1918 Letter 2
Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire Club for Canadian Nurses
95, Lancaster Gate, W. 2.
Friday April 12, [1918]
Dearest Mother –
I am enclosing Don’s last letter to show you he is O.K. I am sorry he isn’t going to make England, but at any rate it will be some little time before he goes back up the line. I am sure you must have been awfully anxious. I cabled you as soon as I heard he was wounded and hope it relieved you a bit. Poor Mother you are having the worst time of us all, and we all must seem very far away from you.
The news isn’t very good. Myra is here and has just left for Treport in a state of chaos. Orders to evacuate had come through and there were only a few Sisters left. Later they took in convoys and there seemed less likelihood of their closing down but when Treport is in the war zone the situation is bad for it is away back. Of course Amiers is still ours but we have lost a terrific lot of ground all the same.
London is deserted for there is absolutely no leave from France. The theatres are only half full.
I am staying at the Club. It was the Minto’s town house and most of their things are still here. The I.O.D.E. pay the rent and the club fees keep it up. It has only been open for a couple of months. You can imagine what a longfelt want it is filling. It is so much nicer than going to a hotel. The service is excellent and for two guineas a week it is remarkably cheap.
Myra goes to Orpington to-day to wait for Transport Duty and I am going out of town for 3 days with Squire who is on leave.
I got a week’s sick leave after all – and go to Matlock Bath on Tuesday. It isn’t hard there and I know I shall like it.
Eric is still at Seaford and goes to Bexhill the 22nd, he thinks. He is feeling all right again. I thought of going down there for a day or two but it is a poor sort of town and I should see very little of him. Anyway he will be getting kit leave in a month or two and will come up to Matlock for a week I hope.
It is a great relief to know they are both safe if only for a while.
I haven’t heard from G. naturally. I have been awfully upset over it all. For it happened so suddenly in a way. Time may change things but of course one never can tell. I simply can’t write about it – it seems too childish in cold print. I was in a nervous state, not feeling very fit, and several things had worried me till perhaps I viewed it all from a perspective out of all proportion. What worries me most is that it seems such a cheap thing to have done. But at the time it seemed the only thing and as I did it I can’t cry over of it. I am sorry for your sake too as I know you will wonder and wonder whether after all I did right. But it just seemed this way Mother – I hadn’t much to offer, and if he didn’t think I really cared for him he would have only one other thought and that would be that I was marrying him for what I’d get out of it. Of course I suppose that sounds silly to you - it does to me now – but at the time it didn’t. As you say he is much older than I am, and he has lived his life, including his marriage and other things and looking at it that way you may say I am well out of it. But on the other hand I have seen so much of the world myself that those things didn’t worry me, and I had told him his life before I knew him was none of my affair and if we could be happy that was all I cared about, and I didn’t go back on that. I didn’t say a single thing that I regret – that is my greatest comfort.
I am writing Mrs. Sutherland to-night. I couldn’t do it before, as I was so afraid I’d say the wrong thing. But I think now I can do it, and it has to be done.
Well I must stop now. With ever so much love, I am -
Yours always.
Helen.