1224/5  Shipworking Sections   R.E.   C.M.F.
No. 194

Dearest Heart,
No letter for three days but that is only a bad thing because I get so quivery about mail time, mid-morning.    But one will be acoming I know, maybe tomorrow.    I had one from Uncle Dunhill, no dunhill, this morning saying he was very short of pipes but was sending me one and sending you the bill, for thirty shillings and some pence, thankyou very much, please.   With a Parker and a dunhill I shall be well set up, and the Big Pipe you sent which is now seasoned and sweet and my little curly root briar which is nice but is wearing parlous thin and has the mouth-piece bit through.    So I have good pipes to look forward to.

So. naughty these next three days, greedy, going to La Boheme this evening, my nice little girl I liked so much last Sunday as Mimi with a ginger muff, and Lucia di Lammermoor tomorrow and on Sunday afternoon Trovatore with what is said by wise man to be the best tenor in that part in Italy.  I go alone each time and this evening it is S.D. and Sam Brown for Mimi’s sake. I have a stage box seat, too. Its five bob a time which is not dear for first tier boxes at good opera. The audience is always all British with a sprinkling of Americans and very appreciative and quiet and noisy at the Been to a Law lecture this afternoon, all about my job. Our law is the same but different, slightly Rough Justice.

I sent a Thing two evenings ago about a monastery, hope it is noisy enough, was a quietish place.  True, all that. They are not always strictly true you know, but in principle they are. Going to have a hot bath in a minute, its five o’clock and then dress up and an early dinner and away in my truck. The Orderly room sergeant and my Sergeant Major are going too, but we aren’t allowed to cohabit in the theatre, they put them in the stalls and us poor officers in the boxes. Class conscious, that is what it is.  Had a ship’s steward in to dinner last night – he gave Ronnie four chickens so we asked him – dead ones – he was on an American ship we were working. He was a Footman, powder footman as he says, in Portland Square and then in 1911 went to the States and Butlered (English Butler) for Millionaires and has droll tales of very drunken and very ignorant American millionaires and their habits.    Funny man, very butlerish. Laughable in a nice way.

How is my small son?    Because that’s what he is if he likes it or not, not an Act of Parliament could make him not my son. As for being small, he can grow out of that.    Does he well? You remarked that he was throwing things at you.    That’s a nice idea, depending on the things.    Bless the boy.   Tell me of his size, teeth and so on. I have the locket with his hair on my lanyard, not very military, is it?    You know, he will gives us glimpses of loveliness and poetry in his growing childhood- sudden unexpected high points, running across the lawn under the trees, some unexpected wise smile, an apt gesture, a picture of sheer wonderment, and these we must remember, to count against the feeling of loss when the time comes when he is himself and ready to walk alone in life and we feel cheated.    Those passing glints of heavenliness must be stored and reckoned in the balance sheet at the end of his dependence.

He shall in due course have a bow and arrows and a horse too. And you shall have bees. Go you and get them.  And if Dickie shoots an arrow in the horse’s bottom and the horse runs away and puts his foot in the beehive and they sting Dickie it will be his fault, won’t it?

But as to bees, can’t you get Uncle Fred Thirlby to get us a hive made, using the proceeds of a Guardian or a Post for it, and get it ready, and warn everyone round you are waiting for tenants? I’d love you to have some bees, not only because of the honey, but you are the kind of person bees would love and its not fair to bees not to let them have you as their Queen-in-chief.  “If you’re waking call me early….for I’m to be queen of the bees, Mummy, I’m to be queen of the bees”. Candy must bee-conscious.  I have a dunhill, you have your bees.  If only a few young and little bees, inexperienced bees. Under the old apple tree at the bottom would be fine-oh. Might sell some honey in Birmingham anyhow, Barrows and such like, if they made any. The hens did, eggs, I mean, so the bees night.  Do consider it, good you.

Bless me, how I like you and the idea of you and the you that excels always the idea of you I have. I am reading the Tempest at the moment, and you have Miranda’s gift of wonder, the greatest gift of all. In the richest days of religion, when it produced its greatest art and its greatest men, it was that sense of Wonder which provided its soul. Children and people like you, those rare, few, have the gift. Keep it carefully.

I am bathed now, and clean and in my party frock and just going down to dinner. The car will be here in half an hour. Then for Mimi with you with me, as near as can be.    I do love you so… Ever David