section7mfu | The 'Correspondence' Affair #31 - September 3, 1913 (Alexander to Millicent)

From : London, England

September 3, 1913

My dearest Millicent,

I was glad to hear that the foray from your school did not affect your grades too adversely. I cannot even begin to imagine the effects that something like that would have had on my own scores in the day. It isn't that I did poorly, mind you. I believe I was at the top of my forms, but some of those scores came with heavy studying on my part.

The news that you are happy with the changes in your arrangements is quite a relief. There were things occurring behind the scenes of which I was unaware of at the time that hurried things along faster than I had expected. Apparently the same individual I mentioned that was not sympathetic to His Lordship's intent to wed you is the same one that put a bug in Her Majesty's ear about the unrest in Europe and the effects that might have on English born children attending schools on the continent.

Two nights ago, I was invited to attend the opening night of a new play by Shaw called 'Androcles & the Lion' by Evelyn Stagg (who I believe I have mentioned in a previous letter) and her betrothed, one Gerald Harwood. Rather a short play but enjoyable enough though I admittedly am not often fond of slapstick comedy. I am certain that I received a few stares when I had to cover a laugh with a cough. One on the main characters names was Lavinia.

Lawrence and I did have a rather enjoyable time together before he departed to spend some time with his family. He is of the same opinion as you are that I need to try and see Carchemish one day and, if the region ever settles enough, I should like to go. With my current position in the diplomatic branches, however, getting permission to travel in that area is currently out of the question. Plus, I am currently far too occupied with my work to be able to take off a sufficient amount of time that the journey would require.

By the time this letter reaches you, I will likely be on my way to Athens, Greece. I am to be accompanying Sir William Seeds as he leaves his post at the British Embassy there to take up his new role of Chargé d'Affaires and British Consulate General in Lisbon, Portugal. I will be covering a great deal of ground so I will likely not get a chance to see any letters from you until sometime around November. I will send along postcards from some of my stops so that you can have an idea of where I might be at a given time.

You made a request for some background on my family, so I will endeavor to do so. I will start with my immediate family in this letter and cover the other portion in the next, otherwise I fear it will be too much for one sitting.

My father was Jonathan Arthur Waverly – I was told that my mother used to jest that, with his initials, having a prominent jaw was inevitable. He was born in 1864 at Keyford, Somerset. My mother was Leslee Fia McGregor born in 1873 at Inverness, Scotland. Her own mother was from the Angus district and lived in Brechin which is about five miles from Edzell where some of her relatives still live (the ones I visited during the Christmas season).

Their meeting was a highly unlikely one. My father traveled to Scotland at the invitation of an old friend of his mother's - Sir Benjamin Baker, the same civil engineer who was one of the primary designers of the Metropolitan Railway in London. It was in 1890 that a bridge he helped design, the Forth Bridge that connects Edinburgh to Fife, was opened on the fourth of March.

It was an extremely important event - the Prince of Wales was there to drive the final rivet, so there were a great many in attendance beyond my father. How he and my mother caught one another's eyes? That tale I was never told, but they wed exactly one year after that meeting, on March 4, 1891. I myself entered the picture just a bit over a year later on April 21, 1892. By that time, my parents had settled in Northamptomshire.

My mother developed an illness when I was about four. The exact nature of it is unknown to me as, of course, it would not have been something discussed around a child of my years. However, it could not be hidden from me that she was not well as she went from being my primary care-giver to someone I was allowed to visit in her bedchamber on good days, so obviously whatever it was, it was not contagious. She eventually was able to leave her sickbed by the time I was seven. Her health was never really the same. She was expecting to give birth when her final collapse came. As you came into the world at the start of the 1900s, she departed it a few weeks past my eighth birthday. My younger brother, Peter, only survived her by two days.

My father never remarried, but one of my mother's sisters, Avelina, came down to join our household and take over raising me as my father threw himself into his work. I did not see a great deal of him during the remainder of my pre-teen years. I did not spend much time at home myself. Come the fall of 1900, I was enrolled at Wellingborough. I boarded there, spending only the holidays at home, and finished my education there in 1910. My father was there to see my graduation and presented me with tickets for travel on the continent as he had the view that it would help finish rounding out my learning.

It had been intended that I would be gone until my twentieth birthday. I had already spent several months in France and had traveled on to Italy. I had been there for about four months when I cut my intended travels short when the news reached me that my father had been injured in a train collision at Stalybridge on June 7, 1911. He unfortunately succumbed to his injuries before I was able to return. I do regret that we never had an opportunity to ever really speak man to man.

Of course, you know very well where I was in April of last year. An unexpected turn in my life, but I certainly cannot say that it did not have its rewards. It has been nearly a year and a half since we first met and I hope the acquaintance has been as enjoyable for you as it has been for me. You are a remarkable young lady and I have no doubts that you will develop into an equally remarkable young woman. I have hopes that we will maintain our correspondence so that I can continue to watch the transformation, albeit from afar.

Yours as always,

Alexander

#1 - #2 - #3 - #4 - #5 - #6 - #7 - #8 - #9 - #10 - #11 - #12 - #13 - #14 - #15
#16 - #17 - #18 - #19 - #20 - #21 - #22 - #23 - #24 - #25 - #26 - #27 - #28 - #29 - #30

The 'Correspondence' Affair #31 - September 3, 1913 (Alexander to Millicent)

no subject