Belton
January 11th 1833
My dear Henry
It will be very unlucky indeed if we cannot contrive to be at Laycock Abbey before you leave it, but I am very much afraid it will be impossible to arrange it otherwise – Ld V. <1> went off to Scotland to arrange Mr Mac Donald’s <2> affairs last Tuesday & I cannot expect him back before eight or ten days, & then comes our visit to Blickling – but you may be sure we will do it if it is to be done. – Lady Bromley <3> invited us to Stoke, where I should like to have gone very much, but was obliged to decline, as I could not go alone – Tuesday I am going with the Brownlows <4> for a day or two to Burghley. I have written long accounts of my visit to Belvoir Castle <5> to Mamma & Horatia, <6> as well as a detailed description of our tableaux & charades, so I will not repeat them here – I hope you and Constance <7> mean to patronize Kerry’s <8> fancy ball at Devizes – I should like to be there to assist in dressing her & Horatia en costume – for, I am not altogether without wit, as Zohrab <9> says, in that respect at least – Tell them so with my love. –
Yr affte Sister
Caroline
Notes:
1. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.
2. Probably Reginald George MacDonald, brother-in-law of Lord Valletort.
3. Lady Ann Bromley, wife of Sir Robert Howe Bromley of Stoke Hall, Nottinghamshire.
4. John Cust, 1st Earl Brownlow (1779–1853) and his 3rd wife, Lady Emma Sophia Edgcumbe (1791-1872).
5. Leicestershire, England. [See Doc. No: 00519].
6. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother, and Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
7. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
8. William Thomas Fitzmaurice, Earl of Kerry (1811–1836), MP.
9. See Doc. No: 06824.