Mary Llewelyn Davies to Sylvia du Maurier - 1890

Description

Letter from Mary Llewelyn Davies to Sylvia, 25 June 1890.

[No original available]

Transcription

73, Cromwell Place,
25th June, 1890.

Dearest Sylvia,
I know you will grieve to hear that my darling brother [Charles] died this morning. He became worse a day or 2 ago, and they telegraphed for me to come up yesterday. He did not, I think, know me, and was quite unconscious through the night. We are thankful he did not suffer, and the end came very peacefully and gently. It is a most bitter disappointment after all our hopes, and I feel terribly crushed. He has been the dearest and closest friend of all my life. I wish you had known him. I don't know if Arthur will come for the funeral wh. is to be at Willesden Ch. Yard on Saturday at 11. My Husband and Margt. are coming.
Farewell. I know yr. kind heart will feel for us all.
Your loving,
M.Ll.D.

The death of the eldest of the Cromptons was doubtless a heavy blow to all the family. Without anything more to go on than his few but charming letters to A., and his gift of £50 to him when he got his Trinity scholarship, I guess that he was not only beloved by them all, but helped them financially in a small way from time to time. As we shall see, he left some of them at least invaluable legacies; in A's case the legacy probably helped to make his marriage possible. I also surmise that his death made it easier for A. to cut short the Liverpool experiment, which his uncle had so strongly advocated, and return to London, which was obviously what his heart desired, whatever the promptings of his head may have been.
Why was Charles Crompton buried at Willesden? Mystery! Is there any connection between this and the Willesden affair of 187?, when curious things happened in the canal and the Rev. J. Ll.D. was observed playing football? I know not.