he signed the letter with a string of names worthy of Bunyan's own invention-" I am, yours, Mr. Muddler. Mr. Addlehead. Mr. Wandering Butterwits. Sir Indecision Contentment." The journey was safely accomplished, and Stevenson and his wife reached England on the 1st of July, the day before the first representation on the London stage of Deacon Brodie. CHAPTER XI BOURNEMOUTH-1884-87 "This is the study where a smiling God THE R. L. S. "HE next three years Stevenson was to spend in England-the only time he was ever resident in this country-and then Europe was to see him no more. At first sight the chronicle of this time would seem to be more full of interest than any other period of his life. Treasure Island, his first book," had just been given to the world; the year after his return A Child's Garden of Verses and Prince Otto were published, and Jekyll and Hyde and Kidnapped appeared in the following year. To have written almost any one of these brilliant yet widely dissimilar books would be to challenge the attention of the most distinguished contemporary men of letters ; and to meet Stevenson at this time was instantly to acknowledge the quality and charm of the man and the strong fascination of his talk. For the whole of the period he made his home at Bournemouth, within easy reach of London visitors; and in London itself Sidney Colvin (who had now become Keeper of Prints at the British Museum) not only had a house always open to him, but delighted to bring together those who by their own powers were best fitted to appreciate his society. Yet the reality is disappointing. To produce brilliant writings it is not necessary at the time to live an exciting or even a very full life, and Stevenson's health deprived him more and more of the ordinary incidents which happen to most men in their daily course. Looking back on this period in after days, he cries out: "Remember the pallid brute that lived in Skerryvore like a weevil in a biscuit." Nearly all the time which was not devoted to contending with illness was taken up with his work, and as he rarely left home without returning in a more or less disabled condition, he stayed in his own house and led the most retired of lives. Even there it was no uncommon experience for a visitor who had come to Bournemouth specially to see him, to find himself put to the door, either on the ground of having a cold, to the contagion of which it was unsafe for Stevenson to be exposed, or because his host was already too ill to receive him. Having passed a few days in a hotel at Richmond, Stevenson and his wife went down to Bournemouth, where Lloyd Osbourne had for some months past been at school. After staying at a hotel, and trying first one and then another set of lodgings on the West Cliff, at the end of October they migrated into a furnished house in Branksome Park. The doctors whom he consulted were equally divided in their opinions, two saying it would be safe for him to stay in this country, while two advised him to go abroad ; and in the end he yielded only to the desire to be near his father, who, though still at work, was evidently failing fast. Meanwhile the first two months at Bournemouth were spent chiefly in the company of W. E. Henley, and were devoted to collaboration over two new plays. The reception of Deacon Brodie had been sufficiently promising to serve as an incentive to write a piece which should be a complete success, and so to grasp some of the rewards which now seemed within reach of the authors. They had never affected to disregard the fact that in this country the prizes of the dramatist are out of all proportion to the payment of the man of letters, and already in 1883 Stevenson had written to his father: "The theatre is the gold mine ; and on that I must keep an eye." Now that they were again able to meet, and to be constantly together, the friends embarked upon some of the schemes they had projected long ago, and no doubt had talked over at Nice at the beginning of the year. By October the drafts of Beau Austin and Admiral Guinea completed and set up in type; and in the following spring, at the suggestion of Mr. Beerbohm Tree, the two collaborators again set to work and produced their English version of Macaire. These were to have been but the beginning of their labours, but more necessary work intervened, and the plays were never resumed. were Meanwhile, on receiving an application from the proprietor of the Pall Mall Gazette for a Christmas story, Stevenson attempted to produce a new tale for the occasion. It proved, however, what, in the slang of the studio, he called a "machine,” and “Markheim,' which was now ready, being too short, as a last resource he bethought himself of " The Body Snatcher,' one of the "tales of horror" written at Pitlochry in 1881, and then “laid aside in a justifiable disgust.' It was not one of his greater achievements, and would probably have excited little comment, had it not been for the gruesome and unauthorised methods of advertisement. By the end of January so successful had the winter been that Thomas Stevenson bought a house at Bournemouth as a present for his daughter-in-law. Its name was forthwith changed to Skerryvore in commemoration of the most beautiful and the most difficult to build of all the lighthouses erected by the family. It was no great distance from where they were already living: a modern brick house, closely covered with ivy; and from the top windows it was possible to catch a glimpse of the sea. There was half an acre of ground very charmingly arranged, running down from the lawn at the back, past a bank of heather, into a chine or small ravine full of rhododendrons, and at the bottom a tiny stream. Wanderer as he was, and still gave the impression of being, Stevenson entered into his new property with a keenness of delight that must have amused those of his friends who remembered his former disparagement of all household possessions. Our drawingroom is now a place so beautiful that it's like eating to sit in it. No other room is so lovely in the world; there I sit like an old Irish beggarman's cast-off bauchle in a palace throne-room. Incongruity never went so far; I blush for the figure I cut in such a bower." " The large dovecot is commemorated in Underwoods; the garden was an endless pleasure to Mrs. Stevenson, and long having been the domain of “ Boguey " in his life-time, became at last his resting-place. Having been sent to hospital to recover from wounds received in battle, he broke loose, in his maimed state attacked another dog more powerful than himself, and so perished. His master and mistress were inconsolable, and never, even in Samoa, could bring themselves to allow any successor. I have already referred to the easy access to Bournemouth, which was, of course, a prime consideration with his parents. But Stevenson's friends had seen little of him for several years past, so in this also there was a welcome change from Hyères. Nearly all the old and tried companions whom I have mentioned came to Skerryvore during these years: R. A. M. Stevenson and his wife, and his sister, Mrs. de Mattos, and her children; Miss Ferrier, Charles Baxter, Fleeming Jenkin and Mrs. Jenkin, Sidney Colvin, and W. E. Henley all paid more of less frequent visits. Among the new-comers were Mr. Sargent, who twice came to paint his host's portrait; Mr. James Sully, an old friend at the Savile Club; Mr. William Archer, who owed his first coming to his severe but inspiring analysis of Stevenson, and remained as one of the most valued of his critics and appreciative of his friends; and, last and most welcome of the admissions into the inmost circle, his very dear friend, Mr. Henry James. One of the most frequent visitors was R. A. M. Stevenson, who had, after some time, decided to give up the thankless task of producing pictures for the public which were not those he wanted to paint, and to use his technical knowledge and matchless powers of exposition in the criticism of art. That other art of writing, however, which Louis had spent his life in learning, could not be mastered in a day for the purposes of journalism even by so brilliant a talker as Bob, and it fell to Louis and Henley to give him many hints and put him through an apprenticeship in the technical part of the new profession in which he so rapidly made his mark. Nor were the residents of Bournemouth to be overlooked, although (besides Dr. Scott, to whom Underwoods was chiefly dedicated, and Mrs. Boodle and her daughter, the "Gamekeeper" of the Letters) close friendship was confined to two families-Sir Henry Taylor and his wife and daughters, and Sir Percy and Lady Shelley. Sir Percy, the son of the poet, was devoted to yachting and the theatre (especially melodrama), and his genial, kindly nature, in which shrewdness and simplicity were most attractively blended, endeared him to his new as to all his old friends, while Lady Shelley, no less warm-hearted, took the greatest fancy to Louis, and discovering in him a close likeness to her renowned father-in-law, she forthwith claimed him as her son. But it was the Taylors with whom he lived in more intimate relations in spite of the impression he seems here again to have produced of a being wholly |
