Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (395 page)

‘And now,
mon preux
,’ said the old lady, nodding at him with a quaint gaiety, ‘you perceive that I am no longer in my first youth.  You will soon find that I am all the better company for that.’

As she spoke, the maid re-entered the apartment with a light but tasteful supper.  They sat down, accordingly, to table, the cats with savage pantomime surrounding the old lady’s chair; and what with the excellence of the meal and the gaiety of his entertainer, Somerset was soon completely at his ease.  When they had well eaten and drunk, the old lady leaned back in her chair, and taking a cat upon her lap, subjected her guest to a prolonged but evidently mirthful scrutiny.

‘I fear, madam,’ said Somerset, ‘that my manners have not risen to the height of your preconceived opinion.’

‘My dear young man,’ she replied, ‘you were never more mistaken in your life.  I find you charming, and you may very well have lighted on a fairy godmother.  I am not one of those who are given to change their opinions, and short of substantial demerit, those who have once gained my favour continue to enjoy it; but I have a singular swiftness of decision, read my fellow men and women with a glance, and have acted throughout life on first impressions.  Yours, as I tell you, has been favourable; and if, as I suppose, you are a young fellow of somewhat idle habits, I think it not improbable that we may strike a bargain.’

‘Ah, madam,’ returned Somerset, ‘you have divined my situation.  I am a man of birth, parts, and breeding; excellent company, or at least so I find myself; but by a peculiar iniquity of fate, destitute alike of trade or money.  I was, indeed, this evening upon the quest of an adventure, resolved to close with any offer of interest, emolument, or pleasure; and your summons, which I profess I am still at some loss to understand, jumped naturally with the inclination of my mind.  Call it, if you will, impudence; I am here, at least, prepared for any proposition you can find it in your heart to make, and resolutely determined to accept.’

‘You express yourself very well,’ replied the old lady, ‘and are certainly a droll and curious young man.  I should not care to affirm that you were sane, for I have never found any one entirely so besides myself; but at least the nature of your madness entertains me, and I will reward you with some description of my character and life.’

Thereupon the old lady, still fondling the cat upon her lap, proceeded to narrate the following particulars.

NARRATIVE OF THE SPIRITED OLD LADY

I was the eldest daughter of the Reverend Bernard Fanshawe, who held a valuable living in the diocese of Bath and Wells.  Our family, a very large one, was noted for a sprightly and incisive wit, and came of a good old stock where beauty was an heirloom.  In Christian grace of character we were unhappily deficient.  From my earliest years I saw and deplored the defects of those relatives whose age and position should have enabled them to conquer my esteem; and while I was yet a child, my father married a second wife, in whom (strange to say) the Fanshawe failings were exaggerated to a monstrous and almost laughable degree.  Whatever may be said against me, it cannot be denied I was a pattern daughter; but it was in vain that, with the most touching patience, I submitted to my stepmother’s demands; and from the hour she entered my father’s house, I may say that I met with nothing but injustice and ingratitude.

I stood not alone, however, in the sweetness of my disposition; for one other of the family besides myself was free from any violence of character.  Before I had reached the age of sixteen, this cousin, John by name, had conceived for me a sincere but silent passion; and although the poor lad was too timid to hint at the nature of his feelings, I had soon divined and begun to share them.  For some days I pondered on the odd situation created for me by the bashfulness of my admirer; and at length, perceiving that he began, in his distress, rather to avoid than seek my company, I determined to take the matter into my own hands.  Finding him alone in a retired part of the rectory garden, I told him that I had divined his amiable secret, that I knew with what disfavour our union was sure to be regarded; and that, under the circumstances, I was prepared to flee with him at once.  Poor John was literally paralysed with joy; such was the force of his emotions, that he could find no words in which to thank me; and that I, seeing him thus helpless, was obliged to arrange, myself, the details of our flight, and of the stolen marriage which was immediately to crown it.  John had been at that time projecting a visit to the metropolis.  In this I bade him persevere, and promised on the following day to join him at the Tavistock Hotel.

True, on my side, to every detail of our arrangement, I arose, on the day in question, before the servants, packed a few necessaries in a bag, took with me the little money I possessed, and bade farewell for ever to the rectory.  I walked with good spirits to a town some thirty miles from home, and was set down the next morning in this great city of London.  As I walked from the coach-office to the hotel, I could not help exulting in the pleasant change that had befallen me; beholding, meanwhile, with innocent delight, the traffic of the streets, and depicting, in all the colours of fancy, the reception that awaited me from John.  But alas! when I inquired for Mr. Fanshawe, the porter assured me there was no such gentleman among the guests.  By what channel our secret had leaked out, or what pressure had been brought to bear on the too facile John, I could never fathom.  Enough that my family had triumphed; that I found myself alone in London, tender in years, smarting under the most sensible mortification, and by every sentiment of pride and self-respect debarred for ever from my father’s house.

I rose under the blow, and found lodgings in the neighbourhood of Euston Road, where, for the first time in my life, I tasted the joys of independence.  Three days afterwards, an advertisement in the
Times
directed me to the office of a solicitor whom I knew to be in my father’s confidence.  There I was given the promise of a very moderate allowance, and a distinct intimation that I must never look to be received at home.  I could not but resent so cruel a desertion, and I told the lawyer it was a meeting I desired as little as themselves.  He smiled at my courageous spirit, paid me the first quarter of my income, and gave me the remainder of my personal effects, which had been sent to me, under his care, in a couple of rather ponderous boxes.  With these I returned in triumph to my lodgings, more content with my position than I should have thought possible a week before, and fully determined to make the best of the future.

All went well for several months; and, indeed, it was my own fault alone that ended this pleasant and secluded episode of life.  I have, I must confess, the fatal trick of spoiling my inferiors.  My landlady, to whom I had as usual been overkind, impertinently called me in fault for some particular too small to mention; and I, annoyed that I had allowed her the freedom upon which she thus presumed, ordered her to leave my presence.  She stood a moment dumb, and then, recalling her self-possession, ‘Your bill,’ said she, ‘shall be ready this evening, and to-morrow, madam, you shall leave my house.  See,’ she added, ‘that you are able to pay what you owe me; for if I do not receive the uttermost farthing, no box of yours shall pass my threshold.’

I was confounded at her audacity, but as a whole quarter’s income was due to me, not otherwise affected by the threat.  That afternoon, as I left the solicitor’s door, carrying in one hand, and done up in a paper parcel, the whole amount of my fortune, there befell me one of those decisive incidents that sometimes shape a life.  The lawyer’s office was situate in a street that opened at the upper end upon the Strand, and was closed at the lower, at the time of which I speak, by a row of iron railings looking on the Thames.  Down this street, then, I beheld my stepmother advancing to meet me, and doubtless bound to the very house I had just left.  She was attended by a maid whose face was new to me, but her own was too clearly printed on my memory; and the sight of it, even from a distance, filled me with generous indignation.  Flight was impossible.  There was nothing left but to retreat against the railing, and with my back turned to the street, pretend to be admiring the barges on the river or the chimneys of transpontine London.

I was still so standing, and had not yet fully mastered the turbulence of my emotions, when a voice at my elbow addressed me with a trivial question.  It was the maid whom my stepmother, with characteristic hardness, had left to await her on the street, while she transacted her business with the family solicitor.  The girl did not know who I was; the opportunity too golden to be lost; and I was soon hearing the latest news of my father’s rectory and parish.  It did not surprise me to find that she detested her employers; and yet the terms in which she spoke of them were hard to bear, hard to let pass unchallenged.  I heard them, however, without dissent, for my self-command is wonderful; and we might have parted as we met, had she not proceeded, in an evil hour, to criticise the rector’s missing daughter, and with the most shocking perversions, to narrate the story of her flight.  My nature is so essentially generous that I can never pause to reason.  I flung up my hand sharply, by way, as well as I remember, of indignant protest; and, in the act, the packet slipped from my fingers, glanced between the railings, and fell and sunk in the river.  I stood a moment petrified, and then, struck by the drollery of the incident, gave way to peals of laughter.  I was still laughing when my stepmother reappeared, and the maid, who doubtless considered me insane, ran off to join her; nor had I yet recovered my gravity when I presented myself before the lawyer to solicit a fresh advance.  His answer made me serious enough, for it was a flat refusal; and it was not until I had besought him even with tears, that he consented to lend me ten pounds from his own pocket.  ‘I am a poor man,’ said he, ‘and you must look for nothing farther at my hands.’

The landlady met me at the door.  ‘Here, madam,’ said she, with a curtsey insolently low, ‘here is my bill.  Would it inconvenience you to settle it at once?’

‘You shall be paid, madam,’ said I, ‘in the morning, in the proper course.’  And I took the paper with a very high air, but inwardly quaking.

I had no sooner looked at it than I perceived myself to be lost.  I had been short of money and had allowed my debt to mount; and it had now reached the sum, which I shall never forget, of twelve pounds thirteen and fourpence halfpenny.  All evening I sat by the fire considering my situation.  I could not pay the bill; my landlady would not suffer me to remove my boxes; and without either baggage or money, how was I to find another lodging?  For three months, unless I could invent some remedy, I was condemned to be without a roof and without a penny.  It can surprise no one that I decided on immediate flight; but even here I was confronted by a difficulty, for I had no sooner packed my boxes than I found I was not strong enough to move, far less to carry them.

In this strait I did not hesitate a moment, but throwing on a shawl and bonnet, and covering my face with a thick veil, I betook myself to that great bazaar of dangerous and smiling chances, the pavement of the city.  It was already late at night, and the weather being wet and windy, there were few abroad besides policemen.  These, on my present mission, I had wit enough to know for enemies; and wherever I perceived their moving lanterns, I made haste to turn aside and choose another thoroughfare.  A few miserable women still walked the pavement; here and there were young fellows returning drunk, or ruffians of the lowest class lurking in the mouths of alleys; but of any one to whom I might appeal in my distress, I began almost to despair.

At last, at the corner of a street, I ran into the arms of one who was evidently a gentleman, and who, in all his appointments, from his furred great-coat to the fine cigar which he was smoking, comfortably breathed of wealth.  Much as my face has changed from its original beauty, I still retain (or so I tell myself) some traces of the youthful lightness of my figure.  Even veiled as I then was, I could perceive the gentleman was struck by my appearance: and this emboldened me for my adventure.

‘Sir,’ said I, with a quickly beating heart, ‘sir, are you one in whom a lady can confide?’

‘Why, my dear,’ said he, removing his cigar, ‘that depends on circumstances.  If you will raise your veil — ’

‘Sir,’ I interrupted, ‘let there be no mistake.  I ask you, as a gentleman, to serve me, but I offer no reward.’

‘That is frank,’ said he; ‘but hardly tempting.  And what, may I inquire, is the nature of the service?’

But I knew well enough it was not my interest to tell him on so short an interview.  ‘If you will accompany me,’ said I, ‘to a house not far from here, you can see for yourself.’

He looked at me awhile with hesitating eyes; and then, tossing away his cigar, which was not yet a quarter smoked, ‘Here goes!’ said he, and with perfect politeness offered me his arm.  I was wise enough to take it; to prolong our walk as far as possible, by more than one excursion from the shortest line; and to beguile the way with that sort of conversation which should prove to him indubitably from what station in society I sprang.  By the time we reached the door of my lodging, I felt sure I had confirmed his interest, and might venture, before I turned the pass-key, to beseech him to moderate his voice and to tread softly.  He promised to obey me: and I admitted him into the passage and thence into my sitting-room, which was fortunately next the door.

‘And now,’ said he, when with trembling fingers I had lighted a candle, ‘what is the meaning of all this?’

‘I wish you,’ said I, speaking with great difficulty, ‘to help me out with these boxes — and I wish nobody to know.’

He took up the candle.  ‘And I wish to see your face,’ said he.

I turned back my veil without a word, and looked at him with every appearance of resolve that I could summon up.  For some time he gazed into my face, still holding up the candle.  ‘Well,’ said he at last, ‘and where do you wish them taken?’