[Pride and Prejudice] Becoming Katherine Bennett

The days passed slowly amidst Mrs. Bennet's moaning and sighing. During this period, although Mrs. Bennet was very unhappy, Charlotte and Mr. Collins held their wedding as scheduled, and Caroline Bingley's second letter arrived in London. Bourne, she wrote that they would never return to Nedfield, and that Mr. Bingley had fallen in love with Georgiana and was buying new furniture.

All Jane's expectations of Mr. Bingley were dashed.Although she appeared calm on the outside, both Catherine and Elizabeth had difficulty finding the usual happiness and tenderness in her expression.

Jane blamed herself for all the mistakes. She neither wanted to believe that Mr. Bingley was a bad guy, nor did she want to doubt Miss Bingley's character. She misunderstood the deep meaning of it and fell in love with the other party, which made herself so lost and embarrassed today. 2

Elizabeth felt distressed and admired for her, and Catherine watched her, realizing that the scene was both familiar and harsh.

Catherine found that Jane's self-pity and inferiority at the moment were almost the same as her before.When she did this kind of behavior of taking all the faults on herself, she felt that it was justified. After all, Catherine sincerely believed that she had nothing to recommend and was not worthy of being loved.At that time, someone persuaded her that she was fine, but she thought it was a white lie out of friendship.

But Catherine felt terrible when Jane, dear and dear, blamed herself in this way.

Jane is so good, how can you blame all the mistakes on her?

Catherine said seriously: "Jane, even though you said that thinking like this will make you feel relieved, I still can't help correcting your thoughts. Your remarks are very wrong. You are very, very good. It is Mr. Bingley who missed you." The loss is not yours. He may be able to find another lady, or even many ladies who are much richer than you, but she is beautiful and understanding, and a smart girl who can communicate with him. He is afraid that it will be difficult to meet. .If love can be found so easily, how can it be worthy of praise and praise over and over again through the ages.”

"Oh Kitty, please don't say that, it makes me want to cry. You go out, I'll be by myself for a while, please." Jane's face changed, and her composure could hardly be maintained.

Catherine and Elizabeth went out quietly.

The latter didn't want to say anything in front of Jane, and sighed with Catherine after walking a little further: "Thinking about it now, I thought you were too negative before. Facts have proved that your point of view is not negative, but rational. Or you can see clearly, yes The judgment of people like Mr. Darcy is very accurate. They regard all the experiences of the country manor as entertainment, whether it is hunting or deceiving the feelings of girls, it is just a joke to them!"

Elizabeth was very angry: "It's a good thing you didn't fall in love with him at the time, otherwise you and Jane would both be heartbroken by them."

Catherine felt very sad for Jane's experience, and Jane's lovelorn also made her start to reflect on herself for the first time, wondering if she was really that bad.

Aside from her obvious shortcomings, Catherine thought for a whole day, combined with her comforting Jane, and finally decided that she actually had some merits.

For example, she is a little smart and can quickly find the knack of doing a new job.Another example is that she is good at reading people's eyes. Although the other side of this advantage is that she is too sensitive, this characteristic has also helped her.

She is very tenacious. If the heroine of an idol drama is a wild vegetable, then she is a weed. The former has to choose the environment to survive. She is a wild fire that can't burn out. As long as she is still breathing for a day, she will continue to work hard to live .

She is actually quite optimistic. Some girls from the same background as her have become pessimistic and negative because of the cruelty of fate, but she always believes that as long as she works hard, tomorrow will not be better, but it will hardly be worse.

This was the first time in Catherine's two lifetimes that she realized that she was indeed not very good, but she might not be as bad as she thought.

Everyone has deviations in their perception of themselves. Mr. Collins is very arrogant and blindly confident, and she always laughs at him behind his back.But her being too demeaning and inferior, isn't it a joke?

In general, Mr. Bingley's leaving without saying goodbye made Catherine very angry. She was angry that he gave Jane love and left her cruelly. At the same time, she couldn't help thinking that she ignored Mr. Darcy's silent friendship at that time It's a very sensible thing to do.

And this incident also made her learn to look at life from another angle: Maybe it's not that they are not good enough, but that they have blind eyes and don't see it.

Although this cognition was very vague and she quickly threw it aside, it was finally the first step towards melting the ice layer, which was gratifying.Although Catherine herself hadn't realized it yet.

Compared with Jane, Elizabeth and Wickham's relationship is very smooth.The two often come and go, walking and chatting frequently.

Catherine and Elizabeth still have huge differences in their views on this gentleman, but Catherine has always believed in the intelligence of the latter, and many words are just point-to-point, concluding that Elizabeth will realize that there is something wrong with the other party sooner or later.

When Catherine heard Mr. Wickham's story of how Mr. Darcy bullied him from many people, she said privately to Elizabeth: "Mr. gone."

"Yes, he used to be reluctant to talk about it with others, but recently he occasionally mentioned it to his friends." Elizabeth said.

"It was by chance, he told almost the whole town, and everyone was blaming Mr. Darcy."

"This is unavoidable. If Mr. Bingley is so unfair and cruel, people will not believe what Wickham said. But who makes Mr. Darcy give people the impression of being arrogant and rude? If everyone doesn't like him, I think I don’t think it can all be blamed on others.”

"You have a point, Lizzie, but if you don't mind, I want to tell you what I think."

"Of course I don't mind, you are much more important than Wickham." Elizabeth now admires and loves Catherine, and believes that there are few people in the world who are more reliable than Catherine.

Elizabeth's words made Catherine shy again for a while.

"Mr. Wickham's choice of time is really strange. No matter how you look at it, it's because Mr. Darcy left Nedfield Manor, he won't hear his nonsense, and he won't confront him. Wickham started Unscrupulous slander, otherwise why didn't he say it earlier?"

"Maybe he wanted to save some face for Mr. Darcy before. After all, old Mr. Darcy treated him very well. He saw..." Elizabeth said, but couldn't continue.

"Look, you all realize that if he is really consistent with the outside, and will not speak ill of Mr. Darcy as he told you, where will the rumors all over the town come from now? He is pretending to be magnanimous, In fact, it told everyone about Mr. Darcy's meanness and arrogance, how he treated him perfidiously."

"This..." Elizabeth couldn't find the right words for a while.She was very torn in her heart. For a while, she thought that what Wickham said must be true, and that Mr. Darcy was indeed annoying, and then she remembered several recent events. Catherine analyzed them wisely and calmly, and finally the facts were still the same as what she said. .

More importantly, even Elizabeth, who is as smart as she is, can't find a reliable explanation to explain that Wickham's inconsistent behavior is reasonable.

This calmed her hot-headed fondness for Wickham quite a bit, and she did not go for a walk with him in town for two days.

The successive incidents in the Bennett family made everyone feel very heavy. Fortunately, a week later, the visit of the Gardner couple cheered up the whole family's mood.

The Gardners come to Longburn every year for Christmas, and each time they not only bring a lot of fashionable gifts from London, but also tell the Bennett family what they have heard.In today's uninformed society, any new topic that is not often heard is very welcome. 3

Catherine was the happiest person in the family to see the Gardners.After the last oolong letter, Catherine immediately resent the letter to her uncle, explaining that she made a mistake and forgot to post the second letter.Of course, she didn't mention a word about where she had been in the second photo.

The letter was sent, and Catherine spent every day counting when they would receive it, counting that, and counting the days until Christmas.

Seeing that they finally arrived as promised, Catherine showed all the anticipation and excitement on her face with the simplicity that a girl of her age who showed her body should be.

Of course the Gardners saw her.Once they arrived, they met Catherine's eyes for a moment, and Aunt Gardner blinked several times to give her a reassuring look.

Almost immediately Catherine wanted to have a private talk with her aunt.

But this idea will definitely not be realized, at least Mrs. Bennet will not finish her complaints, complain about the unusually unsatisfactory marriage of her two oldest daughters, and ask about the latest fashion among noble ladies in London, Gardner Aunt will never be free.

When the aunt had finally satisfied Mrs. Bennet's desire for a chat, she and Catherine glanced at each other and said they were going for a walk.The two of them spoke at the same time almost as soon as they left the house.

"Auntie, have you found the house yet?"

"Kitty, will you please tell me what is the matter?"

Like her well-bred uncle, Aunt Gardner was a smart person who spoke and acted well.

Catherine was still wary at first, and didn't contact the couple who had never met before. After all, she had never experienced the silent care of family at that time, and only heard of many relatives falling out for their own interests.

After she watched Jane and Lizzie interacting with them silently for a period of time, and got the sincere love of the two sisters and became convinced of the truth, she wrote to them.

Now that my aunt asks her, she will naturally satisfy the other party's curiosity and tell her everything she wrote and published.

After Aunt Gardner heard this, her eyes were bigger than a copper bell. She looked up and down and carefully looked at Catherine several times with unbelievable eyes, and then said in amazement: "If the sun is not hanging high in the sky, I almost suspect that I am dreaming in a night tour, "Blood Return", my God."

"There are a lot of women writing now, aunt, you don't have to be so surprised." Catherine said shyly.

"I know a lot, but you wrote "Blood Reward"! Oh I'm chasing this every day, no, not only me, our whole store, and some friends are watching, oh my god, "Blood Reward" You actually wrote it." Aunt Gardner, who has always been calm and reserved, was very excited at the moment, her tone was very similar to that of chasing idols and finding out that idols are relatives, "Oh Catherine, you have to swear to me that you are not lying to me !"

Aunt Gardner's praise of "Bloody Return" is not empty words.Catherine has poured a lot of effort into this book. The plot peaks, the characters are complex and multi-faceted, and the style of writing is concise without losing rhetoric.

Since the serialization of Chapter 1 in September, "Daily News" has published "Blood Return" at a rate of two to four chapters per day. It has been nearly three months now, and the context of the entire structure has been fully unfolded. The main foreshadowing and plot are in the Under careful design, it is moving towards the final peak step by step.

A large number of mysteries have been uncovered in the early stage, some of the truths are cruel and some are touching.In the face of money and power, the greatness of sincere emotions, the distortion of human nature and the loss of morality are all intuitively displayed in front of readers.

In the latest issue of the series, Flynn Wilfried was afraid of being exposed, and because of all his tricks being resolved by Antonio one by one, Flynn panicked and came forward to find the biological mother whom he had refused to admit all along. , Let her use the grace of nurturing to beg Antonio to let her go.

His mother went.Antonio didn't have any good feelings for this mother who made him lose the identity he should have and never treated him kindly, so he directly refused in a cold voice.

However, after he left, the maid was killed, and all the evidence left at the scene pointed to Antonio as the murderer.

Who the hell killed the maid?Is it Flynn, Antonio or someone else?

……

Catherine couldn't use big data to count the influence and radiation range of various aspects like later generations, but one piece of data is very intuitive.According to Willard, since the serialization of "Blood Return", the sales volume of "Daily Letter" has nearly doubled, and its influence is amazing.

If it weren't for Catherine's unwillingness to make a high-profile appearance, with this work alone, she could have become a guest of many nobles in London, where the network is very small, and it is not difficult to even go to James Palace to meet the king.

"I swear I never lied to you. Think about it, if it weren't for the remuneration of "Blood Repayment", where would I have pounds to buy a house?"

Mrs. Gardner exclaimed and praised her for a long time before she calmed down a little: "Your uncle and I were very surprised when we received the letter. We had the impression that you were always messing around. You were still a child. Who would have thought Suddenly becoming wise and mature, and earning so much money, you are really amazing."

In the past six months, Catherine has often heard praise and affirmation from her family.She was very uncomfortable at first, and always felt that their compliments were out of affection and politeness.

Now that she has heard a lot, and recently experienced what happened to Jane, Catherine can't help being shaken in her heart. Maybe she really has merits and deserves to be boasted about.Otherwise, why didn't you see your family, Qualidia?

Aunt Gardner said again: "Kitty, I don't understand why you want to buy a house now. You seem to think that you will never get married in the future. Isn't it too early to buy a house now?"

Catherine recalled the experience of hesitating for a while in her previous life, but the house price took off directly and she never had the chance to buy a house again. She said: "I guess the price of the house may rise. Buying it now, even if you don't have to sell it in the future, it's better than having money in your hands all the time." better."

"Oh, that's the reason. We only found out when you looked at the house for you this time. Your uncle said that he saw a house more than ten years ago. The price was only more than 400 pounds, and now the annual rent is 4 pounds. Pound Sterling, your idea is in line with the world, but when you get married in the future, the house will be the property of your husband.” [-]

"I know, Aunt," said Catherine, thinking that she should never marry.

"Your uncle and I looked at several places in a row, and finally picked three houses, all of which are priced at around [-] to [-] pounds. Come back to London with us in a few days, and go and see for yourself. It's a big deal after all. I like the house in Spitalfields better, with the bright windows and one more room, but it's up to you. I'll say in advance that none of those houses It’s big, it can’t be compared with Longbourn at all, and it’s far from being so expensive elsewhere, but the housing prices in London are outrageous, especially the one in Camden, which is the smallest and most expensive. If it’s not that our neighborhood is messy, I wish you could buy it in Grace Hall Street."

Although she hadn't actually bought a house yet, after chatting with Mrs. Gardner, Catherine's heart that was hanging in the air became extremely excited.

She was afraid that the Gardners would not help, or that her money would not meet the conditions she listed.Now that Mrs. Gardner has finished speaking, she feels much more at ease. Her mind is full of buying a house, and she was so excited that she couldn't write any more.

Catherine thinks the word culture is really magical.Although she changed time and space and changed her body, the previous values ​​have already penetrated into the bone marrow and remained in the blood.

In her heart, buying a house is the only sign of having a home and settling down.This means that no matter what happens in the years to come, she will have a place to go back to, a beautiful harbor.

She no longer has to worry about being evicted by others, no need to worry about the landlord breaking the contract and raising the price, and no need to taboo that this is someone else's house and everything is restricted and cannot be purchased.

Catherine was extremely eager and persistent about owning a set of real estate under her own name, but she did not expect to realize it in England in the 18th century.

With a beautiful vision of buying a house and settling down, Catherine's eyes lit up with a smile on her face for several days.This excitement was even more palpable when she heard that Aunt Gardiner had invited Jane to join them in London.

"Jane, you must accompany me to look at the house. Then we have to take a good look around the neighborhood and choose a safe, lively and convenient place to live." Catherine told the two sisters about her Settling down the plan, every time it is mentioned, it is flattering.

Elizabeth was very envious of this arrangement, and she also wanted to go to London with the two sisters, but she had agreed to Charlotte's invitation and said regretfully: "I will stay in Hansford for a while, and go to London to find you sooner. .” 5

"Okay, if the house purchase goes well, I'll wait for you. Let's go shopping for the house together when you come. I've already thought about the curtains. I want to buy velvet ones. Dark green is the best, and goose yellow is also good." Catherine She kept sketching the blueprint of her small house in her heart, and she was delighted.

Catherine was in such a good mood that she couldn't control the smile on her face when Mary was "full of knowledge" discussing the philosophy of life with her.However, while she was waiting to leave Longbourne for London, there were a few minor frictions.

Another protagonist of this friction is Wickham.

After the Gardners came, Mrs. Bennet was afraid that her younger siblings would be bored, so she invited many guests to her house every day to ensure that Longbourne was always lively.Among them, Wickham was the object of Mrs. Bennet's kind invitation because he was eloquent and handsome, and because he had a close relationship with Elizabeth.

Wickham is very good at meeting people's preferences, and the nickname of central air conditioner that Catherine gave him is not for nothing.He is good at arousing the favor of the ladies. When he knew that Mrs. Gardner had lived in Derbyshire for many years before marriage, his tone immediately became warm, and he kept chatting with her about the local culture and customs. Many mutual acquaintances. 6

Catherine had never liked this gentleman, but out of Elizabeth's face, he was a guest, and she didn't like to argue, she never said anything.Wickham chatted with her at first, but after she ignored her every time, he also ignored her.

Before Wickham slandered Mr. Darcy's reputation everywhere, only Jane and Catherine in Meridon didn't believe his words.

Jane is born with kindness, and it is also because she believes in Mr. Bingley's vision that his friend can never be so bad.And Catherine is based on the impression in her heart, she knows that the hero's character will never be bad, and she clearly remembers Mr. Darcy's kindness to her.

When Wickham repeatedly talked about his tragic experience with others, everyone gave support and sympathy based on the bad impression of Mr. Darcy in their hearts.He talked about these things again today, trying to make Mrs. Gardiner think that Mr. Darcy had been very miserable as a child.

Catherine endured it again and again, until he said that Mr. Darcy was very scheming when he was a child, so he didn't like the old Mr. Darcy, and said disgustedly: "Sir, we don't know whether what you said is true or not, but I Knowing that one sentence must be false. You have no scruples about old Mr. Darcy's friendship with you, although you always say this sentence, but in fact you speak ill of his son every day."

Catherine's remarks instantly cooled down the lively conversation atmosphere in the Longbourne Mansion just now.

Wickham's pretty face was full of embarrassment now, and he couldn't speak for a long time.

"You always say that Mr. Darcy is arrogant, that he has no manners, we all agree on this point. But this and him ruining your future are two different things, please don't steal the concept. Arrogant, we can say that he has a character Bad, which is at least within the tolerable range, but viciousness will never be tolerated."

"Kitty!!" Mrs. Bennet broke the eerie silence and yelled loudly, "What nonsense are you talking about? Mr. Darcy is a lousy man, everyone knows that!"

"What's bad about him is his character, not his character," Catherine pointed out calmly. "Although I'm not familiar with that gentleman, I think at least I've never heard him say anything bad about you, sir."

Wickham's face turned red and turned pale, and Catherine was directly driven out of the lounge by Mrs. Bennett.

After she walked out the door, she heard Mrs. Bennet apologizing to Wickham all the time, and Wickham said with great grace that Catherine was still young and was confused by Mr. Darcy's appearance and so on.But after that day he never came to Longbourne again.

It was Elizabeth who felt most conflicted in this little quarrel.She was very angry with Catherine at first, and although she did not trust and be sure of Mr. Wickham as much as before, she still liked him very much in her heart. Catherine insulted her sweetheart like this, which made her feel depressed.

But she is also an extremely smart girl, and there are many things she just didn't think about in her infancy. After Catherine said it and Wickham's reaction at that time, Elizabeth gradually realized that something was wrong.

A few days later, when Catherine and Jane left with the Gardners, Elizabeth no longer felt unhappy with her sister. She was very reluctant and told them repeatedly that she must write more letters and keep in touch.

Catherine bid farewell to her, and amidst the family members' blessings for a smooth journey, she carried her small suitcase, sat in an open carriage, and left Longbourn amidst the clatter of horseshoes.

As the carriage moved forward, Catherine kept waving to her family members. She didn't pack up her mood until their figures were so blurred that she could no longer see them clearly. She looked at the road ahead with great interest and full of expectation.

At this time, Catherine doesn't know that there are many amazing encounters waiting for her in London in the future.