Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (1141 page)

But alas! All these pleasing hopes came to naught, for within a short time after buying the ranch sudden death cut him off in the flower of his youth and the first unfolding of his genius. This was a sad blow to Mrs. Stevenson, for she had become much attached to the brilliant and lovable young writer. Sometime afterwards she thought of putting up a memorial to him on the little ranch where he had hoped to spend many happy years. Having decided that it should take the form of a stone seat, bearing a suitable inscription, she went to work in conjunction with Gelett Burgess to make the design. The site chosen for the seat is upon a small level spot a few yards below the cabin, at the side of the winding road leading up from the Stevenson ranch. In carrying out this project she took a melancholy pleasure, as she writes in a letter to Mr. Charles Scribner, dated 1902: “I am building a memorial seat to poor Frank Norris. With the assistance of a couple of men I have gathered a lot of boulders from the bed of a stream, and from these we have fashioned a bench to hold six or eight people, and set it where the view is glorious. I have helped lay the stones, and have dabbled in mortar until I can hardly use my hands to write. This sort of work is so much more interesting than scratching with a pen. In the joy of even so poor a creation I forget the sad purpose of it, and am as happy as one hopes to be who has lived as long as I.”

Before these two friends — he in the springtime of his days, she in the mellow autumn of maturity — passed away, they were persuaded to record their voices in a phonograph, but it was a useless effort, for no one who loved them has ever been able to endure to listen to their spirit voices, as it were, speaking from the other world.

CHAPTER XI

TRAVELS IN MEXICO AND EUROPE

Eight years, divided between the house “like a fort on a cliff” in San Francisco and the sylvan solitude of the little ranch tucked away in its corner in the mountains of the Holy Cross, slipped by happily enough. Now and again the wandering mood came back, but, except for one visit to France and England, Mrs. Stevenson confined her journeyings to the American continent.

One of these excursions led her to Mexico — a country that she found more interesting than any she had ever visited in Europe. Sometimes I think this may have been because of some primitive element in her own nature that responded to the traditions of that strange land — so aged in history, so young in civilization — but, anyway, she told me that she felt a genuine thrill there such as she had never experienced in any of the historic places of the Old World. At the tomb of Napoleon she remained cold, but at the “tree of the sad night,” where Cortés is said to have wept bitter tears on that dark and rainy night away back in 1520, her imagination was deeply touched. At the church of Guadalupe she looked at the pitifully crude paintings and other thank-offerings of the simple devotees with deep and sympathetic interest.

Much more interesting than the city of Mexico she found the quaint and ancient town of Cuernavaca, where Maximilian was wont to come with his Empress to enjoy the delights of the famous Borda Gardens. These gardens, though fallen from their first high estate, were still very beautiful at the time of Mrs. Stevenson’s visit.

Of these pleasant days in Cuernavaca she writes in a letter to her daughter:

“I have a little plant from the garden where Carlota lived, which I think is a climbing syringa. We go round nearly every evening to the palace built by Cortés, in one room of which he strangled one of his mistresses.... I had always supposed Maximilian to be a most exemplary person, but he seems to have lived in a palace some three miles from here with a beautiful Mexican girl, while poor Carlota was left alone in town in the Borda Gardens.... Everybody goes barefoot here, though all dressed up otherwise, and everybody wears the rebozo. This morning I killed a scorpion on the wall alongside the bed, and the other day I also assisted in the killing of a tremendous tarantula in the middle of the road. We stood far off and threw stones at it. None of mine hit the mark, but I threw like mad.... I hope you were not frightened by the news of the earthquake here. We got a good shake but no harm done. Just a little south of us there has been terrible damage — a whole town destroyed and people killed. Here all the people ran into the streets, and kneeling, held out their hands towards the churches that contain their miraculous images.... We have had a ‘blessing of the animals’ at the cathedral, where cats, dogs, eagles, doves, cocks and hens, horses, colts, donkeys, cows and bulls, dyed every colour of the rainbow and wearing wreaths of artificial flowers round their necks, were brought to receive this sacrament. I wanted to take Burney [her little Scotch terrier], but feared his getting some contagion, so gave it up, and now my Burney has forever lost the chance of becoming a holy, blessed dog.... The native people here are very abject, and seem almost entirely without intellect; yet they are the only servants to be had unless one sends to California, and they make life a desperate business. The only spirit I have seen in any of them was to-day, when a native policeman tried to get up a fight between his own huge dog and my little Burney. Of course Burney the valiant was ready for the fray and would probably have disposed of the big dog had I not run up, closing and clubbing my parasol as I came. The policeman thought I was going to strike him, and for one second stood up to me fiercely, saying ‘No Señorita! No Señorita!’ Then his knees suddenly gave way and he and his dog and his friend who was standing by to see fair play utterly collapsed.”

Steeped as the country was in old tradition, and far removed as it seemed from all knowledge of the outside world, the name of Robert Louis Stevenson had penetrated to its inmost recesses, and its people were pleased to bestow honour upon his widow. Writing of this she says: “I want to tell you that at every little lost place on the road I have received extra attention because of my name. In this house I have the best room, the landlord himself giving it up to me. I hope Louis knows this.”

The little plant of which she spoke, the climbing syringa, which was given to her as a special favour by the man in charge of the Borda Gardens, reached San Francisco in good condition and took most kindly to its new home. Slips of it were given to friends, and its sweet flowers, reminiscent of the ill-fated queen who once breathed their perfume, now scent the air in more than one garden round San Francisco Bay.

It was not long after her return from this trip to Mexico that Mrs. Stevenson began to be troubled with a bronchial affection that increased as she advanced in years and made it necessary for her to seek a frequent change from the cool climate of San Francisco. In November of 1904 a severe cough from which she was suffering led her southward. This time she was accompanied by Salisbury Field, the son of her old friend and schoolmate of Indiana days, Sarah Hubbard Field. Mr. Field had now become a member of Mrs. Stevenson’s household, and at a later date married her daughter, Isobel Osbourne Strong.

Arriving at La Jolla by the sea, a most picturesque spot on the southern coast of California, they were disappointed in not finding it as warm as they had expected, so it was decided to go further south. In the course of their inquiries at San Diego they met a Western miner named George Brown, who told them stories of a lonely desert island off the coast of Lower California, where he was about to open a copper-mine for the company for which he was general manager. The more he talked of this lonesome isle and of how barren and desolate it was the more Mrs. Stevenson was fascinated with it, and when he finally invited them, in true Western fashion, to accompany him thither, she joyfully accepted. In the early part of January she took passage with her little party, consisting of herself, Mr. Field, and her maid, on the small steamer St. Denis, which was sailing from San Diego and making port at Ensenada and San Quintin on the way to Cedros Island.

At the island the Stevenson party was offered the large company house of ten rooms by Mr. Brown, but preferred to live in a little whitewashed cottage that stood on the beach. Except for the Mexican families of the mine workmen there were no women on the island besides Mrs. Stevenson and her maid. The small circle of Americans soon became intimately acquainted, for the lack of other society and interests naturally drew them close together. Besides George Brown, Clarence Beall, and Doctor Chamberlain, the company doctor, there was only a queer old character known as “Chips,” a stranded sea carpenter who was employed to build lighters on the beach.

Mrs. Stevenson had all of Kipling’s fondness for mining men, engineers — all that great class of workers, in fact, who harness the elements of earth and air and bend them to man’s will — and she was very happy on this lonely island with no society outside of her own party but that of the few employed at the mine. Between her and Mr. Beall, a young mining engineer employed on the island, a strong and lasting bond of friendship was established from the moment of their first meeting, when she saw him wet and cold from a hard day of loading ship through the surf and insisted on “mothering” him to the extent of seeing that he had dry clothing and other comforts. And, although the difference between the green tropic isle beyond the sunset which lay enshrined in her memory and this barren cactus-grown pile of volcanic rocks was immeasurable, yet the one, in its peace, its soft sweet air, and the near presence of the murmuring sea, called back the other.

When, after three pleasant, peaceful months, the time came for her departure, there was general sorrow on the island, where it may well be imagined that her presence had greatly lightened the tedium of existence for its lonely dwellers. “To this day,” writes Doctor Chamberlain, “whenever I pick up one of Mr. Stevenson’s novels, my first thoughts are always of his wife and our days at Cedros Island.”

While in Ensenada on the return trip Mrs. Stevenson heard of a ranch for sale there, and after looking at it decided to purchase it. The place, known as El Sausal, lies on the very edge of the great Pacific, and has a magnificent beach. The climate is as nearly perfect as a climate can be, and Mrs. Stevenson often said that if the world ever learned of the magic healing in that country there would be a great rush to the peninsula, so long despised as a hopeless desert.

There was only a little cottage of a very humble sort on the ranch and supplies were hard to get, but she loved it and was never better in health than when she was at Sausal. At this time she returned to San Francisco, but the following winter she went back to take possession and spent some time there. Writing to Mr. Charles Scribner, she says: “I am living in a sweet lost spot known as the Rancho El Sausal, some six miles from Ensenada in Lower California. If I had no family I should stop here forever; except for the birds, and the sea, and the wind, it is so heavenly quiet, and I so love peace.” Running through the place was a little stream, the banks of which were thick with the scarlet “Christmas berry,” so well known in the woods of Upper California; multitudes of birds — canaries, linnets, larks, mocking-birds — all sang together outside the door in an amazing chorus; and on the beach near by the sea beat its soft rhythmic measure.

They were very close to nature at Sausal, but though its situation was so isolated they had no fear, for the penalties for any sort of crime were terrific. Burglary, or even house-breaking, were punished with death, and one could hardly frown at another without going to prison for it. Sometimes they were surprised by the sudden appearance of a man, tired and dusty, dashing up on a foam-covered horse and asking for food. To such an unfortunate they always gave meat and drink, and when the rurales presently galloped up and demanded to know whether they had seen an escaped prisoner they swallowed their conscientious scruples and answered “No!” Personally they met with nothing but the most punctilious courtesy from the Mexican officials. When Mrs. Stevenson received a Christmas box from her daughter, the chivalric comandante at Ensenada, in order to make sure that she should have it in time, sent it out to Sausal magnificently conducted by three mounted policemen.

When she left this peaceful spot in the spring of 1906 to return to San Francisco she little thought that she was moving towards one of the most dramatic incidents in her eventful life. All went as usual on the journey until they had passed Santa Barbara on the morning of the fateful day, April 18, when vague rumours of some great disaster began to circulate in a confused way among the passengers. Soon they knew the dreadful truth, though in the swift running of the train they themselves had not felt the earthquake, and it was not long before concrete evidence confirmed the reports, for at Salinas they were halted by the broken Pajaro bridge. At that place Mrs. Stevenson slept the night on the train, and the next day she hired a team and drove by a roundabout way to Gilroy, near which, it will be remembered, her ranch, Vanumanutagi, was situated. There they learned that San Francisco was burning, and while Mr. Field made his way as best he could to the doomed city, she camped in a little hotel in Gilroy waiting for news — a prey meanwhile to the most intense fears for the safety of various members of her family, from whom she was entirely cut off.

While she waited as patiently as might be in the little country town, there were strenuous times in the burning city, but, as telegraph wires were all down and no mails were going out, she was compelled to remain in suspense until three days later, when the fire was subdued and Mr. Field was able to get back to her with the news that her family were all safe and her house unharmed. The story of the rescue of her house from the flames has been curiously contorted by persons who have attempted to write about it without knowing the facts. The real saviors of Mrs. Stevenson’s house were her nephews and Mr. Field, and even they might have lost the day had it not been for a providential wind that blew in strongly from the sea against the advancing wall of flame. For three days and nights they looked down from their high post upon the raging furnace below and anxiously watched the progress of the fire as it leaped from street to street in its mad race up the hill, and when at last the two houses and a large wooden reservoir immediately opposite went roaring up all hope seemed gone. In the end it was through a mere trifle that the tide of fortune was turned in their favour. In the garden there was a small cement pool, the home of a tiny fish answering to the name of Jack. When the water in the pool was slopped over by the earthquake poor Jack was tossed some yards away upon the grass, whence he was rescued, alive and wriggling, and restored to his own element, only to be killed later by some thoughtless refugee who washed his hands in the water with soap. The half bucket or so of water remaining in the pool helped to save the day, for the fire fighters dipped rugs and sacks in it, and, climbing to the flat roof, took turns in dashing through the scorching heat to beat the cornices when they began to smoke. Even so, the escape was so narrow that at times it seemed hopeless, and the rescuers took the precaution to dig a hole in the garden and bury the silverware, the St. Gaudens plaque, and other valuables.