Mount Edgcumbe <1>
Sunday Novr 28th 1852
My dear Henry,
I was so pleased to get a letter from you at last, & to read your kind words! They comforted me for your long silence – & I was also much toucheé at what you say of Aunt Mary’s <2> sympathy, & that of the rest of my Cousins. I sent you a letter the other day, apparently from Mary Talbot, <3> & wondered whether you were coming to see me, as it was directed here – Pray write to me again soon.
Lord Mt E. <4> has been improving daily since last Monday – which was the first day he said he felt any better; but it will, I fear, be a long, long while before he recovers at all the use of his hands – or is able to be moved. He can bear being talked to now & can talk himself, although he sleeps a good deal in the day – & today, for the first time, I read him one of the speeches – Sir James Graham’s <5> – I can only wonder what is going to happen in the world of politics! – I advised Wright <6> not to tie himself down to go to Laycock on any particular day – as the moment he begins to think of writing to fix a day, he seems to get ill again. I told him he could very well afford a fly, after economising so long, & then he need not trouble you to send for him – but might go at once when he felt able. I do not know if he is aware of what his attack was – I rather think he only supposes it was weakness – but it was an Apoplectic fit. However he is now very well again in health – only his legs seem to give under him from weakness.
Love to Constance & Co
Yr affte Sister
Caroline
[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot
Esqre
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.
2. Lady Mary Lucy Cole, née Strangways, first m. Talbot (1776–1855), WHFT’s aunt.
3. Mary Thereza Talbot (1795–1861), WHFT’s cousin. [See Doc. No: 06698].
4. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.
5. Sir James Robert George Graham (1792–1861), statesman.
6. James Wright, footman to the Talbots & Constable for Lacock.