Reply to a father enquiring after his daughter

Dear Mr —,

I am sorry to answer you as I must.

I will not tell you whether your daughter attends here. I would not tell her whether you had written, either, without your leave — but I will tell her you have written, if she attends, and I will give her your letter, and that is the most I can do and I will do it today.

The rule is not aimed at you. It exists because we cannot tell, from a letter, which enquiries are a father who is worried and which are a person somebody has left for good reason. We answer them all the same way because the alternative is deciding, and we are not competent to decide.

What I can tell you without reservation: nobody here is asked for money as a condition of anything, nobody is asked to break off contact with their family, nobody lives here who is not free to leave that afternoon, and there is no stage of this at which somebody signs anything. The accounts are published; I enclose the last one. The procedures are published; I enclose the two that concern how people leave.

If it would help to speak to somebody who is not me, the steward at River House will take a telephone call from you, and she has done this before.

— the correspondent