Under the Wide and Starry Sky

CHAPTER 7

By  mid-March,  Fanny  was  frantic;  Hervey’s  condition  had  deteriorated  badly.  Three di?erent times she hired a carriage to go out into the countryside to ?nd a farm where she could get fresh oxblood to replenish the iron Hervey was losing through bleeding, then hurried back  to  the  ?at  so  he  could drink  it  while  it  was  warm.  For  several  days  she searched the apothecaries of Paris, looking for the ground-up bark of some tropical tree that supposedly could cure tuberculosis. None of the treatments—not the doctors’, not her own—could turn the tide for her beautiful child.

Some  nights  during  her  vigils,  she  had  to  ?ght  to  keep  her  eyes  open,  she  was  so exhausted. Alone and scared, she made promises. Please, she prayed. Please. Strange events began to occur in the dim light. Staring at the ?replace mantel, she saw vases and pitchers about to topple off the edge. Time and again, she jumped up to catch them only to find that nothing was there. During the day, she felt as if her feet were not touching the pavement. Instead, she ?oated just above it, weightless. She did not mention the weird sensations to Belle or Kate.

One night while she was keeping watch over Hervey, the boy woke and asked for water. When he reached out to take the cup, she saw light streaming from his ?ngers. She wired Sam the next morning: Come immediately, regardless of expense.

Every few hours, Hervey began bleeding in a new place. “Blood. Get the things, please, but wait until I’m ready.” Fanny fetched the washbowl, bandages, and probe to clean each new opening in her boy’s delicate skin. He would squeeze his hands together, shut his eyes and say, “Now, Mama.”

The pain of treatment was so shocking to his body that he became violently sick after. Others  in  the  household  could  not  bear  to  stay  in  the  room.  Sometimes  he  went  into convulsions, his bones snapping in and out of joint, making the sound of a cracking whip. It seemed his skeleton and organs were disintegrating. The rush of blood tore one eardrum and perforated the other.

Fanny  lay  with  him  in  her  arms,  murmuring  words  of  comfort  through  his  hours  of agony.  She  prayed that  if  there  were  indeed a  merciful  God,  He  would strike  the  boy unconscious so he would feel the pain no more. But the child never lost his mind. Through it all, he never complained or cried out, not even when his bones, near the end, cut through

his skin and lay bare.

When Sam arrived the second week of April, his knees buckled at the sight of his son. Fanny had tried to prepare him ahead of time, but at ?rst Sam could not bear to look upon the child. It was Hervey who patted his father’s head to comfort him.
Fanny watched in dumb wonder as her shy boy became precocious in dying. He said goodbye to Belle. He kissed the hand of Miss Kate, who had shown herself to be a storybook heroine in her devotion to him. He gave his toys to Sammy.

At the end, Hervey said, “Lie down beside me, Mama.” And then he was gone.