Cotehele House <1>Calstock
Tavistock.
Tuesday 18th Novr 1873
My dear Henry
I enclose a specimen, not very beautiful to look at, of the flower of the Palmetto in the W. Villa <2> Conservatory. I don’t know if you remember the tree – the trunk has grown to a very large size – & the leaves are perfectly enormous. I suppose it is the largest kind (the leaves I mean), of the Fan tribe.
It flowered last year, & I have got some of the seeds – & has flowered again now. – One would not think the tiny flowrets [sic] belonged to such a large plant – but the sprigs I send grow on a sort of branch or spike, with a dozen more – & that spike grows with many others, on a very large one, more than 4 ft & ½ long.
How glad you will all be to see Matilda <3> again! What a pity she lives so far off. Ernestine <4> left me last Saturday, Friday, & is gone to visit Carry Liddell <5> at Lorbottle, 14 miles from Alnwick, which is their station. She slept in Flora’s <6> house in London, & dined with Charlie, <7> who took her to the Play afterwards – a very amusing travestie of Richelieu & Gladstone <8> in one. On Saturday she had a long day, all the way to Lorbottle – I heard yesterday by telegraph of her safe arrival. I am, as usual, very busy in my garden & farm, which I am happy to say is very productive in apples this year – I believe there will be 25 Hogsheads of cider! They are very busy making it now. First pounding, then Squatting.
Yr affte Sister
Caroline
The fowls arrived quite safe.
[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esqre
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Cotehele, Cornwall: ancient house, seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe, now a National Trust Property.
2. Winter Villa, near Plymouth: estate of the Earls of Mt Edgcumbe.
3. Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter.
4. Ernestine Emma Horatia Edgcumbe (1843-1925), WHFT’s niece.
5. Caroline Cecilia Liddell, née Edgcumbe, niece of Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.
6. Flora St George, née Porcelli, daughter of Sarah Anne MacDonald, whose mother was sister to Caroline Edgcumbe’s husband, Lord Mt Edgcumbe. [See Doc. No: 09638].
7. Charles Earnest Edgcumbe (1838–1915), JP, WHFT’s nephew.
8. Possibly Armande Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu (1585–1642), and William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898), statesman and author.