Mount Edgcumbe <1>
Devonport
Septr 20th 1859
My dear Henry
What a sad event this is of poor Uncle John’s <2> death – so fearfully sudden too! Constance <3> wrote me word you had heard from Uncle William <4> – so did I. He seemed very low indeed – & no wonder – Do tell me if you have heard from him again for I do not know anything farther – Not even when & where the funeral was to take place – though I begged to be told.
So many times this year I have thought you were in the North, when you were quietly vegetating, or observing vegetation, at Lacock Abbey – for in every letter I got from Amandier <5> she said invariably: “ Nous attendons Mr Talbot dans quelques jours <6>”. Hence the mistake when Milord <7> was at Chippenham for two days, & never saw you. I wish you would come & pay us a little visit now – It would, I know, cheer you up – & it is so very dismal never seeing you from one year’s end to the other. You have been alone too so long – & as I suppose your belongings will not return just yet if they are going to visit Matilda, <8> do just run down here – We shall not be much longer here, as we go to the Villa <9> when it gets damp – & I shd like you to come here. I want Ernestine <10> to see a little more of you, as well as myself – she is getting quite conversible now. Valletort & Katie <11> are staying with Lady Abercorn <12> at Brocket Hall – which She rents of Ly Palmerston. <13> I am not sure whether you know that I am in daily expectation of a little grandchild? Milord is still afloat in Barn Pool – but will I think land definitively in two or three days – Do come – dear Henry –
Yr affte Sister
Caroline
Notes:
1. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.
2. John George Charles Fox Strangways (1803–1859), MP.
3. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
4. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.
5. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].
6. We expect Mr Talbot in a few days.
7. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.
8. Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter.
9. Winter Villa, near Plymouth: estate of the Earls of Mt Edgcumbe.
10. Ernestine Emma Horatia Edgcumbe (1843-1925), WHFT’s niece.
11. William Henry Edgcumbe, ‘Val’, 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832–1917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT’s nephew ‘Bimbo’, and Lady Katherine Elizabeth Edgcumbe, née Hamilton (1840–1874). They married in October 1858.
12. Louisa Hamilton, née Russell, Lady Abercorn (1812–1905).
13. Lady Emily Lamb Palmerston (1787–1869).