Spitzbergen <1>
10th Jany
My Dear Henry
Richard <2> says you are uncertain what day you come, so perhaps this may be in time, to beg you will unlock a certain little desk table in my bedroom & take out a large old M.S. book of pedigrees with a Marble cover, & My album which locks up. Mr Waters <3> has the key of the table <4> in the Key shrine. If they are not there I cannot imagine where they can be, as Mr F. <5> has already looked every where else for them. If Mr Montgomerie <6> comes before you, pray send them by him. Richard has brought the little bougeoir de porcelaine, <7> so do not trouble yourself to look for it.
Caroline <8> has never been out of the house since we came here, her cold has been so bad & the sun never shines. It is constantly a tramontana nera. <9> The wind blows through these paste board houses, and the most untenable room in the house is unfortunately the Drawing room, owing to the numbers of windows. Such a place as this certainly gives an undue bias in favour of transalpine regions. Mrs Hope's Opera tickets are just arrived here for to night!!! That is very tantalizing. I dont know by what mistake they sent them. Pray tell Mr Waters that he will receive a parcel from me in the course of tomorrow & if they do not bring it to Sackville Street <10> I beg he will be so good as to inquire for it at the Worthing Coach Office in London. This parcel will contain the tickets, for it would be very ungenteel in me not to send them back instantly. So pray inquire into it
Ever your affecte
Exilée de Sibérie <11>Mr F. left your five Sovereigns here directed to you - that you lent the other day
Why do you write so seldom?
W. H. F. Talbot Esqr
31. Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. Worthing. The metaphor to the coast of Norway probably refers to the cold weather. [See Doc. No: 01351].
2. Richard, a servant.
3. P Waters, servant to the Feildings.
4. See WHFT's reply for the key in Doc. No: 01358, which dates this document to 1826.
5. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780-1837), Royal Navy; WHFT's step-father.
6. Rev George Stephen Molyneux Montgomerie (1790-1850), close friend of Talbot family, artist, Rector of Garboldisham, near Thetford, Norfolk.
7. Porcelain candlestick.
8. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808-1881); WHFT's half-sister.
9. Black north wind.
10. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
11. Siberian Exile.