Laycock abbey
11th July
My Dear Henry
I am disappointed to have heard no political news from you this Morning – you could not have told us more than rumours <1> I am aware, but even they are amusing in the Country. Horatia <2> is not so well to day, having fatigued herself yesterday with talking to all her old women, and settling their distrait <3> accounts, and listening to all the lamentations at her departure, & speaking words of comfort à chacune. <4> To day she made a grand distribution of Bacon to them all (only old Women I mean) but I would not let her officiate in person, & made myself her deputy & c’est us métier onereux, <5> I am tired to death. I have undertaken my Orfano <6> entirely & have clothed him & put him entirely into Fitzsimmons’s <7> charge during my absence, but as I lend you his services in the garden I intend you should allow him a shilling a week as you did last year, when he kept the birds off for you, when he was a less useful character than he is now become. Besides he will be there ready to [go of?] your messages, and if he does not turn out well I shall send him next year to the Cape of Good Hope, in which Fitzsimmons thinks nobody could be pitied as he says “such beautiful plants come from there.” But I th[ink?] he is a well disposed & intelligent boy & worth taking some little trouble about.
Gwynne <8> says she wrote to Lydia <9> about Household matters & directed it to you by mistake instead of enclosing, which you must think a great liberty, but it was in the midst of all the bother & confusion of packing
Evr Yrs
EF
Mr F. <10> having Sir Andrew Agnew <11> before his eyes & unwilling to cause a scandale in the village will not travel of a Sunday, at least will not set out on a Sunday and therefore we positively go Monday, finding tomorrow utterly impossible. The horses are ordered at Everley &c for Monday, being cross country road, so go we must
There is likewise something to be altered in the Fourgon. <12> Send the enclosed to the T. P. sans faute. <13>
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr M.P.
31. Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. Lord Grey’s ministry fell in July 1834, and was succeeded by Lord Melbourne’s.
2. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
3. Muddled.
4. To each one.
5. It’s an onerous task.
6. Orphan boy.
7. Cornelius Fitzsimmons, Scottish gardener at Lacock Abbey.
8. Mrs Gwynne (d. winter 1841/1842), lady’s maid, cook and housekeeper to Elisabeth Feilding.
9. Lydia Price, lady’s maid.
10. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
11. Sir Andrew Agnew, 7th Baronet (1793–1849), politician, Sabbatarian Promoter. [See Doc. No: 02878].
12. Waggon.
13. Without fail.