Melbury <1>
Decr 29
My dear Henry
A rumour reached me in Glamorganshire that you and yours are to be here for Christmas & I was much disappointed when I came here to find your visit was put off! I hope however I really shall have a glimpse of you & see Matilda & her caro Sposo <2> if you do come on Monday or Tuesday, but it will not suit me to put off my journey, any longer as I am wanted at home & have already outstaid the time I proposed spending in Dorsetshire. I am going to Minterne tomorrow & shall be very glad to have a line from you to say you are coming really. –
Wm <3> is much better indeed quite well but obliged to be very careful & only goes out on fine mornings. There are quantities of gay plants in the Stoves but I do not know their names & we have some pretty things in the Drawing Room windows, one quite new to me I cannot venture to transcribe the name even, it is so astonishingly spelt I am not sure what the letters are –
I have a bad account from Rewe today I fear poor Harry Strangways <4> is not likely to recover he does not know anyone I believe & is getting weaker & weaker – Hart Mundy <5> went home yesterday. Noel <6> went before Christmas day & is now on a visit at Tredegar <7> I believe –
My love to all my Cousins
I am your affate Coz
Mary
[envelope]
Henry F. Talbot Esq
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
2. Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter and her husband John Gilchrist-Clark (1830–1881), Scottish JP; WHFT’s son-in-law; they married in 1859.
3. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.
4. The Rev Henry Fox Strangways (1793–1860), rector of Rewe, Devon; younger son of the Rev the Hon C. R. F. Strangways.
5. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.
6. Francis Noel Mundy (1833–1903), WHFT’s nephew.
7. Tredegar House, Newport, Gwent, home of the Morgan family.