“The doctor says keep him alive until he is forty and then, though a winged bird, he may live to be ninety, but between now and forty, he must live as though he were walking on eggs, and for the next two years, no matter how well he feels, he must live the life of an invalid. He must be perfectly tranquil, trouble about nothing, have no shocks or surprises, not even pleasant ones, must not eat too much, drink too much, laugh too much; work a little but not too much, talk very little, and walk no more than can be helped.”

That’s the kind of news Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson was putting in her letter to her mother-in-law Margaret Stevenson, the letter she wrote on May 18, 1884, from her little Chalet La Solitude in the resort town of Hyères on the French Riviera. It had been two weeks since the most frightening event in Fanny Stevenson’s life to date, but Fanny spared Margaret the graphic details of Bloody Jack’s recent attack on her son in the dead of the night on May 2/3. Even as Jack was working over his victim, Fanny wrote to William Henley, his friend and partner in writing bad plays, to give him the news, saying that “I suppose that Louis has ruptured a blood vessel. The blood spurted all over everything in a moment. He was almost strangled with it. … I don’t see how he can go to London now, it was awful. I caught nearly a pint of blood in a basin besides what went on towels and things and everywhere. He had done nothing to cause it, no cold, no exertion, no speaking. The doctor charged him not to move hand nor foot. There is no use in anybody coming here to treat the bleeding. That is sudden and either stops quickly or kills, but upon general principles, what would Dr. Mennell cost to come here and diagnose?”

Dr. Zebulon Mennell had been one of Stevenson’s primary physicians in London when he found himself going south to the bedside of RLS. Along with Charles Baxter and cousin Bob, Henley had accepted full responsibility for this action and guaranteed the payment of Mennell’s fee and all incidental expenses. In the meantime, Dr. Mennell had telegraphed his advice to Fanny along with a prescription. “Mennell says it will stop any bleeding in no time.” The doctor later confessed to Henley that he “went out on a forlorn hope; expecting to see another death.” At first, the patient’s parents who were in London at the time, were kept out of the loop. Thomas Stevenson had himself taken a turn for the worse, a progressive cerebral hemorrhage believed to be involved, so when they did break the news, they watered down the drama and told Margaret first.

Mennell arrived at Hyères on May 7 and sent a telegram to Henley that although RLS was very weak the case was not hopeless. Henley passed on the news to all concerned. On May 15, Fanny wrote to Baxter: “I cannot tell what a relief it is to have had Mennell here and to know what I am to do in an emergency. They say if I had not had everything at hand that night, or had made any mistake nothing would have saved Louis.” Nevertheless, Fanny continued to believe their French doctor’s opinion, Dr. Vidal, that a large artery had ruptured, while Dr. Mennell’s diagnosis was that no large artery had been broken “but several small ones must have given way when the clot came up.” His view was that the bleeding had proceeded from the congested right lung. His advice was that RLS must take great care and “have no excitement of any kind.” About this time Fanny wrote to Henley: “Louis goes on well; but — there will be more of this, and each time with added danger. It is indeed the beginning of the end. … It is hard to carry life on in this fashion. It is perfectly true that the day after that awful night my hair had turned perceptibly whiter. As soon as the morning light came Louis saw it. He wrote on a paper to reassure me, while the blood was pouring ‘It is easy to die this way: no pain.'”

Three days later, Fanny wrote again to Baxter, reliving “The horror of that awful night is indescribable. They say it will certainly happen again, perhaps many times, or the next may be his last. So that is to be my life; to live and sleep and sup with terror. I suppose I shall learn to do it.”

Fanny would have about 10-and-a-half more years to keep learning how to do it, years that were filled with relative calm and stability interrupted with periods of sheer terror and suspense before the end came. One thing that really helped her through all of it was the one quality in her husband which his friends unanimously agreed was his most admirable trait — his courage. Fanny’s letter continues: “There is no fear on Louis’ part to unnerve me. He wrote to me a little while ago that this is the death he would prefer, entirely painless and soon over. And when the end comes I must remember that, for what comfort there is in it.”