Daily Mail, Saturday, September 11, 2010 S1 Page 47 He was supposedly a diligent student at the University of : but in reality, Robert Louis Stevenson was trawling through the fleshpots of The secret double life of Mr Jekyll and Hyde lonely garret became too much to pyrotechnics left them confused factory on , had tried to possibly left to her own devices in he met the woman that he would bear, he sought solace in the arms and a little bored. He might fancy make him jealous: ‘It never Edinburgh after her family moved marry. True love and sexual fulfil- of two-franc ‘French bitches’. On himself in love with one or two of occurred to me that she thought of to Glasgow. She came originally ment came at a price. returning to Edinburgh, he them but was tongue-tied when it me except in the way of business.’ from Crieff in Perthshire, not far In following Fanny Osbourne to adopted a similar lifestyle along came to expressing his feelings. It was only years later they had a from the Braes of Balquhidder, California and persuading her to with his cousin. When permitted to walk the long chat in a pub and realised although her mother’s family were divorce her faithless husband, As they discussed art and litera- lovely Flora Masson home to her they had been dear friends with- from Prestonpans. Louis caused a scandal so severe ture, love and life in the smoky din university professor father’s home out knowing it: ‘We had much Balquhidder was the historic at home that his distraught par- of Collett’s shebeen, they would in Regent Terrace, he could only to talk about, and she cried – and homeland of James Mor MacGre- ents contemplated leaving Edin- have found it hilarious that the adore from afar as she turned to so did I.’ gor or Drummond, the son of Rob burgh to escape its moral Scottish Association for the Sup- say goodnight at the front door, The one girl Louis did fall in love Roy, who fought bravely for the censure. pression of Licentiousness was blue eyes shining in the lamplight, with in Leith Street was Kate Jacobites at Prestonpans. When Edinburgh society could go hang trying to stamp out nude model- before disappearing inside. And Louis in his forties wrote his novel for all Louis cared but he did regret ling at Edinburgh School of Art, when later he screwed up the Catriona, he made James Mor’s aspects of his youthful conduct. In where Bob was now a student. courage to send her a letter pro- daughter the heroine, with whom 1894, he confessed in a last letter To them, it was another symptom posing marriage, she gently turned David Balfour falls in love. to Bob that he wished he had been of repressive Edinburgh, where in him down. ‘There was no Yet the real daughter of James ‘more chaste’ before marriage the 1870s sex was sanctioned only There was no such embarrass- Mor was called Malie. Were Louis’s and had ‘honoured sex more within the confines of a marriage ment with the working girls in embarrassment reasons for changing the name to religiously’. settlement, subject to the groom’s Leith Street, who were flattered to Catriona Drummond – Kate in Shortly afterwards, at his new social and financial status. While find a young gentleman who Gaelic disguise – cosmetic or home on the South Sea island of neither cousin was particularly treated them as people rather than at working girls’ personal? Samoa, the 44-year-old author proud of his love life, the alterna- commodities. He visited them by There is certainly hard evidence died suddenly of a stroke – possi- tive was years of lonely chastity. day as a friend, not a customer, Drummond, or so the myth says. that he turned his back on a work- bly the result of syphilis contracted Apart from a wealthy father, chatting with them in the brothel When a close friend of his youth ing class girl who could barely at the age of 22. It robbed the Louis had little to commend him kitchen as they washed their white gave her name to a biographer in afford the postage for the many world of untold works of genius. in the marriage market. On the stockings and dried them by the the 1920s, the story seemed letters she sent him, c/o Wilson the As headlines worldwide paid verge of dropping out of university fire in readiness for the night’s incredible. tobacconist. tribute to the memory of a great and practically unemployable, he work. Kate may have been a prostitute, Perhaps under pressure from man, Victorian Edinburgh basked seemed interested in little beyond While the girls viewed most of or simply a girl caught up in the his father, he did not reply and in reflected glory – smiling sweetly scurrilous French novels and Edinburgh’s Mr Hydes with con- seedy side of life on Leith Street. eventually burned them all. In on her newfound favourite son, as the ‘immoral’ poetry of Walt tempt, they liked Louis and felt The story goes that Louis wanted confessing this to a friend, he was if nothing unpleasant had ever Whitman. unusually inhibited about taking to marry her but abandoned her racked by guilt, saying: ‘Don’t I happened. An eight-stone weakling whose him as a customer. At least one after his furious father threatened deserve the gallows?’ clothes hung loose on his 5ft 10in turned him down. Some may even to throw him out of the house. With that, Kate Drummond l Lamplit, Vicious Fairy Land by frame, he lacked the physique to have been a little in love. But was it just a story? Census slipped away into the mists. Louis Jeremy Hodges is serialised free impress the eligible young ladies Later, he would reveal that a girl records show a Peter Drummond eventually followed Bob to the online by the Edinburgh Napier his parents invited to , called ‘Mary H’, an occasional had a tailor’s business in Leith artist colony of Grez-sur-Loing University team at www.robert- where his witty displays of verbal prostitute when not in work at a Street – and a niece called Kate, near Paris, where at the age of 25 louis-stevenson.org