked a street runner to deliver the food when she saw her hostess, who had been out for less than an hour, returning in a carriage with cautious Claire.
"It's really boring. If I had known they would invite that annoying guy, I wouldn't have agreed to go." The hostess got off the carriage with her skirt lifted up, waved to the maid Claire to settle the fare, and said to Ms. Will as she walked in, "Change this dress for me, Will, and then accompany me to find a restaurant on Plant Avenue. I don't want to dine alone at home in such good weather."
Ms. Will hastened to comply, and took the arm offered by her hostess.
Families with an annual income of more than fifty gold coins are qualified to learn and imitate the lives of those noble ladies... As published in the newspapers, enjoying an elegant and sad time alone when it rains, and participating in parties, going out for fun, and dining in upscale restaurants when the weather is fine are the most popular "lifestyle habits" of these financially affluent middle-class hostesses.
Plant Avenue is a bustling avenue located on the central axis of Innadri. On this street, you will not see workers wearing overalls, nor will you see civilian women with skirts that barely cover their knees, like maids.
Whenever the weather was fine, the whole street was filled with "respectable people" with their butlers, maids or maids. Most men wore well-tailored formal suits and top hats, while most women wore more than two layers of long skirts that covered their ankles, carried their own expensive deerskin handbags, and asked their butlers or servants to help them hold parasols.
Ms. Will didn't like coming to this street very much. Every time she saw her skirt, which only reached her calves, reflected in the window, she felt ashamed. It was particularly eye-catching compared with the long skirt worn by the hostess next to her... But it was not something she could decide.
The weather was very good today, with bright sunshine, and there were especially many people walking on Plant Avenue. Ms. Will, who was holding a parasol and with a handbag hanging from her wrist, accompanied her hostess for a while before they met a lady who also lived in Granser or a similar-class neighborhood.
These ladies like this kind of "chance encounter" very much. No matter whether they are familiar with each other or not, they will stop and chat for a while, bragging to each other about which lady they attended a party organized by, or what famous respectable person they met. In their minds, they only need to say a word or two to these respectable people, no matter whether the other party remembers who they are or not, it is considered that they know them anyway.
Ms. Weir had heard this kind of boring, meaningless chatter too many times.
Just as she was looking around boredly...Ms. Will suddenly saw a lady walking out of a nearby shop.
The lady's dress was not particularly outstanding, not as good as the extremely gorgeous and complicated long dresses she had arranged for her hostess, but she still caught Ms. Will's eyes - she was so beautiful!
Ms. Will has hosted many tea parties and gatherings as the hostess and met many ladies and madams, but none of them combined can compare to this lady - her exquisite face is no worse than those beautiful women printed in ladies' magazines!
Not only Ms. Will, but also men and women passing by were all surprised and stopped to sigh when they suddenly saw this woman who seemed to have walked out of an advertisement.
The ladies who were gossiping noticed something was wrong with the passersby, and they began to look at the woman who walked out of the store and stood on the side of the road proudly and confidently, pretending to be waiting for someone but actually showing off her beauty.
"When did such a beautiful lady appear in Innadri?" A lady asked in surprise and jealousy, "Whose...wife is she?"
The extremely beautiful woman had her hair tied up and had a mature temperament, and did not look like a young lady.
The beautiful woman turned around when she heard the voice, her eyes moved slightly, and she showed a confident smile that seemed to be close to her, but more of a show-off: "Good day, ladies, the weather is really nice today."
At the sound of her voice, the ladies gossiping on the roadside, as well as Ms. Will, opened their eyes and mouths wide.
"You, you are... Anita?" Ms. Will's hostess said in horror as if she had seen a ghost.
Lady Anita raised her chin, looking as proud as she could be.
The shop door behind her was pushed open again, and a young girl wearing a maid's uniform and holding a parasol came out... She was Mrs. Anita's personal maid, whom all the ladies of the same level knew.
The ladies were so excited that they forgot all about their so-called elegance and decorum and lifted their skirts in surprise to wrap themselves around it.
"Oh my god, it's Anita!"
"Oh my God Anita, how have you changed so much? We can't even recognize you!"
Ms. Will quickly caught up with the hostess, and from behind the crowd she leaned over in surprise, looking at Mrs. Anita, who had changed so much.
Mrs. Anita also lived in the Glanser neighborhood, and Ms. Will certainly remembered clearly what this lady looked like - she had seen her yesterday!
Mrs. Anita proudly enjoyed the flattery of the ladies. She waved to her personal maid to bring her photo frame, opened the carton packaging, and showed off her newly taken "portrait" that was as beautiful as an angel.
"I took a whole set of photos, and there are some larger photos that have not been developed yet, huge photos that can be hung in the living room," said Mrs. Anita.
The ladies were very curious: "Photographing? Is it photography? Can photography make you become like this?"
Mrs. Anita touched her cheek and said proudly, "No, this is just a modification to make the photo look more real and natural."
Then she started gushing over how beautiful her giant, unfinished photos looked…
Suddenly, Ms. Will thought of something and looked up at the store sign behind Mrs. Anita in surprise.
Under the sign of "Perfect Dream Photo Studio", the doorplate hanging on the side of the gate reads 063 Plant Avenue.
Ms. Will hurriedly tucked the umbrella handle under her arm and took out the business card she had received that morning from her handbag...
Same address as on the business card.
