Laycock Abbey
12th December
My Dear Henry
We have settled not to go to Melbury <1> till the 21st because Ld Ilchester <2> will be at Abbotsbury <3> all next week. So now is my time for going to London to chuse the Paper if you still think of it. You know that without that sine quâ non <4> that house is useless to you, when you are en famille. <5> Constance <6> seems quite off the idea of Brighton, & even proposed that you & I & Horatia <7> should go there without her, but this scheme I told I did not think would suit you. She says she had rather spend her money on Belgium, & indeed I hope that plan is not given up. Mais revenons à nos moutons <8> – if you think of spending February & March in Sackville Street <9> there must be time given for the papering. I believe Miles & Edwards <10> would do it in a fortnight. The drying is only a day or two it is the manual labour of cutting out & pasting that takes the time. Write me word what you think of all this, because after I am at Melbury it would be a job to get up to London, but from here it is nothing. It is the cold that indisposes Constance to the notion of Brighton, She Shivers at the prospect of the journey & of a lodging house in such weather. There are two very happy people here under your roof, so happy indeed that they sought permission from Bowood <11> to stay another day. Lord Mt E <12> intends coming Saturday but this weather will or ought to deter him. It is only poor Mr Condy <13> qui tient bon <14> in the Cloisters every day
[envelope:]
H. Fox Talbot E
31. Sackville St.
London
Notes:
1. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
2. Henry Stephen Fox Strangways, 3rd Earl of Ilchester (1787–1858).
3. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
4. Essential.
5. Together as family.
6. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
7. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
8. Let’s get back to the subject.
9. 31 Sackville Street, London residence of the Feildings, often used as a London base by WHFT.
10. Miles & Edwards, furniture printers, upholsterers & cabinet makers, London.
11. Bowood House, nr Calne, Wiltshire, 5 mi NE of Lacock: seat of the Marquess of Lansdowne.
12. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.
13. Nicholas Condy (1793–1857), artist. (See Doc. No: 05207.)
14. Holds out.