Ship Hotel –Dover
Monday 2nd Novr 1835 –
My dear Henry
We left Paris last Thursday, & arrived here this morning at eleven o’clock, after a delightful passage of 2 hours & 40 minutes, being the quickest ever performed, all but 8 minutes – The seas was quite smooth & nobody ill, an immense agrément <1> – Bimbo <2> was in high spirits, & much elated with the notion that he was going at England – He would have it that Dover was London. – We staid a day at Boulogne in expectation of a case full of gowns which would have escaped the duty better by being with us – But it did not arrive, & we came away, unwilling to lose such fine weather – I hope you will come & see us in London – We shall not be comfortable, as we shall only be there for a few days, & have had scarcely anything done to the house; but there will be your old room ready for you, & I dare say you will not mind the rest upon a pinch – We proceed tonight to Canterbury, & shall be in London tomorrow –
Goodbye, caro fratello, <3>
Yr very affte Sister –
Caroline
Give my best love to Constance <4> –Why did I experience no sensation on touching English ground after so long an absence? Kerry <5> was equally sorry with ourselves at leaving Paris – not so Lady Kerry <6> –
W. H. Fox Talbot Esqr
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts
Notes:
1. Pleasure.
2. William Henry Edgcumbe, ‘Val’, 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832–1917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT’s nephew ‘Bimbo’.
3. Dear brother.
4. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
5. William Thomas Fitzmaurice, Earl of Kerry (1811–1836), MP.
6. Lady Augusta Lavinia Priscilla Fitzmaurice, née Ponsonby, Lady Kerry (1814–1904).