Cotehele House <1>
Calstock
Tavistock.
6th March 1877
My dear Henry
Very many thanks for remembering me in the matter of the Eclipse. I came here from Mt E. <2> on the 27th & arrived a little before the time at which you told me it would begin. It had been a beautiful morning, & I hoped & expected to see it in perfection. Not at all - It was so cloudy, though fine, that I only had a glimpse of it when it was passing off.
It was not a dull cloudy evening - but rather a picturesque one - thick, black masses of clouds kept flying across the moon, shewing flashes of light in a tantalizing way. It was very dark at the time of the total obscuration; naturally.
Ernestine <3> was at Pamflete (the Bulteels' <4> place, near Ivybridge,) & saw it better than we did here.
I expect her home today. Val <5> is in London, where he stays for the Levée on the 12th - There is a most charming little garden growing up in the zigzags - with olivetrees, a carouba, orangetrees, & numbers of Charlie's <6> Australian plants - most thriving - & the view is quite lovely & Italian - with a Montezuma Pine, among other things. I wish you would come into these parts when the Spring is more advanced. You have not been in the West for ages. Love to Constance & my nieces. <7>
Yr affte
Caroline
Notes:
1. Cotehele, Cornwall: ancient house, seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe, now a National Trust Property.
2. There was a lunar eclipse on 27 February 1877. Mt. Edgecumbe, near Plymouth, was the seat of the Earl of Mt. Edgcumbe.
3. Ernestine Emma Horatia Edgcumbe (1843-1925), WHFT's niece.
4. John Buteil (1827-1897) and his wife Emily, née Parsons (1831-1914).
5. William Henry Edgcumbe, 'Val', 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832-1917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT's nephew 'Bimbo'.
6. Charles Earnest Edgcumbe (1838-1915), JP, WHFT's nephew.
7. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811-1880), WHFT's wife; Ela Theresa Talbot (1835-1893), WHFT's 1st daughter; Rosamond Constance 'Monie' Talbot (1837-1906), artist & WHFT's 2nd daughter; Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, 'Tilly', née Talbot (1839-1927), WHFT's 3rd daughter.