Monday May 28th
13 Great Stuart Street
Edinburgh
My dear Papa,
Many thanks for your letter of Saturday – but do not think that you have been enjoying a monopoly of fine weather!.. for ever since you left it has been most splendid, hardly a cloud in the sky – until yesterday, when it changed to high, cold west wind, with some scanty showers, which only made one wish for more, as everything is beginning to want water. I fear Mama <1> will have had a dusty, disagreable <sic> journey today. We are preparing to leave on Thursday, weather permitting, and intend paying a visit to Windermere or one of the lakes, on our road – That country is so particularly lovely at this time of year, and I hope to get something to draw – it is long since we have been any where picturesque, and at Lacock there is absolutely nothing but buildings to do. So please, as we shall be gone so soon, would you stop the Times and order the Athenæum to go to Lacock. I am glad Lackham <2>is sold at last, though it is a pity the family is Catholic, as they are sometimes very troublesome in a place – but genuine old Catholics are at any rate not so bad as new. Mrs Stapleton is it seems an Aunt of the present Lord Beaumont. <3>
Please ask Ela, <4> if she has not already done so, to write us word how poor Fluffy got over his journey, and whether he was not happy to see Pussy again.
Good bye, now, dear Papa, I fear this may not be in time for the early post, but must try.
Your affectionate daughter
Rosamond
Mamie <5> sends her love. I suppose Charles <6> has got home now.Notes:
1. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
2. On the Lacock Estate.
3. Henry, 9th Baron Beaumont (1848–1892).
4. Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter.
5. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal ].
6. Charles Henry Talbot (1842–1916), antiquary & WHFT’s only son.