But about your mother—for it is necessary you should know all I can tell you in case you have to answer questions as to your parentage. Your mother's name was, as you know, Mary Vavasour. It is a common name in South Wales though it seems to be Norman French. She came to our Pontystrad school as a teacher in 1873. Her father was something to do with mining at Merthyr. I fell in love with her—she had a sweet face—and married her in 1874. You were born two years afterwards. Bridget had been my housekeeper before I was married and I asked her to stay on lest your mother should be inexperienced at first in the domestic arts. They never got on well together and when Mary had recovered from her confinement and seemed disposed to take up housekeeping I sent away poor Bridget reluctantly and only took her back after your mother's flight. Bridget was a second mother to you as you know, though I fear you never showed her much affection till these later days.
October 23.
My eyes seem to be improving instead of getting tired with the new delights of reading and writing. I owe all this to you and to the clever oculist at Clifton. Dr. Murgatroyd from Pontyffynon looked in here the other day, to ask about your return. He seemed almost to grudge me my restored sight because I had got it from other people's advice. Said he could have advised an operation only he never believed my heart would stand it. When I told him they had mixed the anæsthetic with oxygen he became quite angry—and exclaimed against these new-fangled notions. But I must not use up my new found energy writing about him. I want to finish my letter in a business-like fashion so that you may know all that is necessary to be known about yourself and your position. You may have at any moment to answer questions before you get called to the Bar, and with your defective memory—I am glad to hear things in the past are becoming clearer to you—I am sure with God's grace you will wholly recover soon from the effects of your wound and your illness—What was I writing? I meant to say that you ought to know the main facts about your family and your position.
I was an only son. Your grandfather was a prosperous farmer and auctioneer. You have distant cousins, Vaughans and Williamses, and some others living at Shrewsbury named Price. I have written to none of them about your return because they never evinced any interest in me or my concerns. Your mother's people, her Vavasour relations at Cardiff—did not seem to me to be very respectable, though her father was a well-educated man for his position. He died—I heard—in a mine accident.
I am not poorly off for a Welsh clergyman. My mother—a Price of Ystrwy—wanted me to go into the Church and prevailed on your grandfather to send me first to Malvern and next to Cambridge. It was at Cambridge that I met your comrade's father—Sam Gardner, I mean. He was rather wild in his college days and to tell you the truth, I never cared to keep up with him much—he had such very rowdy friends. My mother died while I was at Cambridge and in his later years your grandfather married again—his housekeeper—and rather muddled his affairs, because at one time he was quite well off.
After I was ordained he purchased for me the advowson of this living. All that came to me from his estate, however, was a sum of about eleven thousand pounds. This used to bring me in about five hundred pounds a year, and in addition to that was the fluctuating two hundred and fifty pounds income from my benefice. I took about three thousand pounds out of my capital to pay the debts you ran up, to article you to Mr. Praed; and, I must admit, to get my "Tales from Taliessin" and "Legends of the Welsh Saints" privately printed at Cardiff. I am afraid I wasted much good money on the desire to see my Cymraeg studies in print.
Well: there I am! with about eight or nine thousand pounds to leave. I have not altered my will—leaving it all to you, subject to an annuity of £50 a year to your faithful Nannie. I was projecting an alteration in case of your death, when you most happily returned. I may live another ten years yet. You have put new life into me. One charge, however, I was going to have laid on you; while you were with me I could not bear to speak of these matters. If at any time after I'm gone you should come across your unhappy mother and find her in distressed circumstances, I bid you provide for her, but how much, I leave entirely to your judgment. Meantime, here I am with an income of nearly £700 a year. I live very simply, as you see, but I give away a good deal in local charity. The people are getting better wages now; in any case they are usually most ungrateful. I feel I should be happier if I diverted some of this alms-giving to you. You must find this preparatory life very expensive. You must let me send you twenty-five pounds every half-year for pocket money. Here is a cheque on the South Wales Bank for the first instalment. And remember, if you are in any difficulty about your career that a little money can get over do not hesitate to apply to me.
Your loving father,
Howel Vaughan Williams.
P.S. I have taken five days to write this but see how steady the handwriting is. It is a pleasure to me to look on my own handwriting again. And I feel I owe it all to you! I also forgot in the body of the letter to tell you one curious thing. You know we are here on the borders of an interesting vein of limestone which runs all round the coal beds. I dare say you remember as a boy of fifteen or so spraining your ankle in Griffith's Hole? Well Griffith's Hole turns out to be the entrance into a wonderful cave in the limestone. Hither came the other day a party of scientific men who think that majestic first chapter of Genesis to be a Babylonian legend! It appears they discovered or thought they discovered the remains of Ancient man in Griffith's Hole. I invited them to tea at the Vicarage and amongst them was a very learned gentleman quite as wise as but less aggressive than the others. He was known as "Professor Rossiter"; and commenting on the similarity of my name with that of a "very agreeable young gentleman" whom he had recently seen in Gower, it turned out that you were an acquaintance of his. He thinks it a great pity that you are reading for the Bar and wishes you had taken up Science instead. At any rate he hopes you will go and see him in London one day—No. 1 Park Crescent. Portland Place.
H. V. W.