A little levity and perspective seems needed these days.
"Have you heard? There is an outbreak of a new dreaded deadly disease. I believe we should cancel the ball," Miss Bingley announced to the room at large. They were gathered in the parlor on a rainy afternoon. Everyone was a bit restless as there was nothing much to do but to watch the fire and talk.
"Is is really necessary to do so?" Bingley questioned. "Surely if anyone is worried they simply will not attend. So much planning has already occurred. It seems a pity to waste all that white soup. And after extending all those personal invitations"-Bingley got a dreamy look in his eyes, his lips softened, and all present knew he was thinking of Miss Bennet-"I should hate to have to retract them."
"Honestly Charles!" Miss Bingley exclaimed, grimacing momentarily before she placed a more pleasant expression on her face and then asked, "Would you risk the health of your sisters and your friends?"
"Well, if you believe it is truly necessary. . ." Bingley responded.
"I am sorry, Charles, I know it is disappointing." Miss Bingley responded. She momentarily turned away from her brother and Mr. Darcy, then lifted her chin slightly at her sister, tightly grinned, and waggled her eyebrows.
"I agree, 'tis the right thing to do," Mrs. Hurst added.
Mr. Hurst offered no opinion as he was sleeping on a sofa and lightly snoring, an empty tumbler near him on the side table. Mrs. Hurst thought it was just as well as she was not sure whether her husband would support her opinion or not.
Darcy, suspecting Miss Bingley would be only too happy to cancel the ball at the slightest provocation given how much she despised the local community, and being not averse to having an opportunity to finally dance with the woman who had a light and pleasing figure and lovely and intelligent dark eyes, decided to assert himself to question Miss Bingley. "Tell me more about this new disease."
Miss Bingley put a concerned look on her face and facing Darcy said in her most solemn tone, "Well, it consists of a fever, a dry cough and then some may have trouble breathing. It can kill!"
"That sounds similar to a severe croup, the Boulogne sour throat if you will, but usually that impacts the young, or perhaps it might be pleurisy. Either are hardly a new illness." Darcy commented. "Tell me, who has gotten it so far?"
"Well I received a letter from my friend Missy Stokes in London today, a dear friend from school." Miss Bingley held up a letter that appeared to be crossed twice. "Missy told me all about the disease. She is very worried because her grandmother is afflicted with it and is dreadfully ill. People have died in the city."
"How old is her grandmother?" Darcy questioned.
"Mayhap seven decades or so. Perhaps five and sixty to five and seventy." Miss Bingley answered as honestly as she could, hoping to please him.
"Did Miss Stokes become ill?" asked Darcy. He was still trying to understand how serious and virulent this new infection was. If, perchance, it was something to worry about, he would need to find out which treatments were most effective. He thought of some of the common options: bleeding, laudanum, icy baths.
"Mrs. Stokes did sicken, and much of her family with her." Miss Bingley then noticed that Darcy was looking at her, staring at her, almost unblinking, his lips tight, still but for drumming the fingers of one hand across his thigh. It was the look that always made her feel that she needed to be completely honest or face his wrath. She quickly added, "But she is well again now. It is most severe in the old."
"How many are afflicted? How many of those die of it?" Darcy continued to question her. His drumming fingers had stilled and his face was more still than rigid now.
Miss Bingley folded and unfolded her letter in her agitation. She felt that the clever plan that she developed with Louisa was rapidly unraveling. "Mrs. Stokes knows several families who have been sickened by it. One or two elderly people have died."
"Why then that is nothing, then, for almost anything might prove fatal when one is old." Darcy further relaxed, he was confident that the war was all but won now. He imagined holding his arm out to Miss Elizabeth to escort her to the dance. However he forced his thoughts away from her as he knew he must continue his efforts until Miss Bingley accepted her defeat.
Darcy asked, "Did you know that more people die in London than are born there?"
Miss Bingley nodded, it was common knowledge to everyone.
Darcy continued, "The only reason London does not grow smaller is that people keep coming to live there. The effluvium there is awful, the typhus, the cholera, there are so many things to afflict the people who live there."
Darcy considered a moment, realizing he was getting a little far away from what he meant to discuss. "Let us consider if it this new terrible disease is like the Boulogne sour throat. From what I have read, the Boulogne sour throat might kill five to ten adults of one hundred, and twenty of one hundred children. Georgiana and I were not the only Darcy children, you know. We all had the Boulogne sour throat and one of my younger brothers died of it."
Caroline Bingley softened, she wished to console him, to have Darcy desire her consolation, but she was not sure how to do it, or if he even wanted consolation at this late date for something that happened many years ago. She lost her opportunity as Darcy continued.
"This new disease of yours, it sounds much less unpleasant than the bloody flux and less longstanding than whooping cough, which can last six weeks. My older brother died of whooping cough. He and I both had it, both of us coughing for many weeks until he succumbed. After that with each cough I made, I knew not whether to rejoice that I was still alive, mourn because I was coughing alone, or wish to succumb so I might not ache anymore."
"I am sorry you lost your brothers to disease," Bingley commented quickly.
Caroline gritted her teeth but tried not to let it show. It should be her offering Darcy sympathy, not her interfering brother.
Bingley related, "We lost our our father to scarlatina, along with an infant brother; the rest of us had it and recovered with no ill effects afterwards. The same could not be said for our father, while our brother died in the acute phase, Father ended up with a weakened heart and a simple fever carried him off the following spring." Bingley's eyes grew thick with unshed tears. His nose reddened a bit and he sniffed.
"You mean he developed rheumatic fever," Darcy suggested. "It must have been difficult to think he had been spared only to lose him."
"Yes, that is what it was called," Bingley responded, pausing to blow his nose in his handkerchief. "Our mother died of consumption, along with one of our aunts."
"Ah, consumption, yes that is a common killer. It will get many of us in the end, causes perhaps one in four of all the deaths in England," Darcy could not resist showing of all he knew. "But pray continue, Bingley."
Bingley nodded in acknowledgment; he was grateful for the earlier interruption for it gave him time to collect himself further. "Father said he always feared he might die from ague when he traveled to acquire exotic goods as a young man, for he saw it afflict many."
Apparently warming to the discussion of various diseases, Mrs. Hurst said, "The illness I am most scared to get is small pox. So many die or are terribly disfigured. The most awful would be to go blind from getting sores upon one's eyes and to have to depend upon others for everything."
"Yes, my uncle on the Darcy side had small pox when he was a child," Darcy responded, giving Mrs. Hurst his undivided attention as he replied, much to Caroline's dismay. "Everyone in his household sickened, but one or two. Of the family and the servants, I think he said eleven died altogether of those forty souls. His sister was blinded and never married. No one seems to know when a new outbreak may start."
Darcy gave a little sigh. "Life can be so uncertain, so many women die in childbirth or afterward as my mother did, from child birth fever. And then my father died in a carriage accident."
Miss Bingley could see where Mr. Darcy's discussion was leading. She forgot all about trying to console Darcy for his losses. Instead, she decided to gracefully concede defeat. "I suppose, perhaps, we could still have our ball." The letter lay forgotten on her lap.
"But I am still worried about our guests," Bingley responded.
"How many of the elderly are likely to attend?" Darcy asked. He preferred to nudge Bingley in the right direction rather than simply tell him what to do, even if sometimes it was blasted annoying waiting for Bingley to think things through.
Bingley considered for a moment, "I can hardly think of one. Perhaps Mrs. Long?"
Darcy wanted to roll his eyes, but refrained. "She cannot be more than fifty."
"Ah, well, then I suppose there is no reason to delay." Bingley smiled.
"Yes, the threat of becoming ill with this new disease is nothing we have not dealt with before," Darcy responded, relieved he would be able to ask Miss Elizabeth to dance. Now that the matter was settled, he could go back to daydreaming about what that would be like, as he had been doing before Miss Bingley made her announcement. He added, addressing the room at large, "It will just be a regular Tuesday."