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

of July they reached England, and shortly afterwards went to London to consult Sir Andrew Clark and other eminent physicians. Mrs. Stevenson writes from there: "I suppose it comes from being so long a recluse, but seeing the few people I have seen has quite shattered my nerves, so that I tremble and can hardly speak. Louis, on the contrary, is quite calm, and is at this moment, after a hearty meal, resting quietly in his bed."

Snatching at a half-hearted permission given by some of the doctors to remain in England, their decision being assisted by the desire to be near his father, whose health was rapidly failing, they went to Bournemouth for a trial of its climate and conditions. Nothing untoward having occurred by the end of January, the elder Stevenson purchased a house there as a present to his daughter-in-law. Both the wanderers were filled with inexpressible joy at the prospect of living under their own rooftree, and at once plunged with ardour into the business of furnishing and gardening. The first thing was to change the name of the place to Skerryvore, in honour of the best known of the lighthouses built by the Stevenson family, the name being partly suggested by the fact that a distant view of the sea was to be had from the upper windows.

Skerryvore was a pleasant, ivy-covered brick cottage, surrounded by a half-acre of garden, which has been so delightfully described by William Archer in the Critic of November 5, 1887, that one can do no better than quote his words:

"Though only a few paces from the public road, it is thoroughly secluded. Its front faces southward (away from the road) and overlooks a lawn,

'Linnet haunted garden ground,
Where still the esculents abound.'

"The demesne extends over the edge, and almost to the bottom of the Chine; and here, amid laurel and rhododendron, broom and gorse, the garden merges into a network of paths and stairways, with tempting seats and unexpected arbors at every turn. This seductive little labyrinth is of Mrs. Stevenson's own designing. She makes the whole garden her special charge and delight, but this particular corner of it is as a kingdom conquered, where to reign. Mrs. Stevenson, the tutelary genius of Skerryvore, is a woman of small physical stature but surely of heroic mould. Her features are clear cut and delicate, but marked by unmistakable strength of character; her hair is an unglossy black, and her complexion darker than one would expect in a woman of Dutch extraction.... Her personality, no less than her husband's, impresses itself potently on all who have the good fortune to be welcomed at Skerryvore."

Writing to her mother-in-law from Bournemouth, she says:

"I have just been going the rounds of my garden, and have brought in as a sentimental reminder of you the first marguerite,[25] which I will enclose in this letter. The weather is like paradise, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and Louis is walking up and down in front of the house with a red umbrella over his head, enjoying the day.... I could only ask one thing more to have the most perfect life that any woman could have, and that is, of course, good health for Louis.... I should be perfectly appalled if I were asked to exchange his faults for other people's virtues."

[Footnote 25: The elder lady's name was Margaret.]

Three years were spent at this pleasant place, and though Louis's health was never good, and he lived there, as he afterwards wrote, "like a pallid weevil in a biscuit," a great deal was accomplished in literary work by both husband and wife. There they put together the stories in The Dynamiter , which, as will be remembered, Mrs. Stevenson had made up to while away the hours of illness at Hyères. When the book came out little credit was given her by the book reviewers for her part in it, a neglect which caused her some mortification. Writing to her mother-in-law, she says: "I thought in the beginning that I shouldn't mind being Louis's scapegoat, but it is rather hard to be treated like a comma, and a superfluous one at that. And then in one paper, the only one in which I am mentioned, the critic refers to me as 'undoubtedly Mr. Stevenson's sister.' Why, pray? Surely there can be nothing in the book that points to a sister in particular."

The morning after her husband had the dream that suggested Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , he came with a radiant countenance to show his work to his wife, saying it was the best thing he had ever done. She read it and thought it the worst, and thereupon fell into a state of deep gloom, for she couldn't let it go, and yet it seemed cruel to tell him so, and between the two horns of the dilemma she made herself quite ill. At last, by his request and according to their custom, she put her objections to it, as it then stood, in writing, complaining that he had treated it simply as a story, whereas it was in reality an allegory. After reading her paper and seeing the justice of her criticism, with characteristic impulsiveness he immediately burned his first draft and rewrote it from a different point of view. She was appalled when he burned it, for she had only wanted him to change it, but he was afraid of being influenced by the first writing and preferred to start anew, with a clean slate.

Their discussions over the work were sometimes hot and protracted, for neither was disposed to yield without a struggle. Speaking of this in a letter to his mother, she says: "If I die before Louis, my last earnest request is that he shall publish nothing without his father's approval. I know that means little short of destruction to both of them, but there will be no one else. The field is always covered with my dead and wounded, and often I am forced to a compromise, but still I make a very good fight." In this battle of wits they found intense enjoyment, and it was, in fact, an intellectual comradeship that few writers have been fortunate enough to enjoy in their own households.

While at Bournemouth an occasional respite from illness enabled them to enjoy the society of friends in a limited way--among them their neighbours, Sir Percy and Lady Shelley, Sir Henry Taylor and his daughters, and many people of note who came down from London to see them. The incidents of these friendships have been fully dealt with in Balfour's Life of Robert Louis Stevenson , and need not be treated extensively here. One of their neighbours, Miss Adelaide Boodle, who was given the jocose title of "gamekeeper" when she assumed charge of Skerryvore after their departure from England, writes thus of her attachment to Mrs. Stevenson: "Among all her friends here there was never one who loved her more whole-heartedly than her 'gamekeeper,' to whom in after years she gave the sweet pet name of the 'little brown deer.' From the first day that we met at Skerryvore she took entire possession of my heart, and there she will forever bear sway. There is an old gardener here, too, who was her devoted slave at Skerryvore. Of course she never trusted him the length of her little finger, but she used him as extra hands and feet. Her parting charge to me--given in his presence--has never been forgotten by either of us: 'Remember, child, if you ever see Philips approach my creepers with a pruning knife you are to snatch it from his hand and plunge it into his heart!"

Among the visitors was John Sargent, the American painter, who came to paint Mr. Stevenson's portrait--a picture which was regarded as too peculiar to be satisfactory. When Sargent painted it he put Mrs. Stevenson, dressed in an East Indian costume, in the background, intending it, not for a portrait, but merely as a bit of colour to balance the picture. It was a part of the costume that her feet should be bare, and this fact gave rise to a fantastic story that has often gone the rounds in print, and will probably continue to do so till the end of time, that when she first came to London she was such a savage that she went to dinners and evening entertainments barefoot. This was but one of the many strange tales that appeared from time to time concerning her, all of which she refused to contradict, no matter how false or malicious they might be, for she felt that the name she bore was not to be lowered by appearing in stupid or ridiculous controversy; for that reason she would never see newspaper reporters, and though many so-called "interviews" with her have been printed, none of them are genuine. She was misrepresented by the press in many ways, and even wantonly attacked, but refused to break her rule under any circumstances. During the last days of Jules Simoneau, of Monterey, a statement appeared in the papers to the effect that he was being permitted to suffer and die in want, and although it was perfectly well known to her friends and many other persons that she had supported him in comfort for years, she would not make any contradiction in the public press.

One of the interesting people she met while in England was Prince Kropotkin, the noted Russian revolutionist. Mrs. Stevenson, believing that Kropotkin was concerned in the blowing up of a French village while a country fair was in progress, resulting in the killing of a number of innocent people, prevented her husband from signing a petition that was instituted for his release from the French prison where he was confined. When he was finally freed and went to England, at the urgent request of Henry James she consented to meet him, and found him to be a most charming person. He assured her that, judging from the expression of her eyes, she was born to be a nihilist, and when she indignantly denied this, still insisted that she should learn to play the game of solitaire, for if she should ever have to go to prison it might save her life and reason, as it had his. She consented, not with the anticipation of spending any portion of her life behind prison-bars, but in order to use the game to amuse her husband during his long periods of forced and speechless seclusion. She would sit by his bedside and play her game, and he took great pleasure in watching it and pointing at the cards that he thought she ought to play. In later years, when he had gone to the other world, and the days grew long and lonely, this game of solitaire, so strangely acquired from the bearded Russian, became a solace.

But of all the guests that came to Skerryvore, the best loved and most welcome was Mrs. Stevenson's fellow countryman, Henry James, who often ran down to see them. In the house there was a certain large blue chair in which he liked to sit. It was called the "Henry James" chair, and no one else was allowed to use it. It was to him that Louis Stevenson wrote the poem called "Who Comes To-Night?" Speaking of their first meeting, Mrs. Stevenson wrote to her mother-in-law: "We have had a very pleasant visitor. One evening a card was handed in with 'Henry James' upon it. He spent that evening, asked to come again the next night, arriving almost before we