Cheyne Walk, Chelsea.
December 25. Christmas Day.
[DEAR MOTHER:]
We are settled here in Darkest Chelsea as though we had
been born here. I am thinking of putting in my time of exile
by running for Mayor. Meanwhile, it is a wonderful place in
which to write the last chapters of "Once Upon a Time." The
house is quite wonderful. In Spring and Summer it must be
rarely beautiful. It has trees in front and a yard and a
garden and a squash court: a sort of tennis you play against
the angles of walls covered smooth with cement. Also a studio
as large as a theatre. Outside the trees beat on the windows
and birds chirp there. The river flows only forty feet away,
with great brown barges on it, and gulls whimper and cry, and
aeroplane all day. I have a fine room, and about the only one
you can keep as warm as toast should be, and in England
never is.
Cecil has engaged a teacher, and a model and he is coming
here to work. He is twenty years old, and called the "boy
Sargent." So, as soon as the British
[Image missing: Turner's House, Chelsea, 118 Cheyne Walk, where the
Davises spent the winter of 1908-9.]
public gets sober, we will begin life in earnest, and both
work hard. I need not tell you how glad I am to be at it. I
was with you all in heart last night and recited as much as I
could remember of "Twas the Night Before Christmas," which
always means Dad to me, as he used to read it to us. How much
he made the day mean to us. I wish I could just slip in for a
kiss, and a hug. But tonight we will all drink to you, and a
few hours later you will drink to us. God bless you all.
DICK.
