Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (399 page)

In the course of a few days, the genteel inhabitants of the square began to remark the customs of their neighbour.  The sight of a young gentleman discussing a clay pipe, about four o’clock of the afternoon, in the drawing-room balcony of so discreet a mansion; and perhaps still more, his periodical excursion to a decent tavern in the neighbourhood, and his unabashed return, nursing the full tankard: had presently raised to a high pitch the interest and indignation of the liveried servants of the square.  The disfavour of some of these gentlemen at first proceeded to the length of insult; but Somerset knew how to be affable with any class of men; and a few rude words merrily accepted, and a few glasses amicably shared, gained for him the right of toleration.

The young man had embraced the art of Raphael, partly from a notion of its ease, partly from an inborn distrust of offices.  He scorned to bear the yoke of any regular schooling; and proceeded to turn one half of the dining-room into a studio for the reproduction of still life.  There he amassed a variety of objects, indiscriminately chosen from the kitchen, the drawing-room, and the back garden; and there spent his days in smiling assiduity.  Meantime, the great bulk of empty building overhead lay, like a load, upon his imagination.  To hold so great a stake and to do nothing, argued some defect of energy; and he at length determined to act upon the hint given by Mrs. Luxmore herself, and to stick, with wafers, in the window of the dining-room, a small handbill announcing furnished lodgings.  At half-past six of a fine July morning, he affixed the bill, and went forth into the square to study the result.  It seemed, to his eye, promising and unpretentious; and he returned to the drawing-room balcony, to consider, over a studious pipe, the knotty problem of how much he was to charge.

Thereupon he somewhat relaxed in his devotion to the art of painting.  Indeed, from that time forth, he would spend the best part of the day in the front balcony, like the attentive angler poring on his float; and the better to support the tedium, he would frequently console himself with his clay pipe.  On several occasions, passers-by appeared to be arrested by the ticket, and on several others ladies and gentlemen drove to the very doorstep by the carriageful; but it appeared there was something repulsive in the appearance of the house; for with one accord, they would cast but one look upward, and hastily resume their onward progress or direct the driver to proceed.  Somerset had thus the mortification of actually meeting the eye of a large number of lodging-seekers; and though he hastened to withdraw his pipe, and to compose his features to an air of invitation, he was never rewarded by so much as an inquiry.  ‘Can there,’ he thought, ‘be anything repellent in myself?’  But a candid examination in one of the pier-glasses of the drawing-room led him to dismiss the fear.

Something, however, was amiss.  His vast and accurate calculations on the fly-leaves of books, or on the backs of playbills, appeared to have been an idle sacrifice of time.  By these, he had variously computed the weekly takings of the house, from sums as modest as five-and-twenty shillings, up to the more majestic figure of a hundred pounds; and yet, in despite of the very elements of arithmetic, here he was making literally nothing.

This incongruity impressed him deeply and occupied his thoughtful leisure on the balcony; and at last it seemed to him that he had detected the error of his method.  ‘This,’ he reflected, ‘is an age of generous display: the age of the sandwich-man, of Griffiths, of Pears’ legendary soap, and of Eno’s fruit salt, which, by sheer brass and notoriety, and the most disgusting pictures I ever remember to have seen, has overlaid that comforter of my childhood, Lamplough’s pyretic saline.  Lamplough was genteel, Eno was omnipresent; Lamplough was trite, Eno original and abominably vulgar; and here have I, a man of some pretensions to knowledge of the world, contented myself with half a sheet of note-paper, a few cold words which do not directly address the imagination, and the adornment (if adornment it may be called) of four red wafers!  Am I, then, to sink with Lamplough, or to soar with Eno?  Am I to adopt that modesty which is doubtless becoming in a duke? or to take hold of the red facts of life with the emphasis of the tradesman and the poet?’

Pursuant upon these meditations, he procured several sheets of the very largest size of drawing-paper; and laying forth his paints, proceeded to compose an ensign that might attract the eye, and at the same time, in his own phrase, directly address the imagination of the passenger.  Something taking in the way of colour, a good, savoury choice of words, and a realistic design setting forth the life a lodger might expect to lead within the walls of that palace of delight: these, he perceived, must be the elements of his advertisement.  It was possible, upon the one hand, to depict the sober pleasures of domestic life, the evening fire, blond-headed urchins and the hissing urn; but on the other, it was possible (and he almost felt as if it were more suited to his muse) to set forth the charms of an existence somewhat wider in its range or, boldly say, the paradise of the Mohammedan.  So long did the artist waver between these two views, that, before he arrived at a conclusion, he had finally conceived and completed both designs.  With the proverbially tender heart of the parent, he found himself unable to sacrifice either of these offsprings of his art; and decided to expose them on alternate days.  ‘In this way,’ he thought, ‘I shall address myself indifferently to all classes of the world.’

The tossing of a penny decided the only remaining point; and the more imaginative canvas received the suffrages of fortune, and appeared first in the window of the mansion.  It was of a high fancy, the legend eloquently writ, the scheme of colour taking and bold; and but for the imperfection of the artist’s drawing, it might have been taken for a model of its kind.  As it was, however, when viewed from his favourite point against the garden railings, and with some touch of distance, it caused a pleasurable rising of the artist’s heart.  ‘I have thrown away,’ he ejaculated, ‘an invaluable motive; and this shall be the subject of my first academy picture.’

The fate of neither of these works was equal to its merit.  A crowd would certainly, from time to time, collect before the area-railings; but they came to jeer and not to speculate; and those who pushed their inquiries further, were too plainly animated by the spirit of derision.  The racier of the two cartoons displayed, indeed, no symptom of attractive merit; and though it had a certain share of that success called scandalous, failed utterly of its effect.  On the day, however, of the second appearance of the companion work, a real inquirer did actually present himself before the eyes of Somerset.

This was a gentlemanly man, with some marks of recent merriment, and his voice under inadequate control.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said he, ‘but what is the meaning of your extraordinary bill?’

‘I beg yours,’ returned Somerset hotly.  ‘Its meaning is sufficiently explicit.’  And being now, from dire experience, fearful of ridicule, he was preparing to close the door, when the gentleman thrust his cane into the aperture.

‘Not so fast, I beg of you,’ said he.  ‘If you really let apartments, here is a possible tenant at your door; and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see the accommodation and to learn your terms.’

His heart joyously beating, Somerset admitted the visitor, showed him over the various apartments, and, with some return of his persuasive eloquence, expounded their attractions.  The gentleman was particularly pleased by the elegant proportions of the drawing-room.

‘This,’ he said, ‘would suit me very well.  What, may I ask, would be your terms a week, for this floor and the one above it?’

‘I was thinking,’ returned Somerset, ‘of a hundred pounds.’

‘Surely not,’ exclaimed the gentleman.

‘Well, then,’ returned Somerset, ‘fifty.’

The gentleman regarded him with an air of some amazement.  ‘You seem to be strangely elastic in your demands,’ said he.  ‘What if I were to proceed on your own principle of division, and offer twenty-five?’

‘Done!’ cried Somerset; and then, overcome by a sudden embarrassment, ‘You see,’ he added apologetically, ‘it is all found money for me.’

‘Really?’ said the stranger, looking at him all the while with growing wonder.  ‘Without extras, then?’

‘I — I suppose so,’ stammered the keeper of the lodging-house.

‘Service included?’ pursued the gentleman.

‘Service?’ cried Somerset.  ‘Do you mean that you expect me to empty your slops?’

The gentleman regarded him with a very friendly interest.  ‘My dear fellow,’ said he, ‘if you take my advice, you will give up this business.’  And thereupon he resumed his hat and took himself away.

This smarting disappointment produced a strong effect on the artist of the cartoons; and he began with shame to eat up his rosier illusions.  First one and then the other of his great works was condemned, withdrawn from exhibition, and relegated, as a mere wall-picture, to the decoration of the dining-room.  Their place was taken by a replica of the original wafered announcement, to which, in particularly large letters, he had added the pithy rubric: ‘
No service
.’  Meanwhile he had fallen into something as nearly bordering on low spirits as was consistent with his disposition; depressed, at once by the failure of his scheme, the laughable turn of his late interview, and the judicial blindness of the public to the merit of the twin cartoons.

Perhaps a week had passed before he was again startled by the note of the knocker.  A gentleman of a somewhat foreign and somewhat military air, yet closely shaven and wearing a soft hat, desired in the politest terms to visit the apartments.  He had (he explained) a friend, a gentleman in tender health, desirous of a sedate and solitary life, apart from interruptions and the noises of the common lodging-house.  ‘The unusual clause,’ he continued, ‘in your announcement, particularly struck me.  “This,” I said, “is the place for Mr. Jones.”  You are yourself, sir, a professional gentleman?’ concluded the visitor, looking keenly in Somerset’s face.

‘I am an artist,’ replied the young man lightly.

‘And these,’ observed the other, taking a side glance through the open door of the dining-room, which they were then passing, ‘these are some of your works.  Very remarkable.’  And he again and still more sharply peered into the countenance of the young man.

Somerset, unable to suppress a blush, made the more haste to lead his visitor upstairs and to display the apartments.

‘Excellent,’ observed the stranger, as he looked from one of the back windows.  ‘Is that a mews behind, sir?  Very good.  Well, sir: see here.  My friend will take your drawing-room floor; he will sleep in the back drawing-room; his nurse, an excellent Irish widow, will attend on all his wants and occupy a garret; he will pay you the round sum of ten dollars a week; and you, on your part, will engage to receive no other lodger?  I think that fair.’

Somerset had scarcely words in which to clothe his gratitude and joy.

‘Agreed,’ said the other; ‘and to spare you trouble, my friend will bring some men with him to make the changes.  You will find him a retiring inmate, sir; receives but few, and rarely leaves the house, except at night.’

‘Since I have been in this house,’ returned Somerset, ‘I have myself, unless it were to fetch beer, rarely gone abroad except in the evening.  But a man,’ he added, ‘must have some amusement.’

An hour was then agreed on; the gentleman departed; and Somerset sat down to compute in English money the value of the figure named.  The result of this investigation filled him with amazement and disgust; but it was now too late; nothing remained but to endure; and he awaited the arrival of his tenant, still trying, by various arithmetical expedients, to obtain a more favourable quotation for the dollar.  With the approach of dusk, however, his impatience drove him once more to the front balcony.  The night fell, mild and airless; the lamps shone around the central darkness of the garden; and through the tall grove of trees that intervened, many warmly illuminated windows on the farther side of the square, told their tale of white napery, choice wine, and genial hospitality.  The stars were already thickening overhead, when the young man’s eyes alighted on a procession of three four-wheelers, coasting round the garden railing and bound for the SuperfluousMansion.  They were laden with formidable boxes; moved in a military order, one following another; and, by the extreme slowness of their advance, inspired Somerset with the most serious ideas of his tenant’s malady.

By the time he had the door open, the cabs had drawn up beside the pavement; and from the two first, there had alighted the military gentleman of the morning and two very stalwart porters.  These proceeded instantly to take possession of the house; with their own hands, and firmly rejecting Somerset’s assistance, they carried in the various crates and boxes; with their own hands dismounted and transferred to the back drawing-room the bed in which the tenant was to sleep; and it was not until the bustle of arrival had subsided, and the arrangements were complete, that there descended, from the third of the three vehicles, a gentleman of great stature and broad shoulders, leaning on the shoulder of a woman in a widow’s dress, and himself covered by a long cloak and muffled in a coloured comforter.

Somerset had but a glimpse of him in passing; he was soon shut into the back drawing-room; the other men departed; silence redescended on the house; and had not the nurse appeared a little before half-past ten, and, with a strong brogue, asked if there were a decent public-house in the neighbourhood, Somerset might have still supposed himself to be alone in the Superfluous Mansion.

Day followed day; and still the young man had never come by speech or sight of his mysterious lodger.  The doors of the drawing-room flat were never open; and although Somerset could hear him moving to and fro, the tall man had never quitted the privacy of his apartments.  Visitors, indeed, arrived; sometimes in the dusk, sometimes at intempestuous hours of night or morning; men, for the most part; some meanly attired, some decently; some loud, some cringing; and yet all, in the eyes of Somerset, displeasing.  A certain air of fear and secrecy was common to them all; they were all voluble, he thought, and ill at ease; even the military gentleman proved, on a closer inspection, to be no gentleman at all; and as for the doctor who attended the sick man, his manners were not suggestive of a university career.  The nurse, again, was scarcely a desirable house-fellow.  Since her arrival, the fall of whisky in the young man’s private bottle was much accelerated; and though never communicative, she was at times unpleasantly familiar.  When asked about the patient’s health, she would dolorously shake her head, and declare that the poor gentleman was in a pitiful condition.