Fenton Wooler
Sept. 24. 1875.
My dear Uncle Henry
As I am going homewards with my children at the end of next week, & you have more than once been kind enough to express through Rosamond <1> a wish that we should pay you a visit some day en passant, I wish to ask whether you are now at Lacock – & if so whether it would be convenient for you to put me up – with a daughter – for two nights.
I am not quite sure whether I could leave London on Friday (Oct.1.) (on account of some business with lawyers) but, if so, I might avail myself of yr hospitality for three nights – but in every case I want to get to Mount Edgcumbe <2> by Monday Oct. 4. –
I could bring my two eldest girls with me, but that might be inconvenient – although of course they could sleep together.
I go today to Eslington Part Alnwick; – but your answer is hardly likely to reach me before my return here on Monday.
If there should be any delay in your receipt of this would it be too much to ask you to let me have a line of reply by telegram? It would enable me to make my other arrangements – with the above mentioned lawyers & others, somewhat more conveniently.
Please give my love to my Aunt & cousins, <3>
& believe me yr affte nephew
Mount Edgcumbe
[envelope, mourning border, monogrammed on flap Mt E:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esqre
&c &c &c
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Mt. Edgcumbe
Notes:
1. Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter.
2. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.
3. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife; Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter; Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter; Charles Henry Talbot (1842–1916), antiquary & WHFT’s only son.