A Fleeting Moonlit Dream (4)
Had it not been for his swordsmanship class at the academy, Lorist would still be locked in the young mistress's room and drawing more designs for her. The mistress's two servants, after seeing a number of Lorist's drawings, changed their attitudes towards him immediately and were suddenly more attentive towards him, making sure he had everything he needed, much to Lorist's surprise.
While he was still there, he let the three women pick out 24 dresses and 8 party gowns out of the fifty or so designs he had drawn and spent an entire afternoon teaching them how to cut and sew. The women would then be working on the 32 sets of dresses for the time being. Lorist named the lineup the Autumn Goddess collection and planned to use that as the debut clothing lineup for the store.
Before he left, he also encouraged the women to use their imagination and make any amount of changes they wanted to the clothes as they saw fit when they were making them. Lorist explained that it would help prevent people accidentally wearing the same dress. For example, wouldn't it be extremely awkward to dress identically to another person in a ball?
"Every woman was a unique angelic being that had descended from the heavens and it is only fitting for them to each wear different, unique clothing to bring out fully their magnificence and beauty. Even if the base design for the clothes is similar, with small alterations here and there, each dress would still remain unique, understand?" Lorist proclaimed.
After Lorist had left, Miss Windsor noticed that her two handmaidens were stunned by the speech and a look of admiration could be seen in their eyes. Feeling a little elated and grumpy, the young mistress rebuked them, "What's wrong? Have your hearts been stolen by him?"
Suzy repeated the line to herself in a low voice, "Every woman was a unique angelic being that had descended from the heavens... What a great saying..."
Lina sighed and scratched her head in frustration, saying, "Young mistress, I know it's wrong to think so, but Master Locke looked so gentle and handsome when he said that just now. I believe that he's the kind of person that charms you more the longer you get to know him... You have really found a great boyfriend."
The young mistress sighed lightly and said, "It's a shame most men out there are only all talk and pales so much in parison to him. We should start working harder too. These clothes will determine the future of the Windsor house."
"Yes, young mistress. We'll give it our all," said the two women, nodding.
After two days, Lorist paid them another visit and was surprised at what he saw. Have they turned into rabbits? Why are their eyes red and why do they look so pale? Upon questioning them, he discovered that they had been pulling all-nighters and have only slept as little as eight hours all this time and often neglected their meals. Although they were worn out, they only managed to produce four sets of clothes over three days and nights of hard work.
With a palm to his face Lorist said, "Silly girl, can't you hire someone to help you out? At this rate, you wouldn't even finish the Autumn Goddess collection when spring next year es! How are we supposed to start the business?''
"Aren't we supposed to keep the designs secret?" the young mistress argued with much fatigue in her voice.
"Weren't you planning to rent part of your mansion out? Why don't you make that a small workshop and hire some skilled seamstresses across the neighborhood to do the sewing after you guys finish cutting out the parts of the clothes. For the most part, you only have to monitor and guide them. What's the point of earning any money if you'll end up too sick to spend it?"
Nodding, the young mistress agreed, let out a big yawn, and went upstairs to get some rest. At that moment, the two servants only had one thought in their minds: Wow, Master Locke is looking manlier than ever!
Having given his instructions, Lorist monitored their progress for a few more days and was satisfied with the current production rate of the clothing workshop. He then started to plan how he would decorate the two shopfronts on Rotary Street.
After a period of brainstorming, Lorist had drawn up a rough plan for the decorations. His only concern was the cost was a little high at roughly 60 gold Fordes. He subsequently broke into an argument with his girlfriend over the issue.
The young mistress believed that they shouldn't spend so much money on the decorations of the shop and that it only had to be clean and simple. "We're only selling clothes. There's no need to poke a hole in our wallets for useless decorations!" said the young mistress.
Lorist pressed on and said, "We can only raise the price of the clothes if we decorate the shop lavishly. We must show that the clothes at our store have been spared no expense and deserve every gold coin listed on the price tag! To do that, we must ensure that our store looks elegant and classy. Besides, the money spent on the decorations would be earned back easily after selling one or two sets of clothing."
Why doesn't she understand such a simple principle? Lorist was rather frustrated at her adamant refusal. After that, Lina secretly told him that the young mistress was seriously lacking in funds and only had about 10 gold coins left in their savings. She wasn't even sure how she would finance the clothing workshop as well as her household with the amount of savings she had left.
Suddenly ing to an understanding, Lorist merely nodded and left. After several hours, Lorist returned with a large bag and placed it on the table. Gently gazing at the young mistress, he said, "You could've just told me that you lacked the money. I'm your boyfriend for Sol's[1] sake, there's no need to bear the burden by yourself. We should face issues like this together. These here are my savings, 160 gold coins. It should be more than enough to pay off the expenses of the clothes shop for two to three months."
Staring at the bag with her large, beautiful eyes, the girl leapt into Lorist's embrace and broke into tears of joy, tightly hugging Lorist as she cried.
Lorist lightly pat her on the back a few times. He understood that recently, she has been facing huge psychological stress ever since getting the news of her family's conundrum, was refused help from almost everyone she sought out and even contemplated suicide. After he had saved her, she started to see Lorist as a beacon of hope for her family and started dating him in hopes that he would participate and contribute to her family's resurgence.
While she was rather confident in the quality of the few clothes that they had produced, she was still worried about how to run the business. The extra money spent on hiring other workers only served to increase her anxieties and prompted her to be in a hurry to sell the clothes so that she will have enough money to keep the business going. Furthermore, she was hesitant to ask Lorist for help as she had dated him not out of true love but with the intention of using him to reclaim her family's dominion.
As her sobs intensified, she let out all the bottled feelings within. The two handmaidens could only watch as Lorist continued to calm her down. "e on, stop crying. You'll start to look ugly when your eyes start swelling. What would I do with an ugly girlfriend?"
Breaking into a small chuckle, she slapped Lorist on the back and said, "Why you!
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