Mount Edgcumbe <1>
Devonport.
Sunday 6th June 1875
My dear Henry
I was much pleased to get a letter from you the other day – such a rara avis in terris, <2> now-a-days. I have no doubt Lacock is charming just now – but I assure you I never saw this place in such extreme beauty as it is now. It is true that I have not spent a Spring here for many years, & so have had no opportunity of seeing the Rhodendrons [sic] in full bloom. They are quite magnificent in the Upper Garden just above the house – But then some of those plants were very large when I first knew them, 40 years ago! Now, Val <3> has planted them all about the Amphitheatre & in the woods, where they thrive equally well, & are covered with blossoms. This is the R. Ponticum, or ordinary kind – but there are many other varieties of all shades from pure white to Crimson. Then the Laburnums have been masses & showers of gold – growing as so many plants do in the South – all flowers & no leaves.
I enclose a specimen of a shrub you once told me was an Abutilon – tho’ it is much more like a Mallow. There are many very large specimens here – & they blossomed the moment the lilacs went off – very >good of them. Do tell me if it is an Abutilon or not? –
Val returned on Friday from a short visit to London, where he attended the House of Lords. He said he was almost the only lay Peer who voted with the Bishops on the “Sale of next presentations”.
Ernestine <4> has had an invitation to go up to Lansdowne House, <5> for a short time. This will be very pleasant for her – for I really cannot afford to take a house this year.
Love to Constance <6> & all the others.
Yr affte Sister
Caroline
You must have seen in the papers the death of poor Charles Cust <7> – a great & very old friend of ours! – his illness was Bronchitis – or at any rate, he sank from weakness consequent upon it.
We went to see Boyton the other day, floating about in the Gt Western Dock at Millbay – interesting but too long.
Notes:
1. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.
2. Rare bird in the lands.
3. William Henry Edgcumbe, ‘Val’, 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832–1917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT’s nephew ‘Bimbo’.
4. Ernestine Emma Horatia Edgcumbe (1843-1925), WHFT’s niece.
5. Lansdowne House, London: home of the Marquis of Lansdowne, WHFT's uncle and cousins.
6. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
7. The Hon. Charles Henry Cust (1813–1875), husband of Caroline Sophia Macdonald who was the niece of Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.