Crompton Llewelyn Davies to Sylvia du Maurier - 18

Description

Letter from Crompton Llewelyn Davies to Sylvia, 16 May 1890.

[No original available]

Transcription

Trinity College, Cambridge.

May 16. [1890]

Dear Sylvia,
It was a great pleasure to get your letter. You must enjoy being back in your house at Hampstead. I don’t know your exact address, so I will try what effect “Frognal” has on the postman; tho’ for the ordinary traveller it is simply bewildering to see endless “Frognals” stuck up in all directions for miles round the heath. Whatever is Frognal? A road, or a village, or a county, or what?
If we could have arranged for you to be here this week, you might have heard a performance of Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice, got up in the theatre by Stanford, with a chorus of
80 Cambridge men and women. It was prettily got up, and the music is very pretty, not too severe.
We are having grand weather and make the most of it with tennis and such. I keep up the habit of early bathing in the river, tho’ it doesn't come up to Lune bathing. I am afraid Arthur doesn’t manage to get a dip in the Mersey!
The vicarage at Kirkby is almost deserted now. Mother is having a terribly anxious time at Cromwell Place. It is rather horrible for us to be going on here just as usual with our occupations quite away from her while she is in such anxiety and trouble. You do not know what Uncle Charley has been to us all.
When are you going to Liverpool? And how much of the summer are you going to give us at K.L.? Meanwhile, it is delightful to think of seeing you here. What do you think of Sat. May 31 and days following? You must let us know how many of you to expect, and we will make arrangements for lodgings. It was nice of you to agree to come.
Ever yr. aff.
Crompton Ll.D.

I have no record of any visit by S. either to Arthur and Maurice at Liverpool or to Crompton and Theodore at Cambridge. This is natural enough: all his letters to S. and hers to him were destroyed*, and the visit to Cambridge need not have resulted in any letter from Crompton or Theodore. There seems to be no clear reason why this particular letter of Crompton's should have been preserved by S., and I have only thought it worth copying for the sake of the evidence it contains of the significance of Charles Crompton to the Ll.D. family. It is rather surprising, by the way, in view of the high regard in which Theodore was held by S. (as shown in her “last words”) that no letters to her from him should have survived; but it may be that I destroyed some myself before I thought of constructing this mausoleum.

[* as per Sylvia's request in her Will]