SUSPENDING PLEASURES
CHAPTER 8 - A SNEAKY SCIENCE ATTACK
In which we introduce some scientific backstory because proper lack of facts makes anything more convincing
Whenever Mrs. Bennet could do nothing to help, it generally aided her nerves to do something. The sewing basket had never been as empty before, and the linen cabinet had already been rearranged according to Lady Catherine DeBourgh's recommendations that Mr. Collins had been able to recite to her. It took two hours, and when she was done, nobody but Mr. Collins was able to perceive any difference. When she started to eye the pantry and lament that none of the spices were in alphabetical order the cook felt an urge to intervene and attempted to suggest several alternative projects that would not threaten her sense of functionality.
Eventually Mrs. Bennet was reminded of the ailing Mrs. Long and her quarantined family and thought they might need some fresh supplies. The cook thought it was a splendid idea to take them a care basket and collected the food items without further demur.
Miss Bennet did not feel like walking so Mrs. Bennet asked Miss Elizabeth to accompany her, or to be more exact, to carry the basket. Miss Lydia and Miss Catherine wanted to come too, just to get out of the house. They had no interest in carrying the basket, but it had been far too long that they had seen any of the officers. Miss Mary disapproved of her younger sister's eagerness to venture outside and told them not to blame her if they met their death in Meryton. She was playing a funeral march on the pianoforte, somewhat more aggressively than the composer had intended.
Mr. Collins volunteered to accompany them as well. He might have offered to carry the basket had he only thought of it but being a more spiritual man he felt that he should offer a poor ailing widow his prayers. Miss Elizabeth attempted to convince him to stay at Longbourn, saying that the quarantine would necessarily require the family to limit visitors and if Mrs. Long wanted a priest they would surely prefer the local vicar that she was familiar with. Mr. Collins was affronted by this and asked if Miss Elizabeth thought his prayers to be less effective than those of the local clergy, and if she believed in the power of prayer at all. Miss Elizabeth believed that his prayers would be just as likely to be heard if he prayed at Longbourn, but this answer proved unsatisfying. It is a truth universally acknowledged that if one's conversational partner manages to redefine the argument so that to disagree with him is to deny one's entire religion, one can have nothing further to say and may as well concede the defeat. So off they went as one happy group.
Mrs. Bennet wanted to visit the apothecary first to see if Mr. Jones could recommend anything else that might be helpful to Mrs. Long. On the way there they met Mr. Bingley, Mr. Darcy and Mr. Hurst who greeted them from the other side of the street.
"Hello, Mrs. Bennet, Miss Elizabeth," said Mr. Darcy. "Miss Catherine, Miss Lydia, Mr. Collins."
"Happy to see you all hale and hearty, gentlemen," said Mrs. Bennet.
"We meet again," said Mr. Hurst. "Do you think we are doing this social distancing business right?"
Mr. Bingley was unable to believe that there could be any harm in speaking a few words on a quiet street. Mr. Collins assured Mr. Darcy that meeting him was a stroke of luck and Mr. Collins would surely remember to greet Lady Catherine DeBourgh on Mr. Darcy's behalf when next he wrote a letter to his patroness.
"Thank you so much," Mr. Darcy said. "Please do not trouble yourself too much for my sake, as I can probably greet my relatives in a letter myself, if I apply myself in the attempt."
Mr. Collins hurried to explain that he was in no way intending to suggest that Mr. Darcy was illiterate, for it was certainly quite obvious that a man in Mr. Darcy's position must be in possession of a superior education, and he was sure that Lady Catherine DeBourgh would never countenance any illiteracy in any of her relatives, for one must necessarily become a proficient reader with enough practice.
"I do not think that my aunt likes to read," Mr. Darcy said.
"Is Miss Bennet with you?" Mr. Bingley asked, rather unnecessarily in everyone else's opinion. Mr. Darcy had been quite easily able to scan the group, visually establish everyone's identity and name them all just moments earlier.
"No, she was a little tired and thought it would be too far to walk," Mrs. Bennet said.
"She might have been expecting a visitor," Miss Elizabeth said.
"Nonsense," said Mrs. Bennet. "Who would visit at such a time? Have you forgotten that there is a plague going around? I fear Jane has not completely recovered from her recent illness yet and tires easily when walking."
"I only wish we could have done more to aid her recovery," Mr. Bingley said.
"I am sure you did all you reasonably could," Mrs. Bennet said. "Have you made a decision about whether to hold the ball?"
"It may have to be cancelled," Mr. Bingley said.
Miss Lydia and Miss Catherine appeared quite distressed about the possibility of the cancellation. Considering some of her earlier statements about the absolute necessity of having balls, Mrs. Bennet might have been expected to join their lamentations, but she was surprisingly calm and unperturbed. "Oh hush, girls, if the sky is about to fall and we are all going to die, what good are balls going to do for you?"
"Is Mr. Bennet going to be available if we ride to Longbourn?" Mr. Bingley asked. "I was hoping to talk to him yesterday but your servant said he was not accepting visitors."
"Oh indeed, Mr. Bingley, as his health has been quite precarious we thought it best that he should minimize his social contacts. Well, I thought it best, and for once he agreed with me. One has to deal with the tenants, and to eat one's dinner, but one does not have to entertain guests. No offense intended. "
"None taken."
"He has never been one to enjoy socializing so I am sure it was no hardship for him to suspend that pleasure."
"I completely understand, but I had hoped that he would make an exception for me," said Mr. Bingley. "Just once. It is a matter of some importance to me."
"Oh, there is no need to confer with him, I am certain Mr. Bennet would tell you just to go ahead and cancel the ball already."
"It is good to hear that he will not be affronted if we cancel the invitation."
"To be sure he will not, he is not interested in big parties at all. Not that there are going to be that many people anyway. I fear it would be a sad disappointment as the Longs have been quarantined, and the Lucases have decided to shelter at home so I am certain that they will not attend. Sir William has been to London recently, and I sure hope that he is not ill."
"The Gouldings sent their regrets too," Mr. Bingley said.
"See, you would just have a great big ballroom all for yourself," Mrs. Bennet said. "You would feel like a bilberry in a bucket."
Mrs. Bennet, Miss Catherine, Miss Lydia, and Mr. Collins all went into the apothecary shop. Mr. Bingley dithered for a moment but chose to accompany them inside. What his business with the apothecary was, he did not say. Miss Elizabeth wanted to check if the bookseller had received the books her father had ordered. The book shop was just around the corner and the other two gentlemen walked in that direction with her.
Miss Elizabeth's errand was unsuccessful as the shop was closed due to an illness in the family. Mr. Darcy who was the most practiced in staring at windows was the first to notice that something had been glued on the inside of the shop window.
"It is an article from a recent medical newsletter, by several Harley Street doctors," he said. Miss Elizabeth would not venture close enough to see the print, so he read the title aloud.
"This article looks quite interesting," he said, "although not very comforting. It is like a detective story about how they found out about the illness."
"I am no longer sure if I want to know anything," Miss Elizabeth said. "It keeps getting worse with everything I learn."
"That is my strategy," Mr. Hurst said. "If I know nothing about it it cannot hurt me."
"Ostrich, meet sand," said Mr. Darcy.
"Do you know any ostriches who got this fever? Hiding their head in the sand clearly works."
A couple of the authors were familiar to Mr. Darcy, and he was able to convince Miss Elizabeth that Dr. Halliday was the best physician in London. "He has been our family doctor in town for fifteen years. Dr. Smithers tends to my uncle's family."
"In that case, I hope you are right and they know what they are doing."
The article was titled, 'Tracing The Origins Of An Outbreak Of A Novel Contagious Illness'. It was reported that the outbreak had originated in London, among the highest echelons of the society.
"What would we do without the high society," Mr. Hurst said. "They are responsible for the silliest fashions, and now this."
"Indeed, but we might still be unaware of the danger, had it started with some other people," Mr. Darcy said.
Mr. Darcy continued reading aloud. The authors had first been alerted that something was amiss when they noticed an unusual peak in the number of serious fevers they were called upon to treat, including some unexpected deaths. High fever, respiratory distress, soreness of throat, and muscle pain were common. Some patients had no fever but suffered from headaches or severe lethargy. Some had skin discolorations. Blood clotting was a potentially fatal complication. After recovery, there might be lingering symptoms such as tiredness, loss of appetite, or changes in the olfactory sense. There was enough variation in the symptoms that individual cases might be mistaken for a number of other ailments, but in the authors' opinion the precise combination of symptoms in the outbreak seen as a whole was unique enough, and the outbreak had increased mortality and morbidity in a given restricted population so suddenly and unexpectedly, that it was reasonable to assume that it was a new disease entity. The authors freely admitted that the start of the epidemic might have gone completely unnoticed, had it originated in a poorer section of the society in which unattended deaths were more common and medical attention was more difficult to obtain. But as there were several peers and members of the Parliament among the first known victims their deaths caused more of a stir, and the similarities and the coincidences of timing and circumstances had attracted the attention of the medical community.
"The victims are not named here," Miss Elizabeth said, "but I wonder if they are known to you. No one close, I hope."
"As far as I am aware, none of the people I would call close are ill," Mr. Darcy said. "But I have seen some people that I am acquainted with in the obituaries. My uncle is in the Parliament but he should be fine, according to the latest letter from my aunt."
Mr. Hurst said essentially the same, although it must be noted that his uncles were in the graveyard, not in the Parliament.
Mr. Darcy read on. Initially there had also been a criminal investigation. One of the victims had been in the middle of important but controversial political negotiations, when he suddenly got very ill and died. Shortly before his death he had attended a crowded soiree and gotten into several heated exchanges with people who disagreed with his views. His bereaved relatives suspected foul play, perhaps by the means of administration of a toxic substance.
"Good heavens!" Mr. Hurst exclaimed. "That must be old Roger Hetherington."
"Oh, a friend of yours?" Miss Elizabeth asked.
"No, I have nothing to do with the political set," Mr. Hurst said. "I do not agree with politics and politics do not agree with me. But I know his nephew Trevor, and the family was mighty upset. Somebody at the soiree had said that Hetherington ought to hang for something-or-other that he had done or refused to do and threatened to beat him, and when he got sick and died so soon afterwards they thought he must have been murdered. Trevor was sure that he had been poisoned."
According to the article, this had proven to be a baseless suspicion. When the investigators traced the victim's contacts, searching for witnesses and other evidence, it emerged that several other people who had attended the same event had also fallen ill, including some peers, friends of the Regent, foreign dignitaries, politicians and other notable figures. A politically targeted attack started to seem increasingly unlikely when it was noted that the group of patients included parliamentarians on various sides of the issues as well as their wives and other people who were not personally involved in politics, and even several servants who had waited on the revellers.
"Well, at least it is somewhat egalitarian if it affects both lords and their grooms," said Mr. Hurst.
"It would be really make a bad situation worse if the disease started to spread among the servants," Miss Elizabeth said.
"I wonder what we could do to protect them," Mr. Darcy said.
Although Mr. Hurst and Miss Elizabeth had professed reluctance to learn more themselves, everyone agreed that it was important to make sure all the servants knew the facts about the disease,. In some cases it would be very difficult for them to maintain social distance but it would be even harder if they were unaware of the need.
Returning to the article, they learned that the investigators had ruled out the possibility that someone had poisoned the refreshments at the soiree in a general manner, not particularly caring who would be affected. This would not explain why the disease started spreading in the households of the first victims. The second wave of patients involved relatives and servants who had not been present at the soiree but had had contact with the sick people afterwards, either before or after they noticed the first symptoms.
"If my father was here he would say that partying must always be punished," Miss Elizabeth said. "But getting a deadly disease seems too harsh a punishment, and giving it to your servants who were not having any fun at the party seems entirely unfair."
The rest of the article contained fewer mysterious adventures and more uncertainty described in with scientific precision. The method of transmission was largely unknown, although certain inferences could be made. In all probability, the primary route that the contagion spread was via face to face contact. It would be premature to speculate what caused the illness but meeting disease carriers was definitely a risk. It appeared that the transmission might be airborne as it was not necessary to shake hands or touch or to have a conversation in order for the contagion to spread. Merely being in the same room might be enough. There was one case report of a maid who had never met the known patient in the household in person, having been hired after his death. She had fallen ill after cleaning the sick room, but in the absence of a diagnostic test to rule out infection, the possibility of contact with another unidentified carrier could not be ruled out.
"Case reports! Airborne transmission! Diagnostic tests! Unidentified carriers!" Mr. Hurst said. ""I guess this is what I deserve for walking down the street with book readers. I should have known better. One may think one is safe, but science can attack you anywhere."
"Be careful if you get attacked by trigonometry," Miss Elizabeth said. "Some of those angles are quite sharp."
The doctors had used the data from the police investigation and from their own interviews to draw charts of the contacts people had had, attempting to trace the timeline of the disease spreading. They cautioned that some interviewees had been unable or unwilling to share their entire social history for recent weeks, and hence the data was inevitably only partially reliable. Based on the information that they had been able to gather it appeared that one might get infected after contact with someone who was not yet symptomatic and only became aware of their own infection later. As the authors had no idea whether it was transferred by bad air, by toxic fumes, by minuscule particles that were invisible to the naked eye, or some other method, they could not recommend any specific tools or medications for preventing the contagion, but as social contact was likely to be involved in most cases of transmission it stood to reason that reducing the volume of social contacts would be beneficial. The authors would advise everyone not to socialize unnecessarily, and if contact was unavoidable, people should keep more physical distance than they would in normal circumstances.
The one thing the authors seemed reasonably certain of was that there was nothing that could be done to cure the patients. Physicians might make them more comfortable and relieve some of the symptoms, but they were either healed or killed by nature, and everyone should do whatever they could to avoid getting infected or spreading the infection.
"Don't stand so close to me," said Mr. Hurst.
"As we live in the same household we have probably shared the same bad air regularly," said Mr. Darcy, as he stepped back. "You sat right next to me at the dinner table."
"It is so hard to always keep the distance," Miss Elizabeth said. "I frequently catch myself walking too close to a person, or thinking I should go see Charlotte, and then I remember...It feels very odd to be sitting in the opposite corners of the room and conversing from across the road takes some effort. It just does not come naturally. And trying to keep Kitty and Lydia home all day is like herding fleas."
"Maybe large hoop skirts will come back into fashion," Mr. Hurst said. "Then it would not matter if we forget, for it would be impossible for anyone to get too close. If we were all wearing a huge hoop it would be like having large personal protective bubbles."
"You could add spikes pointing outward for maximum effect," said Mr. Darcy.
"Oh yes, somebody could make a lot of money selling hedgehog hoops," said Mr. Hurst.
It was not known why everyone who had contact with patients did not get ill. Likewise, it was unknown why some patients died,why some suffered from severe symptoms but recovered, and why some patients got merely mild symptoms to begin with. Without a definitive diagnostic test, the authors would not yet venture to estimate the exact mortality rate, as this was an area for further study. However, it appeared that people in the older age range might be more at risk of death, as well as those who had several pre-existing health conditions. This was based on very preliminary numbers but it seemed logical to assume that the young and the healthy could battle the illness better. It could not be presumed that they would not spread it in a similar extent, however. On the contrary, it was possible that strong, resistant patients with only mild symptoms that they were hardly aware of might spread the contagion more among their circle of acquaintances than patients with a more severe case of the disease who were confined to the sickroom. There might be some unknown factors that would increase or decrease the risk, but the authors would not present any hypotheses. Further research was necessary.
"You were right, Mr. Darcy," Miss Elizabeth said. "This article was interesting but not the least bit comforting,"
"When scientists say that it is premature to speculate and that further research is necessary they mean that they know next to nothing, " Mr. Hurst said. "I hate to say I told you so but I told you so several days ago."
"Now we can believe it because if they put it in print, it must be true," Mr. Darcy said.
"Just like novels," Mr. Hurst said.
"Verisimilitude often beats the reality," Miss Elizabeth said. "I would much rather be in a good story right now, one with a happy ending."
"Did you hear that, Darcy?" Mr. Hurst asked. "She used the word verisimilitude in a sentence. Six syllables! How are you going to beat that?"
"Good thing it is now socially acceptable to distance yourself from book readers if you disapprove of having a vocabulary," Mr. Darcy said.
"Maybe hermits had the right idea," Mr. Hurst said.
"I would not wish to live in a complete solitude," Miss Elizabeth said. "But no doubt one would hardly miss some acquaintances if they decided to make themselves scarce."
Mr. Darcy agreed.
"For once we are in perfect accord. And do you know what else? Some people that I am familiar with have conversed very civilly for several minutes already," Mr. Hurst said. He adopted his best lecturer voice. "Book readers are the happiest when burrowing inside well stocked libraries, but in the absence of books, stray medical bulletins that they encounter on the street may coax them into tranquillity. Further research is indicated but it appears that science may have a calming effect on book readers."
"We cannot argue about science," Miss Elizabeth said.
"Facts are facts," said Mr. Darcy.
"Certainly," said Mr. Hurst, "and when the best doctors in London admit that they have no facts in their possession, nobody else needs to feel any pressure to be right all the time."
The business at the apothecary having been concluded, Mr. Collins had reached the streetside science club first. "Who would you be arguing with, Cousin Elizabeth? I hope you are not annoying Mr. Darcy."
"Well, that is for Mr. Darcy to say," Miss Elizabeth said. "I cannot read his mind."
"Your cousin is everything that is charming," Mr. Darcy reassured Mr. Collins. "We have been discussing poisonings and hoop skirts."
These appeared to be magic words, for Mr. Darcy achieved something that no one who went before him had ever succeeded at. For once in his life, Mr. Collins was struck silent and had absolutely nothing to say.
AN: I stole a song lyric again, did you catch it this time?