EUROPE AND THE BRITISH ISLES
When the newly married pair reached Scotland all the fears of the American bride vanished like mist before the sun, for her husband's parents instantly took her to their hearts as though she had been their own choice. In The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson Sir Sidney Colvin says:
"Of her new family Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, brought thus strangely and from afar into their midst, made an immediate conquest. To her husband's especial happiness, there sprang up between her and his father the closest possible affection and confidence. Parents and friends, if it is permissible for one of the latter to say as much, rejoiced to recognize in Stevenson's wife a character as strong, as interesting, and romantic as his own; an inseparable sharer of all his thoughts, and staunch companion of all his adventures; the most open-hearted of friends to all who loved him, the most shrewd and stimulating critic of his work; and in sickness ... the most devoted and efficient of nurses."
Mr. Edmund Gosse writes in the Century Magazine, 1895:
"He had married in California a charming lady whom we all learned to regard as the most appropriate and helpful companion that Louis could possibly have secured."
Concerning her relations with her mother-in-law, another friend, Lady Balfour, writes:
"It is a testimonial both to her and to Mrs. Thomas Stevenson that though they were as the poles apart in character, yet each loved and appreciated the other most fully." How different they were in training and ideas of life is illustrated by a trivial incident that occurred when the younger woman was visiting at the home of her husband's parents in Scotland. Her mother-in-law asked her if she never "worked." In some surprise she replied that she had indeed worked, and then found out that the elder lady meant fancy-work. Thereupon the two went out shopping and bought all the things needful for a piano-cover to be embroidered with roses. In a few days the piano-cover, exquisitely finished, was triumphantly brought for Mrs. Thomas Stevenson's inspection, but that lady, shocked at this American strenuousness, threw up her hands and exclaimed: "Oh, Fanny! How could you! That piece should have lasted you all summer!"
Thomas Stevenson, however, was far more formidable; to the female members of his family his word was law, but to his pretty daughter-in-law he capitulated—horse, foot, and dragoons—and his son was heard to say that he had never seen his father so completely subjugated. It is true, on the other hand, that she made every effort to please him, and took pains not to offend his old-fashioned and rigidly conventional ideas. For instance, when he objected to black stockings, which were just then coming into vogue for ladies, she yielded to his prejudice and always wore white ones while at his house. He had a deep respect for her judgment in literary matters, and made his son promise "never to publish anything without her approval." This regard was mutual, and she said of him: "I shall always believe that something unusual and great was lost to the world in Thomas Stevenson. One could almost see the struggle between the creature of cramped hereditary conventions and the man nature had intended him to be." As his health failed he grew to depend upon her more and more, and there was between them an interchange of much friendliness and many little jests. A rather amusing thing happened once when the two were together in London picking out furnishings for the house he had bought for her at Bournemouth. One afternoon they dropped in at a hotel for tea. It had been ordered by the doctors that he should have bicarbonate of soda in his tea, which it seems he did not like if he saw it put in, but if he did not see it never knew the difference. When the tea was brought his daughter-in-law, having diverted his attention, slyly dropped in the soda. Glancing up, she saw in the looking-glass the reflection of the horrified face of the waiter. When she told this story to her husband he immediately began to weave a thrilling plot around the suspicion that might have fallen upon her if her father-in-law had happened to die suddenly just then, especially as his son was his chief heir. Uncle Tom, as she usually called him, had all sorts of pet names for her, but the usual remark was "I doot ye're a besom."[18] She was in all ways a true daughter to him, a comfort in his old age and last distressing illness, and when he died she mourned him sincerely.
To the Scotch servants in her mother-in-law's house she was something of an enigma. One of them told her she "spoke English very well for a foreigner." One day she heard two of them talking about a Mr. McCollop who had just returned from Africa. "He's merrit a black woman," said one, and in a mirror the other was seen to point to Mrs. Stevenson's back and put her finger to her lips, as though to say: "Don't mention black wives before her!"
It was soon seen that Louis could not face a Scotch winter, with its raw winds and cold, drizzling rains, and sometimes his wife felt regrets for the sunny perch on the California mountainside, where health and strength had once come back to him so marvellously. It was finally decided to try the dry, clear air of Davos Platz, in the high Alps of Switzerland, which was just then coming into prominence as a cure for lung diseases, and in October, 1880, the little family, husband, wife, and the boy, Lloyd Osbourne, set forth on the arduous journey thither.