Mrs. Godwin to Her Son Richard, in a Letter — Dated September 14, 1916
Your telegram, my dear, dear Dick, I have just replied to, and will now add such facts as I know concerning Vera’s going to Plattsburg. What I can tell you comes through her sister Frances, with whom I have always been more intimate than Vera, even when you two were engaged. And Frances has come several times to the house, now that you are gone. I asked her to.
If the breaking of your engagement was a blow to your pride, my dear boy, think what it was to Vera’s. I don’t know anyone prouder than she. And to publish the fact that you two had changed your minds—! She wanted to go away, but the Wadsworths are nearly as poor as they are proud, and she didn’t feel justified. Then there came a letter from her cousin Dolly, who married that handsome Captain Marsh and was stationed at Plattsburg. Dolly’s husband is now on the border, and Dolly could stand the separation no longer. She was going to Texas, and one of the cousins must come to Plattsburg and take charge of her house. The children wouldn’t be a burden, because there was the very capable nurse who had taken care of them since they were born. And old Colonel Marsh wouldn’t be a bother, having a certain routine which got him through his days very well. Of course it would be very dull with all the officers away from the post, and those at the instruction camp constantly busy. But one of the sisters must come and relieve her, or Dolly would go mad. She is all bound up in that husband of hers.
It was plain that she expected Frances to come, being so domestic, and so old-fashioned-womanly. But Vera, you know, in spite of her suffragism and her feminism has always been kept by her father from having anything to do, and so she had nothing to occupy herself with just when she needed occupation most. So she declared that she must go, and of course Frances let her. “But you know,” said Frances to me, looking up from her sewing with a little twinkle, “I know Vera will be in hot water with the old Colonel from the first, she is so out of sympathy with war, and the military life, and all it has (or hasn’t) to offer women.” That’s her sex independence, you see.
Vera can’t know that you’re there. She went just before you so suddenly made up your mind to go, and Frances hasn’t written her of your going. I told her I shouldn’t tell you, and begged her not to write Vera. And unless Vera recognizes you, which isn’t likely, she will know nothing of your whereabouts.
It is odd that David Farnham is in your squad, and amusing that I should have seen his mother only yesterday. She never was so proud of anything in her life as of the fact that he is at Plattsburg. So she has become a perfect nuisance to her friends, talking of him so. I met her at a Bridge, and she was crazy to see me, David having written her that you two are together. So she got herself put at my table, and our two partners were furious, because the game dwindled away to nothing, she talking of David all the time. You would have thought that he was the whole army and navy of these United States. I was at first quite frightened that she would ask me your opinion of his fitness. But not at all; that was quite settled in her mind. She talked about his deciding to go, and how he made her see that it was the best thing for him and for the country—and there is a story to that, because it was her husband that insisted on her letting David go, when she would have kept him. And she talked of his equipment, how horrid it was that he couldn’t dress like the officers, especially his legs, they are so handsome; but he wasn’t allowed to wear puttees or leather leggings, but must wear those canvas things. And she gave him everything new; she even mentioned those French silk pajamas that so amuse you. And then she was indignant that he was not at once made a lieutenant, or something. And the men in his tent, except you, Dick, are of no social standing whatever. Of course she hadn’t heard of his being called Lucy. She was so satisfied that I wanted to tell her. Do write me more of him.
Lovingly Mother.