[Pride and Prejudice] Becoming Katherine Bennett

Willard was planning today's arrangements in his mind. He came out of the bedroom and walked down the stairs, and accidentally saw an unexpected guest.

He squinted his eyes, and his tone couldn't tell whether it was good or bad, but the content of his words could show his mood: "Burns, I thought you would have passed the age that you would cry with your mother and follow her wherever you go. .”

The two guests sitting on the chairs in the living room heard his voice and all turned to look at him.

"Mother insisted on coming! I didn't follow her," said a young man, thirteen or fourteen years old. He was Earl Gordon's eldest son, Burns. He was rebellious when he heard his uncle's words Just kidding, her young and immature face flushed slightly, "I said I came to you, but she insisted on following me."

The lady next to him was wearing a turquoise sleeveless satin dress, and she was holding a teacup gracefully. In stark contrast to her generous and well-fitting etiquette, her big eyes rolled.I don't know if it's the stupid son who turned it over to her, or the cunning uncle who despises it.

"Let me tell you," Tina's beautiful green eyes showed the vigor and liveliness of the master's character. She ignored Willard's provocative words and went straight to the point, "Are you going to see that lady?"

Willard's footsteps were slightly stagnant when he was going downstairs. Although he immediately continued to go down the stairs as usual, trying to cover up the momentary loss in the past, he knew that Tina, who was staring at him closely, must have noticed .

He tried to change the subject: "Why are you here?"

Tina: "Oh, I came to see you, who would have thought that I would meet her by chance."

Willard raised a smirk: "I really want to laugh at your remarks, but there are too many places to laugh at, and I don't know where to start."

Tina smiled and looked at him, who was just like his brother when he was young, with a stubborn mouth, and waited quietly for him to finish before smiling and slapping his face: "Your gray double-breasted Chesterfield coat is very beautiful, I think I remember you wearing it twice, the last time I saw you wearing it was when I went to visit my lord at Windsor Castle. Maybe it was the blue Frock in it?"

Willard dumped the blame on the personal servant without psychological pressure: "Vill, go and tell Dro, don't choose these two clothes for me in the future."

Tina was very happy: "So I guessed right, you are going to see Miss Rose."

Willard walked down the stairs, strolled to the living room, and said calmly, "I don't know what you're talking about."

Tina reminded him: "It's the rose on your desk, Tracy saw it, you lifted it back carefully that day, let Vi..."

"Tina, I thought that was my study." Willard interrupted.

He didn't smile anymore, and the emotion in his eyes could be seen by anyone that he was very unhappy now.

Willard's appearance is stern and his face is resolute. When he looks bad, he looks very scary. If he was someone else, he would probably have been silent for a long time.

It's a pity that it's Tina in front of him, she has never paid attention to this since he was a little one-meter-tall kid.

"Oh, I didn't go in. I just stood at the door and took a look. Who told you to put the rose so conspicuously?"

Willard had given the rose brought back from Longburn to the housekeeper, and asked him to find the gypsy, and use a unique method to make the flower into a flower that can be preserved forever.

Will had brought him the flowers the day before yesterday.Weir made an elaborate glass dome to cover the flower with a crystal base, which he placed on a tray with a soft velvet cushion.

Willard couldn't help laughing seeing Will was so careful and thoughtful.

He didn't think about anything at first, but subconsciously didn't want the flower to wither.But when he saw the butler treat him so grandly and carefully, he couldn't help but find it interesting.

Willard took the heavy flowers and stared at them for a moment.

Willard looked at the flowers inside, and found that although she was still very beautiful at first glance, but after a closer look, she could see that the petals had shriveled and had thin lines, and the whole flower was lifeless and lost The most eye-catching part.

After just a few glances, Willard was no longer interested in it, and casually put it on the side of the desk.

"I said I just let it go, you won't believe me." Willard said.

"Why don't I believe it?" Tina smiled, "You just put it away and put it where you can see it at any time. Doesn't that just show how much you value her?"

When Willard heard Tina describe "it" as "she", he raised his eyebrows: "Your strange and absurd reasoning makes me more and more admired, if it wasn't for me, I would definitely be willing to spend a day like Applaud at any time like listening to a story, lamenting the infinite imagination that God has given us."

"Is your business to see the lady?"

"...I'm going to take your lovely son to the racecourse. I thought you were worried about him. After all, although he looks tall, he may not be weaned, so he came here."

"Hey Uncle, what's none of my business?" The boy who had been standing aside as quiet as a statue yelled.

Like most aristocrats, Willard likes fox hunting very much. He doesn't have many interests and can do even less, so he is very willing to spend money on things he rarely likes: he has more than a dozen horses that allow him to hunt foxes. Fox quickly rushed to the forefront of the team. The price of each horse was as high as [-] to [-] pounds, and the follow-up cost of taking care of the horses was thousands of pounds a year.

Willard keeps them all carefully raised on a suburban horse farm, just a few miles from the hunting park.A few days ago, a thoroughbred horse he bought for [-] pounds had just been transported to the racecourse. After hearing about it, Burns kept clamoring to see it.

He liked his uncle's horses very much, and thought they were much more handsome than his father's horses, so he would often go to the racecourse for a while.

"Are you going to the racecourse? Then I will go too." Tina said.

Willard looked at his sister-in-law, and Tina looked back without showing any weakness. The two looked at each other for a while, and Willard sighed inaudibly, and said helplessly: "I want to see her. The answer Are you satisfied, Tina?"

"Very." The lady smiled happily, "Would you like to bring some gifts to Miss Rose? Mrs. Roger just sent me the latest season..."

"Tina, I don't know how Tracy told you, but she and I are just," Willard thought for a while, finding a suitable word, "just business partners."

"I understand, business partner, business partner! Cheers to business partner," Tina said, "So does she like Nishikori? Now everyone likes thin, I don't know if she will appreciate this kind of old-fashioned fabric, but I've been..."

Until he got on his horse and went out, Willard was thinking about whether the sister-in-law who he remembered caringly protecting and taking care of him back then was because he was insane for a while and remembered the wrong person.

"miss.rose," Burns snickered, "that's a nice name."

Willard didn't even bother to glance at him. He looked ahead and said slowly, "Burns, if I were you, I wouldn't be able to laugh right now. Tina is here to find twelve ladies for me. , there must be 36. Then, how do you think your friends will laugh at you?"

If he only listened to the first half of the sentence, then Burns would still have a feeling of admiration for a young man, thinking that there is nothing wrong with beautiful young ladies appearing in the house from time to time, but with the second half of the sentence, his face was pulled down. .

If that's the case, he will definitely be laughed at.

"Mother is terrible." Burns sighed sadly.

"Your naive brain drove you to say the right thing for the first time."

"Hey, Uncle, you can't take all the anger you got at Mommy on me."

"You're thinking too much." Willard took out an old but exquisite high-end pocket watch from his pocket, glanced at the hands, "let's go."

He had to go back to London by noon.

The place where Willard and Catherine agreed to meet today was not a newspaper office, but in front of a factory in East London.

Considering the local security and customs, Catherine used a light mesh veil as a veil, and got out of the carriage surrounded by her uncle, valet and groom.

Willard had already stepped forward, and at the same time looked at the strange gentleman and the carriage calmly.

"Long time no see, Miss Bennett."

"Hello, Mr. Gordon, let me introduce you. This is my uncle, Mr. Gardner," Catherine introduced for both parties. "Uncle, this is the Mr. Gordon I mentioned to you. My publisher business."

The two gentlemen greeted each other, and then they chatted with some inquiring thoughts.

Uncle Gardner is completely different from Mr. Bennett. Compared with the latter, he is very talkative, his words are decent, his tone is not too cold or flattering, and he always maintains an appropriate attitude.

He has been traveling around for many years in business and has met many people. He has a good impression of Willard and thinks that the other party must be a young man of good background, without the airs of a big man, very humble and polite.

And Willard quickly guessed the information he wanted. From the type of carriage and the gentleman's words and deeds, Willard judged that the other party was a businessman and had a good relationship with his niece.

"Sorry for letting you come to this place today. This is my printing factory, and the environment is relatively poor. Actually, I also thought about taking a printed book to the newspaper office and waiting for you, but I think," Willard smiled and looked at Catherine , "You must want to see how many of them there are, and how beautiful they are stacked together."

"Thank you for your thoughtfulness," Catherine found that this arrangement filled her with anticipation. Compared with holding a finished book in the tea-smelling office and talking, she really wanted to see the magnificence of stacking them together.Resisting the joy in her heart, she tried her best to calmly say: "I guess there are fifteen hundred volumes?"

The figure proposed by Catherine is the median value of the current number of publications. New authors rarely receive such treatment, mostly [-] to [-] books, and some of them require the authors to pay for the publication themselves.If the sales volume is good, the publishing house will reprint it.

Catherine believes that "Blood Return" must have skipped the period of newcomers.But she still didn't dare to think too much. After all, 80.00% of the book has been serialized in the newspaper. It's hard to say how many people are willing to pay for the remaining 20.00%.

"Let's go in and have a look, then you will know." Willard pushed open the door for her with his own hands.

The door opened slowly following Willard's movements, and Catherine stood at the door, feeling as if she had entered another world.

Unlike the spacious and bright offices, the environment of the factory is much worse. The low roof and airtight design make the factory crowded and messy, with cinders everywhere on the ground.The workers are very busy, all gathered in the workshop, bowing their heads to avoid their direction.

The managers who followed Willard led them the way: "Sir, miss, please go this way."

Catherine followed subconsciously, and couldn't help but look at the room where the production work was going on.From a door that she forgot to close, she saw workers sweating profusely adding coal to the machine, and several large printing presses were running in full swing, roaring.

"That's the latest printing machine, the first three in the world are in my factory." Willard noticed her gaze and explained to her softly.

Catherine stared blankly for a while, then asked, "Is this steam?"

"That's right, smart lady," Willard said with a smile, "Academician Watt's invention is like a gift from heaven. He makes everything fast and wonderful. This machine can print [-] sheets of paper an hour, And it does not require workers to manually reprint all the time, and the production speed is nearly five times that of before."

Although she has known for a long time that this era is the period of the Industrial Revolution, Catherine has been living in a quiet and peaceful countryside. She has never participated in this technological movement that changed the history of the entire world. Today is the first time she is so intuitive and close The feeling of distance.

Catherine looked at those huge machines, as well as the dust and gray smoke, and realized for the first time that she is now living in another era, and the giant wheel of history is moving forward slowly and eternally rolling.

While talking, several people walked into another factory building.Compared with the noise before, this place is much quieter and cleaner. A large number of printed books and newspapers are neatly placed in the open space.

Catherine first saw the stacks of "Daily Letters", and then she was attracted by the books next to each other.

One after another, the beautifully packaged hardcover books are placed together, and the elegant and elegant copperplate printing is left on the cover by bronzing technology, and the huge book titles shine brightly under the sunlight.

It's "Blood Return".

Catherine saw a lot of books like this piled up, far more than the fifteen thousand she had guessed earlier.

"Here are six thousand volumes." Willard said, with a kind of complacency and composure in his tone.

Catherine was shocked when she heard this number: "...[-]? Isn't it too risky?" She didn't even dare to think about it!

"Is this considered an adventure? I don't think so." Willard's tone was chic.His tail sound is very long, like a snake inviting to taste apples, calm and full of temptation.

"Even if it is, I think," he said here, paused, seemed to hide a pronoun, and then said slowly, "It's worth it."

At the same time, Miss Bingley came to Mr. Darcy's residence in London.

She deliberately avoided her brother and found Mr. Darcy alone. As soon as she sat down on the chair, she couldn't help complaining meanly: "Jane Bennett followed to London! I have never seen such a lady, In order to marry my brother, she has also exhausted her mind, and she didn't even care about the face that a lady should have."

"Then where is she now?" The gentleman sitting opposite her put down his quill pen, and frowned upon hearing this.

"In her merchant uncle's house, right next to the market! It's ridiculous. Did she think we would be willing to go to Grace Hall Street to visit relatives? How can a young lady be so bold and impolite, live there, she And that sister of hers..." Miss Bingley babbled on and on, but at this point she stopped short.

Mr. Darcy gave her a grave look.

He already knew from her reaction which sister came with Jane.

"Mr. Darcy, shall I let my brother know about Jane Bennet's coming to London?" Miss Bingley changed the subject.

Mr. Darcy made no answer.He was silent for a long time, sitting there motionless.

He had been quiet for too long. If it wasn't for the crisp birdsong and the occasional sound of passing carriages outside the study, Miss Bingley would have thought that time stood still.

She moved anxiously, and was about to speak when she heard Mr. Darcy's low voice.

He said, "No need."