Pentillie Castle,
Saltash.
Friday Decr 13th
1867
My dear Henry
I was very glad to get your letter from Laycock, where I suppose you still are. I fully intended writing to San Remo- but my good intentions somehow vanished into thin air – & I want to know from you if they are still there, or gone to Nice, Hotel de France? We went to Mount Edgcumbe <1> with Charlie, <2> for a shooting party, on the 12th of last month – & staid there when the visitors were gone, till last Saturday, when we went to Port Eliot for 3 days. I like Mrs Charles Eliot very much. She is married to Ld St Germans <3> youngest Son (in the Guards) & is a daughter of Lady Charlotte Screiber <4>(nee formerly Guest) – On Tuesday last we came here. Lady Morley <5> & her daughter are here, besides other neighbours & friends – & tomorrow we go home to Cotehele. <6> Could you not come & pay us a visit there for Christmas? It would be very nice, for you must feel very solitary all alone in the old Abbey – & we have no party this year. Do come – I have not seen you for such a long time. I am sure Wiltshire must be very cold. We have had some piercing North winds – but it has been quite mild for the last week.
Charlie writes from Cannes on the 8th last Sunday, that he & his friend Lord Hinchingbrook <7> only stayed 2 days at Paris – it was so cold & uninteresting – They went on, finding snow all the way, on the ground till long past Lyons with a N. East Gale – & “the agonies of cold they suffered were simply indescribable”. They reached Avignon at 6 A. M. & he adds: “In all my life, I never underwent such a Wednesday as was proposed for us. There was such a frightful hurricane blowing, that without the slightest Exaggeration we were nearly blown away at Every corner – & so intensely cold that with two great coats, sealskin caps, comforters &c we were absolutely shrammed. We struggled up to the Palais des Papes & then outside the Walls to the old bridge – but were about an hour getting over 200 years of open with sand & rocks being hurled thro’ the air cuttg’ our faces to bits”.
Worse than your famous Mistrale going to Vanclusè Good account he gives of Katie <8> – Write & answer my question.
Yr affte
Sister Caroline
Post going.
[envelope:]
[printed on rear flap:] Pentillie Castle, Saltash
Henry Fox Talbot Esqre
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.
2. Charles Earnest Edgcumbe (1838–1915), JP, WHFT’s nephew.
3. Edward Granville Eliot (1798–1877), diplomatist, 3rd Earl of St Germans.
4. Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Schreiber (1812–1895), better known as Lady Charlotte Guest, scholar and connoisseur of china.
5. Harriet Sophia, Dowager Countess of Morley, of Whiteway, Devon.
6. Cotehele, Cornwall: ancient house, seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe, now a National Trust Property.
7. Misspelling of Edward George Henry Montagu (b. 1839), Lord Hinchinbrooke and later Earl of Sandwich.
8. Lady Katherine Elizabeth Edgcumbe, née Hamilton (1840–1874), wife of William Henry Edgcumbe.