Complete Works of Robert Louis Stevenson (Illustrated) (398 page)

‘That oath is all my history.  To give freedom to posterity I had forsworn my own.  I must attend upon every signal; and soon my father complained of my irregular hours and turned me from his house.  I was engaged in betrothal to an honest girl; from her also I had to part, for she was too shrewd to credit my inventions and too innocent to be entrusted with the truth.  Behold me, then, alone with conspirators!  Alas! as the years went on, my illusions left me.  Surrounded as I was by the fervent disciples and apologists of revolution, I beheld them daily advance in confidence and desperation; I beheld myself, upon the other hand, and with an almost equal regularity, decline in faith.  I had sacrificed all to further that cause in which I still believed; and daily I began to grow in doubts if we were advancing it indeed.  Horrible was the society with which we warred, but our own means were not less horrible.

‘I will not dwell upon my sufferings; I will not pause to tell you how, when I beheld young men still free and happy, married, fathers of children, cheerfully toiling at their work, my heart reproached me with the greatness and vanity of my unhappy sacrifice.  I will not describe to you how, worn by poverty, poor lodging, scanty food, and an unquiet conscience, my health began to fail, and in the long nights, as I wandered bedless in the rainy streets, the most cruel sufferings of the body were added to the tortures of my mind.  These things are not personal to me; they are common to all unfortunates in my position.  An oath, so light a thing to swear, so grave a thing to break: an oath, taken in the heat of youth, repented with what sobbings of the heart, but yet in vain repented, as the years go on: an oath, that was once the very utterance of the truth of God, but that falls to be the symbol of a meaningless and empty slavery; such is the yoke that many young men joyfully assume, and under whose dead weight they live to suffer worse than death.

‘It is not that I was patient.  I have begged to be released; but I knew too much, and I was still refused.  I have fled; ay, and for the time successfully.  I reached Paris.  I found a lodging in the Rue St. Jacques, almost opposite the Val de Grâce.  My room was mean and bare, but the sun looked into it towards evening; it commanded a peep of a green garden; a bird hung by a neighbour’s window and made the morning beautiful; and I, who was sick, might lie in bed and rest myself: I, who was in full revolt against the principles that I had served, was now no longer at the beck of the council, and was no longer charged with shameful and revolting tasks.  Oh! what an interval of peace was that!  I still dream, at times, that I can hear the note of my neighbour’s bird.

‘My money was running out, and it became necessary that I should find employment.  Scarcely had I been three days upon the search, ere I thought that I was being followed.  I made certain of the features of the man, which were quite strange to me, and turned into a small café, where I whiled away an hour, pretending to read the papers, but inwardly convulsed with terror.  When I came forth again into the street, it was quite empty, and I breathed again; but alas, I had not turned three corners, when I once more observed the human hound pursuing me.  Not an hour was to be lost; timely submission might yet preserve a life which otherwise was forfeit and dishonoured; and I fled, with what speed you may conceive, to the Paris agency of the society I served.

‘My submission was accepted.  I took up once more the hated burthen of that life; once more I was at the call of men whom I despised and hated, while yet I envied and admired them.  They at least were wholehearted in the things they purposed; but I, who had once been such as they, had fallen from the brightness of my faith, and now laboured, like a hireling, for the wages of a loathed existence.  Ay, sir, to that I was condemned; I obeyed to continue to live, and lived but to obey.

‘The last charge that was laid upon me was the one which has to-night so tragically ended.  Boldly telling who I was, I was to request from your highness, on behalf of my society, a private audience, where it was designed to murder you.  If one thing remained to me of my old convictions, it was the hate of kings; and when this task was offered me, I took it gladly.  Alas, sir, you triumphed.  As we supped, you gained upon my heart.  Your character, your talents, your designs for our unhappy country, all had been misrepresented.  I began to forget you were a prince; I began, all too feelingly, to remember that you were a man.  As I saw the hour approach, I suffered agonies untold; and when, at last, we heard the slamming of the door which announced in my unwilling ears the arrival of the partner of my crime, you will bear me out with what instancy I besought you to depart.  You would not, alas! and what could I?  Kill you, I could not; my heart revolted, my hand turned back from such a deed.  Yet it was impossible that I should suffer you to stay; for when the hour struck and my companion came, true to his appointment, and he, at least, true to our design, I could neither suffer you to be killed nor yet him to be arrested.  From such a tragic passage, death, and death alone, could save me; and it is no fault of mine if I continue to exist.

‘But you, madam,’ continued the young man, addressing himself more directly to myself, ‘were doubtless born to save the prince and to confound our purposes.  My life you have prolonged; and by turning the key on my companion, you have made me the author of his death.  He heard the hour strike; he was impotent to help; and thinking himself forfeit to honour, thinking that I should fall alone upon his highness and perish for lack of his support, he has turned his pistol on himself.’

‘You are right,’ said Prince Florizel: ‘it was in no ungenerous spirit that you brought these burthens on yourself; and when I see you so nobly to blame, so tragically punished, I stand like one reproved.  For is it not strange, madam, that you and I, by practising accepted and inconsiderable virtues, and commonplace but still unpardonable faults, should stand here, in the sight of God, with what we call clean hands and quiet consciences; while this poor youth, for an error that I could almost envy him, should be sunk beyond the reach of hope?

‘Sir,’ resumed the prince, turning to the young man, ‘I cannot help you; my help would but unchain the thunderbolt that overhangs you; and I can but leave you free.’

‘And, sir,’ said I, ‘as this house belongs to me, I will ask you to have the kindness to remove the body.  You and your conspirators, it appears to me, can hardly in civility do less.’

‘It shall be done,’ said the young man, with a dismal accent.

‘And you, dear madam,’ said the prince, ‘you, to whom I owe my life, how can I serve you?’

‘Your highness,’ I said, ‘to be very plain, this is my favourite house, being not only a valuable property, but endeared to me by various associations.  I have endless troubles with tenants of the ordinary class: and at first applauded my good fortune when I found one of the station of your Master of the Horse.  I now begin to think otherwise: dangers set a siege about great personages; and I do not wish my tenement to share these risks.  Procure me the resiliation of the lease, and I shall feel myself your debtor.’

‘I must tell you, madam,’ replied his highness, ‘that Colonel Geraldine is but a cloak for myself; and I should be sorry indeed to think myself so unacceptable a tenant.’

‘Your highness,’ said I, ‘I have conceived a sincere admiration for your character; but on the subject of house property, I cannot allow the interference of my feelings.  I will, however, to prove to you that there is nothing personal in my request, here solemnly engage my word that I will never put another tenant in this house.’

‘Madam,’ said Florizel, ‘you plead your cause too charmingly to be refused.’

Thereupon we all three withdrew.  The young man, still reeling in his walk, departed by himself to seek the assistance of his fellow-conspirators; and the prince, with the most attentive gallantry, lent me his escort to the door of my hotel.  The next day, the lease was cancelled; nor from that hour to this, though sometimes regretting my engagement, have I suffered a tenant in this house.

THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (Continued).

As soon as the old lady had finished her relation, Somerset made haste to offer her his compliments.

‘Madam,’ said he, ‘your story is not only entertaining but instructive; and you have told it with infinite vivacity.  I was much affected towards the end, as I held at one time very liberal opinions, and should certainly have joined a secret society if I had been able to find one.  But the whole tale came home to me; and I was the better able to feel for you in your various perplexities, as I am myself of somewhat hasty temper.’

‘I do not understand you,’ said Mrs. Luxmore, with some marks of irritation.  ‘You must have strangely misinterpreted what I have told you.  You fill me with surprise.’

Somerset, alarmed by the old lady’s change of tone and manner, hurried to recant.

‘Dear Mrs. Luxmore,’ said he, ‘you certainly misconstrue my remark.  As a man of somewhat fiery humour, my conscience repeatedly pricked me when I heard what you had suffered at the hands of persons similarly constituted.’

‘Oh, very well indeed,’ replied the old lady; ‘and a very proper spirit.  I regret that I have met with it so rarely.’

‘But in all this,’ resumed the young man, ‘I perceive nothing that concerns myself.’

‘I am about to come to that,’ she returned.  ‘And you have already before you, in the pledge I gave Prince Florizel, one of the elements of the affair.  I am a woman of the nomadic sort, and when I have no case before the courts I make it a habit to visit continental spas: not that I have ever been ill; but then I am no longer young, and I am always happy in a crowd.  Well, to come more shortly to the point, I am now on the wing for Evian; this incubus of a house, which I must leave behind and dare not let, hangs heavily upon my hands; and I propose to rid myself of that concern, and do you a very good turn into the bargain, by lending you the mansion, with all its fittings, as it stands.  The idea was sudden; it appealed to me as humorous: and I am sure it will cause my relatives, if they should ever hear of it, the keenest possible chagrin.  Here, then, is the key; and when you return at two to-morrow afternoon, you will find neither me nor my cats to disturb you in your new possession.’

So saying, the old lady arose, as if to dismiss her visitor; but Somerset, looking somewhat blankly on the key, began to protest.

‘Dear Mrs. Luxmore,’ said he, ‘this is a most unusual proposal.  You know nothing of me, beyond the fact that I displayed both impudence and timidity.  I may be the worst kind of scoundrel; I may sell your furniture — ’

‘You may blow up the house with gunpowder, for what I care!’ cried Mrs. Luxmore.  ‘It is in vain to reason.  Such is the force of my character that, when I have one idea clearly in my head, I do not care two straws for any side consideration.  It amuses me to do it, and let that suffice.  On your side, you may do what you please — let apartments, or keep a private hotel; on mine, I promise you a full month’s warning before I return, and I never fail religiously to keep my promises.’

The young man was about to renew his protest, when he observed a sudden and significant change in the old lady’s countenance.

‘If I thought you capable of disrespect!’ she cried.

‘Madam,’ said Somerset, with the extreme fervour of asseveration, ‘madam, I accept.  I beg you to understand that I accept with joy and gratitude.’

‘Ah well,’ returned Mrs. Luxmore, ‘if I am mistaken, let it pass.  And now, since all is comfortably settled, I wish you a good-night.’

Thereupon, as if to leave him no room for repentance, she hurried Somerset out of the front door, and left him standing, key in hand, upon the pavement.

The next day, about the hour appointed, the young man found his way to the square, which I will here call Golden Square, though that was not its name.  What to expect, he knew not; for a man may live in dreams, and yet be unprepared for their realisation.  It was already with a certain pang of surprise that he beheld the mansion, standing in the eye of day, a solid among solids.  The key, upon trial, readily opened the front door; he entered that great house, a privileged burglar; and, escorted by the echoes of desertion, rapidly reviewed the empty chambers.  Cats, servant, old lady, the very marks of habitation, like writing on a slate, had been in these few hours obliterated.  He wandered from floor to floor, and found the house of great extent; the kitchen offices commodious and well appointed; the rooms many and large; and the drawing-room, in particular, an apartment of princely size and tasteful decoration.  Although the day without was warm, genial, and sunny, with a ruffling wind from the quarter of Torquay, a chill, as it were, of suspended animation inhabited the house.  Dust and shadows met the eye; and but for the ominous procession of the echoes, and the rumour of the wind among the garden trees, the ear of the young man was stretched in vain.

Behind the dining-room, that pleasant library, referred to by the old lady in her tale, looked upon the flat roofs and netted cupolas of the kitchen quarters; and on a second visit, this room appeared to greet him with a smiling countenance.  He might as well, he thought, avoid the expense of lodging: the library, fitted with an iron bedstead which he had remarked, in one of the upper chambers, would serve his purpose for the night; while in the dining-room, which was large, airy, and lightsome, looking on the square and garden, he might very agreeably pass his days, cook his meals, and study to bring himself to some proficiency in that art of painting which he had recently determined to adopt.  It did not take him long to make the change: he had soon returned to the mansion with his modest kit; and the cabman who brought him was readily induced, by the young man’s pleasant manner and a small gratuity, to assist him in the installation of the iron bed.  By six in the evening, when Somerset went forth to dine, he was able to look back upon the mansion with a sense of pride and property.  Four-square it stood, of an imposing frontage, and flanked on either side by family hatchments.  His eye, from where he stood whistling in the key, with his back to the garden railings, reposed on every feature of reality; and yet his own possession seemed as flimsy as a dream.