The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 05Stevenson, Robert Louis
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The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. 05
Stevenson, Robert Louis
English literature -- 19th century; Fiction
"Since I have been in this house," returned Somerset, "I have myself,
unless it were to fetch beer, rarely gone abroad except in the evening.
But a man," he added, "must have some amusement."
An hour was then agreed on; the gentleman departed; and Somerset sat
down to compute in English money the value of the figure named. The
result of this investigation filled him with amazement and disgust; but
it was now too late; nothing remained but to endure; and he awaited the
arrival of his tenant, still trying, by various arithmetical expedients,
to obtain a more favourable quotation for the dollar. With the approach
of dusk, however, his impatience drove him once more to the front
balcony. The night fell, mild and airless; the lamps shone around the
central darkness of the garden; and through the tall grove of trees that
intervened, many warmly illuminated windows on the farther side of the
square told their tale of white napery, choice wine, and genial
hospitality. The stars were already thickening overhead, when the young
man's eyes alighted on a procession of three four-wheelers, coasting
round the garden railing and bound for the Superfluous Mansion. They
were laden with formidable boxes; moved in a military order, one
following another; and, by the extreme slowness of their advance,
inspired Somerset with the most serious ideas of his tenant's malady.
By the time he had the door open, the cabs had drawn up beside the
pavement; and from the two first, there had alighted the military
gentleman of the morning and two very stalwart porters. These proceeded
instantly to take possession of the house; with their own hands, and
firmly rejecting Somerset's assistance, they carried in the various
crates and boxes; with their own hands dismounted and transferred to the
back drawing-room the bed in which the tenant was to sleep; and it was
not until the bustle of arrival had subsided, and the arrangements were
complete, that there descended, from the third of the three vehicles, a
gentleman of great stature and broad shoulders, leaning on the shoulder
of a woman in a widow's dress, and himself covered by a long cloak and
muffled in a coloured comforter.
Somerset had but a glimpse of him in passing; he was soon shut into the
back drawing-room; the other men departed; silence redescended on the
house; and had not the nurse appeared a little before half-past ten,
and, with a strong brogue, asked if there were a decent public-house in
the neighbourhood, Somerset might have still supposed himself to be
alone in the Superfluous Mansion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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