novelsite Chapter 606: Story of Poor Sisters
Chapter 606: Story of Poor Sisters
Chapter 6. Story of Poor Sisters
When Elizabeth.Bennet returned from shopping at the market in Meryton, a small town a mile away, and was struggling to push a small cart full of food and firewood. When he walked slowly into his yard, he saw Mary sticking out her buttocks. Lying on the ground in the yard, groping non-stop, and next to it was a pile of various clothes and sheets, which had already been rolled in the dirt and dust for many times. Stains can be seen.
—Come on, I'm afraid today's clothes are wasted again...Elizabeth.Bennet rolled his eyes helplessly, put down the car, rolled up his sleeves and approached Mary, "...Hey! What's wrong with you?"
Mary raised her head, revealing a pair of dazed eyes filled with tears, and a red and swollen forehead, "...Ah, sorry, I was going to dry the clothes, but I stumbled and couldn't find my glasses... ...Please, can you help me find it together?"
——In general, the five Bennet sisters are all good-looking girls with good health and good looks, without any serious physical defects or genetic diseases.Only Mary, a bookworm, read too many books, and the lighting conditions in this era are relatively poor. She stayed up late reading by candlelight and damaged her eyes... So, after the time travel, the soul age is 75 years old, and the body age of the time travel version of Mary, From the original presbyopia to severe deep myopia, basically as soon as I take off the glasses, I can't see anything.
Happens to glasses of this era, at least Mary.The short-sighted glasses Bennet owns seem to be very different from modern glasses. There are no two legs hooked on the ears, only two round bottle bottoms, which are strung together with a metal hinge, and are directly stuck on the bridge of the nose when in use. Also known as "pince-nez".The advantage of this kind of glasses is that they are small in size, easy to fold, and look cute, but the disadvantage is that they are easy to fall off... Recently, Mary has lost or broken two pairs of glasses one after another, and now only Last pair, no more spares.
So the two sisters had to look for glasses together. A few minutes later, there was a click on the sole of Mary's feet, and her last pair of glasses was also reimbursed.
"...Oh, no!" Marie yelled in despair as she touched her broken short-sighted glasses and almost tripped again because she couldn't see.
And Elizabeth's heart twitched: Now there will be an extra half-blind person in the family who can't do any work-in this era, of course, a small village like Longbourne cannot have an optical shop, and the nearby Merry There is no such thing in Tun Town. If you want to get glasses, you have to go to London...
But she still had to comfort Mary, helped her up the stairs when she stumbled, and told Mary not to leave the bedroom without seeing her.Then go back to the yard, put the clothes and sheets that fell on the ground into a big tub, and prepare to wash them again in the afternoon.Finally, he pushed up the small cart full of food and firewood again, and walked around to the kitchen door in the backyard.
"...Kitty! Lydia! Everything is bought! Come over and help tidy up!"
Then, from behind the kitchen door, two little faces covered with stove ashes appeared... Next, the three of them worked together to take the fine flour, bacon, salted fish, sausage, Butter, potatoes, onions, salt, sugar, and two large bundles of dry wood were put into the kitchen in batches.Finally, Elizabeth looked up at the stove, and saw that the main course of today's lunch was a large pot of potatoes and bacon, with some onions.The staple food is gnocchi and pancakes... Although this meal seems simple, if she were to cook it, I'm afraid it might not be possible to make it.
——For modern urban residents who are used to induction cookers, microwave ovens and gas stoves, it is already a very strange thing to use the old kitchen stoves to chop wood and make a fire.When Jane and Elizabeth stepped into the kitchen confidently for the first time, the end result was that they failed to light the fire for two hours, and filled the entire kitchen by the third hour Black smoke, looks like it's on fire...
After all, their culinary skills have degenerated into "children of microwave ovens" long ago, and they can only eat quick-frozen dumplings, and they don't know how to wrap them at all.
Fortunately, among the five Bennet sisters, in addition to the two modern urban women Jane and Elizabeth, there are also three old ladies dressed in girlish skins. Relatively speaking, they still know some life experiences of backward times, so later I took over the kitchen job... However, although they have experienced the difficult period of the planned economy, because they are urban household registrations, they only have experience in burning coal cake ovens, let alone how to use tinder and flint. Lighting a Fire - The first friction matches weren't invented until the early nineteenth century.So every time they cook, it is still an arduous battle. Just lighting the fire and blowing the wind almost makes them exhausted.And the dishes can only be kept simple, and they dare not make too complicated tricks.
But even so, it is much more palatable than the "orthodox British dishes" they enjoyed before-on the Internet of later generations, there is a joke that says this: one of the thinnest books in the world is traditional British dishes recipes.If you want to make a copy of "A Bite of Britain", you only need to have fish and chips.Although such a statement is exaggerated, the cooking of the British is indeed very simple. Vegetables and fruits are eaten raw without adding any condiments; Spice it up yourself.
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After washing her face and hands in the water from the oak barrel with Kitty and Lydia, Elizabeth brought the lunch to the table.And the eldest sister Jane among the five.Bennet, also with a check and a small bag of gold guineas (British gold coins, the legal face value is one guinea for one pound. But because this is pure gold coin, it is exquisitely made, so it is very popular with people, and its actual purchasing power has been above the pound), came back from town.
She had just sold the family carriage and all the horses at a low price through the commission of Uncle Philip, the solicitor who lived in Meryton.
——In the plot setting of "Pride and Prejudice", at least Jane and Elizabeth should be able to ride horses. Unfortunately, none of the five time-traveling Bennet sisters today knows how to ride, so all these delicate animals are gone. Useful.Moreover, the cost of raising horses is really high, and it is very troublesome to take care of them. They have to be groomed carefully every day, and if they are not careful, they will lose weight or fall ill...
For Jane and Elizabeth, who could even feed cacti to death before crossing, serving them is really an unbearable burden in life.
(When I was watching "Bankrupt Girls", I was very confused. The heroine is mixed up as a cheap restaurant waiter in the lower city of New York. How can she still afford a horse? Just rely on half-price carrots in the supermarket? Or go to the park Eating the lawn? Does the screenwriter know how much a horse eats?)
"...a carriage and six horses, only sold for a total of four hundred and five pounds? This price is really a bit too low...but there is no way..."
Elizabeth recorded the income in the family book with a dip pen, and then did a mental calculation, "... now we have a total of... five hundred and two pounds fifteen shillings and eleven pence? It seems a lot, but It's still a bit tight to maintain the life of five people..."
——Although the five sisters rummaged through boxes and cabinets at home before and found more than 400 pounds, but then they spent nearly [-] pounds just to settle the wages when dismissing the servants.Then the living expenses in these two months are more than expected, so the money is not as durable as it seems.
"...Hey, since the money is not enough, we should find a way to earn it?" As a former provincial model worker, the time-travel version Lydia said without hesitation, "...Chairman Mao taught us to do it ourselves and have enough food and clothing. We Now that you have hands and feet, can you starve to death?!"
"...to make money? That's easy to say! Do you think this is our era?" Elizabeth rolled her eyes and knocked on the table at the same time, "...in this era, what can you do? Family tutor or farming? What about being a decent young lady?"
——Mary, Kitty, and Lydia, three old ladies dressed as girls, two are retired Chinese teachers, and one is a retired boiler worker.For the first two, is it necessary for them to teach Chinese in England at the end of the eighteenth century?Which English lady would be willing to learn Chinese these days?Besides, they can't write traditional Chinese characters either!As for the last one, the steam engine has just been invented these days, where can she get the boiler to burn it?
In fact, just going out to work itself, in the eyes of upper-class women in this era, is a shameful behavior of self-sacrifice.
——Britain in the early days of the first industrial revolution was a reactionary country that retained quite a few decadent traditions of the feudal and aristocratic era. Its mainstream values were completely opposite to those of the socialist countries in the [-]th century. Hands-on labor is the most shameful" reactionary thinking, and the money-worshiping trend of thought, while still retaining deep-rooted discrimination and restraint on women.
In this era, men who want to revitalize their family business can invest in business, become priests, become lawyers, and join the army.However, the only decent way out for women is to marry a good husband.All women are taught to be humble and obedient since childhood, and young ladies are encouraged to learn to play the piano, sing, and dance just to be able to enter the upper class.And the so-called girls' school, to put it bluntly, is nothing more than a training class for brides.
Most of the young ladies of the upper class are deliberately educated to be canaries who have nothing to do, and will starve to death if they are not supported by men.Therefore, the women in the upper class of England at that time, all of them clearly had a lot of money, but they still kept their eyes on their property. They put their whole life on the pound, and they were always used to measure it by the amount of the pound. own happiness index.Because they cannot do without the extravagant and lively dance parties, all kinds of fashionable and expensive clothing, shoes, and accessories, they have a natural sense of fear for the simple life.But they can only spend money and can't make money, so of course the more money the better for them, all their thoughts are on how to catch a rich man.
Besides, even if the five Bennet sisters have the courage to go out to work regardless of decency, it will be difficult to obtain the expected minimum standard income.
"...Even if we ignore the looks of the rest of the villagers and relatives, what kind of work can we find if we go out? A woman worker in a textile factory who works twelve to sixteen hours a day and earns only a few pennies a day? Or that A part-time barmaid who sells herself? Or a maid who serves people? Don’t even look at our housework level?! It’s hard to take care of yourself, but can you serve others?”
Elizabeth pointedly concluded, "...don't expect to make a living by writing. According to the current market, even if an article is accepted, the manuscript fee is only a few shillings, and the postage, pen and ink are not cheap. .If you encounter several rejections, maybe you will still lose money?"
All in all, after discussion, the five sisters found that the safest way of life is to sit and eat and wait for inheritance.
To put it simply, it is to continue to live the life of rice bugs that the decadent and exploiting classes get for nothing... Although this kind of life is hard enough for them, if the poor in the slums of East London know about it, they will definitely be sprayed on their faces: With [-] pounds in cash in her hand, she can inherit at least [-] pounds in a few years, and she can eat and drink without working to make money. How dare Miss Bai Fumei say that she is poor? ! !
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It's a pity that the fickle fate doesn't seem to intend to let these five female traversers continue to live in such a lazy house.
——After lunch, when Elizabeth and Jane were about to go upstairs to take a nap, while the three "little sisters" were basking in the sun while drinking tea full of strange smells in the yard, a certain servant who was full of travel and dust suddenly On a door-to-door visit, a letter was delivered from Meritun Town.
The letter was written by William.Collins, cousin of the five Bennet sisters, and heir to the Bennet estate in Longbourne.
The content of the letter is quite ordinary, that is, as a relative and an elder, he expressed condolences to the five cousins of the Bennet family whose parents are missing and lonely, and then said that he planned to come to visit one day at the end of March, hoping that the cousins Get ready for the reception and so on.
etc?Cousin Collins is coming to visit?There seems to be something wrong with this plot!
"...God! Darcy and Bingley haven't appeared yet, so why did Pastor Collins come first? This style of painting is obviously wrong!"
After being stunned for a moment, Miss Jane was the first to jump up, "...it doesn't fit the plot of the novel "Pride and Prejudice" at all..."
"...Don't worry about the plot of the novel! My poor sister, the matter may be more serious than you imagined." After carefully pondering over the letter, Elizabeth immediately changed her face in shock, "... Take a closer look at this letter, Did he have a word saying that he received the priesthood and became a priest?"
"...It seems that's right...that's right, he came to Longbourne Village half a year earlier than in the novel, and it is very likely that he has just graduated from the seminary and has not had time to become a priest. But there is another What's the problem?" Jane looked at the letter paper again and asked puzzledly.
"...What's the problem? It's a big problem! This shows that he probably won't go to other places to be a pastor again, but he won't leave when he comes here!"
Elizabeth raised her head and let out a long sigh, and at the same time stomped the floor under her feet, "...Don't forget, according to the law, this Mr. Collins is the heir here! As long as he completes the inheritance procedures, he will kick us out of this house whenever he likes." house, you can kick it out anytime!"