SOMEWHERE
22/11/1915,
Dear Everybody.
If I am to send you a line this week I must write it now. We, the Misses Hoopers’ Leslie are speeding on our way to Cambridge. We left Blackheath 7.30 AM. & do not expect to get back until about 10 P.M. tonight. We have been rather doubtful about going, because orders might arrive for both of us at any time. However on arrival in London proper, & just before leaving for Cambridge we rung up Mrs Hooper to see if anything had arrived by the morning mail, getting a reply in the negative we proceeded on our journey with
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an easy mind. At best nothing can arrive now before mid-day in which case will leave us free until tomorrow. Expecting to have a very interesting time in Cambridge. We are to meet some Cousins’ of the Hoopers, & one of them is a Prof. in the College. Since writing you last week we have been very busy running around London expecting every day to be the last, & wishing to see all there is to see. So far as London itself is concerned I think we have done very well, but I yet would like to see Oxford & Canterbury, whether that will come off or not remains to be seen.
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Miss Hutton arrived safely, but owing to such bad delivery of mail neither her brother or her father, who were both in London, received their telegrams notifying them of the arrival of Ionic, in time to let them meet her at the docks. The result being that she got right up to St. Pancras before seeing any of them. It was only a fluke that she met her father. It was simply awful the way they were fooled about. Robert Hutton & I were together all the afternoon & at five o’clock he rung up shipping company to see if there was any word of the boat. He got a reply that there was no word.
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At the very moment the boat had been alongside for two hours & they from the office had actually sent him a telegram about an hour before this telling him that the boat was in, yet when he rung up that was the answer he got. The telegram he got at 8.30 P.M. By that time she was just arriving at St Pancras station where she luckily met her father in the station. Robert did not catch them up until about an hour later. He gave her my address & she rung me up on the phone making arrangements to meet next morning at 10 AM. Met them in the morning & spent the day with them.
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By the time this reaches you I suppose Xmas will be over & I sincerely hope you will all have had a good one. Where I will be I have not the faintest idea & care much less, pretty nearly as well in one place as another, unless of course, I did not happen to get away from Weymouth before then. It would be rather pleasant to be in old England for that period wouldn’t it. If my good fortune should carry me so far I am quite sure I could have a good time, for I have received plenty of invitations to spend Xmas with different people. However I will not dwell on so remote a possibility.
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Was surprised the way she bore the news of Bertie’s death. There is no doubt she has had a pretty hard life & just seemed to steel herself against what was to come. She arrived on Thurs & left for Scotland Sat. morning, so you see I saw a good bit of her. The old man is very nice to meet, but I am afraid is a bit of a Turk to his own. I am inclined to think that Miss H. would break up when she got home, she was kept in a whirl while in London, & had no time to think over things. She seemed to shrink from her ordeal in Scotland for it is only when she arrives there that the truth will come to her.
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We are now well on our way to Camb. & I think I had better put the peg in. Seeing that there is another mail in about 4 days I might manage to send a few more lines. However if you don’t hear from me do not be surprised, for we are flying around at Express speed. With very best wishes for the season of the year.
Yours
Affectionately
E.S.McI.
