Athole Crescent <1>
Wednesday night
My dear Henry
I send you this little letter on business, by Charles, <2> because I think it will save time, and perhaps you may write now a line in answer from London – Charles will tell you how he & I hunted up & down Edinburgh for photographs today, with very indifferent success. I shall wait for further instructions; but we think all that we saw today were too large or too small – and none can be had un mounted – I will pay Ross & Thompson, but should not have done so without your order – for I concluded you had settled it yourself. Professor Forbes <3> has been ill – and I believe he & Mrs Forbes are going almost immediately into the country for his benefit – (He has sent home your galvanic machine) which shall travel to Lacock with our luggage. I have been busy today paying some of my Bills – having sent Goodwin <4> to the Bank to enquire whether the remittance of £150, which you announced to me in your letter of Saturday, had been received; & if so, to draw out £100 – He brought me the money, with a message to say that the Bank had not yet received the £150 – and that they would write & tell you so. – The reason I was so desirous of getting this money today, was on account of tomorrow being the half yearly Feast-day, when the shops are closed & all business is suspended. – I was very glad to receive this announcement of £150 – in order to get forward with some of my payments. – but it will not (of course) nearly cover the whole.
I have had a Tailor & Shirtmaker’s bill to pay for Charles. of about £14. – Szabo’s portraits <5> I understand are to be 23/ or 25/ each. making £6.5..0 if we are all taken; and the girls <6> seem really anxious to have my picture done as well as their own – if you wish for a second copy, there will be an addition of 7/ for each copy. Ela & Charles were taken on Monday – but we could not see the likenesses then – Mr Szabo gave 2 sittings to each, with the intention of offering one the choice of the 2 portraits but he said himself that Charles’s second sitting produced a bad result & was not worth copying – but and that the first would certainly give me satisfaction. – I must admit that he spared no pains in placing them, pushing about the hands & legs till he got everything in focus – and arranging Ela’s gown in graceful folds of drapery. He seemed to consider everything, and particularly to get the attitudes natural & free from stiffness. I am to go with Rosd & Matilda on Monday –and then we shall see the result of Charles & Ela’s sittings. I have been trying to reckon up all I owe, but I cannot succeed in getting in the bills as fast as I could wish & I am obliged to guess at some – I have reckoned £12 for our journey to Keswick, and £15 for the expenses of the three Maids during their few days here after we leave & their journey home to Lacock. – I think £275. will be required to cover all, excepting the Rent, which you told me you would undertake yourself – I am asking now for £125 in addition to the 150 which you announced in your letter –
I sealed up Mr Steal’s big letter & gave it again to Charles to put in his trunk. I hope he will have a good journey tomorrow – He has promised to write to me on Saturday.
Yr affte Constance
Notes:
1. Edinburgh.
2. Charles Henry Talbot (1842–1916), antiquary & WHFT’s only son.
3. Prof James David Forbes (1809–1868), Scottish scientist, and his wife Alicia, née Wauchope.
4. George Goodwin (d. 1875), footman at Lacock Abbey.
5. Iván Szabó (1822–1858), a Hungarian photographer, learned his craft in St Andrews before setting up his studio in Edinburgh in 1857. He was considered one of the premier portrait photographers in Scotland. See Julie Lawson, ‘Iván Szabó: A Hungarian Photographer in Scotland’, Shadow and Substance (The Amorphous Institute Press, 1990) pp.17–21.
6. Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter, Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter, and Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter.