October 19, 1908
Kelowna, B. C
My dearest Kathleen,
I was awfully pleased to get your letter [i. e. Kathleen–October 6, 1908] today saying it was all settled and that you were going to stay on at Kitebrook. You must have had rather a wretched time of it though. I was sure it would end like that, but every now and then I got rather a shock at the possibility of your leaving and not getting a house in the neighbourhood, and I would prefer you to be somewhere in easy reach of the Cottage next summer. I don’t know whether I am always selfish but I can’t help being so about you. I expect it will be all right now, especially if Geoff goes abroad in February, for I suppose that relations are a little strained at present.
I send you the photographs at last. They are not up to much and really don’t flatter the house by any manner of means. The best one is the one taken from the north showing the front door, or rather the space for the front door, it is on even yet [sic]. The double windows next the door are in the hall and the ones next to them on the other side of a very dilapidated looking chesnut (which will probably be moved) belong to the dining room.
The little windows just above the front door belong to that room that I thought you might like as a special room for yourself. As a matter of fact you made some very nice remarks about special rooms in this house with which I most cordially agree.
The view on the South Side rather disappointed me. It looks very plain and is really the prettiest. It is an improvement though on the other view I send you showing you as it was before alteration, which was taken while the house was being moved. You can just make out the rollers underneath the house. (You will also notice that the accomodation upstairs was limited, being chiefly roof.)
In the improved edition, the downstairs windows and door belong to the sitting room. In the summer I have a screen door to put in which makes the room airy, but in the winter we will hang a thick curtain over the door to keep the cold out. The double windows upstairs belong to the best of the upstairs rooms and you get rather a nice view from them; or to be more correct you will get a nice view from them, for those are the windows that you will most often look out of upstairs.
I don’t know if I ever told you what the house consists of now. Upstairs there is this large room and the little room I said was so nice on one side; and two ordinary rooms, a bathroom, and a linen cupboard on the other side; and downstairs a sitting room, a dining room, a kitchen, and a hall, and that is all. Hardly what you would call a big house, but I think big enough. Before there were a sitting room, dining room, kitchen, and bedroom downstairs; and three little tiny rooms upstairs in the roof, unbearably hot in summer and pretty chilly in winter. I think you are bound to like the house now, if you could only see it.
I will send you the photograph I took of your fireplace as soon as ever I get it, and I hope you will like that. It is different to the fireplaces you have chiefly seen, but it gives out lots of warmth, which is the chief thing, isn’t it? I am slowly getting things into shape outside now, which is rather interesting work. We pulled down an old log stable (that was too near the house when the latter was moved and too old to be any use) last week, and it is a great improvement to have it out of the way.
I played in a tennis tournament last Saturday and Sunday, Handicap Singles. I owe 30, which isn’t as bad as it sounds as it pleased the handicapping committee to make most people owe something or other. I have got as far as the final and we play that off next Sunday and that will about finish the tennis season
Our Batchelors’ Ball last Friday was quite a success. Something like 200 people turned up, nearly all of them in dress clothes, which shows that we are certainly getting civilized out here. The Kelowna Amateur Orchestra provided the music and were really excellent. I have danced to much worse at home. There are about sixteen of them and it makes a jolly good band, far and away ahead of our usual piano and cornet. I think it’s a case of the less you expect, the more you’re pleased. Harry and I, when we were getting ready to go, both thought it was far more trouble than it was worth and were neither a bit keen, but I think we both enjoyed it all right.
You had better make up your mind that you’re very silly to come out here and that you’ll find it very dull without any hunting or anything, and then perhaps you won’t find it so dull, as I can’t help thinking sometimes you will find it. At other times I am sure you will find the life out here suits you down to the ground. I think there must be a curse attaching to the Colonies, that those who live in them shall at times feel a longing to be back in England. I suppose it is only natural. You may be perfectly certain that you will feel that longing at times yourself. If it lasts too long and is with you all the time, I have told you that we will go home to live; but you must remember this, that I should have to sell out all my interests here and then find something to do in England, for I cannot afford to do nothing and it would possibly take some little time to get out of here; and then it would possibly be hard for me to find anything much in England for, like most people with my up-bringing, I never learnt much of any practical value. I feel I must tell you all this, Kathleen, because you must be perfectly certain as to how you stand if you come out here. I should hate you to come out here with any false ideas about the country at all. You have trusted me so much that I want to put everything clearly before you; but I think I will tell you this, that if your idea of love is anything like mine, you will think that it doesn’t matter where we are or what we do, for we shall be quite happy. That is how I love you, Kathleen. I just want you and nothing else much matters. My darling, can you love me like that?
Yours as always,
Robin