Under the Wide and Starry Sky (ARC) by Nancy Horan

Author:Nancy Horan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780345516534
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine
Published: 2014-01-06T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 42

Gypsies. Vagabonds. Nomads. Those were the words Fanny had used since their marriage to cast their wanderings in a romantic light. But the words didn’t seem colorful or amusing or even accurate. The truth was, Louis’s cruel illnesses whipped around their lives, pushed them toward places they didn’t want to go, and pulled them out of places they loved. They had pursued the ideal climate from Silverado to Davos to Hyères, and she was utterly exhausted from it. Louis’s sickness lived with them like an uninvited guest wherever they settled. Fanny couldn’t be angry with him, but the tyranny of the illness made her feel murderous. She hated that it tethered Louis to a bed, decided he shouldn’t have his own children, kept him from the simple joys other people took for granted. And then there was the fickleness, when it lifted for a while and let them hope, like fools, that they might live normally.

When they abandoned Hyères, they went to London, where Henley and Baxter claimed they’d located the specialist. George Balfour came down to be present at the consultation. As it turned out, the physician directed his remarks to Uncle George, rather than Louis or Fanny. Louis’s lungs, he said, were clear of disease. “You can stop the ergotin now,” the doctor said before taking a quick exit. And Uncle George had agreed!

“I don’t believe it for a minute,” Fanny fumed when they were alone. “You just lived through the worst hemorrhaging imaginable.” She promptly found another doctor who agreed with her. “Most definitely you should return to Davos for the winter,” he warned them.

“Mother says Uncle George believes you have exaggerated my condition,” Louis told her after reading his letters one afternoon. “And Henley is miffed because it was his doctor you went against.”

“I don’t care what they say!” Fanny cried out. “No one could witness what you just went through in Hyeres and believe you have no lung disease.” She stormed around the bedroom, tossing clothing into piles. “Why do they all talk about climate and good air, and none of these people ever talks about germs? Maybe it’s germs that cause tuberculosis; that’s what some articles in the Lancet say … “

“You and the damned Lancet,” Louis moaned.

Fanny glared at Louis in the hotel bed. His hair, which he kept long to protect his neck from drafts, pressed damp against his skull. “Look at you. You shiver. You can’t sleep. You cough constantly. The morphine they give you makes you nauseated … but ‘throw away the ergotin,’ they say. Your lungs are just ducky. What am I to do when you start bleeding again?”

Louis looked at her sadly. “My poor little man. You’re so brave.”

“Stop it! Stop the empty talk. I can’t be a saint all the time, the way you are. Sometimes I’m just so … angry.” She threw up her hands. “What do we do now? Where do we go?”

“Let’s go see Sammy,” Louis said, “as soon as I’m able. We’re close.

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