But boredom was another matter, not nearly so easy to handle and far more difficult to do something about. Both of them suffered various forms of depression while in Bournemouth and had to find remedies. Louis was ill much of the time and couldn’t be as active as he wished. He wrote to his cousin Bob that the climate required more exercise but he hadn’t the strength to run around in the cold and wind. He was hardly in the open air at all and began to think even Davos preferable – at least there he had been able to toboggan and skate. It frustrated him terribly to be stuck inside, and made him irritable, which in turn made him an even more difficult patient for Fanny and Valentine to look after. They tried a little excursion together, but this trip ended in disaster when Louis had a haemorrhage in a hotel in Dorchester. Fanny had a dreadful night trying to follow his instructions to lift him into a kneeling position, his face to the pillow, so that he could breathe better. She was glad to get back to Skerryvore, but being at home didn’t seem to improve Louis’s health. He had awful headaches and terrible nightmares which exhausted his wife as well as him. The only good thing was that out of these disturbed nights came the story Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He wrote a draft of it in three days, ill though he was, and presented it eagerly to Fanny. She criticised it heavily, pointing out that he had missed the allegory inherent in the story. Furious with her he threw the whole thing in the fire. She felt guilty, but then, realising she was right, he rewrote the tale in another three days. This time, Fanny approved and he went happily to work on it.
Work, as ever, made him feel better, and also made him easier to live with. But Fanny, though she tried to carry on writing her own stories and had her garden to occupy her, did not have the same stimulus and needed it. The obvious solution was to go away on her own, something she didn’t like to do, preferring to be with Louis and fearing to leave him even with the capable Valentine. Should a good wife leave a sick husband? She found it hard to do, but in the end, feeling weak and run-down herself, she went to stay with the Henleys in London, in Shepherd’s Bush. ‘Do for God’s9 sake amuse yourself’, Louis wrote to her, and she did. Later, she went to Bath too, and the change of scene did her a great deal of good. She was learning that total devotion between husband and wife did not have to mean living like Siamese twins – each could, and did, benefit from time on their own. But Fanny benefited more than Louis. He couldn’t sleep when she was away, whereas she slept better (hardly surprising, since her nights were uninterrupted when alone).
Coming home from her brief outings, Fanny looked at Louis afresh and was troubled at what she saw. She began to think he was much more seriously ill than he realised and suddenly was convinced that he was indeed consumptive. She had never thought him a handsome man (whereas Sam had been) but now, so very frail, he looked more like a boy in his teens than a thirty-five-year-old. But his powers of recuperation were tremendous, and by the spring of 1886, after a year in Skerryvore (a terrible year) there were signs they were working again. He returned to writing a boys’ story, commissioned by the editor of Young Folks (who had published Treasure Island). In the spring of 1885 it hadn’t gone well, but now it suddenly began to flow from his pen. But he wanted to go to London and have some fun. So off they both went, joining his parents at an hotel in Fitzroy Square. Unfortunately, Thomas Stevenson was ill, and much against her better judgement Fanny had to agree that Louis should take him to a spa. She’d worked hard to make him a better son, and could not, at this test of devotion, tell him to put himself before his father.
The spa was in Derbyshire and once installed there with his ailing father Louis was homesick. He described the women there, and the other patients were mostly women, as ‘dreary bitches’. Convinced Louis was breaking down under the strain, Fanny organised his release from duty, writing in the most tactful terms to her mother-in-law, who started at once for the spa to take her husband home. Predictably, Louis took to his bed once he returned to Bournemouth, but free of his father, he recovered his own spirits rapidly. The good news that Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was selling well cheered him further and he began agitating for some kind of proper holiday. Not Scotland with his parents, though, and not even London. He was ‘weary of England’ and wanted to go abroad. Kidnapped was to be published in book form in July and the money he’d got for it, first from the serialisation and then from Cassell’s, made him feel flush. But where to go? Fanny thought France ‘hot and unhealthy’ but he had set his heart on Paris at least and so she capitulated. They went via London, where Louis indulged his taste for mingling with the famous, writing to his mother that he had dined with Browning and lunched with Burne-Jones and was having a capital holiday. Paris was even better, except for an interview he gave to an American journalist, Olive Logan, who then wrote an inaccurate and unflattering piece, causing Fanny to remark when she read it that it was ‘comic’ not only in the ‘hideous picture’ it presented of him but in its ‘summary disposal of me’.
She was feeling low anyway. London and Paris may have made Louis feel astonishingly well, but the holiday had done nothing for her. Her limbs ached and it pained her to walk. This was diagnosed as rheumatism for which there was currently a new treatment consisting of massage. It wasn’t available in Bournemouth, so Louis returned alone – since he was feeling wonderful she wasn’t so worried about him – and she began her treatment in London. Louis mocked it mercilessly. He wrote to his parents that Fanny was ‘being pinched by Swedes’10 and to a friend that ‘my wife is away being pinched and slapped and mauled by certain powerful Scandinavians … they twitch every part, the nose included’. It was all, he reported gleefuly, a bit like a prize fight, but if it helped make Fanny feel better he was all for it however much he missed her. He wrote to her he could cope without her during the days but, as ever, found the nights hard – ‘I have remorse when I wake alone – see how marriage relaxes a man’s fibre!’11
When she did go home, Fanny was furious to find that her housemaid (not Valentine) had made a poor job of looking after Louis. The mattresses were damp and the chops the girl had bought were all fat. To make matters worse, Fanny’s in-laws were arriving the next day, to find a house to rent so that they could spend the winter near their dear Louis. Their search for a suitable house went on and on, the weather was bleak and grey (it was November), and she wrote to Colvin that she spent her time acting as a buffer between her husband and his parents – ‘A buffer’s life is a wearisome one,’ she moaned to Louis, and he accused her of always looking on the dark side of everything, to which she riposted that he was like a canary bird, always twittering brightly. He retorted that it was no use turning life into a tragedy on the scale of King Lear. He was the optimist, she the pessimist, and though these different philosophies usually balanced out within their marriage this was a case when, instead, they got on each other’s nerves.
Fanny was rescued by the need once more to take Thomas Stevenson to a spa, but though it released her from acting as a buffer, it was depressing. She took her father-in-law to Salisbury, but lasted only four days and afterwards needed another jaunt to London, alone, to recover. She was taken to the theatre by friends, and met George Bernard Shaw at someone’s house and ‘enjoyed herself hugely’ according to her husband. It seemed as though a pattern was emerging which would be followed indefinitely, one in which life in Bournemouth could only be tolerated if it was broken up, especially in the winter, with trips to London, either together or separately. But it was a pattern Louis resented, writing, ‘I do not love this health-tending, housekeeping life of mine.’12 Fanny liked it better, taking pleasure in her house and in tending her garden, but even she was not entirely content. There was the feeling that something would have to change before another winter.
The change which came was not of their own making but it set in motion a course of events which was to end in their quitting Bournemouth. On 7 May 1887, Thomas Stevenson died. Fanny and Louis were both in Edinburgh, in answer to Margaret Stevenson’s urgent summons, but had arrived only the day before, by
which time the dying Thomas was unable to recognise his son. The funeral was on 13 May, but by then Louis had a cold and was too ill to attend. The moment it was over, there were legal matters to be dealt with, cold or not. Louis, who had trained and qualified as a lawyer, even though he had never practised as one, should have found this task easy, but it proved complicated. At first, he thought it looked as though ‘the Church of Scotland might walk off with the whole’ but luckily this proved not to be the case. His mother was well provided for, though in her lifetime he himself didn’t actually inherit anything. Margaret Stevenson bore up well, determined to be as cheerful as ever whatever her grief, but it felt wrong to leave her alone in the Heriot Row house when they returned to Bournemouth. But she had her own suggestion to make. Dr Balfour, called in for Louis’s cold, had expressed the opinion that what he needed was a winter not in Davos but in Colorado. He’d even gone so far as to promise this would effect a complete cure. With about £20,000 capital at her disposal, his mother proposed that Louis and Fanny should try a few months in Colorado and she would pay.
The idea fired Louis’s imagination at once – the thought of the sea-voyage alone thrilled him – and of course for Fanny it would mean a chance to visit her own family whom she had not seen for seven years. Thomas Stevenson had included Fanny and her son Lloyd in his will and her £3,000 legacy would pay for a visit to Indianapolis in comfort. But still there was the problem of leaving Louis’s mother, widowed and alone in Edinburgh. Louis wrote to her ‘if you won’t go to Amerikee, no more will we’13 but it was Fanny’s letter which was the more persuasive. She proved herself a kind woman and a good daughter-in-law, writing that since Margaret had only Louis left now ‘I could not take him away from you even for his own good.’14 Margaret had apparently confessed she would only spoil everything by being so miserable because Fanny wrote, ‘As to your being a wet blanket, how do you think we should feel knowing we had left you behind with your sad heart?’ It was not to be thought of. ‘Come with us, dear,’ she urged, ‘and let us try to be to you what we can, even though that may be little.’ In fact, both Louis and Fanny wanted her to come to them immediately without waiting for the Colorado plans to be finalised. The change would do her good – ‘and your presence might cheer us up.’ It was nicely put, and so was Louis’s final word, ‘I have been a bad enough son all round; I would now be a decently good one if possible.’ She was persuaded.
On 21 August, having let the Bournemouth house, Fanny, Louis, Lloyd, Margaret Stevenson and Valentine the maid set sail for New York.
IV
IF FANNY HAD any misgivings about travelling with her mother-in-law, she did not express them. She had always liked Margaret Stevenson, now known as Aunt Maggie (for Lloyd’s sake), and she had noted that it was only the joint presence of the Stevenson parents that had a bad effect on Louis. His mother on her own would be a different matter, especially since she was so amenable and less likely to impose her will. There was every hope that she would fit in well and not come between her son and daughter-in-law.
So it proved. Margaret Stevenson enjoyed the voyage to America, not minding a bit that Fanny had mistakenly booked their passage on a cargo ship carrying animals. Louis, she wrote to her sister, looked as young and gay as a schoolboy – he was ‘a hardy mariner’1 and so was she. Both of them were on deck all the time, while Fanny was obliged to lurk in her cabin much of the way, suffering from seasickness. Aunt Maggie taught her to knit socks, to pass the time, but she had to struggle to turn the heel and Louis vowed she’d secretly asked help from every member of the crew. Mother and son formed an alliance on board ship which slightly excluded Fanny but caused her no distress. She’d always been able to see Louis in his mother, and since she herself had a good relationship with her own son she was never silly enough to be in competition with her mother-in-law. On the contrary, it pleased her to see the two of them so close.
Once established, not in Colorado but in Saranac in the Adirondack mountains, things were a little different. Arriving in New York, Louis had received an astonishingly rapturous welcome from an American public, who loved both Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Kidnapped (published the year before) and were intensely curious about him. He was suddenly a success, but success brought with it problems Fanny had never had to handle for him before. She’d had practice as a guard-dog when his friends threatened to exhaust him, but in New York she had to protect him from the press and from publishers frantic to sign him up. It was all very flattering, but also tiring, and she couldn’t wait to get him away to the peace and healthy climate of the mountains.
In Saranac, they were living in what was little better than a shack, a house built of wooden boards with four rooms and a kitchen, ten minutes from the village. It was primitive in the extreme, far more primitive than the chalet in Davos, but Louis liked the simplicity and lack of comfort. He wouldn’t let his mother put a cloth on the bare wooden table and he saw no need for the footstools she craved. The draughts were terrible, but he thought them healthy, and as for the lack of tea- and coffee-pots and egg-cups he was exasperated that she should want such fripperies.
It was a freezing cold winter, far colder than the winters at Davos, so cold that ink froze and food had to be thawed before it could be eaten. Unlike Davos, there was little sun but instead lots of grey days which were depressing for all of them, cooped up in such a comfortless home. As soon as they were settled, Fanny left Louis in charge of his mother and went off to Indiana to visit her mother and sister (her father had died) but she was back before the real snows began. Just as well because the snow became so deep that the shack was almost buried and they had to clear pathways to get in and out. She made another quick trip to Montreal to buy furs for them all to wear; and then they simply had to hole up and see the winter out, hoping the hardship was worth it for Louis’s health – everything, always, was for the sake of Louis, both mother and wife willing to put up with anything to benefit him. Fanny pined for warmth and sunlight, but struggled on in the snow, not feeling at all well herself, but pleased that Louis was thriving and had begun to write (The Master of Ballantrae). She kept a close eye on her mother-in-law, not allowing her in the same room as her son when she had a cold. Aunt Maggie complained that she felt like a figure in a weather-box – when she came out, Louis had to go in, and vice versa.
But they survived the cold and the claustrophobic conditions and at last spring came. Fanny went, as soon as it was possible to travel easily, to San Francisco. Ostensibly, she was going ahead to see if a boat could be chartered to fulfil Louis’s ambition to sail to the South Seas, but she was also going to seek medical advice and maybe treatment. She had a growth in her throat and was anxious about it. At that time no connection was made between smoking and cancer, but Fanny, who had smoked since her Reese River days, was suspicious. She had the growth removed and luckily it proved benign, but she went on to Monterey to convalesce, staying with her sister Nellie. It was such a pleasure to be in the sun again, and beside the sea, and she hoped she would never have to endure another winter, of ice and snow and biting winds. Cruising in the South Seas was Louis’s idea, but it was one to which she was attracted, in spite of being a poor sailor, simply by the prospect of warmth.
There was a great deal for Fanny to organise before this adventurous cruise could start, but she was more than equal to the task. Organisation of this sort, putting together a Grand Plan as it were, was far more to her taste than, say, sorting out their financial affairs. Louis cabled that she was his ‘blessed girl’ for finding and hiring the Casco, a schooner of 70 tons which came complete with captain and crew. He knew, as did his mother, how Fanny dreaded sailing, how seasick she would undoubtedly be, and that she was agreeing to this adventure for his sake – she would have been far happier settling for sun in stable California instead of sailing thousands of miles in search of it. But she entered into the spirit of this enterprise enthusiastically, refusing to worry about the possible danger and looking ahead to what would be require
d once the South Seas were reached. Different clothes, for one thing. Her mother-in-law was startled to find Fanny was having made for her and for herself and Valentine the most extraordinary gowns, little more than chemises with a flounce round the lower edge and a sort of loose gown worn over it, so that it was like wearing two nightdresses, one sleeveless. This made Aunt Maggie distinctly uncomfortable – she didn’t know if she ever would be able to discard her corsets and fitted bodices, but Fanny couldn’t wait. She’d never liked tight, formal gowns and loved the idea of such freedom from restraint (especially as she was now overweight again).
She gave equal care to the matter of drugs. Her mother-in-law was impressed at how Fanny consulted with medical opinion before they set off and had everyone vaccinated against smallpox except Louis, for whom the vaccine was not considered safe. Knowing this, Fanny took with her a syringe and what his mother referred to as ‘lymph’ so that if he did contract the disease she could inject him herself, since in that case it would be necessary. She also took two medical reference books and a wide variety of remedies for all kinds of ailments. In effect, she equipped herself to be the ship’s doctor. Fanny also supervised the stores brought on board, even though she was not the ship’s cook, and made sure the party would be properly nourished. By the time they sailed from San Francisco on 28 June 1888, she was exhausted and soon, of course, violently seasick. She spent hours lying in her berth – the three women were ‘laid away on shelves to sleep’ concealed by white lace curtains, as Aunt Maggie described it to her sister – willing herself to conquer the nausea, but it never entirely disappeared before they reached the Marquesas Islands where, thankfully, they went on shore.
Good Wives Page 18