Under the Wide and Starry Sky

CHAPTER 34

“Louis is back in town.” Nellie’s face was flushed from running.
Fanny grabbed her sister’s arm. “Where is he?”

“Adulfo told me he’s over at Doc Heintz’s place.” “Where has he been all this time?”

“Out in the country somewhere. Adulfo wasn’t clear on it.”

Fanny’s eyes frantically scanned the kitchen. “What do I have that I can take to him?” “Fanny!” Her sister shook her shoulders.  “The man doesn’t want food from you.” She
paused. “Adulfo says he’s been very sick.”

Fanny tore o? her apron  and ran  down  the sandy middle of Alvarado Street. At the doctor’s house, a maid answered the door.

“Is the doctor here? I need to speak to him right away,” Fanny said. When the woman went to fetch him, Fanny smoothed her skirts and hair, wiped the sweat from her upper lip. “Mrs. Osbourne.” The doctor’s face was momentarily confused. “You are looking healthier since I last saw you.”

Fanny summoned her dignity. “I am here to see Louis Stevenson. He is an old friend of mine.”

“Oh? Well, I’m glad to know he has someone in town. I took him in for a few days until he recovers. “ He looked at her curiously. “Are you aware that he is quite ill?”
“He had a hard journey from England. He’s here on a lecture tour.”

“I can’t be sure—there’s no real test—but I suspect the man has consumption.” He shook his head. “Compounded by pleurisy and malnutrition. Came mighty close to dying out on that ranch. The boat and train travel from England broke what was left of his health.” He shrugged. “Follow me. He’s upstairs.”

Louis lay with his hands at his sides, palms down, white sheet pulled up over his chest. His eyes were closed, and his face, in pro?le, looked remarkably peaceful. No matter how sick he was, his features showed his boyish sweetness; he had in him a soul as pure as Hervey’s. He was brilliant, just, and wholesome—the closest thing to a holy man Fanny had ever known. In rooms full of people, she had watched others expand with happiness just to be in his presence. He was the most alive person she’d ever met. And he was funny on top of  it  all.  How  useful  a  thing  it  would  be  to  keep  such  a  man  in  the  world.  How

extraordinary a life would be hers if she stayed within that circle of light.
Fanny knelt by the bed and put his icy hand into hers.  “Don’t die on me, Louis,” she murmured. “Yes, I will marry you. Just hang on.”

She saw the eyelids ?utter. She didn’t know if he could hear her, but she kept talking. “I was afraid, Louis. Do you understand what it is for a woman …? I was protecting myself, and I thought, How will we live? But when you left that day on the beach, I knew I had made a terrible mistake. Sam has agreed to a divorce. Do you hear me? He’s asking for a ‘decent’ interval. Don’t you enjoy that, darling—decent? Oh, Louis, you are going to be a great writer, I know it in my heart, and a healthy one, and we are going to be happy together, in our own home. I can’t promise I can give you a child of your own, but I will try, I promise you I will try, if that’s what you want. If you can just hang on … Only a few more months until the divorce can be finalized, and then a little while after that … ”
Louis stirred, turned his head toward her. The radiant hazel eyes took her in. “You look beautiful today, Fanny,” he said. “Forgive me if I am not at my best.” He gestured weakly at  his  body. “I’m  all  to  whistles.  This  is  hardly  the  ?gure  I  had  hoped  to  cut  as  a bridegroom.”

Fanny swallowed back tears. “I shall fatten you up before then.” She dipped a cloth in a bowl of water on the table near his bed and wet his dry lips.

“I don’t want to misrepresent myself to you, Fanny.” Louis’s breathy voice was as tattered as the rest of him. “I am a mere complication of cough and bones. When we met in Grez, I was the healthiest I had been in some time. The truth is, I’ve been an invalid o? and on all my life. It will not be easy for you.”

Looking down at Louis, she remembered the months of caring for Hervey. It had been excruciating, and it had not been enough. How vividly she remembered the day they buried him at Saint-Germain. Watching the little casket go into the ground, she’d felt like the perpetrator of a terrible crime. The child should have been at home in Oakland, nestled safely in his own bed. Perhaps at some deep level she didn’t want to look at, she expected she could redeem herself for letting Hervey slip through her ?ngers: Maybe marrying an invalid would be a prayer, an act of contrition. She didn’t know. All she knew for certain was that she loved Louis.

“I shall carry you,” she told him. “And you can carry me.”

He nodded. “You’ll pardon me, Mrs. Stevenson,” he whispered, and in a few moments, he

was sound asleep.