The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson Part 4

[Footnote 14: _Carne con chile_ (meat with chile) is what its name indicates, a stew of meat and red peppers.]

In the Senorita Bonifacio's garden, where we spent much of our time, there was a riot of flowers--rich yellow ma.s.ses of enormous cloth-of-gold roses, delicate pink old-fashioned Castilian roses, which the Senorita carefully gathered each year to make rose-pillows, besides fuchsias as large as young trees, and a thousand other blooms of incredible size and beauty. Loving them all, their little Spanish mistress flitted about among them like a bird, alert, active, bright-eyed, straight as an arrow, and as springy of step as a girl of sixteen, although even then she was past her first youth.

As to flowers, it seemed to me that they made no particular appeal to Mr. Stevenson except for their scent, in which he was very like the rest of his s.e.x the world over. He cared rather for nature's larger effects--a n.o.ble cloud in the sky, the thunder of the surf on the beach, or the fresh resinous smell of the pine forest.

To this house he came often of an afternoon to read the results of his morning's work to the a.s.sembled family. While we sat in a circle, listening in appreciative silence, he nervously paced the room, reading aloud in his full sonorous voice--a voice that always seemed remarkable in so frail a man--his face flushed and his manner embarra.s.sed, for, far from being overconfident about his work, he always seemed to feel a sort of shy anxiety lest it should not be up to the mark. He invariably gave respectful attention and careful consideration to the criticism of the humblest of his hearers, but in the end clung with Scotch pertinacity to his own opinion if he was sure of its justice. In this way we heard _The Pavilion on the Links_, which he wrote at Monterey, and read to us chapter by chapter as they came from his pen. While there he also began another story which was to have been called _Arizona Breckinridge_, or _A Vendetta in the West_. This story, with its rather lurid t.i.tle, was to have been based upon some of his impressions of western America, but his heart could not have been in it, for it was never finished. The name of Arizona came out of his intense delight in the "songful, tuneful" nomenclature of the United States, in which terms he refers to it in _Across the Plains_. The name Susquehanna was a special joy to him, and he took pleasure in rolling it on his tongue, adding to its music with the rich tones of his voice, as he repeated it: "Susquehanna! Oh, beautiful!" While on the train pa.s.sing through Pennsylvania he wrote some verses in a letter to Sidney Colvin about the beautiful river with the "tuneful" name, of which one stanza runs thus:

"I think, I hope, I dream no more The dreams of otherwhere; The cherished thoughts of yore; I have been changed from what I was before; And drunk too deep perchance the lotus of the air Beside the Susquehanna and along the Delaware."

Again, in writing the poem ent.i.tled _Ticonderoga_, it was the name that first drew his attention, and

"It sang in his sleeping ears, It hummed in his waking head; The name--Ticonderoga."

Some story that we told him about a man who named his numerous family of daughters after the States--Indiana, Nebraska, California, etc.--took his fancy and suggested the name of Arizona Breckinridge to him.

Out of the mist arise memories of walks along the beach--the long beach of clean white sand that stretches unbroken for many miles around the great sweeping curve of Monterey Bay, where we "watched the tiny sandy-pipers, and the huge Pacific seas." Sometimes we walked there at night, when the blood-red harvest-moon sprang suddenly like a great ball of fire above the rim of horizon on the opposite side of the circling bay, sending a glittering track across the water to our very feet. To walk with Stevenson on such a night, and watch "the waves come in slowly, vast and green, curve their translucent necks and burst with a surprising uproar"--to walk with him on such a night and listen to his inimitable talk is the sort of memory that cannot fade. On other nights when the waters of the bay were all alight with the glow of phosph.o.r.escence, we walked on the old wooden pier and marvelled at the billows of fire sent rolling in beneath us by the splashing porpoises.

Perhaps nothing about the place interested him more deeply than the old mission of San Carlos Borromeo, once the home of the ill.u.s.trious Junipero Serra, and now the last resting-place of his earthly remains.

Within its ruined walls ma.s.s was celebrated once a year in honour of its patron, Saint Charles Borromeo, and after the religious service was over the people joined in a joyous _merienda_[15] under the trees, during which vast quant.i.ties of _tamales_, _enchiladas_,[16] and other distinctive Spanish-American viands were generously distributed to friend and stranger, Catholic and Protestant. Mr. Stevenson attended one of these celebrations, and was greatly moved by the sight of the pitiful remnant of aged Indians, sole survivors of Father Serra's once numerous flock, as they lifted their quavering voices in the ma.s.s. He expressed much surprise at the clarity of their p.r.o.nunciation of the Latin, and in his essay on _The Old Pacific Capital_, he says: "There you may hear G.o.d served with perhaps more touching circ.u.mstances than in any other temple under Heaven.... These Indians have the Gregorian music at their finger-ends, and p.r.o.nounce the Latin so correctly that I could follow the music as they sang." Much has been changed since then, for the church has been "restored," and the little band of Indians have long since quavered out their last ma.s.s and gone to meet their beloved pastor, the saintly Serra.

[Footnote 15: _Merienda_--noonday luncheon.]

[Footnote 16: _Enchiladas_ are a sort of corn-meal pancake rolled up and stuffed with cheese and a sauce made of red peppers.]

Those were _dolce-far-niente_ days at Monterey, dreamy, romantic days, spent beneath the bluest sky, beside the bluest sea, and in the best company on earth, and all glorified by the rainbow hues of youth. But, as Mr. Stevenson prophesied, the little town was "not strong enough to resist the influence of the flaunting caravanserai which sprang up in the desert by the railway," and after the coming of the fashionable hotel the commercial spirit came to life in the place. The tile-topped walls, hiding their sweet secluded gardens, gave way to the new frame or brick buildings, the narrow, crooked streets were straightened and graded, the breakneck sidewalks replaced by neat cement pavements, and, at last, the Spirit of Romance spread her wings and vanished into the mists of the Pacific.

The setting of the picture is now changed to Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco, where we lived for some months in the little house which Mr. Stevenson himself describes in the dedication to _Prince Otto_ as "far gone in the respectable stages of antiquity, and which seemed indissoluble from the green garden in which it stood, and that yet was a sea-traveller in its younger days, and had come round the Horn piecemeal in the belly of a ship, and might have heard the seamen stamping and shouting and the note of the boatswain's whistle." This cottage was of the variety known as "cloth and paper," a flimsy construction permitted by the kindly climate of California, and on winter nights, when the wind blew in strongly from the sea, its sides puffed in and out, greatly to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the "Scot," accustomed as he was to the solid buildings of his native land. It was, as he says, "embowered in creepers," for over its front a cloth-of-gold rose spread its clinging arms, and over one side a Banksia flung a curtain of green and yellow.

It was during his stay in this house that we first realized the serious nature of his illness, and yet there was none of the depressing atmosphere of sickness, for he refused to be the regulation sick man. Every day he worked for a few hours at least, while I acted as amanuensis in order to save him the physical labour of writing. In this way the first rough draught of _Prince Otto_ was written, and here, too, he tried his hand at poetry, producing some of the poems that afterwards appeared in the collection called _Underwoods_, although it is certain that he never believed himself to be possessed of the true poetic fire. Brave as his spirit was, yet he had his dark moments when the dread of premature death weighed upon him. It was probably in such a mood that he wrote the poem called _Not Yet, My Soul_, an appeal to fate in which he expressed his rebellion against an untimely end.

"Not yet, my soul, these friendly fields desert, . . . . . . . . . . . .

The ship rides trimmed, and from the eternal sh.o.r.e Thou hearest airy voices; but not yet Depart, my soul, not yet awhile depart.

Leave not, my soul, the unfoughten field, nor leave Thy debts dishonored, nor thy place desert Without due service rendered. For thy life, Up, spirit, and defend that fort of clay, Thy body, now beleaguered."

While engaged in dictating, he had a habit of walking up and down the room, his pace growing faster and faster as his enthusiasm rose. We feared that this was not very good for him, so we quietly devised a scheme to prevent it, without his knowledge, by hemming him in with tables and chairs, so that each time he sprang up to walk he sank back discouraged at sight of the obstructions. When I recall the sleepless care with which Mrs. Stevenson watched over him at that critical point in his life, it seems to me that it is not too much to say that the world owes it to her that he lived to produce his best works.

But above and beyond his wife's care for his physical well-being was the strong courage with which she stood by him in his hours of gloom and heartened him up to the fight. Her profound faith in his genius before the rest of the world had come to recognize it had a great deal to do with keeping up his faith in himself, and her discriminating taste in literature was such that he had begun even then to submit all his writings to her criticism.

Although his own life work lay entirely in the field of letters, he had a sincere admiration for work with the hands, and often expressed his surprise at the mechanical cleverness of American women. He took pleasure in seeing that we could cut, fit, and make our own clothing, and do a pretty good job of it, too, and looked on at the operation with serious interest, sometimes making useful suggestions, for he had a genuine and unaffected sympathy with the work and aims of other people, no matter how humble they might be. Any one could go to him with a tale of daily struggle, of little ambitions bravely fought for, even though it were nothing more than a job as waiter in a restaurant, and be sure of his respectful consideration and sincere advice, always granting that the ambition were honest and the fight well fought.

Sickness and discouragement were not enough to keep down his boyish gaiety, which he sometimes manifested by teasing his womenfolk. One of his favourite methods of doing this was to station himself on a chair in front of us, and, with his brown eyes lighted up with a whimsical smile, talk broad Scotch, in a Highland nasal tw.a.n.g, by the hour, until we cried for mercy. Yet he was decidedly sensitive about that same Scotch, and his feelings were much wounded by hearing me express a horror of reading it in books.

A pleasant trivial circ.u.mstance of our life that comes to mind is an occasion when we were all rejoicing in the possession of new clothes--a rare event with any of us in those days, and Louis proposed that we should celebrate this extraordinary prosperity by an evening at the theatre. Women wore pockets then, but there had been no time to provide my dress with one, so Louis agreed to carry my handkerchief, but only on condition that I should ask for it when needed in a true Scotch tw.a.n.g, "Gie me the naepkin!" a condition that I was compelled to fulfill, no doubt to the surprise of our neighbours at the theatre.

Gilbert and Sullivan were in their heyday then, and the play given that night was _The Pirates of Penzance_. Louis said the London "bobbies" were true to life.

Chief among the amus.e.m.e.nts with which we tried to brighten the extreme quietude of our lives in the little Oakland house was reading aloud.

We obtained books from the Mercantile Library of San Francisco, among which I especially remember the historical works of Francis Parkman, who was a great favourite with Mr. Stevenson. He had a theory that the not uncommon distaste among the people for that branch of literature was largely the fault of the dull style adopted by many historians, and saw no good reason why the thrilling story of the great events of the world should not be presented in a manner that would hold the interest of readers. Yet he had no patience with the sort of writing that subordinates truth to the desire of presenting a striking picture. As an instance, certainly of rare occurrence in Parkman, he noticed a paragraph in _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_, in which the author refers to the shining of the moon on a certain night when a party was endeavouring to make a secret pa.s.sage down the river through hostile country. He thought it unlikely that Parkman could have known that the moon shone on that particular night, though it is possible that he did him an injustice, for it sometimes happens that just such a trivial circ.u.mstance is mentioned in the doc.u.ments of the early explorers.

Sometimes he read aloud to us from some French writer, translating it into English as he read for our benefit. _Les etrangleurs_ was one of the books that he read to us in this way, while we sat and sewed our seams. He seemed to get a good deal of rest as well as amus.e.m.e.nt from the reading of such books of mystery and adventure. His taste was always for the decent in literature, and he was much offended by the works of the writers of the materialistic school who were just then gaining a vogue. Among these was Emile Zola, and he exacted a promise from me never to read that writer--a promise that has been faithfully kept to this day.

His stay at Monterey had given him a fancy to study the Spanish language, so we obtained books and began it together. He had a theory that a language could be best acquired by plunging directly into it, but I have a suspicion that our choice of a drama of the sixteenth century, one of Lope de Vega's, I think, was scarcely a wise one for beginners. He refers to this venture of ours in a letter to Sidney Colvin as "the play which the sister and I are just beating our way through with two bad dictionaries and an insane grammar."

Nevertheless, we made some headway, and I remember that he marvelled greatly at the far-fetched, high-flown similes and figures of speech indulged in by the writers of the "Golden Age" of Spain. In spite of his confessed dislike for the cold-blooded study of the grammar, we did not altogether neglect it, and a day comes to my mind when he was a.s.sisting me in the homely task of washing the dishes in the pleasant sunny kitchen where the Banksia rose hung its yellow curtain over the windows. We recited Spanish conjugations while we worked, and he held up a gla.s.s for my inspection, saying: "See how beautifully I have polished it, Nellie. There is no doubt that I have missed my vocation.

I was born to be a butler." "No, Louis," I replied, "some day you are to be a famous writer, and who knows but that I shall write about you, as the humble Boswell wrote about Johnson, and tell the world how you once wiped dishes for me in this old kitchen!"

For the long evenings of winter we had a game which Louis invented expressly for our amus.e.m.e.nt. Lloyd Osbourne, then a boy of twelve, had rather more than the usual boy's fondness for stories of the sea. It will be remembered that it was to please this boy that Mr. Stevenson afterwards wrote _Treasure Island_. Our game was to tell a continued story, each person being limited to two minutes, taking up the tale at the point where the one before him left off. We older ones had a secret understanding that we were to keep Lloyd away from the sea, but strive as we might, even though we left the hero stranded in the middle of the Desert of Sahara, Lloyd never failed to have him sailing the bounding main again before his allotted two minutes expired.

Many and long were the arguments that we had on the merits of our respective countries, and I remember that Mr. Stevenson did not place the sentiment of patriotism at the top of the list of human virtues, for he believed that to concentrate one's affections and interest too closely upon one small section of the earth's surface, simply on account of the accident of birth, had a narrowing effect upon a man's mental outlook and his human sympathies. He was a citizen of the world in his capacity to understand the point of view of other men, of whatsoever race, colour, or creed, and it was this catholicity of spirit that made it possible for him to sit upon the benches of Portsmouth Square in San Francisco and learn something of real life from the human flotsam and jetsam cast up there by fate.

Of all the popular songs of America he liked _Marching Through Georgia_ and _Dixie_ best. For _Home, Sweet Home_ he had no liking, perhaps from having heard it during some moment of poignant homesickness. He said that such a song made too brutal an a.s.sault upon a man's tenderest feelings, and believed it to be a much greater triumph for a writer to bring a smile to his readers than a tear--partly, perhaps, because it is a more difficult achievement.

Here the scene changes again, this time to San Francisco, the city of many hills, of drifting summer fogs, and sparkling winter sunshine, the old city that now lives only in the memories of those who knew it in the days when Stevenson climbed the steep ways of its streets.

Although he had something about him of the _ennui_ of the much-travelled man, and complained that

"There's nothing under heaven so blue, That's fairly worth the travelling to,"

yet no attraction was lost on him, and the Far Western flavour of San Francisco, with its added tang of the Orient, and the feeling of adventure blowing in on its salt sea-breezes, was much to his liking.

My especial memory here is of many walks taken with him up Telegraph Hill, where the streets were gra.s.s-grown because no horse could climb them, and the sidewalks were provided with steps or cleats for the a.s.sistance of foot-pa.s.sengers. This hill, formerly called "Signal Hill," was used in earlier days, on account of its commanding outlook over the sea, as a signal-station to indicate the approach of vessels and give their cla.s.s, and possibly their names as they neared the city. When we took our laborious walks up its precipitous paths it was, as now, the especial home of Italians and other Latin people. Mr.

Stevenson wondered much at the happy-go-lucky confidence, or perhaps it was their simple trust in G.o.d, with which these people had built their houses in the most alarmingly insecure places, sometimes hanging on the very edge of a sheer precipice, sometimes with the several stories built on different levels, climbing the hill like steps. About them there was a pleasant air of foreign quaintness--little railed balconies across the fronts, outside stairways leading up to the second stories, and green blinds to give a look of Latin seclusion.

In stories of his San Francisco days there is much talk of the restaurants where he took his meals. The one that I particularly remember was a place kept by Frank Garcia, familiarly known as "Frank's." This place, being moderately expensive, was probably only frequented by him on special occasions, when fortune was in one of her smiling moods. Food was good and cheap and in large variety in San Francisco in those days, and venison steak was as often served up to us at Frank's as beef, while canvasback ducks had not yet flown out of the poor man's sight; so we had many a savory meal there, generally served by a waiter named Monroe, with whom Mr. Stevenson now and then exchanged a friendly jest. I remember one day when Monroe, remarking on the depression of spirits from which Louis suffered during the temporary absence of the women of his family, said: "I had half a mind to take him in a piece of calico on a plate."

Once more the picture changes, now to the town of Calistoga--with its hybrid name made up of syllables from Saratoga and California--where we stayed for a few days at the old Springs Hotel while on our way to Mount Saint Helena, to which mountain refuge Mr. Stevenson was fleeing from the sea-fogs of the coast. The recollection of this journey seems to have melted into a general impression of winding mountain roads, of deep canyons full of tall green trees, of lovely limpid streams rippling over the stones in darkly shaded depths where the fern-brakes grew rankly, of burning summer heat, and much dust. At the Springs Hotel we lived in one of the separate palm-shaded cottages most agreeably maintained for the guests who liked privacy. On the premises were tiny sheds built over the steaming holes in the ground which const.i.tuted the Calistoga Hot Springs. It gave one a sensation like walking about on a sieve over a boiling subterranean caldron.

Determined not to miss any experience, we each took a turn at a steambath in these sheds, but the sense of imminent suffocation was too strong to be altogether pleasant.

Then came the wild ride up the side of the mountain, in a six-horse stage driven at a reckless rate of speed by its indifferent driver, whirling around curves where the outer wheels had scarcely an inch to spare, while we looked fearfully down upon the tops of the tall trees in the canyon far below. If the horses slackened their pace for an instant, the driver stooped to pick up a stone from a pile that he kept at his feet and bombarded them into a fresh spurt. At the Toll House, half-way up the mountain, which still exists in much the same condition as in those days, we arrived as mere animated pillars of fine white dust, all individuality as completely lost as though we had been shrouded in masks and dominoes.

The Toll House was a place of somnolent peace and deep stillness, broken only by a pleasant dripping from the wooden flume that brought down the cold waters of some spring hidden in the thick green growth far up on the mountainside. And such water! He who has once tasted of the nectar of a California mountain spring "will not ask for wine!" At the Toll House we had liberal country meals, with venison steaks, served to us every day. Bear were still killed on the mountain, but I do not remember having any to eat. From this place we climbed, by way of a toilsome and stiflingly hot footpath running through a tangle of thick undergrowth, to the old Silverado mine bunk-house, where the Stevenson family took up their headquarters. People said there were many rattlesnakes about, and now and then we saw indubitable evidence of their presence in a long, spotted body lying in the road, where it had been killed by some pa.s.ser-by, but fear of them never troubled our footsteps. In _The Silverado Squatters_ Mr. Stevenson says, "The place abounded with rattlesnakes, and the rattles whizzed on every side like spinning-wheels," but I am inclined to think that he often mistook the buzzing noise made by locusts, or some other insect, for the rattle of the snakes.

The old bunk-house seemed to me an incredibly uncomfortable place of residence. Its situation, on top of the mine-dump piled against the precipitous mountainside, permitted no chance to take a step except upon the treacherous rolling stones of the dump; but we bore with its manifest disadvantages for the sake of its one high redeeming virtue--its entire freedom from the fog which we dreaded for the sick man. It was excessively hot there during the day, but there was one place where coolness always held sway--the mouth of the old tunnel, from whose dark, mysterious depths, which we never dared explore for fear of stepping off into some forgotten shaft, a cold, damp wind blew continuously. Just inside its entrance we established a cold-storage plant, for there all articles kept delightfully fresh in the hottest weather. When the coolness of the evening fell, "it was good to gather stones and send them crashing down the chute," and indeed this was almost our only pastime in our queer mountain eyrie. The noise made by these stones as they went bounding down the chute was sent back in tremendous rolling echoes by the mountains on the opposite side of the valley, and it pleased us to liken it to the noise heard by Rip Van Winkle, "like distant peals of thunder," made by the ghosts of Hendrik Hudson's men playing at ninepins in the Catskill Mountains.

Then back to San Francisco, where the only memory that remains is that of a confused blur of preparations for leaving--packing, ticket-buying, and melancholy farewells--for the time had come to return to old Scotland to introduce a newly acquired American wife to waiting parents.

One day Louis came in with his pockets full of twenty-dollar gold pieces, with which he had supplied himself for the journey. He thought this piece of money the handsomest coin in the world, and said it made a man feel rich merely to handle it. In a jesting mood, he drew the coins from his pockets, threw them on the table, whence they rolled right and left on the floor, and said: "Just look! I'm simply lousy wid money!"

Then came the parting, which proved to be eternal, for I never saw him again; but perhaps it is better to remember him only as he was then--before the rainbow hues of youth had faded.

To this picture, which represents my own personal recollections of the California period,[17] something yet remains to be added. Many obstacles seemed to block the path to happiness of these two people, not the least of which was Louis's ill health and consequent inability to earn a sufficient sum to support new obligations. To his great joy this difficulty was finally smoothed away by a promise from his father of an allowance large enough for their needs until such time as restored health might bring about his independence. I remember the day this word came from his father, and the exceeding happiness it gave him. While it is true that his parents had at first objected to his marriage, their objections were based, not on the matter of the divorce, for they held extremely liberal views on that subject, but simply on the fact of his choice being an American and a stranger.

They would, quite naturally, have preferred a daughter-in-law of their own race and acquaintance, but both were intensely attached to their only and gifted son, and, although his decision caused their own plans to "gang agley," when they found that his mind was irrevocably made up, they yielded without reserve, and prepared to welcome their new daughter to their home and hearts. Writing at this time to his friend Mr. Edmund Gosse, Stevenson expressed his satisfaction at the turn affairs were taking in these words:

"Many of the thunderclouds that were overhanging me when last I wrote have silently stolen away, like Longfellow's Arabs; and I am now engaged to be married to the woman whom I have loved for three years and a half. I will boast myself so far as to say that I do not think many wives are better loved than mine will be."

[Footnote 17: Previously published in _Scribner's Magazine_, October, 1916.]

When the rain-clouds at last rolled away, and the snow had melted from the mountain-tops in the Coast Range, f.a.n.n.y Osbourne and Robert Louis Stevenson went quietly across the bay and were married, on May 19, 1880, by the Reverend Mr. Scott, with only Mrs. Scott and Mrs. Virgil Williams as witnesses. It was a serious, rather than a joyous occasion, for both realized that a future overcast with doubt lay before them. In 1881 Stevenson wrote from Pitlochry in Scotland to Mr.

P. G. Hamerton:

"It was not my bliss that I was interested in when I was married; it was a sort of marriage _in extremis_; and if I am where I am, it is thanks to the care of that lady, who married me when I was a mere complication of cough and bones, much fitter for an emblem of mortality than a bridegroom."