Then came the parting, which proved to be eternal, for I never saw him again; but perhaps it is better to remember him only as he was then—before the rainbow hues of youth had faded.
To this picture, which represents my own personal recollections of the California period,[17] something yet remains to be added. Many obstacles seemed to block the path to happiness of these two people, not the least of which was Louis's ill health and consequent inability to earn a sufficient sum to support new obligations. To his great joy this difficulty was finally smoothed away by a promise from his father of an allowance large enough for their needs until such time as restored health might bring about his independence. I remember the day this word came from his father, and the exceeding happiness it gave him. While it is true that his parents had at first objected to his marriage, their objections were based, not on the matter of the divorce, for they held extremely liberal views on that subject, but simply on the fact of his choice being an American and a stranger. They would, quite naturally, have preferred a daughter-in-law of their own race and acquaintance, but both were intensely attached to their only and gifted son, and, although his decision caused their own plans to "gang agley," when they found that his mind was irrevocably made up, they yielded without reserve, and prepared to welcome their new daughter to their home and hearts. Writing at this time to his friend Mr. Edmund Gosse, Stevenson expressed his satisfaction at the turn affairs were taking in these words:
"Many of the thunderclouds that were overhanging me when last I wrote have silently stolen away, like Longfellow's Arabs; and I am now engaged to be married to the woman whom I have loved for three years and a half. I will boast myself so far as to say that I do not think many wives are better loved than mine will be."
When the rain-clouds at last rolled away, and the snow had melted from the mountain-tops in the Coast Range, Fanny Osbourne and Robert Louis Stevenson went quietly across the bay and were married, on May 19, 1880, by the Reverend Mr. Scott, with only Mrs. Scott and Mrs. Virgil Williams as witnesses. It was a serious, rather than a joyous occasion, for both realized that a future overcast with doubt lay before them. In 1881 Stevenson wrote from Pitlochry in Scotland to Mr. P. G. Hamerton:
"It was not my bliss that I was interested in when I was married; it was a sort of marriage in extremis; and if I am where I am, it is thanks to the care of that lady, who married me when I was a mere complication of cough and bones, much fitter for an emblem of mortality than a bridegroom."
As for her, she married him when his fortunes, both in health and finances, were at their lowest ebb, and she took this step in the almost certain conviction that in a few months at least she would be a widow. The best that she hoped for was to make his last days as comfortable and happy as possible, and that her self-sacrifice was to receive the bountiful reward of fourteen rich years in his companionship, during which time she was to see him win fame and fortune by the exercise of his genius, was far from her dreams.
At the time of their marriage they took with them Mrs. Stevenson's son, Samuel Lloyd Osbourne, her daughter having been married a short time before to Joseph Strong, a well-known artist of the Pacific Coast. Mr. Stevenson took this boy, then about twelve years of age, to his heart as his own. In fact he always counted it as one of the blessings that came through his wife that she brought to him, a childless man, a son and daughter to be a comfort to him in all the years of his life. In his talk at his last Thanksgiving dinner he referred to this as one of his chief reasons for gratitude.
In the healing air of Mount Saint Helena the invalid grew better with astonishing rapidity, and at the end of June he wrote to his mother:
"You must indeed pardon me. This life takes up all my time and strength. I am truly better; I am allowed to do nothing, never leave our little platform in the canyon nor do a stroke of work. No one to see me now would think I was an invalid."
When, in 1883, his mother expressed surprise that such a rough place should have been chosen for his cure, her daughter-in-law answered: