San Bartolomeo
12th August
My Dear Henry
You know the state we have been in from my letter to Constance <1> – the poor little infant’s <2> life was prolonged several days by the care & attentive <sic> of Mrs Harrington the wife of the English Physician, & had she had it sooner, might no doubt have been saved. They wished to conceal the event from Caroline, <3> but her suspicions were awakened & her pulse rose to 130, so they thought it was better she should know the worst without further suspense. The fever & affliction have very much retarded her recovery, but they decided that as the Cholera was increasing at Nice it was better she should risk the moving & she was brought up here on a Brancord in the cool of the Evening. What a contrast all this to your happiness with your little Ela! <4> It seems quite a fatality here, for C’s children are born so robust & then they are lost by some extraordinary & unaccountable mismanagement, & now Lord V. <5> is convinced that English Nurses are not merely an idea.
The accident at Alssandria caused the greatest consternation in Piedmont, and I should have mentioned it to you at the time – but that I understood from Caroline that she had done so. Poor <illegible> was excessively beloved & regretted, & my first news of it <was> by a letter from the Marquis Boyl f<rom> <6> Turin. Poor Sir Charles! <7> I beg you will write again soon on purpose to tell me how he is. The worry about Caroline & the Baby, & the Cholera & the heat are really too much for any Constitution, add to this that Bimbo <8> has been falling off for more than two Months, the heat has injured his powers of digestion & he really makes one very anxious & puts Caroline more than I ever said with all her calmness. She begins to think that misfortune pursues her.
As for me you must expect to see me a little skinny old woman, wasted away by heat & contrarieties – I am thinner than anything imaginable of me – & have quite made up my mind to go to England the moment the Cordons allow of it, as measure of vital necessity.
I think your advice very good, & those who like it may stay abroad.
H. F. Talbot Esqr
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts
Angleterre
Notes:
1. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
2. See Doc. No: 03109.
3. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
4. Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter.
5. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.
6. Text obscured by seal.
7. Sir Charles Lemon (1784–1868), politician & scientist; WHFT’s uncle.
8. William Henry Edgcumbe, ‘Val’, 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832–1917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT’s nephew ‘Bimbo’.