Chapter 98 – A Huge Success
The auction evening went smoothly without any of the dramatic scenes that Jade had read about in NovelPhoenixs happening.
No clumsy waitress splashed wine onto some rich man’s clothes, no poisoned lady led to a crime scene, no gentleman was drugged and had an accidental night with a lower-status lady, no valet boy sought revenge by stabbing a nobleman… there was just peaceful bidding, with the occasional bidding war between a few guests. The prices hadn’t reached the scandalous amounts that reporters would scribble about fanatically, either.
The clubhouse footman would occasionally summon private servants, just like how Jade had been summoned by Clara in the morning room. But instead of summoning them inside, they were ordered to rush outside to send letters or fetch items. Sometimes a housekeeper would enter, following the servant who had rushed out only moments before, and be brought down the corridor leading toward the morning room. Jade suspected they were placing orders on behalf of their mistresses, who were still bidding in the hall.
All in all, everything was in order, and no incidents caused any havoc.
The only slight hitch was when Jade received a note from Miss Arrowot, saying a lady wished to place an order for hair accessories and asking Jade what to do. Jade replied with a detailed note on what the students could do, complete with rough sketches of the available designs, and granted Miss Arrowot the permission to negotiate with the customer. Miss Arrowot had seen the craft-making process and was not a reckless woman, so Jade trusted that the new teacher would know exactly what to do.
Jade did not know how the auction itself was going. She waited quietly in the waiting room, mentally planning for various matters while occasionally dealing with Josh’s silly questions and the tea and bread he shoved into her hands.
“A quarter to seven! I must be ready now,” Jade heard someone gasp as she put her palm-sized notebook into her pocket. Some servants began to arrange their rides to depart, while others remained in the room but were clearly tidying themselves up, awaiting further notice.
Oh, right, the auction finishes by seven, Jade thought for a moment. She called Josh to her side. “Josh, is it the time we should hire a stagecoach?”
Josh had never entered a clubhouse nor had any experience with valet protocol, but he was a good observer. He contemplated the situation and asked, “Do we need to leave as soon as the auction ends? I suppose we need to stay a little longer for the coin box?”
“Yeah… right,” Jade nodded. It was not actually about the coin box Josh had mentioned, but rather the documents that needed to be signed after the auction pieces were sold. Unlike sales at the bazaar booth, where customers simply paid with coins and left with the goods, items sold at the auction required documentation to verify their new owners because they were expensive goods.
This time, it would be Miss Arrowot signing the papers because, although she was new, she was the teacher officially representing the school.
So, instead of hiring a stagecoach, Jade asked Josh to look for a place to eat. Unlike Jade and Josh, who had bread and tea supplied, Clara and Miss Arrowot were likely too nervous to care about their stomachs while dealing with orders and enduring gazes of guests looking for the artisans responsible as the auctioneer introduced them.
Just as Jade thought she would remain in the waiting room while the other servants departed with their masters and mistresses – who were gradually exiting the hall – a summons called her into the morning room once again.
“?” Jade tilted her head, but followed behind the footman nonetheless.
When Jade arrived at the morning room she had entered before, she was met by Clara’s pleading gaze, and Miss Arrowot clearly let out a relieved sigh upon seeing her.
“I need this box of money to be counted.” Clara said – omitted Jade’s name, just as Jade had requested – and shoved the coin box into Jade’s hands.
It was a tin box Jade had prepared specifically to hold all the sales during the charity bazaar. Jade had kept the booth sales inside an envelope stored within the tin, so all the money loose inside the tin outside of that envelope consisted entirely of sales from the auction… and with just a single glance, Jade knew the amount was far out of her estimation.
The total starting bid of the pieces they sent for auction – including the five-fold decorative screen – was £40. Jade expected it would reach £50, or maybe even £55 by the end, but what was inside the tix box now was clearly more than that amount.
“Did the customers pay deposits for the orders as well?” Jade whispered to Clara, and Clara nodded.
Clara said in an apologetic tone, “I mixed up both amounts, and people are waiting now.”
Indeed. Though the ladies did not line up – they were having refreshments at another small table with Miss Fairborne – their housekeepers were standing in front of Clara and Miss Arrowot’s counter, clearly waiting to make payments and place orders.
Both Clara and Miss Arrowot were capable of counting, but they were not quick counters. Frankly, they were a bit slow even with simple math involving addition and subtraction, and Jade considered this a language difference; having learned both languages, she knew counting in Chinese was indeed much faster and easier than counting in English.
So Jade grabbed a seat, pen in one hand and a few sheets of paper beneath her palm. She poured all the coins, banknotes, and cheques onto the table and began calculating. Miss Arrowot quickly assisted her by muttering the details.
“Order for hairpin sets: £2; deposit: 15 shillings.”
“Payment for comb: £3 and 8 shillings.”
“Payment for brooch set: £6 and 5 shillings.”
“Order for flowers: £1; deposit: 7 shillings.”
“...”
Clara did not sit idle. She stacked the counted money neatly into the tin box so it would not get mixed up again, and continued to receive new orders from customers waiting in front of them.
The three of them did not raise their voices. In fact, they moved rather quietly, but their efficient actions still drew attention. While most onlookers were not bothered by them, some of the observers were amazed by their fluid workflow, and a handful of them wrinkled their noses in disapproval.
To Jade, these were simple calculations. If there had been a computer and she could have used a spreadsheet, she could have settled all of them within two minutes. The most time-consuming part was noting down the purpose of each amount, and Jade suspected she would have difficulty recognising her own handwriting afterward. Hence, after eight minutes and a quick double-check of the numbers, the account was cleared.
“Total orders: £102; total deposits: £34. Total sale from auction…” Jade gasped, “£88.”
Eighty-eight pounds. The decorative screen alone had contributed sixty-three.
The clubhouse steward, who had been waiting beside them, scribbled the amount into the ledger he was holding. “£88 pounds from the hammer, and £34 in hand from the commissions,” he muttered, more to himself than to the others in the room. He looked at them, his expression one of professional curiosity. “A staggering sum for a school of your standing, Miss, if I may say so. The Bazaar Committee will wish to know how such a bounty is to be applied. Will it be for the students’ winter coals, perhaps?”
“Yes, and also food and books.” Clara immediately replied. This had always been the goal of all their hard work.
“Caps and medications,” Miss Arrowot added firmly.
Jade blinked. She was still dazed with the amount.
She did not look up from the sheet scribbled with numbers. She only vaguely heard Clara and Miss Arrowot’s replies and said instinctively, “Check how much it cost to build a room. If that’s too expensive, rent the domus’s hall. Buy them good materials. Form a workshop so they won’t need to work on farms or in factories anymore… The income they could get by operating a workshop would be enough to get them out of slums and live in a better place…”
Her voice hadn’t risen at all, but the sheer ambition in her words stunned almost everyone in the room.
After a moment, Miss Fairborne, who had been entertaining the other ladies, slowly stood up from her seat. She approached the table where the three of them sat, Clara and Miss Arrowot rose to their feet immediately. Jade felt a tug on her arm that prompted her to stand, waking her from her daze. She quickly lowered her gaze and bowed her head slightly.
Miss Fairborne gave the three of them a detailed glance. However, Jade felt the lady only looked at the other two to cover up her true intention of observing her… yes, Jade could feel an intense gaze, one likely containing hidden messages, from the ward of the Dowager Countess.
She placed her hand on the newly written ledger of the ragged school trio. “I was expecting to witness a successful bazaar, yet I have witnessed the birth of a new workshop by the ladies of the school,” she praised, her voice genuine. “If a workshop is what is required, then we shall see it done. I believe the Dowager Countess would be delighted to see more delicate crafts bloom from a modest setting.”
The ladies exchanged glances and nodded approvingly. From this moment on, no rumours would spread about “vulgar, bold women from a ragged school speaking of slums and coins in front of ladies of status”. Instead, only good news would be reported in the papers: “the domus school that successfully saved children from poverty in the charity bazaar organised by the Dowager Countess”.
Miss Fairborne gave a slight flick of her fingers, and her maid quickly came forward to present a card to Miss Arrowot. “Should you need any endorsement, do not hesitate to write me a letter. The Dowager Countess welcomes any stories of thriving through hard work.”
“We thank you kindly, Miss Fairborne,” Miss Arrowot said with a slight bow, which Clara and Jade quickly followed. “We will write to share the good news of our progress, and we welcome a visit at any time.”
Miss Fairborne narrowed her eyes. “Any time?”
Jade, who was quietly listening at the back, sensed something odd in Miss Fairborne’s tone, but she couldn’t quite grasp what it meant.
Miss Arrowot, however, reacted quickly with a nod. “We have nothing to hide.”
“Very well.” Miss Fairborne blinked, tilted her head, and smiled faintly. “It is half past seven; you surely do not intend to board hired stagecoaches at this hour with such wealth in a fragile box.”
Banknotes and cheques were rare, so almost all the money inside the tin box consisted of coins, which together became quite heavy, even for Jade, who was used to hard work. And Jade doubted that the thin tin box could hold the weight well.
Fortunately, Miss Fairborne was a very considerate lady.
She had the steward find them a wooden box, and even arranged for the clubhouse carriage to send them home. “My footman, Thomas, will accompany you to the domus gate.” She raised a gloved hand before any of the trio could object. “I will hear no arguments; the Dowager would never forgive me if such a successful evening ended in a common scuffle. The same shall apply to other artisans as well.”
The other artisans – who carried a lump sum as well, though not as large as the trio’s total since they had donated half of their earnings to the charity bazaar’s grand pool – let out a relieved sigh.
Soon, the three of them were seated inside a carriage. Josh hopped on a bit late; once he received word that they would not be dining in a coffee tavern but heading straight back to the domus, he had quickly purchased several meat pies and rushed back to his Sensei.
He still looked shocked as he distributed the pies to the others in the carriage. His gaze winced, dodging the wooden box as he asked Jade in a lowered voice, “Sensei, very big money?”
Otherwise, why would a clubhouse carriage be assigned to send them back?
Jade poked Josh’s forehead. “You know the starting bid, doesn’t that add up to a big amount already?”
Josh blinked, and gasped, “Yeah, right! Why didn’t I think about that?”
The surprised expression on Josh’s face made the others giggle, and everyone finally snapped back to the present, breaking out of the daze caused by earning such a huge amount and the lingering tension between Miss Arrowot and Miss Fairborne.
“Alright, let’s make use of these riding hours to discuss the spending, shall we?” Jade said. The lighting was definitely not suitable for writing or reading, but the three of them could certainly discuss the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting.
“Of course, Jade,” Clara said earnestly. This was the first time she had ever taken part in deciding how to use such a large sum of money.
“Yes, Miss Jade. We should discuss how to establish a proper workshop,” Miss Arrowot nodded calmly, though her trembling fingers revealed her true emotion.
As a daughter of a Knight, before her family had been ruined by her gambling-addicted brother, her late father had provided her with pin money of £8 per month. Yet Miss Jade had managed to fund such an incredible amount within a single winter. Though it was the success of a group effort, without her, none of this would have happened.
“Okay, here’s what I thought…” Jade said as she began counting on her fingers, sounding a lot happier than she usually did.