Towards the end of October, David received at Fig Tree Court a letter from his father in Glamorganshire.
Pontystrad Vicarage,
October 20, 1901.
My dear Son,—
The improvement in my sight continues. I can now read a little every day, by daylight, without pain or fatigue, and write letters. I feel I owe you a long one; but I shall write a portion each day and not try my eyes unduly.
I am glad to know you are now settled down in chambers at Fig Tree Court in the Temple and have begun your studies for the Bar. You could not have taken up a finer profession. What seems to me so wonderful is that you should be able to earn your living at the same time and be no charge on me. I accept your assurances that you need no support; but never forget, my dear Son, that if you do, I am ready and willing to help. You sowed your wild oats—perhaps we both exaggerated the sins of the wild years—at any rate you have made a noble reparation. What a splendid school the Colonies must be! What a difference between the David who left me five years ago for Mr. Praed's studio and the David who returned to me last summer! I can never be sufficiently thankful to Almighty God for the change He has wrought in you! No lip religion, but a change of heart. I presume you explained everything to the Colonial Office after you got back to London and that you are now free to take up a civil career? The people out there never sent me any further information; but the other day one of my letters to you (written after I had received the sad news) returned to me, with the information that the hospital you were in had been captured by the Boers and that you could not be traced. I enclose it. You can now finish up the story yourself and let the authorities know how you got away and returned home.
The other day that impudent baggage Jenny Gorlais came and asked to see me ... she said her husband was out of work and refused to give her enough money to provide for all her children, that he had advised her to apply to you for the maintenance of your son! Relying on what you had told me I sent for Bridget and we both told her we had made every enquiry and now refused absolutely to believe in her stories of five years ago—that we were sure you were not the father of her eldest child. Bridget, for example, believed the postman was its father. Jenny burst into tears, and as she did not persist in her claim my heart was moved, and I gave her ten shillings, but told her pretty plainly that if she ever made such a claim again I should go to the police. You should have heard Bridget defending you! Such a champion. If you want a witness to character for your references you should call her! She is loud in your praise.
October 22.
There is one thing I want to tell you; and it is easier to write it than say it. Your mother did not die when you were three years old—much worse: she left me—ran away with an engineer who was tracing out the branch railway. He seemed a nice young fellow and I had him often up at the Vicarage, and that was the way he repaid my hospitality! He wrote to me a year afterwards asking me to divorce her. As though a Clergyman of the Church of England could do such a thing! I had offered to take her back—not then—it would have been a mockery—but by putting advertisements into the South Wales papers. But after her paramour's letter—which I did not answer—I never heard any more about her....
["Damn it all," said David to himself at this juncture of the letter—he was training himself to swear in a moderate, gentlemanly way—"Damn it all! Whatever I do, it seems I cannot come from altogether respectable stock."...]
You grew up therefore without a mother's care, though good Bridget did her best. When you were a child I fear I rather neglected you. I was so disappointed and embittered that I sought consolation in the legends of our beloved country and in Scriptural exegesis. You were rather a naughty boy at Swansea Grammar School and somewhat of a scamp at Malvern College—Well! we won't go over all that again. I quite understand your reticence about the past. Once again I think the blame was mine as much as yours. I ought to have interested myself more in your pursuits and games ... what a pity, by the bye, that you seem to have lost your gift of drawing and painting! I do remember how at one time we were drawn together over the old Welsh legends and the very clever drawings you made of national heroes and heroines—they seemed to come on you as quite a surprise when I took them out of the old portfolio.