1 Please return to Lil finally.

Mater
Edmund
Mabel
Rex 3 Dec. 15. My dear folks We are now settled in our new Chateau & so
I expect we shall not stay much longer. In fact we already
have the feeling of more work in the air which usually presages a move We are on a big river of Fr , but like most French rivers it is not
very beautiful. The chateau is rather fine with 2 big bastions
of white stone many centuries old & marked with many stone
bullet holes, but the French neither then nor later have
learnt how to build houses, & the interior is gloomy, when it
could have been so fine. The walls of white stone have been
covered with cheap red canvas outlined with dark blue, with
fine wood panelling on the walls & the ceiling. One of course
has no passage & has to go through most of the rooms to
get anywhere, but my little loft up high is luckily to itself,
a great relief when one likes to be asleep before midnight. The weather has been really bad & the poor chaps in the
trenches must really be having a terrible time from what I
saw of them before. I expect we shall have to relieve them soon,
but I count every day that passes as a day gained towards next
summer. I have just heard that Lily is to go on a mission to Belfast
It really is rather an honour to have been chosen, but perfectly heroic 2 on her part — poor sailor that she is — to undertake it. I do hope
that she may get a glimps at
Rex, tho' I expect that her movements make plans very uncertain. I hope to get time to see Gen' Rimington of the Indian Cavy
Corps who has sent me a warm pressing invitation to lunch or dinner.
He is a strong Ulsterman which accounts for his kindness as I
have never met him. I hope Douglas has brought back good news of his wife &
that he has turned up at 24 again. He wrote me a line show-
ing that he had really appreciated Mater's hospitality & Jessie's
kindness. I thought that we should lose Capt Richardson — the GSO 3—
with whom I have now been working so cordially for 6 months, but
he has decided not to go in for a special course in spite of my
strong advice. that he should. I know you won't like Lily going off to Ireland but it
is certainly a case of duty call & I hope she may prove as
good an ambassad a kind o a traveller as did Mater & Jess at this
time last year. Was it only last year? Mater has been most good in writing but many
letters of the others do not now reach me. I see Lord K is back in London. I hope he will
take over again at the War Office tho' no one expected this. Best love Wilfrid . B Spender