Arthur Llewelyn Davies to Mary Llewelyn Davies - 1

Description

Letter from Arthur Llewelyn Davies to his mother Mary, 16 April 1890. "You will find as you get to know [Sylvia] that she feels far more than she says."

[No original available]

Transcription

43 Bentley Road, Liverpool
April, 16 [1890]

Dearest Mother,
You will be glad of a line to hear that we are gradually settling down in our comfortable lodgings. Everything is quite satisfactory and far better than in Craven Terrace, and there is plenty of light though the outlook is gloomy. The bookcases fit in well, and when our pictures are all up I think the room will look very well.
Sylvia tells me she has written to you. You will find as you get to know her that she feels far more than she says, and the better you know her the more good there is to discover. I had a delightful letter from her this morning. We shall write constantly to each other, and no doubt in a long engagement it is better to be generally at a distance.
Maurice and I dined yesterday with the Booths and met the Brodricks and one or two others. They were very kind and friendly, and Mrs Brodrick sang very well.
I shall hope to hear tomorrow from Father about my plans - I wrote yesterday to Walton for his opinion, and have little doubt he will say it is a great opportunity to go to Taylor - but the cost is a great nuisance. However, I think we shall live cheaply here - Mrs Howie proposes to give us dinner for a fixed sum of one shilling or 1/3d, so that the boarders (of whom we see nothing and here little) will be a convenience to us.
Goodbye with much love. You were all most kind and considerate in every way.
Your affect. son,
A.Ll.D.
I hope Margaret is better.

Peter's comments in the Morgue:

This brings to a close the correspondence dealing with the announcement of the engagement, and with Sylvia's first introduction to the Llewelyn Davies family; though she had still to face plenty of other prospective connections-in-law, over all of whom, naturally, her beauty and charm and goodness easily prevailed.
The engagement was to be a long one - two full years - entirely, I take it, in order to give Arthur time to find his feet at the Bar. There are occasional hints, not very easy to follow, as to the steps taken to make the young couple as nearly as possible self-supporting, in subsequent letters. But I have little doubt that, though he had felt bound to follow his Uncle Charles Crompton's advice to settle in Liverpool, Arthur left no stone unturned which might bring him back to London. At any rate, we find in there, at the Temple, at the end of twelve months. The "going to Taylor" referred to in this letter evidently refers to entering the Chambers of some eminent Liverpool barrister, presumably as a pupil.
Charley and Maurice, at the Treasury and the Booth Line, no doubt both earned salaries from the time they left their respective universities; but the first few years at the Bar are are, I believe, almost invariably non-productive, so that Arthur's engagement undoubtedly raised a bit of a problem.