Pride, Prejudice and Pandemic

One of my husband’s colleagues established a Letters from Lockdown challenge. The prompt: “I thought to start a contest to potentially occupy people’s time in the coming weeks.  Please send me a short letter that your favorite historical figure might write if trapped in social isolation somewhere with a pandemic raging around them.  What would Abraham Lincoln say?  What would Humphrey Bogart say?  What would Eleanor Roosevelt say?  What would Cleopatra say?”    

This was my submission. Am also beginning work on an additional submission, tentatively titled Harry Potter And The Deathly COVID19 Stone Goblet Of Secrets. Please submit your own inspirations in the comments!

***********

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man with a high fever and robust cough, who sneezes viciously on those around him, must be in want of a mask and some hand sanitizer. 

Wednesday, 25 March

My Dear Charlotte , 

I’ve so much to acquaint you with since we last spoke at the Netherfield ball a mere six weeks ago!

Charlotte, no sooner had Mr. Collins left Longbourne did we hear that all of the occupants at Netherfield were to be confined there! The ball was, apparently, an incubator:  so many people so very close together: dancing, eating, spitting vituperative remarks at one another. Would that it had been a Masqued Ball! I am glad to have been wearing my evening gloves, but still…. No trifling cold, this – no, Miss Bingley collapsed first, mere days after the ball, and was put to bed with a high fever and a phlegmy cough. Mr. Bingley was next laid low, then Miss Darcy, and quarantine was set for the entire manor. What scandal! 

We are bearing up as best as we can and we are, as yet, asymptomatic. My sisters and I still walk, daily, into Merryton, our small group intimate still yet grouped less charmingly, each of us staggered and staggering at least 6 feet in between. Conversation is an exercise that leaves each of us fearful, and any brightness of the eyes thus produced leaves us worried – this contagion is heralded by redness about the eyes. Mother is certainly suspected as ill and requiring isolation, an easy burden to bear as her constant vapourings and whinings grate upon the doughtiest soul. But even though she keeps to her room in responsible terror of this contagion, it is more likely that the redness of her eyes is the result of her constant weeping and wailing. 

Despite the comfort provided by these “alternative explanations”, which I hold to my bosom as talisman against utter panic, we are desperately low on hand sanitizer. How shall we cope? We are lost, and our whole family must partake of the neighborhood’s ruin and COVID19 infection. How are we ever to take the necessary precautions?!

I am confident that we shan’t be seeing Mr. Wickham again any time soon: the garrison is to quarter up north, taking the virus with them – may Wickham’s cock rot and fall off! Profligate was he with spreading this sickness… I burn with rage at his willful disregard for the proprieties and safeguards set down at Court. Better to burn with rage than with fever, but I shan’t count any of us proof against his dissipated nature and its effects, so well-hidden by his pleasant countenance and his ready offer of Clorox Wipes…

Monday, 30 March

Oh Charlotte, if you have not yet heard of the good fortune that has befallen us at Longbourne, let me enlighten you at once. Upon hearing about our lack of Purell, Mr. Darcy took it upon himself to go to London and scour all of the Boots he could find, emerging triumphant with an entire phial of hand sanitizer! Oh Charlotte, shall I tell you how much happiness this has produced in our household?! He is truly the best man I have ever known. Indeed, even during his travels he has had no improper contact with others; he has been perfectly amiable, keeping his distance and shopping in queue, yet employing resourcefulness to bring such happiness and assurances of health to my poor mother and sisters! Every evening, he follows me about the grounds of Longbourne in a small phaeton, speaking words of love as he passes me on the path, always at least 6 feet distant..

I hope you and Mr. Collins are well and show no signs of this malady. Lady Catherine can, however, drop dead.

Please write me at once! I am 

Yours, 

Lizzie