The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez [english novels for students txt] 📗

room, stopped with a sudden shock, startled by the unaccustomed sound of a light happy laugh, the first she remembered ever having heard from the lips of her mother. For the first time she realized what a sad and bitter life Fanny Osbourne's had been.

Louis's health now being considered strong enough for the journey, they left their sunny eyrie on the mountainside in July, and on August 7, 1880, sailed from New York for England.


CHAPTER VI

EUROPE AND THE BRITISH ISLES.


When the newly married pair reached Scotland all the fears of the American bride vanished like mist before the sun, for her husband's parents instantly took her to their hearts as though she had been their own choice. In The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Sir Sidney Colvin says:

"Of her new family Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, brought thus strangely and from afar into their midst, made an immediate conquest. To her husband's especial happiness, there sprang up between her and his father the closest possible affection and confidence. Parents and friends, if it is permissible for one of the latter to say as much, rejoiced to recognize in Stevenson's wife a character as strong, as interesting, and romantic as his own; an inseparable sharer of all his thoughts, and staunch companion of all his adventures; the most open-hearted of friends to all who loved him, the most shrewd and stimulating critic of his work; and in sickness ... the most devoted and efficient of nurses."

Mr. Edmund Gosse writes in the Century Magazine , 1895:

"He had married in California a charming lady whom we all learned to regard as the most appropriate and helpful companion that Louis could possibly have secured."

Concerning her relations with her mother-in-law, another friend, Lady Balfour, writes:

"It is a testimonial both to her and to Mrs. Thomas Stevenson that though they were as the poles apart in character, yet each loved and appreciated the other most fully." How different they were in training and ideas of life is illustrated by a trivial incident that occurred when the younger woman was visiting at the home of her husband's parents in Scotland. Her mother-in-law asked her if she never "worked." In some surprise she replied that she had indeed worked, and then found out that the elder lady meant fancy-work. Thereupon the two went out shopping and bought all the things needful for a piano-cover to be embroidered with roses. In a few days the piano-cover, exquisitely finished, was triumphantly brought for Mrs. Thomas Stevenson's inspection, but that lady, shocked at this American strenuousness, threw up her hands and exclaimed: "Oh, Fanny! How could you! That piece should have lasted you all summer!"

Thomas Stevenson, however, was far more formidable; to the female members of his family his word was law, but to his pretty daughter-in-law he capitulated--horse, foot, and dragoons--and his son was heard to say that he had never seen his father so completely subjugated. It is true, on the other hand, that she made every effort to please him, and took pains not to offend his old-fashioned and rigidly conventional ideas. For instance, when he objected to black stockings, which were just then coming into vogue for ladies, she yielded to his prejudice and always wore white ones while at his house. He had a deep respect for her judgment in literary matters, and made his son promise "never to publish anything without her approval." This regard was mutual, and she said of him: "I shall always believe that something unusual and great was lost to the world in Thomas Stevenson. One could almost see the struggle between the creature of cramped hereditary conventions and the man nature had intended him to be." As his health failed he grew to depend upon her more and more, and there was between them an interchange of much friendliness and many little jests. A rather amusing thing happened once when the two were together in London picking out furnishings for the house he had bought for her at Bournemouth. One afternoon they dropped in at a hotel for tea. It had been ordered by the doctors that he should have bicarbonate of soda in his tea, which it seems he did not like if he saw it put in, but if he did not see it never knew the difference. When the tea was brought his daughter-in-law, having diverted his attention, slyly dropped in the soda. Glancing up, she saw in the looking-glass the reflection of the horrified face of the waiter. When she told this story to her husband he immediately began to weave a thrilling plot around the suspicion that might have fallen upon her if her father-in-law had happened to die suddenly just then, especially as his son was his chief heir. Uncle Tom, as she usually called him, had all sorts of pet names for her, but the usual remark was "I doot ye're a besom."[18] She was in all ways a true daughter to him, a comfort in his old age and last distressing illness, and when he died she mourned him sincerely.

[Footnote 18: In American phrase, a "bossy" person.]

To the Scotch servants in her mother-in-law's house she was something of an enigma. One of them told her she "spoke English very well for a foreigner." One day she heard two of them talking about a Mr. McCollop who had just returned from Africa. "He's merrit a black woman," said one, and in a mirror the other was seen to point to Mrs. Stevenson's back and put her finger to her lips, as though to say: "Don't mention black wives before her!"

It was soon seen that Louis could not face a Scotch winter, with its raw winds and cold, drizzling rains, and sometimes his wife felt regrets for the sunny perch on the California mountainside, where health and strength had once come back to him so marvellously. It was finally decided to try the dry, clear air of Davos Platz, in the high Alps of Switzerland, which was just then coming into prominence as a cure for lung diseases, and in October, 1880, the little family, husband, wife, and the boy, Lloyd Osbourne, set forth on the arduous journey thither.

To see publishers and for other necessary business, they stopped in London on the way, where Mrs. Stevenson was much troubled lest her husband should suffer harm from the thick, foggy atmosphere and the fatigue of meeting people. Because he was too weak to see many visitors, she kept them off, which threw a sort of mystery about him, and led to his being called in London "the veiled prophet." The only persons she had trouble with were the doctors, who were themselves so fascinated by his conversation that they often stayed too long. The task of keeping his parents informed of his state was now added to her duties, and in letters to her mother-in-law from London she says:

"As it is short and often that seems to be wanted, I thought I would send off a note to-night to say that if nothing happens we leave London to-morrow, and glad enough I shall be to get away.... For no one in the world will I stop in London another hour after the time set. It is a most unhealthful place at this season, and Louis knows far too many people to get a moment's rest.... Company comes in at all hours from early morning till late at night, so that I almost never have a moment alone, and if we do not soon get away from London I shall become an embittered woman. It is not good for my mind, nor my body either, to sit smiling at Louis's friends until I feel like a hypocritical Cheshire cat, talking stiff nothings with one and another in order to let Louis have a chance with the one he cares the most for, and all the time furtively watching the clock and thirsting for their blood because they stay so late...."

The vigilant eyes of love had taught her by this time something yet undiscovered by the scientists, that is, the contagious nature of influenza, and, having observed that whenever her husband came in contact with any one suffering from a cold, he invariably caught it--a very serious matter for one in his condition--she kept guard over him like a fiery little watch-dog, never allowing any one with a cold to enter the house. If she had one herself she kept away from him till it was over. There were many quarrels on the subject, for his friends, some of whom refused to recognize the necessity for such precautions, would be furious; but the worst trouble was with the doctors themselves, who would come to attend him with sneezing and snorting, and find their way blocked. One doctor said she was silly about it, for it was absolutely impossible to catch a cold from anything but an open window, or wet feet, or a draught. Her friends, or rather Louis's friends, were well trained in time, and she would sometimes get a message something like this: "I can't keep my engagement to see Louis to-day, for I have a cold, but as soon as I am over it I will let you know." Mr. Stevenson himself had a humourous way of referring to persons with colds as "pizon sarpints," and strangers may have wondered to hear him say: "I'm not seeing my friend So-and-so just now, because he's a pizon sarpint." Once at Saranac, in the Adirondack Mountains in America, their friends the Fairchilds came to see them, but, as both had colds, they were not permitted to enter, and conversed by signs with Mr. Stevenson through a closed window. They were good-natured, however, about what they probably regarded as Mrs. Stevenson's whim, and when both were well came again, waving from a distance perfectly clean handkerchiefs as their passport.

Having at last escaped from the dreaded London fogs, they reached Troyes in France, where Fanny's heart expanded under the brighter skies that brought back memories of her own land. She writes: "We have had lovely weather--warm, sunny, fragrant. I did not realize before how much like America France is. The sky seems so high, and the world so big and fresh." Reluctantly these two sun-loving people turned their steps from this pleasant place towards the frozen heights of Davos, where they arrived on November 4, and were pleased to find congenial friends in John Addington Symonds and his wife.

Life was far from exciting in this remote place, and the shut-in feeling of its situation, enclosed by hills and with no outlook, sometimes made the sick man impatient, yet his health improved and he was even able to take part in outdoor sports, such as tobogganing. Mrs. Stevenson writes:

"Life is most monotonous here, which is after all the best thing for Louis, although he tires of it sometimes. We have had a few badly acted plays and one snowstorm; there was a quarrel between a lady and her son's tutor, and a lady lost a ring. Otherwise the current of our lives flows on without change.... I have made a couple of pretty caps for the ladies' bazaar, and if I can get the use of a sitting room will paint them some things.... We have an enormous porcelain stove like a monument that reaches from the floor to the ceiling. It has, however, to be fed only twice a day, and then not in great quantities. Louis has long boots and is very proud of them. He said himself that he looked like 'puss in boots,' but was much hurt because the