Chapter 5 #2
It had been ten days since his father had begun to complain of a common cold.
Six days since he’d taken to his bed with chills and exhaustion.
And two days since a fever had come on slowly and now persistently.
Between bouts of shuddering chills and flushed malaise, the normally lively man with a gleam in his eye had become morose, anxious, and unsettlingly quiet.
Dr. Kerr sat back, putting his instruments away in his kit.
Mother crossed the room and moved to press the cloth to Father’s head, but he nudged it away.
“No, Rose. Please.” He pulled the bedspread high under his chin, the shivering movement of his arms beneath the counterpane testifying that the chills had not yet passed, defying the sheen of sweat on his brow.
“Are you the doctor, now, my dearest?” she asked gently, pressing the cloth to his forehead. Cyril watched her tender ministrations, her worry barely apparent in her clenched jaw. But still apparent. Cyril and Oscar exchanged looks.
After a moment, Father calmed. Mother waited on the doctor, who wrote in his notebook.
The man closed the book with a snap. He looked up, first at Cyril, then his mother. “Pneumonia.”
Mother put her hand to her chest and Cy stepped forward, pushing away the initial fear gripping his chest. “Pneumonia,” he said. “But he hasn’t a cough. Are you certain?” Cy was no expert, but he was sure a cough was associated with the infection.
Dr. Kerr frowned and stood. “I’ve heard of cases that come on quietly, with no apparent irritation of the lungs until after onset of fever.
Those can be more dangerous, as they go too long without diagnosis.
I would expect, in your father’s case, that the infection is established and that a cough will soon appear. ”
Cy glanced at his mother. “Can it be treated?”
“Can it be stopped?” Mother asked, her voice catching.
“You have two options, Mrs. Burke. One, we keep him as comfortable as possible, allow the fever to peak and rage, and after several days, either it would break in a drenching sweat and your husband would recover, or … the infection would win.”
Cy needed no further interpretation of what that meant.
“And two?” Oscar asked.
Dr. Kerr straightened. “There is a treatment. Behring’s antiserum therapy.”
Cy blinked. “Behring? The Nobel Prize winner?”
“The same.”
Only a few years earlier, Emil Behring had been awarded the prize for discovering an antitoxin for diphtheria. Cy had read of it in the papers. Mother approached, placing her hand on Cy’s arm.
“Continue, Doctor.”
He folded his arms, his fingers stroking his chin. “How to put it plainly? A serum is raised, incubated, in horses. The resulting substance is rich in antibodies—cells capable of cleaning infection.”
“Horses?” Oscar scoffed.
Mother gasped. “Is that possible?”
“Yes, ma’am. Very simply put: the serum is extracted, administered to the patient, and then we wait.”
“And the risks?” Cy’s father had taught him, in investing and in life, that there were always risks.
Dr. Kerr nodded. “The treatment is expensive and labor-intensive. It would require the removal of your father to the Victoria Hospital in London.”
Cy’s heart squeezed. He flickered a glance at his mother as she gripped his arm, and he covered her hand with his own.
“There is a potential risk for adverse reactions to the serum itself, as there is with any foreign substance entering the human body. Results are mixed, as studies are ongoing, but there have been successes.” The doctor addressed Mother.
“It would give your husband a fighting chance, Mrs. Burke. Doing something, instead of nothing. The earlier the treatment is administered, the better.”
Mother looked up at Cy, her eyes misted over, and her quivering chin lifted. “I will go with him to London,” she said.
He knew the sacrifice and courage behind her words. He looked to Oscar, who nodded.
At that moment, sacrifice and courage became the emblems propelling his own future forward. He knew the risk. A serum might save his father. Cyril would save his family.
Taking the risk gave them the best fighting chance.
Y
6 and nearly 10
Cyril placed his ebony game piece forward on the board. “Knight to F six.”
He leaned back and glanced at Father, who nodded in approval.
Cyril didn’t mind that the game would be a long one.
Rain pattered unevenly against the library windows, but it was warm by the fire where the chess table had been moved.
Mrs. Ritter had sent up plates of biscuits and milk tea sweetened with honey.
All was quite cozy in his favorite place in Oakleigh House.
Afternoons in the library with Father were far better than being stuck in the nursery writing lines.
Even with that perplexing little Violet Whittemore sitting opposite him.
She studied the board, her lips pursed, her small finger tapping her cheek.
“Remember,” Father said, “in chess—and in life, for that matter—it is important to look beyond what you see in the moment. Sometimes what might be painful now can help us in the long run.”
Her tawny brows wrinkled and she tilted her head.
Ever since her sixth birthday, Violet had been learning chess.
Cyril had noticed that the game stilled her more than anything else.
She seemed so intent on learning how to play that she spoke very little.
So there was that, at least. He would’ve boasted that she’d yet to beat him, but he was almost ten.
He would’ve only come across as—well, a nine-year-old boy who could beat a six-year-old girl at chess.
Not at all anything to crow about.
But Violet was catching on to the game faster than he had. And he’d begun playing at age eight.
Violet removed her finger from her cheek and placed it upon her own knight, currently sitting on G five.
She glanced up at his father, who only raised his brow in response, and then lifted her piece and set it down with a hard clack.
“Knight to F seven.” She withdrew her hand and rested both elbows on the table, lifting her shoulders with the smallest of grins.
She raised her gray-green eyes to his father’s again and bit her lip.
Cyril frowned. “Why would you move there?” he asked. She was just front-left of his king, in every position to be taken.
Father leaned toward the board. “Thunder,” he whispered. He turned to Violet. “Do you see what you did?” Cyril knew enough of his father to know he was asking in earnest and not in the playful banter he sometimes used with the babies.
Violet, with her gold coils of hair and large pink bow and frilly pinafore, nodded. “I looked, like you said to do—”
“Beyond,” Father said.
She passed her hand over the pieces on the board. “Beyond.”
Studying the move, Cyril saw he must take her knight. His queen or bishop was at risk. And the only way to do it was to use his king. And her bishop was already lined up to pose a real threat.
In the next few all-too-quick moves, Cyril had lost the power to boast that he could easily beat a six-year-old girl at chess.
Within the year, she learned to crow.