XX Deccan Horse
B.E.F.
France
2.12.16
My dear Mother. I wish you would’nt please give me such shocks. “Read this first” you said & it promptly began all about your will, I imagined the second letter was all going to be about some awful illness you had got! What fools Cox in Marseilles are. The keys were delivered to them I believe, anyhow I’ve written to all concerned & I hope they will turn up. And when they do I think I’ll have those field boots sent out. Would you mind packing them up securely & sending them. I may as well use them.
It was good about the 2 Zeps coming down. Where did Topher say he was, I have’nt heard from him lately, but he must be resting again now. They don’t seem to be able to decide about Jim. I expect he’ll like Hong Kong only the first 10 days of the voyage are rotten, they are quite safe when once past Port Said.
The “Gold Watch” is some use after all, but fancy having all those Tommies traipsing in & out, & how it will stink of smoke.
Ted sounds very swagger in his new Tent, I wrote to him yesterday.
So sorry you’ve had such a cold, I do hope it’s better by now.
You’d better send me a Xmas pudding as everybody seems to get odd things & I must put up a show, but you need’nt bother about sending anything else.
Freezing like blazes & so dull & cheerless.
The Countess’ daughter seems awfully bucked with the music. Trés charmante & elegante or something. I saw her for a sec yesterday.
Best love to all
Yr loving son
Richard
Of course I quite agree with you that the girls should first & foremost be provided for.
Then about Holmwood. I think that would be simplest to put Holmwood together with everything else, & divide up as you suggest. I don’t fancy I should ever live at Holmwood, much as I should like to, & taking everything into consideration it would be best to put Holmwood in with the other things, & me in with the other boys.
My idea has always been that provided all the girls don’t marry, the unmarried ones will live together somewhere, or at anyrate have a small house, with as much of the nice furniture that you’ve got in it. Then we unmarried boys will always look on that place more or less as a home, i.e. if we are working abroad. I’d hate that furniture to be lost.
Of course I quite agree with you that the girls should first & foremost be provided for.
Then about Holmwood. I think that it would be simplest, to put Holmwood together with everything else & divide up as you suggest. I don’t fancy I should ever live at Holmwood, much as I should like to. I am afraid all the girls won’t get married, & surely one or two of them will make a home somewhere together, & we unmarried boys will more or less look on that as a home, i.e. if we are all abroad. Anyhow Holmwood would be too big for them
The section starting “Then about Holmwood” is duplicated in the transcript from the IWM, Their transcriptions are excellent which suggests that Richard had drafted this section of his letter and lost his place when copying it. I can check the original next time I go to the IWM.
