Thursday July 1st
My dear Henry
If your offer for the house in the Regent’s park should be rejected it will be fortunate for my Sisters <1> – for they are wishing to leave Town & have proposed to come to Lacock next week for a short visit – and they mean to return to Duchess St before the departure of out travelling party to see the last of them. That will be near the end of July, they think – and after this they will leave London again for a longer period – If my Sisters should really have left Town, I shall have little pleasure in being there. But if you like to learn their plans more positively than I can tell you now, I advise you to send Nicole <2> to Duchess St for information.
I do not consider 10£ per week so cheap as a good house ought to be after the breaking up of the Season. – but I leave the whole matter to your decision. –
We accomplished going to Bowood <3> yesterday the day was fair but gloomy. – Still everything in the garden & in the grounds looked lovely. I never saw the Italian garden so beautifully arranged or so well filled with charming plants. – I thought it quite a pity that its owners shd be compelled to lose its beauties for so many weeks – I was sorry just to have missed seeing Lady Landsowne <4> – but the weather had hitherto been too showery for such an expedition.– & I was very sorry to hear from Mrs King <5> so indifferent an account of Lord L. <6> Have you heard since of Ld Mt Edgecumbe? <7> –
yr affte
Constance
Notes:
1. 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.
2. Nicolaas Henneman (1813–1898), Dutch, active in England; WHFT’s valet, then assistant; photographer.
3. Bowood House, nr Calne, Wiltshire, 5 mi NE of Lacock: seat of the Marquess of Lansdowne
4. Louisa Emma Petty Fitzmaurice, née Fox Strangways, Marchioness of Lansdowne (1785-1851), wife of Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne; Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria, 1837-1838; WHFT's aunt.
5. Lady’s maid at Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.
6. Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780–1863), MP, WHFT’s uncle.
7. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.