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_.[71] 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 color 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."
[Footnote 71: The _rebozo_ is a scarf or shawl worn
wound about the head and shoulders.]
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,[72] 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.
[Footnote 72: _Sausal_ (pronounced sowsál) is a Spanish
word meaning willow grove.]
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_[73] 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.
[Footnote 73: Mexican mounted police.]
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.
When the three days' conflagration had finally worn itself out and the
tired and smoke-begrimed fighters could take account, they found the
house and its contents safe, except for a huge hole in the roof where
the earthquake had thrown down a large heavy chimney, piling up the
bricks on the bed in the guest-chamber, fortunately not occupied at
the time. But the outlook was ghastly, for the house stood high on its
clean-swept hill like a lonely outpost in a great waste of cinders,
half-fallen chimneys, and sagging walls. In two weeks' time, while
they still smoked, the ruins took on a strangely old look, and it was
like standing in the midst of the excavations of an ancient city.
Around the solitary house on the hill the wind howled, making a
mournful moaning sound through the broken network of wires that hung
everywhere in the streets.
Homeless refugees, running through the streets like wild creatures
driven before a prairie fire, came pouring past, and some stopped to
build their lean-to shacks of pieces of board and sacking against the
sheltering wall of the house. Blankets and other things were passed
out to keep them warm, and when they finally went their way the
blankets went with them, but Mrs. Stevenson was glad that they should
have them and said she would have done the same had she been in their
case.
All this while her son and daughter--the son in New York and the
daughter in Italy--were in a state of anguished suspense as to their
mother's fate. By a strange coincidence the daughter had herself been
in some danger from the great eruption of Vesuvius, and had but just
escaped from that when she heard newsboys crying in the streets of
Rome, "San Francisco _tutta distrutta_!" Several days passed in
intense anxiety before she received the telegram with the blessed
words "Mother safe!"
As it was quite impossible to live in the destroyed city until some
sort of order should be established, even water being unprocurable on
the Hyde Street hill, Mrs. Stevenson decided to take refuge for the
time at Vanumanutagi Ranch near Gilroy. Even there she found a sorry
confusion, for the house chimneys were all wrecked and the stone wall
around the enclosure had been thrown down and scattered. There was
plenty of good water, however, and the possibility of getting
provisions and living after a fashion, so she settled down to stay
there until conditions should improve in the city. It was an eerie
place to stay in, too, for that section lies close to the main
earthquake fault, and the quivering earth was a long time settling
down from its great upheaval. For as long as a year afterwards small
quakes came at frequent intervals, and in the stillness of the night
strange roaring sounds, like the approach of a railroad train, and
sudden exploding noises, like distant cannon shot, came to add their
terrors to the creaking and swaying of the little wooden house.
After some months Mrs. Stevenson went to San Francisco, but she found
the discomfort still so great and the sight of the ruined city so
depressing that she finally yielded to the persuasions of her son and
Mr. Field to accompany them on a trip to Europe. They sailed from New
York in November, 1906, on the French steamer _La Provence_.
After a stay of only three or four days in Paris, they took the train
for the south--an all-day trip. As Mrs. Stevenson had always thought
she would love Avignon, though she had never been there, it was
decided to go there first. In their compartment on the train there was
a French bishop, a Monseigneur Charmiton, and his sister, with whom
they soon fell into conversation. The bishop and his sister seemed
appalled at the idea of anyone wanting to spend a winter in Avignon.
"By no means go there," they said, "but come down where we live. It is
beautiful there." The good people had a villa, it seemed, half-way
between Nice and Monte Carlo. But Mrs. Stevenson wanted to decide upon
Avignon for herself, so they went on, and found it a most picturesque
place, but soon discovered the truth of the old saw, "Windy Avignon,
liable to plague when it has not the wind, and plagued with the wind
when it has it." This wind swept strong and cold down the Valley of
the Rhone, making it so bleak and forbidding that they were forced to
cut their visit short.
They left next day for Marseilles, where they found, much to their
delight, not only their motor-car, which had been shipped from New
York, but Monseigneur Charmiton and his sister, who were on the point
of leaving for their villa at Cap Ferrat. "And how did you like
Avignon?" were their first words. Although too polite to say "I told
you so," they now insisted the Riviera be given a fair trial. So,
chance and friendly counsel prevailing, the Stevenson party motored
east through lovely Provence, passing swiftly through Hyères of
haunting memory, and on to Cannes, where they stopped the night; and
so to an hotel in Beaulieu, where Monseigneur's sister had engaged
rooms for them till a villa was found to their liking. And soon a
charming one at St. Jean-sur-Mer, a little village near Beaulieu, was
taken for the season.
The Villa Mes Rochers stood in a walled garden, which sloped gently to
a terrace on the edge of the sea--a place for tea in the afternoons
when the mistral was not blowing. Here they settled down for the
winter.
It was a pleasant, easy life. There were friends in Nice and Monte
Carlo; there was the daily motor ride; there were books to read,
letters to write, and recipes to be learned from the French and set
down in the famous cook book without which Mrs. Stevenson never
travelled. Here they lingered till April, and then set out in their
motor for London.
Their route again lay through Provence. They stopped at Arles, famous
alike for its beautiful women and its sausages. The beautiful women
were absent that day, but a sausage appeared at table and was
pronounced worthy of its niche in the sausage Hall of Fame. Further
along, in the Cevennes, they were enchanted with Le Puy, and the
lovely, lovely country where Louis had made his memorable journey with
Modestine. And so they went on north, by Channel steamer to Folkstone,
up through Kent, and into London by the Old Kent Road; then to
lodgings in Chelsea, where old friends called and old ties were
renewed.
After a month in London a house was taken in Chiddingfold, Surrey, to
be near "the dear Favershams," as Mrs. Stevenson always called them.
Mr. and Mrs. William Faversham, whom Mrs. Stevenson held in great
affection, owned The Old Manor in Chiddingfold, and they had found a
place for her near them--Fairfield, a charming old house in an
old-world garden, and, best of all, not five minutes' walk from The
Old Manor.
Life at Fairfield, except for constant rain, was delightful. Graham
Balfour, the well-beloved, came for a visit; Austin Strong and his
wife ran down from London; many an afternoon was spent at Sir James
Barrie's place near Farnham. Sir James loved Mrs. Stevenson--a dear,
shy man who had so little to say to so many, so much to say to her.
Then there were the Williamsons (of _Lightning Conductor_ fame), whom
she had met in Monte Carlo; they also had a house in Surrey. And there
were Sir Arthur and Lady Pinero, who lived only a mile or two from
Fairfield. Mrs. Stevenson considered the genial, witty, gently cynical
Sir Arthur one of the most interesting men she had ever met. Lady
Pinero always called her husband "Pin," and Sir Arthur was enchanted
when, after looking at him with smiling eyes, Mrs. Stevenson one day
turned to Lady Pinero and remarked, "I've always doubted that old
saying, 'It is a sin to steal a Pin,' but now I understand it
perfectly."
Katherine de Mattos, Stevenson's cousin, also honoured Fairfield with
a visit, and Coggie Ferrier, sister of Stevenson's boyhood friend, and
the woman perhaps above all others in England whom Mrs. Stevenson
loved best, came frequently. And always there were the Favershams, who
were very dear to her heart. It was a memorable summer, full of
pleasant companionship--and rain. Towards the middle of August, on
account of the never-ceasing rain, it was finally decided to abandon
Fairfield and return to France for a long motor trip.
The first night out from Chiddingfold was spent at Tunbridge Wells,
and next day a stop was made at Rye to call on Henry James. Never did
travellers receive a more hearty or gracious welcome. It is a quaint,
lost place, Rye--one of the old Cinque Ports; to enter it one passes
under an ancient Roman arch; the nearest railroad is miles away. It is
nice to think that after giving him a cup of tea in her drawing-room
in San Francisco two years before, Mrs. Stevenson could see the house
he lived in, admire his garden, drink tea in his drawing-room, and
talk long and pleasantly with this old and valued friend she was never
to see again.
The second motor trip in France was an unqualified success. Keeping to
the west and avoiding Paris, this time their route lay through Blois,
Tours, Angoulême, Libourne, Biarritz, till, finally, several miles
from Pau, they had a _panne_, as they say in France, and their motor,
which had behaved remarkably well until that moment, entered Pau
ignominiously at the end of a long tow-rope. As it took ten days to
make the repairs necessary, they used the interval of waiting to go by
train to Lourdes. It was the particular time when pilgrims go to seek
the healing waters of the miraculous fountain, and they saw many sad
and depressing sights--for the lame, the halt, the blind, people
afflicted with every sort of disease, and some even in the last
agonies, crowded the paths in a pitiful procession. Mrs. Stevenson
afterwards said that when she saw the blind come away from the sacred
fount with apparently seeing eyes, and the lame throw away their
crutches and walk, she was, as King Agrippa said unto Paul, "almost
persuaded" to believe.
Gladly putting this picture behind them, they went on to
Bagnères-de-Bigorre, a little village nestling at the base of the
Pyrenees. The weather there was perfect, and the whole atmosphere of
the place so sweetly simple and unsophisticated that Mrs. Stevenson
loved it best of all. After six pleasant days spent there, the motor
now mended, they returned by train to Pau and resumed their trip--due
east to Carcassonne, that lovely, lovely city, with its mediæval
ramparts and towers, and then on to Cette on the Mediterranean, where
they landed in a storm.
And so north, almost paralleling their first trip, they ran through
Mende, Bourges, and Montargis, and one rainy afternoon passed within
sight of the village of Grez, where so many years before Fanny
Osbourne first met Louis Stevenson, but the memories that it brought
were too poignant, and she was only able to give one look as they sped
swiftly by.
Arriving in Paris on October 3, after this leisurely journey through
beautiful France, they remained but a few days there and then went on
to London, where they met the Favershams and sailed in company with
them for America on the _Vaterland_. With but a brief stop in New York
they hastened on to San Francisco to carry out a certain plan that had
been formulated while they were in France. Oddly enough, it was on the
other side of the world that Mrs. Stevenson first heard of beautiful
Stonehedge, the place at Santa Barbara which became the home of her
last days. At Monte Carlo she met Mrs. Clarence Postley, of
California, who dilated on the charms of the Santa Barbara place--its
fine old trees, its spring water, its romantic story of being haunted
by the ghost of a beautiful countess--until finally Mrs. Stevenson
said that if it was as charming as that she would buy it. After her
return to California she went to see it, and, finding it even more
lovely than she had been told, the bargain was struck. It had been
evident for some time, too, that her health required a warmer climate
than that of San Francisco, and, above all, she longed for a place
where she might live more in the open than the winds and fogs of the
bay city permitted. So, though she was very sad at leaving the house
on the heights where she had lived long enough for her heart-strings
to take root, she sold it in 1908 and removed to the southern place,
there to enter on a new phase of her life.
The house at Hyde and Lombard Streets, following out the curious
fatality that made everything connected with her take on some romantic
aspect, became for a time the abode of Carmelite Sisters, the Roman
Catholic Order whose strict rules require its devotees to live almost
completely cut off from the world. The long drawing-room, where Mrs.
Stevenson had entertained so many of the great people of the earth,
became the chapel, and in place of the light laughter and gay talk
that once echoed from its walls only the low intoning of the mass was
heard. At the front door, where the Indian pagan idols had kept guard,
a revolving cylinder was placed so that the charitable might put in
their donations without seeing the faces or hearing the voices of the
immured nuns. In the green garden where Mrs. Stevenson had so often
walked and dreamed of other days the gentle sisters knelt and prayed
that the sins of the world might be forgiven.