[Pride and Prejudice] Mrs Bennett

A new store called Oriental Silk has opened in London's business district. As its name suggests, it mainly sells oriental silk and embroidery.The goods sold in the store are expensive but very popular among the upper class. The only pity is that there are only ten items for sale in the store every month.But it is precisely because of this that the products in the store are more sought after by ladies and celebrities.

The goods sold in the store range from brocade handkerchiefs to round fans to fan covers and other small items with oriental characteristics. The prices also vary according to the exquisiteness of embroidery and the complexity of the patterns, ranging from a minimum of five hundred pounds to tens of thousands of pounds. Commodities are still in short supply.

Half a year later, the store launched a special customization service, whether it is processing oriental embroidery on the finished product, or directly customizing oriental and western dresses.Of course, the custom-made price is more expensive than the price of the finished product sold in the store. The cost of silk thread and silk is not included, and the processing fee starts at [-] pounds, and there is no upper limit.

The store only accepts one customization at a time, which can be reserved, and the next one will not be accepted until the previous customization is completed.Not long after the Industrial Revolution started, purely handmade oriental embroidery symbolizes wealth and status. The royal family and nobles came to customize it in an endless stream, and even fought privately in advance for the predetermined ranking.

It's not that the nobles and celebrities have thought of ways to make the store sell more products every month or to speed up the customization. Later, they knew that there was only one Suzhou embroidery master behind the store, so they could only accept it.

This oriental silk store was naturally opened by the Bennett family. When Grace proposed to raise silkworms, she herself did not expect such a good return on investment.Although Europe also has embroidery technology, it is still a little bit behind the exquisite embroidery in China.

Inherited from her grandmother, Grace has studied hard since she was sensible. Even if her Su embroidery stitches are not superb, they are not far from everyone.In the store, she can repair a pair of [-]-pound brocade handkerchiefs in about two days. As for embroidery with more complicated patterns, the longest time is about ten days and a half months.

The profit from this embroidery can be said to be a huge profit for the profit of the Bennett family!Both the silk thread and silk come from the silkworms raised in the house, and the cost can be said to be very low, and the most important embroidery is done by Mrs. Bennett herself, and the money came really quickly!

Mr. Bennet had a little doubt about his wife's embroidery skills, but after she showed him a book that recorded various embroidery stitches in the East, which looked old, he was relieved.Although the stitches of oriental embroidery are complicated, as long as one is willing to learn and practice hard, it is not impossible to learn.And that book, Mr. Bennett, even asked Grace to keep it well. Although those people may not be able to learn it when it is spread, it always makes people feel uneasy.

Grace heaved a sigh of relief after knowing something in his mind.She started preparing the silkworms raised in the silkworm house from the first time they spun silk. She wrote down the embroidery stitches one by one in English, made them into books, and made them old again.

But now it seems that the Bennett family doesn't need her to think of any other ways to make money. The silk embroidery is about the same, and Mr. Bennett has a good vision in industrial investment. good.

One year after the Oriental Silk Store opened, it ushered in a big business.A duke who was born in the royal family of England came to the door and wanted to customize a gift, and this gift was to be dedicated to His Majesty George III's [-]th birthday present.

After a good discussion, the Bennetts took over the business.

In the following time, Grace abandoned all affairs and even threw the upbringing of a pair of children to Mr. Bennett, and devoted herself to embroidering a pair of four-leaf screens for a year.The theme of the screen adopts the Chinese painting style of dragon and phoenix presenting auspiciousness, and the embroidery method is the double-sided embroidery in Suzhou embroidery.

A year later, when the four mahogany double-sided Suzhou embroidered screens were delivered to the residence of the Duke of London, everyone who saw them was astonished, and the final transaction price of [-] million pounds made the Duke feel that he had picked up a super large screen. Cheap!

At this time, the Qing Dynasty was in a period of seclusion, and it was not so easy for British businessmen to get goods from there. Even if they did, they were only second-class or even third-class products in the Qing Dynasty.And the four screens that Bennett's store sold to the Duke can be said to be exquisite even in the Qing Dynasty, and they are definitely from the hands of famous masters!In Europe, such a screen is priceless, let alone [-] million pounds, even [-] million or even tens of millions, there will be people rushing to ask for it!

In this way, while the Bennett family earned [-] million pounds, they also won the favor of the English royal family.Since it is a customized product, the final transaction price of the screen has not been announced to the public, but anyone with a discerning eye knows that the Oriental Silk Store must have made a fortune this time.

Who is the behind-the-scenes owner of the Oriental Silk Shop? Although it is a secret to the outside world, this secret does not exist to the royal family.Although His Majesty King George III is the most frugal king among the kings of England, he cannot resist the charm of this oriental double-sided embroidered screen.

His Majesty the King was very satisfied with the birthday gift presented to him by the Duke Jin. When he knew that the Duke bought the screen at a low price of [-] million pounds, the Bennett House appeared in his eyes.When His Majesty the King learned from Mr. Bennett that these silks and embroideries were produced by themselves, and they were willing to supply the royal family at such a low price, there was no need to doubt the rise of the Bennett family.

Before New Year's Day after Christmas in [-], Mr. Bennett and Grace entered the palace to meet His Majesty King George III and were appointed Viscount.Although it is only a title, without fiefdom or real power, it is very satisfying for Mr. Bennett.

From then on, the Bennett family got rid of the status of squires, and became a real nobleman in terms of financial resources and titles.And it was at this New Year's dinner that the Bennetts knew that the person who came to their shop to customize the screen was the Duke of Cornwall, the Prince of Wales of the British Empire, the current Crown Prince, and the future His Majesty the King.

George III had always disliked him as the crown prince who lived a luxurious life, but this birthday gift made him very happy and made him feel a little better about his son.Therefore, not only George III personally saw Mr. Bennett, but the future His Majesty George IV also favored Mr. Bennett.

When Mr. Bennett was made a Viscount and was given the Viscount House by the King in London and assigned ten soldiers to be his exclusive guards, Grace was found pregnant.For the Bennett couple, it can be said to be double happiness.

After the last delivery, Grace spent a lot of effort to get her body in order, and even insisted on doing yoga for half an hour every day, and it took half a year for her body to return to its original shape.

England's primogeniture system means that other sons can say that they can't get anything. Grace, who didn't want to give birth to a son because of this headache, wanted to use contraception. Unfortunately, there are no modern contraceptive products in this era.In the end, she could only count her safe period, and give Mr. Bennet more contraceptive meals such as carrots and celery.It's just that such contraceptive measures are not [-]% safe, so she was still pregnant when the twins were three years old.

Because they found out they were pregnant in London, the four members of the Bennett family, who originally planned to return to Longborn after a social season in London after the New Year, had to stay in the Viscount's mansion.

Since Grace was not easy to travel in a carriage during pregnancy to avoid accidents, the Bennet family would stay in London for several months. Mr. Bennett arranged for the housekeeper, Mr. Smith, to tear down the ancestral house of Longborn and rebuild it.He specially invited his classmates who studied architecture at Oxford to draw the design drawings, and the new ancestral house was not much different from their family's Viscount's Mansion in London.

Not only that, but Mr. Bennett arranged for Mr. Smith to contact the landowners in Longborn to buy the land.He is now a Viscount, so he has to build a manor in his hometown of Langborn, and the existing land is definitely not enough.Mr. Bennett has also considered the law of limited heir inheritance of the land, but he already has a son now, and his descendants...will not be able to give birth to a son, right? !

The landlords and tenant farmers in Langborn were of course very happy when they learned that a viscount was born among them. After the joy, it is natural for them to be jealous.After Mr Smith visited the families whose land was connected to the Bennetts, two were willing to sell their land.Firstly, they are naturally willing to have a relationship with a viscount lord, and secondly, they all want to invest in the industry just short of money, which is also a coincidence.

In addition to buying land in Longbourn, Mr. Bennett also bought a large piece of land and a manor in Derbyshire and the Lake District in the northwest, just because Grace always said he liked the beautiful scenery there.Now the Bennett family also has a place to cool off. Although they did not get the land entrusted by the king, they have become such existences as big landlords.

The Bennett family's Viscount's Mansion is located in the western suburbs of London, surrounded by lakes and forests. Grace's childcare life is also very good here, except for a little bit of resentment for the string of tails that always follow her.When she was going to embroider screens, Mr. Bennet dragged his feet and hired a governess for Jane, Mrs. Wood.

This lady became a widow at a young age. In fact, she did not need to go out to work. The inheritance left by her husband was enough for her to live a prosperous life. It was just that her loneliness made her unwilling to guard the manor alone. , That's why I thought about coming out to find a job.

☆、Chapter 12