Laycock Abbey
12th April
My Dear Henry
I am deputed to answer your question, as the Ad. <1> is not well enough to write. He has been very ill since I wrote last so bad that Mr Kendrick <2> slept in the house, and I was one night dreadfully alarmed thinking it was gout in the Stomach, a thing which is speedily fatal. He is much better today, & so am I, for I was very much worn out with want of sleep & uneasiness. Mr Kendrick wishes him to move from this place as soon as is practicable, & thinks he may be able to do so next Wednesday, by laying [sic] at length in the Coach & being on a kind of bed the whole way as it is only a ten hours journey.
Your Postman was faithful & the letter arrived in due course & not charged.
Horatia <3> arrives Sunday
Affly Yrs
E F
As far as your own pleasure is concerned perhaps you had better not come, for the whole Country looks most wretched, & pinched & frost bitten – the garden looks nice i.e. as far as tidiness & neatness can make it, but there is nothing visible in the Kitchen garden but earth nicely dug, the green things that were coming up are all nipped. If it was not for our steady friends the Evergreens, we should be too forlorn.
I shall be curious to unpack the Vases. The most splendid ornament your abbey has received a long time [sic] is the fauteuil <4> worked by Lady Charlotte <5> The effect is magnifique I sent it to Bath to be made up & it is just come back & installée in the South Gallery It is you know one of the old originals
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr
65 Harley Street
London
Notes:
1. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
2. Dr Kendrick, Talbot family doctor in Wiltshire.
3. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
4. Armchair.
5. Lady Charlotte Talbot, née Butler (1809–1846), wife of CRM Talbot.