Mount Edgcumbe
Sunday Octr 2nd 1859
My dear Henry
I am very sorry you were not well enough to come here- It is so long since I have seen you. I hope you are better - but you must have been so very solitary all this time.
I suppose you have heard of the birth of my little grand daughter <1> on the 23rd Septr? I hear she has large eyes & beautiful dark hair - of which Val <2> sent me a tiny specimen.
Prince & Pss Frederick William <3> have offered to be sponsors & I believe I am to be the other Godmother.
Have you also heard that Mr Gaisford is going to be married to Lady Emily St Lawrence? <4> He wrote me a very nice letter as soon as the marriage was settled. I am told she is a very amiable, pleasing, sensible person, & likely to be a kind mother to poor little Horace. <5> It will be a good thing too for Mr Gaisford, whose life is so unsettled & restless - & a comfort to have some one to share his anxiety about Horace, which is sometimes too much for him.
Will you tell all this to your belongings - for I do not know where they are. I want you also to tell me if Miss Emily Ford <6> is still alive? I have had a letter from a person whom I believe to be her, who very unwisely, (considering how long it is since we had any communication together), signs herself E. A. Ford & dates from Clarendon Crescent Leamington.
It cannot be a younger generation either, because she talks of having seen me long ago, & says also that she was an old friend of Mamma's - I should not hesitate in writing to her as Miss Emily Ford, only I seem to remember to have been told she was dead- Could you give me this information by return of Post? She writes on the subject of poor Mrs Wilkes, <7> who nursed Constance & me, & who has fallen into great distress - so it is very likely to be her-
Yrs affly in haste
Caroline
[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esqre
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Lady Victoria Frederica Caroline Edgcumbe (1859-1920).
2. Her son, William Henry Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832-1917); 'Val'; JP & Lord Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT's nephew 'Bimbo'.
3. Frederick III (1831-1888),German Emperor and King of Prussia for 99 days in 1888; and his wife, Princess Victoria, Princess Royal, Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa (1840-1901), eldest child of Queen Victoria.
4. Capt Thomas Gaisford (1816-1898), JP, first married WHFT's half-sister, Horatia. She died on 9 August 1851. On 26 October 1859, he married Lady Emily, née St Lawrence (1829-1868), daughter of the 3rd Earl of Howth.
5. Lt Horace Charles Gaisford (1851-1879), WHFT's nephew and the only child of his deceased half-sister, Horatia.
6. Miss Emily Ford, of Bath.
7. A nurse mentioned frequently in the correspondence, but never further identified.