BRIDGE HOUSE, REDMARLEY, 27th. April.
DEAR SIR,—Excuse the liberty I take in writing to offer you my congratulations on the announcement in the paper yesterday. Master Ger and Miss Kitten came to tea with my wife, and the mistress, with her usual kindness, sent me the paper. When I first knew you, sir, you were very much the size Master Ger is now, and yet it seems but yesterday when I was teaching you to throw a fly just beyond the bridge here. I always look on you as one of our young gentlemen, for you've come amongst us so many years now and always been so free and pleasant, and I hope I may have the pleasure of going out with you often in the future, though Master Ger did say he'd heard that you were thinking of India. If that is so, I hope you'll make a point of coming down for a few days early in June, when the fly will be at its best. If this mild weather continues we ought to get some very sizeable fish.
It's funny to me to think how I've been here twenty-three years come Michaelmas, and when the present Squire came I never thought I should stop, he not being fond of sport. If I may say so, you, sir, had a good deal to do with me stopping on that first summer, me being very fond of children, and then when they came at the Manor House and the mistress always sent them down to be shown to us as soon as ever they went out, I began to feel I'd taken root here, and so I suppose I have.
Master Ger is becoming a first-rate performer on the bugle, he played for us yesterday, quite wonderful it was. My wife begs to join with me in respectful congratulations.—Your obedient servant,
WILLIAM WILLETS.
He wrote to Willets at once, promising to come down at the end of May for a week-end, even if he couldn't get more. He was frightfully busy, for he was one of the instructors at Chatham, and had many other irons in the fire as well. He waited till he knew Mary was in Woolwich and then he wrote to her:—
It was nice of you to send me such pretty grats, and I am truly appreciative. I also had the jolliest letter from old Willets. He promises good sport very shortly, and I shall make a point of turning up at Redmarley when the fly is on the water, if only for a couple of nights, for when Willets foretells "sizeable fish" you know you're in for a first-class thing. It will be queer to be at the Manor House and you away. Only once has that happened to me, the year you were at school, and now "all that's shuv be'ind you" and you're out and dancing about. I shall certainly have urgent private affairs in Woolwich during the next month. Talk of respect! When was I ever anything but grovelling? And once I have gazed upon your portrait in train and feathers I shall be reduced to such a state of timidity you won't know me.
The other day I met your friend Clara Bax selling Votes for Women at the Panton Street corner of Leicester Square, and she hadn't at all a Hurrah face on. I greeted her and bought one of the beastly little papers, and went on my way. But something caused me to look back, and I beheld Miss Bax seemingly in difficulties with two young feller-me-lads, who evidently had no intention of going on. There was no policeman handy—besides, there's a coolness at present between members of the force and the fair militants—so I went back and dealt faithfully with Miss Bax's admirers, and they departed, I regret to say, blaspheming.
Miss Bax seemed rather shaken, the type was evidently new to her, and I suggested that she should quit her pitch for the moment and come and have lunch with me; so we went together to the Petit Riche, where we consumed an excellent omelette; and the bundle of papers, which I, Mary, had nobly carried through the streets of London, sat on a chair between us and did chaperon.
Personally, I see no reason why women should not have votes if they want 'em, but I see every reason why no woman, and above all no young woman, should sell papers anywhere, more especially in Leicester Square. I'd like to give the Panks, and the Peths, and the Hicemen a bit of my mind on the subject. The mere thought of you ever indulging in such unseemly vagaries fills me with horror unspeakable. Talk of the Squire! Pouncing and pitchforks wouldn't be in it with me, I can tell you, and yet Miss Bax isn't an orphan.