Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (1124 page)

Notwithstanding the cramped quarters in the little châlet their solitude was broken now and then by a visitor. Thither went at various times “Bob” Stevenson, Sir Sidney Colvin, Mr. Charles Baxter, Mr. W. E. Henley, and Miss Ferrier. The pleasurable excitement of this society, to which he had been so long a stranger, raised Mr. Stevenson’s spirits to such an extent that he rashly proposed an expedition to Nice, where he took cold, developed pneumonia, was critically ill for weeks, and returned to Hyères still in a very low condition. This was one of the most harrowing periods of Mrs. Stevenson’s life, and she tells of its distresses in a letter written to her mother-in-law in January, 1884:

“If I write like a mad creature do not be surprised, for I have had a period of awful wretchedness. Louis fell ill, and when the doctor came he beckoned to me to follow him, and then told me Louis was dying and could not be kept alive until you could get here. That was yesterday. I watched every breath he drew all night in what sickening apprehension you may guess. To-day another doctor, Dr. Drummond, was called in, and says that Louis may well live to be seventy, only he must not travel about. He is steadily better and is reading a newspaper in bed at this moment. I, who have not slept a wink for two nights, am pretending to be the gayest of the gay, but in reality I am a total wreck, although I am almost off my head with relief and joy.”

As soon as the patient had sufficiently recovered they returned to Hyères, but there new troubles awaited them. His eyes became so severely affected by a contagious ophthalmia then prevailing in the neighbourhood that he had to give up using them for several weeks, sciatic rheumatism confined him to bed, and his right arm was bound to his side to prevent hemorrhage. In the midst of all these afflictions he refused to be cast down and insisted that everything was for the best, for he was now forced to take a much-needed rest which he would not otherwise have taken. On March 25, 1884, she writes to his mother:

“I am not very good at letter writing since I have been doing blind man’s eyes, but here is a note to say that the blind man is doing very well, and I consider the blindness a real providence. Since he has been unable to read or do anything at all a wonderful change has come over his health, spirits, and temper, all for the better.... I wish you could see him with his eye tied up and singing away like mad; truly like mad, as there is neither time nor method in it, only a large voice. I am horribly busy, for I have to write for Louis from dictation, answer all his letters, as well as my own, keep house, entertain visitors, and do a good deal of the cooking. Our Wogg is an invalid, having got himself badly mangled in several fights, the maid is ill with symptoms of pleurisy, and altogether we are a forlorn household, but with all this Louis and I are in high spirits. He says it is wonderful how well one gets along without reading. He could never have believed it.”

Perhaps partly for the purpose of getting her out for a little fresh air, he proposed that she should go for an hour’s walk every day, and during her absence invent a story to be told on her return. It was to be a sort of Arabian Nights’ Entertainment, with him as the Sultan and her as Scheherazade. The Dynamiter was suggested by certain attempted outrages in London which had all turned out to be fiascos. She began with the Mormon tale and followed with the others, one for each afternoon. Afterwards, when a lean time came at Bournemouth and money was badly needed, these stories, temporarily forgotten, were recalled, written, and published as the second volume of the New Arabian Nights series. As there was only enough for a thin book he wrote another, The Explosive Bomb, to fill up. It came out at first under the title of More New Arabian Nights, but afterwards appeared as The Dynamiter. Of the stories in this second series only one, The Explosive Bomb, was entirely the work of Mr. Stevenson’s own hand, all the others being done in collaboration with his wife. The Dynamiter did double service, as his wife said, for first it amused his tedious hours of illness at Hyères, and afterwards it replenished his purse in a time of need.

Their peaceful life in the châlet was now broken by a new and most unexpected interruption. Mrs. Stevenson writes in her preface to The Dynamiter:

“So quiet and secluded was our life here that we heard almost nothing of the outside world except through an occasional English correspondent. I remember before we knew that cholera was raging in Toulon, only some three miles away, how we watched a cloud gathering over the town, where it hung heavy and lowering, day after day. We felt that it was somehow ominous, and were vaguely depressed. We were told afterwards that at that very time great fires were burning in the streets of Toulon by order of the mayor, and that the people gathered at night around these fires capering fantastically in a pagan dance, resurrected from the dark ages no one knew by whom or how.”

To add to the alarm caused by the outbreak of the cholera, in the first week in May Mr. Stevenson had a violent hemorrhage. “It occurred late at night, but in a moment his wife was at his side. Being choked by the flow of blood and unable to speak, he made signs to her for a paper and pencil, and wrote in a firm neat hand, ‘Don’t be frightened. If this is death it is an easy one.’ Mrs. Stevenson had always a small bottle of ergotin and a minim glass in readiness; these she brought in order to administer the prescribed quantity. Seeing her alarm he took bottle and glass away from her, measured the dose correctly with a perfectly steady hand, and gave the things back to her with a reassuring smile.” It was said that if his wife had not had everything ready and known exactly what to do he could not have lived. The clergyman came to pray with the supposed dying man, but, having been warned against the least excitement, she refused him admittance. In defense of her action she says: “I know Louis, and I know that he tries always to so live that he may be ready to die.” When Mr. Stevenson heard that a clergyman had come to pray for him as a man in danger of dying, he said: “Tell him to come and see me when I am better and I will offer up a prayer for a clergyman in danger of living.” In a few days he rallied once more, but it was now realised that chronic invalidism was to be his portion for the rest of his days, and his wife wrote to her mother-in-law:

“The doctor says ‘keep him alive until he is forty, and then, though a winged bird, he may live to ninety.’ But between now and forty he must live as though he were walking on eggs. 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, talk very little, and walk no more than can be helped. He must never be crossed, for anger, going upstairs, and walking are the worst things for him.... Yet he is very cheerful and has been all along. He is never frightened.”

Driven from Hyères by the cholera, they sought a temporary refuge at an enchanting little watering-place near Clermont-Ferrand called Royat, in whose healing springs Cæsar himself had once bathed. The surroundings, of wooded ravines and cliffs and numberless waterfalls, were charming, and in the centre of the town stood an ancient cathedral, whose former use as a fortress was still proclaimed by the loopholes in its walls and the hooded projections on its towers.

In this romantic place they spent the summer in the company of his parents, who came to visit them, but the joy of this meeting was tempered by the failing health and spirits of the father, who was now only able to keep up a semblance of cheerfulness in the presence of his son.

At the end of the summer of 1884 they returned to Hyères, but the prospect of a permanent recovery there seemed so slight that it was finally decided to go to England and seek medical advice. On the 1st 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, 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.”

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!”