Under the Wide and Starry Sky

CHAPTER 56

“Letters from home!” Maggie Stevenson called out when she returned from her errands in Saranac. Louis helped his mother out of her heavy coat and boots. He heaped them in the corner, where they commenced to steam.

Fanny had a letter from Indianapolis; Louis’s was from Henley in London. The words “Private and Con?dential” were printed in the left-hand corner. Odd, he thought. Perhaps Henley was in rough financial straits and did not want Fanny to see a plea for a loan.
Louis went to his room and sat down on his bed to read the letter.

March 9, 1888

Dear Boy … I am out of key today. The spring, sir, is not what it used to be.… I’ve work in hand; I owe not more than a hundred pounds; I am beginning to make a reputation; my verse is printing, and promises well enough; other joys are in store, I believe; and I’d give the whole lot ten times over for—enfin! Life is uncommon like rot  … If it weren’t that I am a sort of centre of strength for a number of feebler folk than myself, I think I’d be shut of it damn soon …

So, he is down in the dumps again, Louis thought. He pictured his friend as he’d seen him many times, with his big, sad face in his hands.

I  read “The  Nixie”  with  considerable  amazement.  It’s  Katharine’s; surely  it’s  Katharine’s?  The  situation,  the environment, the principal ?gure—voyons! There are even reminiscences of phrase and imagery, parallel incidents— que sais-je? It is all better focused, no doubt; but I think it has lost as much (at least) as it has gained; and why there wasn’t a double signature is what I’ve not been able to understand …

I  wish  you  were  nearer.  Why  the  devil  do  you  go  and  bury  yourself  in  that  bloody  country  of  dollars  and spew? … Lord, you are  4,000 miles from your friends! C’est vraiment trop fort. However, I suppose you must be forgiven, for you have loved me much. Let us go on so till the end. You and I and Charles … ‘Twas a blessed hour for all of us, that day thirteen years syne, when old Stephen brought you into my back kitchen, wasn’t it? Enfin—! We have lived, we have loved, we have su?ered; and the end is the best of all. Life is uncommon like rot; but it has been uncommon like something else, and that it will be so again … is certain. Forgive this babble, and take care of yourself, and burn this letter.

Your friend, W.E.H.

Louis reread the letter and then read it again. It wasn’t the ?rst time Henley had poured out his misery to Louis in desperate agitation. But the paragraph about Fanny’s story was a sudden, vicious punch administered between endearments and self-pitying complaints. Rage

blossomed in Louis’s chest when he read the letter a fourth time. It wasn’t his imagination. Henley was accusing Fanny of plagiarism.

“What is it?” Fanny  asked.  She had come into the room without his notice and was standing behind him. Louis froze. How could he keep the letter from her? He turned slowly, caught her puzzled look, and knew in that moment it was no use trying to hide it. He handed her the letter and watched her face blanch when she came to the paragraph about her story.

“But this is ridiculous … it’s a lie! Katharine told me I could use the story line. She said she wasn’t so interested in the thing anymore and that my idea would change its meaning.” She put a hand to her chest, her ?ngers spread wide. “I don’t understand. You know me, Louis. You know I would never—”

“Calm yourself, Fanny. I will take care of this.”

Louis threw on his coat and boots and went out into the snow. He trudged through the ?elds around the house, playing over in his mind what he could recall of the evening at the Henley’s in London when Katharine told everyone of her story idea. Louis remembered her resistance to Fanny’s suggestions and her refusal to collaborate on the story. But there had been another dinner a year later, at Bournemouth, when Henley admitted he’d had no luck selling the ?nished piece. Louis couldn’t remember Katharine’s story very well, except that it was a paltry, miserable little thing. Fanny had wheedled her again for a chance at it, and Katharine  had  been  hesitant  again.  Having  known  her  from  childhood,  Louis  saw  the wariness in his cousin’s features, heard it in her voice. Yet she had given verbal permission, albeit reluctantly, for Fanny to take it and adapt it. Fanny’s version wasn’t much better, though Louis didn’t know how close they were in phrase. Louis hadn’t lingered on it. He’d written a cover letter to the editor of Scribner’s and sent in Fanny’s story along with his own assignment for the magazine. And they had bought it. Both pieces had appeared in the March issue.

Louis inhaled deeply. It was nearly April and bitterly cold; the freezing air stung his lungs. He would have to write to Katharine to insist that she set straight Henley’s memory before the whole thing became a colossal scandal. It occurred to him that he couldn’t do so, for Henley had marked his letter Private and Confidential. How dare Henley insult my wife and then leave  me  no recourse  to appeal to the  memories of the  others who were  present at that dinner!

Louis walked sullenly back to the house. When he found Fanny in the bedroom, she was heaving the quilt o? their bed to shake it. “I’ve never stolen a thing in my life. Never!” She swung the quilt around and knocked over a pile of books on the bedside table. “How dare he accuse me of such a thing?”

Louis sank down at his desk chair, still wearing the heavy fur coat.  “I don’t remember Katharine’s goddamn story.”

“I changed it. How is this different from what you and all the others have done for years? How is it di?erent from the dozens of ideas I’ve given to you? I o?ered Katharine a double signature, and she didn’t want it. Don’t you see? This nonsense does not concern my story. It  concerns the  fact  that  Henley hates me because I  ‘stole’ you away from him. He has always hinted that I am inferior because I am an American. That business about America being the bloody land of dollars and spew? That is an insult aimed directly at me. How would you feel if he said that about Scotland? Admit it! He’s insanely jealous of you. He can’t bear your success. Now he’s gotten wind you’re famous in America, and it’s the ?nal straw.”

Louis took up his pen and ruined six pieces of paper before he managed to compose a reply to Henley.

March 22, 1888

My dear Henley,

I write with indescribable di?culty; and if not with perfect temper, you are to remember how very rarely a husband is expected to receive such accusations against his wife. I can only direct you to apply to Katharine and ask her to remind you of that part of the business which took place in your presence and which you seem to have forgotten …
When you have refreshed your mind to the facts, you will, I know, withdraw what you have said to me; but I must go further and remind you, if you have spoken of this to others, a proper explanation and retraction of what you shall have said or implied to any person so addressed, will be necessary.

From the bottom of my soul, I believe what you wrote to have been merely reckless words written in forgetfulness and with no clear appreciation of their meaning; but it is hard to think that nay one—and least of all, my friend— should have been so careless of dealing agony. To have in?icted more distress than you have done would have been difficult …

You will pardon me if I can find no form of signature; I pray God such a blank will not be of long endurance.

Robert Louis Stevenson

They lay awake through most of that night, talking into the dark.

“It’s unbearable to think that Katharine and Bob are somehow entangled in this mess,” Louis muttered.  “But I can’t see that Henley would have had the nerve to send such an accusation if he hadn’t spoken to them first about their memory of the facts.”
“Katharine is Bob’s sister. Blood is thicker than water. As for Henley, he’s in love with Katharine. He makes a perfect fool of himself around her. He is making a big show of defending her honor.” Fanny blew her nose furiously and seethed, “I hate them all.”
She ?nally slept, but he could not. “Heavyhearted” didn’t begin to describe the elephant pressing down on his chest. It had long been a joke among them that Henley had the tact of a pachyderm. “I reserve the right to insult my friends,” Henley used to say when they confronted him.

He’d come into Louis’s life when he was in full rebellion against his father. Henley, Bob, and Baxter had become his new family. They swore allegiance to one another a thousand times in taverns, and on deadlines for London, in letters, through serious illnesses and love a?airs gone bad. They had hauled each other out of pubs when they were too drunk to get home by themselves, out of debts and blue funks. They had leveled their true opinions at one another’s work and foibles even when it was painful, because they’d sworn their fealty to Truth. What kind of friend would not give another friend the truth?
That was the card Henley was playing in his letter. As if his friendship superseded Louis’s marriage.

There had been so much give-and-take over the years between friends; Louis never had kept a scorecard. Henley had worked as Louis’s unpaid agent during the early years when they were all near broke. But Louis had shown his own kindnesses to Henley, giving him money, or loaning it when he got married, contributing stories to London for no pay in order to keep Henley’s magazine alive.

When  he examined it now,  he saw  other ways he had repaid Henley  The plays,  for instance. All those hours Louis had spent propping up his old friend by collaborating on plays were hours lost for his own work. He had known it at the time and done it anyway, because he loved Henley despite all his ?aws. He would have risked his life for the man. He could not bear the thought of putting his old friend to the door. But this was not the ?rst rift his friend had caused.

Fanny was right when she said that Henley was jealous of her because she’d  “stolen” Louis.  “He is a man who wants to run the show. He has lost his power over you,” she’d

said, “and he cannot stand it.”

But it was more than that. Henley carried a deep sense within him about the essential unfairness of life. Though they were sworn brothers, he carried a grudge against his best friend. He could not bear that a man like Louis, born into such comfort, could meet with success as an artist so readily. Henley believed he possessed the same talent as Louis but had been been dealt a far more di?cult hand. He bore other scars besides the stump and crutch; he was irrevocably marked by the poverty and loneliness he’d known in childhood.
Part of his struggle was that he was a poet, and poetry was not as marketable as ?ction. He’d had to turn to being an editor. What a bitter pill for him, after all those years of idealizing Art as his life’s purpose. But Henley had made a solid reputation for himself as an editor, and ?nally, his poetry was being recognized as important. A volume of his work had just been published, for God’s sake. Yet it wasn’t satisfying enough that he was succeeding at last as an artist. It seemed he wanted Louis to suffer.

By four A.M, Louis despaired of ever sleeping. He got up from the bed and wrote a cordial letter to Katharine, asking her to set straight the facts of the matter. In a letter to Baxter, he poured out the anguish and rage swirling inside him.

I fear I have come to an end with Henley …