The Shadow of Great Britain

Chapter 1598: Chapter 22: Reunion with an Old Friend

How would a wealthy and leisurely London gentleman arrange his itinerary after lunch?

If the weather is unfavorable, heading to the ”Pantheon” hidden between Oxford Street and Regent Street is clearly a good choice.

Called the Pantheon, but this is actually a building filled with various small luxury shops. Such mall-style architecture is not uncommon in later years, but in 1834 London, many gentlemen and ladies chose to wander around this fashionable building on rainy days, watching the crowds and leisurely viewing shop windows row after row.

If the weather is fine, then Regent Street is obviously a higher priority than the Pantheon.

Bakeries, corset shops, stationery shops, fruit and vegetable shops, glasses shops, perfume shops, lace shops, candy shops, and of course, if needed, you can buy guns here and obtain one-stop services from coffins to urns.

But Regent Street is not prosperous all year round, and many businesses on Regent Street operate only seven or eight months a year.

The reason for this phenomenon is quite simple: the prosperity of Regent Street usually correlates closely with the opening and closing of Parliament.

When Parliament opens in late January or early February each year, the wealthy flock back to London from the countryside.

Even those who love sports the most hurry back to London before the end of March, because the hunting season ends in March.

And in the following April and May, the Royal Academy of Arts summer exhibition announces that London social season reaches its peak.

By the end of August, Parliament goes into recess, and the partridge hunting season arrives, so affluent classes return to the countryside.

Although some of them return after the hunting season ends, many squires and land nobility owning countryside estates choose to stay in the countryside until January of the following year.

Therefore, many merchants and shopkeepers choose to take a holiday break in early September, even those open year-round leave only two or three assistants in the store from September onward.

These assistants don’t even know the prices of the goods; when customers enter, they can only nervously stare at them with naive interest.

When there are no customers, even the profiteer selling milk can’t be bothered to water it down.

All luxury industries seem to be impacted by tariff wars; the dwindling number of customers even makes it difficult for ladies of the night.

Unlike Regent Street’s seasonal business, many low-key second-hand shop streets, though not fashionable, are completely unaffected by the seasons.

These second-hand shops mainly trade with servants, buying extra benefits from employers’ households and selling them to those in need.

Here, cooks sell excess food from banquets, butlers deal with empty wine bottles, and valet and maids sell second-hand clothes given by their masters.

If first-time visitors to London walk into these shops labeled ”Maritime Store,” they often think they sell maritime supplies, but in reality, the shop owners and customers don’t want others to say these shops are full of junk.

Such second-hand shops are mainly concentrated in relatively less wealthy areas, or more accurately, distributed throughout Greater London except for the West District, with Greenwich’s Central Street being one example.

Broken furniture, paper, rags, bones, kitchen utensils, food waste, old clothes, bottles, old paintings and books, small pieces of metal...

Basically every imaginable object can be sold to the Maritime Store; the store owner sells the paper to merchants to wrap goods, the rags to the paper mills, bones for soap or fertilizer, food waste to pig farmers, fats for candle makers, old clothes either directly to the poor or to wholesalers.

Because of the Maritime Store’s broad inclusivity, when Arthur was a young officer in Greenwich, he often wandered here.

It was well known that quite a few small-time thieves would fence stolen goods at the Maritime Store, and many store owners secretly engaged in shady dealings.

However, years later, when Arthur returned to Greenwich, he found a new store on Central Street that he hadn’t seen before.

This new store was unlike traditional ”Maritime Store” filled with various old goods, nor were there yellowed curtains covering the window displays.

On the contrary, it was startlingly clean, the window glass was sparkling bright, yet the display featured only a wooden raven carving with a bow and arrows.

Arthur stood at the entrance, looking at the carving for a while, it was certainly not an appealing ornament; no gentleman would choose such a strange item for decoration on a desk, nor would cash-strapped servants spend money on such useless things.

Arthur took out his pocket watch and checked the time; there was still a while before he was scheduled to meet Dickens and others for a meal, so he decided to push the door open to see what was hidden in the store.

The doorbell emitted a short and dry sound, and a familiar voice came from behind the counter.

”Welcome! May I ask...” The voice paused, sounding astonished, as if a stone were stuck in the throat: ”what are you looking for?”