Saturday
Dear Henry
Say by return of post which servant you bring because if N –<1> he must not be lodged with the Valetaille or rather not with the Carraille<2> but have a chamber of honour at the top of the house now full of Caroline’s goods, but which may be removed if we only know it Monday morning. Mr Babbage <3> came yesterday & made choice of eight out of the Eleven – I will tell you his objections to the other 3. I left them at his house & he seemed very much pleased to have them. I think I shall go there to night to overhear what people say. It is very unlucky Caroline being in waiting just now, for Lord Mt E <4> is certainly worse & it takes off all pleasure & lightness of heart she would have at the Palace The Q. <5> has very good naturedly excused her attendance several times & taken up with the Maids of Honour. She is so excessively fond of P. Albert that she really feels for any [illegible] of that sort. Amandier <6> recovers so slowly that she has deferred her journey a few days longer, & Horatia <7> remains so weak she has not been able to go out anywhere at night, nothing but Country air will revive her.
Tell Constance <8> the Screen is promised positively for next Tuesday, I hope her Sisters<9> will not have left Town.
Affly Yr
EF
Notes:
1. Nicolaas Henneman (1813–1898), Dutch, active in England; WHFT’s valet, then assistant; photographer.
2. Lady Elisabeth and her son had good fun with words. It would appear here that she was combining abbreviated names of her daughter and son-in-law with the French word 'taille', which by this period no longer meant a tax but rather the second pressing of grapes, an inferior one. It appears that she was referring to the secondary rooms of the Edgcumbe's (ie, small anterooms for servants) and was trying to secure more commodious quarters for Henneman. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
3. Prof Charles Babbage (1792–1871), mathematician & inventor.
4. Earl of Mt Edgcumbe, WHFT’s brother-in-law.
5. Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom (1837–1901), Empress of India (1876–1901).
6. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].
7. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
8. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
9. Laura Mundy (1805–1842); Marian Gilder, née Mundy (1806 – 14 October 1860); m. 6 August 1844 William Troward Gilder (d. 1871), Army Surgeon (ret).; WHFT’s sisters-in-law.