3 Chesham Place
S.W.
Wednesday July 20th 1870
My dear Henry
Many thanks for the Stamps just received. I wrote you a very scrubby letter in my haste on Monday. We were to have gone late in the afternoon to Hampton Ct intending to dine with Lady Seymour <1> (the Widow of Sir George), & drive back in the cool of the evening – not expecting Charlie <2> till Tuesday – But the telegram announcing his arrival on Monday, made us hasten our departure. We lunched with her instead, & got home at 7. Charlie was already here, safe and sound – & looking just the same as ever. Travel certainly agrees with him – only I fear it will spoil him for the comparative tameness of England. He made the quickest passage ever known, I believe, from Quebec to Liverpool – leaving the former on Saturday morng, & arriving at L. on Monday morning.
They had a magnificent vessel, the Scandinavian – her first trip – a fine fair breeze, so that they could sail as well as steam, & smooth water all the way. Did I tell you that he was not so fortunate on his passage from Australia to N. Zealand – for he got into a Typhoon – which lasted 2 days – & knocked up the most frightful sea he ever saw.
He was the only passenger, (& so far he was extremely comfortable,) as it was a chance Steamer, going to over to be sold – a small one of 300 tons – & though [illegible deletion] the Captain was extremely anxious, she weathered the storm well.
I think Rosamond <3> & Amandier <4> would do well to go into Switzerland; for the present heat would be intolerable going thro’ any part of France. Now they have only to make a most delightful excursion from Milan to Como, & thence over the Splügen to Coire &c. – Later I should hope they might go thro’ the middle of France, by a line in the direction of Moulins, towds the Loire, & thro’ Brittany & Normandy to Dieppe, (only a 6 or 7 hours’ trip) to across to Brighton –
I particularly wish them to avoid Paris – as the smallpox is still so very bad there.
I told you how poor Melle Steinbauer ( Emily Fitzmaurice’s <5> Governess,) died of it at Lansdowne House? <6> Emily Lansde <7> sent her over with young Emily, & she fell ill immediately. Jem Howard <8> most kindly carried off young Emily to Hazelby, where she was vaccinated – Clan & Maude <9> left the house of course – but poor Melle S. died in abt a week. It is a great sorrow to them all. Ly L. wrote to me about a week ago – & said there had been more cases & deaths that week, than any previous one. So R. & A. ought be all means to avoid that route – particularly as I suppose they have not been vaccinated lately.
Have they got a Courier now? I really think they ought to have a man of some sort with them – as one cannot tell what turn affairs will take.
I know a lady who set off for Carlsbad, just as the declaration of war <10> had been proclaimed – She is was very anxious to go for health – only her husband went with her, instead of letting her go alone; but there is a great panic among all the English at the different German baths – not at staying in the places themselves, but at the uncertainty of the ways & means of getting home again.
Shall I telegraph to you if I hear anything particular? So that you might save a Post in writing to them, by that means?
I quite agree with you in your opinion of the belligerents – only that I dislike Prussia the most – & Bismark [sic] especially – I hear today that the Hohenzollern affair, & even the revolution in Spain, was plotted by him at least 3 yrs ago. Your quotation from “the Rivals” <11> is most apt. Val <12> is just come up for the day – & great was the joy of the meeting between him & Charlie. I want so much to write to Amandier, but cannot find time. Do thank her, en attendant, <13> for her last from Florence. They might go to Varese for a bit – How delightful the thoughts of it are!
Give my love to Constance & Ela <14> –
Yr affte Sister
Caroline
The heat yesterday & today is very trying – But Charlie says he has never been so cool since he left England, except the other day, coming out of the St Laurence; where it was extremely cold, & they passed many icebergs.
Notes:
1. Georgina Mary Berkeley, Lady Seymour (1793–1898), wife of Sir George Francis Seymour (1787–1870).
2. Charles Earnest Edgcumbe (1838–1915), JP, WHFT’s nephew.
3. Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter.
4. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].
5. Emily Fitzmaurice, daughter of Henry Fitzmaurice, Lord Shelburne, 4th Marquess of Lansdowne.
6. Lansdowne House, London: home of the Marquis of Lansdowne, WHFT's uncle and cousins.
7. Emily Fitzmaurice, Lady Lansdowne (1819–1895), wife of Henry Fitzmaurice.
8. James Kenneth Howard (1814–1882), MP, husband of Lady Louisa Fitmaurice.
9. Lady Maud Evelyn Hamilton (1850–1932) married Henry Chas Keith Petty Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne; Earl of Shelburne (1845–1927).
10. Franco-Prussian War.
11. The Rivals, play written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan in 1775.
12. William Henry Edgcumbe, ‘Val’, 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832–1917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT’s nephew ‘Bimbo’.
13. Meanwhile.
14. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife and Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter.