In the year of 1924, George N. Randolph, a US Army captain stationed at Camp Gaillard in the Panama Canal Zone, sat at his desk and began writing his first love letter to Ruth Morrison, a woman he had fallen in love with at first sight. Being a militar
The Captain and his Lady
By Ellen Randolph WeatherlyiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Ellen Randolph Weatherly
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4759-1557-0Chapter One
Fort Clayton April 1, 1924
Dearest One:
My first letter—I essay it with misgivings, for I was ever a poor hand at writing, and yet naturally I feel as tho' it should be a literary masterpiece. You should inspire one, dear girl.
The first thought that came to me was of last weekend. I was so happy every minute. Even the old maid with her "soul expression" and the warped, distorted ego which characterizes those who live alone did not disturb my contentment—much.
It is a wonderful thing to feel yourself beloved by such a girl as you, dearheart. If out of all my longings and desires I had been allowed to fashion my own mate and mold her to my heart's desire, she would be a living replica of you. In character, ideals, beauty—in everything which goes to make up a woman, you are my ideal. Shouldn't a man be happy who can truthfully say that about his intended wife?
In point of fact, as I have told you so many times, it is all so beautiful and wonderful as to seem unreal—like a dream from which I will awake and find myself again in the misery which has been my portion for these many years. Your love has lifted me to heights I never dreamed of reaching and has acted as a great tonic to me, both spiritually and physically.
Today I met an officer who has known me for years. He told me that I looked pounds heavier and years younger and said the climate must agree with me. I do feel years younger and infinitely happier, if not heavier, but the climate, the devil take it, didn't do it.
Out of the whole happy weekend stands one moment apart from the rest—when you asked your naively sweet question about the bed. That gave me a real thrill and brought me to a comforting realization of the actuality of the whole blissful event. I will remember that moment when we go to buy it, dear one, and we shall have the finest for sale on the Zone. I am an undemonstrative cuss and yet, although I did not say much, I fairly reveled in those linens, so pretty and dainty and in such perfect taste. I can hardly wait until I see them spread on "our" table.
I am eagerly awaiting next Friday and Saturday. I am sure I will be able to get away and will let you know at the earliest opportunity. These weekend visits with you are my whole life now. The other officers here are railing against the order which keeps them all in camp, but I just smile and am content, for did I not see you last weekend, and will I not see you again the coming one?
Ruth, I love you with my whole heart and soul. Nothing shall ever be done by me to offend you knowingly. It is glorious to feel that you can love and show that love without fear of its cloying. As far as I am concerned, our marriage is as good as consummated, and if you feel as sure, we can enter unreservedly into that exquisitely happy period of planning and dreaming for the future.
Many faults have I, but I can bring to you a constancy and a depth of love which few will equal. Do not let the fierceness of my passion frighten you, but remember that in the sanctifying state of marriage, even its intensity will contribute to your happiness. A thousand ardent kisses to you, sweet girl, to last you until I can again give them to you in person, from
Your adoring lover, George
Camp Gaillard, Canal Zone (CZ) April 7, 1924
My own girl:
How disappointed I was at not being able to come over tonight, you'll never know. Also, I blamed myself for saying anything about it until I knew for sure whether or not I could come. Major C. did not say I could not come. He is too decent to refuse any reasonable request, but he said we would all have to leave early in the morning, and I've since learned that the hour is 7:45, so you can see, pet, how hopeless it was.
With this exception, it was a banner day for your lover. One hour's work (after I had at last wandered into Gaillard from Clayton) made my company fund book check to a penny. That was a grand and glorious feeling. Then I succeeded in getting one of my men who was tried by a court-martial off with a fine of $30.00. Sgt. Diaz, who appeared before the Zone court, was remanded to military custody, and so the day ended gloriously.
Well, enough of military matters—my little girl will think even her letter is turning out a disappointment. It is hard, tho', Ruth, to write of my love for you because of its complexity. I only know I am bewilderingly happy—that I love and am beloved by that rarest of creatures: a perfect woman. It is a never-ending source of wonder to me as we grow better acquainted and I learn more about you to see how everything about you tallies with the ideal I had always cherished and dreamed about but never thought I would meet. I had reached the point where I used to laugh at my own ideal and deride myself for ever aiming so high, for being so absolutely impractical about women. I began to think of it as a fantasy, a delusion that a dreamer hugs to his bosom and builds fond hopes upon—hopes doomed to disappointment in this mad world of jazz.
And then, just as I had reached this cynical, skeptical frame of mind, along came Ruth. Ruth—reserved, with that very desirable reserve which every woman of modesty, culture, and refinement would have, that reserve which is the very essence of true feminine attractiveness, and which—alas!—is utterly lacking in the usual, present-day flapper. I could write in praise of this one quality all night, so beautiful is it in a woman. To leave something to a man's imagination, to have a little secret chamber in your heart at which he is permitted only a fleeting glance—this, dear one, is to hold him forever.
This, dearheart, is not your most beautiful quality. One cannot be with you long without being aware of your very high plane of thought, of your absolutely clean, healthy mind. It is for this that I absolutely worship you. Ruth, I haven't words to express my disgust at or with the ultra-up-to-the-minute-type of female who, sitting cross legged, puffing a cigarette, and brazenly, unblushingly swapping smutty stories with men, thinks that she is being modern and emancipated. She is emancipated, all right—emancipated from womanhood and everything the word dignifies, but how real men despise her.
My wife must be something sacred, something to be defended and protected. I want to be able to hit straight from the shoulder at the first breath of insult to her without having to stop and think for a split second. How could a man feel that way toward the average woman of today? It is not possible to insult many of them.
Another one of the many, many reasons why I love you so is the fact that, of the men you've met, I was the first to arouse your real love. That is a very wonderful thing to think about, Ruth, and I am not unmindful of the responsibilities it brings. A woman's first love is rare and delicate like the lace in her hope chest and is built upon ideals. The man who is so blessed as to be its motive has a real job to live up to it, but I will devote my life to it earnestly and prayerfully, and perhaps he who watches over our destinies will help me.
I will not speak of your beauty and loveliness because I never think of it except when I am with you, when its attraction is overpowering and it sweeps away all my resolutions. Away from you, the qualities I have spoken of and many others that I have neither time nor space to mention are in the ascendancy and I see you through a mist, or perhaps it's a halo—a veritable dream girl.
Ruth, dear, this love means so much more to me than I can ever explain to you, that I do hope and pray that nothing will ever happen to mar it. It actually means my salvation. By a life of unswerving devotion, I hope to bring you so much happiness that never for one fleeting instant will you regret our love. It is utterly different from any emotion that I have ever known. It has exalted me and lifted me to a higher plane. Through you, I have attained my first real conceptions of the higher life and a reality, to which I have never before aspired, being opened to me.
If all this sounds nebulous and vague and incoherent, blame my lack of words to express an exaltation which is simply heavenly and which I owe solely to this love for you.
I have tried tonight to tell you in my clumsy way of my real love for you. If you should ever be misled by my fierce passion, the heritage of my hot, fiery blood, into believing the physical note to be the dominant one, think of this letter. The things I have spoken about in this letter are the things that are always in my mind, but I have not yet reached the point where I can look upon your beauty unmoved, and so you may at times misjudge me. It would be characteristic of you not to want to be loved for your lovely body, and I assure you, Ruth, that if you could look into my heart, you would find no fault with the motives at the back of this great love for you.
That is what this letter is—a little glimpse into my heart—a heart that will be filled with love for you as long as God lets it beat.
Ever your true lover, George
Gatun, CZ April 21, 1924
Dearest "Capting,"
I'm so glad you can come over Friday night and that I'll see you also on Saturday. Isn't that good luck? Though tonight I am lonesome, Capting, we have been very fortunate in being able to see each other so often, and I'm duly grateful. Mr. Schopenhauer would tell us that it may be best that we are to be separated except for the weekends from now until June thirtieth for that will make the four months of enforced separation a little more tolerable. If I had sailed for the States today, after this fortunate, happy week we have had together, not even your understanding Mr. S. could have calmed me. Only three more days after tonight until I see you again, and those three days will be three years long.
Last night, I found a card from my mother and a letter from Esther waiting for me and you for they were about you, too. My mother is greatly pleased, I believe, and she is sending my small collection of linens that I've half-heartedly had hidden away in the attic these last few years—my nearest approach to a "hope chest"—so that I can have them monogrammed at the convent. I am expecting a long letter from her this week.
Esther's letter is longer and much more enlightening. She's very much excited over Mary's wedding and the prospect of another one this summer. I've saved her letter for you to read Friday. From what I have written home about you, she thinks you are a kind of superman, and all that is necessary to confirm that opinion is to see you and talk to you for even a few minutes. You see, Esther was dreadfully cynical when I left her last September, a flapper that had flapped a little too often, and seeing a man like you and knowing that there are such men in this world will help her tremendously.
I wish you were here, my dear. I'm positively lonesome, and I saw you only yesterday and have talked to you twice today. We demand a great deal in love, don't we? And when that love is growing every minute deeper, broader, more permanent and enduring, the demands become almost limitless—and in turn, the ability and pleasuring of giving in like measure.
Dear Capting, I love you with all my heart, and I want to see you. Hurry over on Friday. And don't forget for a minute that I love you.
Yours with love, Ruth
Camp Gaillard, CZ April 22, 1924
My own darling Ruth:
I have not as yet received your letter and am eagerly looking forward to tomorrow and it, but there is something I want to tell you and I thought I had better tell you in a letter because written words make their appeal to the mind, whereas spoken words appeal to the will, and I want this to sink in.
Now, sweetheart mine, I want to tell you, to start with, that I think you are the dearest, sweetest girl that any nervous, irate man ever had. I made an ass of myself again over the phone today and yet you were as sweetly reasonable as a saint, and in consequence, I am as deeply hurt and humiliated as I always am after those little episodes.
You see, Ruth, these telephone talks are always unsatisfactory, and I believe that we had better discontinue them. I cannot hear you, and that in itself gives rise to irritation, and I have to yell and that gives an undue emphasis to all my remarks, and it is never pleasant to be yelled at, even when the remarks are of the pleasantest.
Misunderstandings arise, and every call is a disappointment, particularly so because I fondly and eagerly look forward to them from the time I arise to the moment of calling. After this, dear, I shall write to you twice a week and you can answer or not, as you please. Then if there is anything I must know or any plans to be made, I will call you just for that and ring off as soon as possible.
And now, precious one, if you will patiently read on, I will endeavor to describe the state of mind which makes such petulance possible and at the same time try to convince you that such a state is but a temporary one and not by any means my real self.
In the first place, Ruth, I am desperately in love. I feel such an abiding faith in you, your love, and your constancy that I can safely tell you this. This is the one great love of my life, and I am living solely for it. Every little incident of our relationship is a vital matter, a thing of monumental proportions and weight.
I have no pleasure, no relaxation except it is shared with you. I have no thoughts, even, that are not of you. As soon as I awake on Monday morn, I begin to plan for the coming weekend. I go through the whole week in a sort of daze, dreaming of the moment when I will again see you. The very intensity of my love militates against its happiness, just at this stage of our relations, because if there is any miscarriage of my plans, my whole fond dream seems to tumble about my head in a devastated ruin.
I work very hard, Ruth, and I don't mind because I feel that it is all for you, but on Saturdays and Sundays it is only human to look for my reward, and when I find that my keen disappointment of last Saturday is going to be duplicated this week—well, I just blurted out; that's all.
Now don't misunderstand me, dear. I am not censoring you. I am just endeavoring to apologize for and explain my own irritation over the phone.
There are other causes for my present irascibility, Ruth. I am deeply worried over that ring and afraid I'll never get it, a tremendous loss if I sustain it. I am worried also over my debts. I hate to appear before my future wife in the role of a financial incompetent, and yet what other conclusion must she draw when I am so overwhelmed with debt that even the wherewithal to visit her is sometimes not forthcoming?
Now, dear, please be patient with me and true to me through this trying time, and in return I promise you a lifetime devoted solely to you, to your happiness. I promise never to cause you a moment of unhappiness. I will not only love my wife; I will be a lover to her until death parts us. This great, fierce passion for you will make you a happy wife, Ruth, if you will first patiently iron out the few unavoidable kinks in it.
And now, dearest wonder girl, I am going to start tonight to iron them out myself. I am going to exhibit no more irritation toward you no matter what you do to me. I want you to go ahead with the plans for your card party Saturday and not give me another thought in the matter. I will come over Saturday night at 7:00 as usual and will try and make you enjoy the balance of the weekend so much that you will never miss Saturday afternoon.
I wish I could give you a definite answer about Friday night now, but I must see Major C. first. You see, love, I would miss the Saturday morning inspection and drill, and that is a terrible heresy in military circles. When I call you up tomorrow, I will know, so no time will be lost.
I will answer your letter tomorrow night, Pet, and you can't imagine the eagerness with which I am looking forward to this first letter from you.
Now dearest girl, I wrote this in hopes that in the light it sheds on my feelings toward you, it would help you to forgive my petty remarks. Don't look at the surface, dear, but into the heart of this great and abiding love I bear you, and judge it at its true value.
You are a marvelous girl and could have any number of lovers, and some of them would possess a more smiling exterior, but none could give such a great, strong love as this love that your character, mentality, and charms have inspired in me.
Oh! Darling, if you truly love me and wish to throw the mantle of happiness over all my little hurts of jealousy and fears ... then please marry me soon ... before you go away ... and then, where frowns and worried looks were will be nothing but happy smiles for I will know that my treasure is then indeed mine and safe beyond fear of loss.
Darling little wonder girl, I love you, I love you, I love you.
Your adoring lover, George
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Captain and his Ladyby Ellen Randolph Weatherly Copyright © 2012 by Ellen Randolph Weatherly. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
