The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson by Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez (i read a book txt) 📖

in the outskirts of Mexico City. It was the oldest house they had ever seen, and, with its inner patio , outside stairways and balconies, and large collection of rare idols, pots, and weapons that Mrs. Nuttall had herself unearthed from old Indian ruins, was intensely interesting.

Hearing of an opening in the mining business at Oaxaca for her nephew, she decided to go there and look into the matter. Conditions at Oaxaca were found to be even more primitive than at the capital. One time they asked for hot water, but the American landlady threw up her hands and cried, "Oh, my dears! There is a water famine in Oaxaca. It is terrible. We can get you a very small jug to wash with, but it isn't clear enough to drink."

"What are we to drink?"

In answer to this she brought a large jug of bottled water that tasted strongly of sulphur. This they mixed with malted milk bought at a grocery, making a beverage of which they said that though they had tasted better in their time, they certainly never had tasted worse. Notwithstanding all these inconveniences Mrs. Stevenson was in the best of tempers and keenly interested in seeing places and things, and when she tired was happy with a magazine or sitting at a window watching the street life. The first evening, while they were sitting in the patio , there was a violent earthquake, which seemed to them worse than the famous shake of 1906 in San Francisco, but it did no damage and the hotel people made nothing of it.

After seeing her nephew off to the mines at Taviche, and taking a side trip to see the ancient buried city of Mitla, Mrs. Stevenson and her daughter returned to the capital, where they took train for California, and were soon at home again amid the sweet flowers of Stonehedge. There Mrs. Stevenson once more took up the writing of the introductions to her husband's books, for which she had contracted with Charles Scribner's Sons. As I have already said, it was only after much urging that she consented to do this work, and her almost painful shrinking from it appears in a letter of March 25, 1911, to Mr. Charles Scribner: "With this note I send the introduction to Father Damien. I didn't see how to touch upon the others when I know so little about them. I know this thing is about as bad as anything can be. I cringe whenever I think of it, but I seem incapable of doing better. If, however, it is beyond the pale, write and tell me, please, and I will try once again. Louis's work was so mixed up with his home life that it is hard to see just where to draw the line between telling enough and yet not too much. I dislike extremely drawing aside the veil to let the public gaze intimately where they have no right to look at all. I think it is the consciousness of this feeling that gives an extra woodenness to my style--style is a big word--I should have put it 'bad style.'"

It was during this time that news came of a severe accident to Alison Cunningham, Louis's old nurse--a misfortune which resulted in her death within a few weeks. Mrs. Stevenson always felt an especial tenderness for "Cummy," as the one whose kind hand had tended her beloved husband in his infancy, and she very gladly aided in the old lady's support during her last years. Lord Guthrie, Louis's longtime friend and schoolmate, says in his booklet on the story of Cummy:

[Illustration: The last portrait of Mrs. Stevenson.]

"From the novelist's widow she always received most delicate and thoughtful kindness. Mrs. Stevenson often wrote to her and she amply supplemented the original pension settled on her by Mr. Thomas Stevenson, Louis's father. A few months before Cummy's death (at the age of ninety-two), she cordially agreed, on condition that Cummy should not know of it, to make a special additional annual payment which I had ascertained, from an outside source, would add to the old lady's happiness. And as soon as she received my letter telling her of Cummy's accident (a fall causing a broken hip), I had a characteristically generous message from her, sent by wire from San Francisco, giving me carte-blanche for Cummy's benefit. I call this message characteristic, because I find in her letters such passages as this: 'Please, dear Cummy, always let me know instantly when there is anything in the world I can do to add to your comfort, your happiness, or your pleasure. There is so little I can do for you, and I wish to do so much. You and I are the last; and we must help each other all we can, until we, too, follow.'"[74]

[Footnote 74: Quoted by courtesy of Lord Guthrie.]

When Cummy died Mrs. Stevenson was represented at the funeral by Mr. A. P. Melville, W. S., and a wreath ordered by her was placed on the coffin. She also bore the expense of Cummy's last illness and funeral and had a handsome tombstone put up in her memory.

In these days the sands began to run low in the hour-glass of the life of Fanny Stevenson, and a great weariness seemed to be settling upon her. Writing to Mr. Scribner in June, 1913, she says: "All my life I have taken care of others, and yet I have always wanted to be taken care of, for naturally I belong to the clinging vine sort of woman; but fate seems still against me." Nevertheless, I truly believe she enjoyed being the head of her clan, the fairy godmother, the chieftainess of her family, to whom all came for help and counsel. But now the shadows of evening were growing long, and she was getting very, very tired.

But, world-weary as she was, she consented at this time to prepare for publication in book form the notes which she had taken, primarily for her husband's use, of one of their voyages in the South Seas. As it happened, he made little use of the notes, so that most of it was new material. In this work, for dear memory's sake, she took a real pleasure, of which she speaks in the preface in these words: "The little book, however dull it may seem to others, can boast of at least one reader, for I have gone over this record of perhaps the happiest period of my life with thrilling interest." The book was brought out by Charles Scribner's Sons, under the title of The Cruise of the "Janet Nichol" , and it has a melancholy interest, apart from its contents, as the last work done by her in this life. She had only finished the reading of the proofs a few days before her death, and the book did not appear until some months afterwards.

In November, 1913, she was threatened with asthma, and in consequence went to spend some time at Palm Springs, a health resort on the desert in southeastern California. In the dry, clear air of that place her health improved so wonderfully that all her friends and family believed that a crisis had passed, and that she had fortunately sailed into one of those calm havens which so often come to people in their later years. She returned to Stonehedge seemingly well. All their fears were lulled, and the blow was all the more crushing when, on the 18th of February, 1914, silently and without warning, she passed from this life. In the manner of her death and that of her husband there was a striking coincidence; each passed away suddenly, after only a few hours of unconsciousness, from the breaking of an artery in the brain. The story of her last moments may best be told in the words of a letter from her devoted maid, Agnes Crowley,[75] which is so sincere and touching that I quote it without eliminations:

[Footnote 75: Her former maid, Mary Boyle, had married
and left her service.]

"My dear Mrs. Sanchez:

"We are a very sad little household--we are all heart-broken, to think our dear little Madam has gone away never to return. It seems too awful, and just when she was enjoying everything. We were home from Palm Springs just one week when she was taken away from us--but you can console yourself by thinking that she was surrounded by love and devotion. She was not sick and did not suffer. Tuesday evening, February 17, she felt well and read her magazines until nine o'clock, and Mr. Field played cards with her till 10.30. Then she retired. The next morning I went in to attend to her as usual, and there was my dear little Madam lying unconscious. I thought at first she was in a faint, and I quickly ran for Mr. Field; he jumped up and put on his bathrobe and went to her while I called Dr. Hurst. It took the doctor about seven minutes to get here, and as soon as he saw her he said it was a stroke, but he seemed to be hopeful and thought he could pull her through. He put an ice pack on her head and gave her an injection in the arm and oxygen to inhale, and she seemed to begin to breathe natural, and we all hoped, but it was in vain. She never regained consciousness, and at two o'clock she just stopped breathing, so you see she did not suffer. But oh Mrs. Sanchez, we all seemed so helpless--we all loved her so and yet could do nothing. Dr. Hurst worked hard from 8.30 till two o'clock, and when the end came he cried like a little child, for he loved Mrs. Stevenson very much. It was an awful blow to us all--it was so sudden. This place will never seem the same to William and me, for we loved our little Madam dearly, and it was a pleasure to do anything for her--for she was always so gentle and sweet. I adored her from the first time I ever saw her, and will always consider it the greatest pleasure of my life to have had the privilege of waiting upon her.

"I remain very affectionately,

"Agnes Crowley."


When the angel of death stooped to take her he came on the wings of a wild storm, which raged that week all through the Southwest--fitting weather for the passing of the "Stormy Petrel." Railroads were flooded all over the country, and her son, Lloyd Osbourne, was delayed by washouts for some days on the way out from New York. On his arrival the body was removed to San Francisco, where a simple funeral ceremony was held in the presence of a few sorrowing friends and relatives. On her bier red roses, typical of her own warm nature, were heaped in masses. A touching incident, one that it would have pleased her to know, was the appearance of Fuzisaki, her Japanese gardener at Stonehedge, with a wreath of beautiful flowers. It was in accordance with her own wish, several times expressed to those nearest her, that her body was cremated and the ashes later