[this is written on the same sheet as a note from Lady Elisabeth - see Doc. No: 02992]
Friday 10th
Aix les Bains
My dear Henry
Mama <1> has had a douche on her hand & is reposing after it & has accordingly deputed me to finish this letter. It seems to have done her a great deal of good. Caroline <2> has taken a fancy for swimming & went to day to see her cleave with pliant arms the glassy wave as Gray <3> has it. Papa <4> declares this letter will never find you at Cologne but according to Constance’s <5> calculation I think it may. Mind you lay in a stock of [text missing] <6> admirable chez Farina, & go & see the house where Marie de Médicis died & Rubens was born.
We are very snug here, we have got all the premier to ourselves & there is nobody else in the place as the season is over, but the weather is so lovely that it is just as good for bathing as the summer. We found Caroline much better – & Bimbo <7> more flourishing than ever. Pray give my love to Constance I expect a letter from her anxiously with an account of your wanderings. I will say no more for fear my words should be lost – Addio
yr affte
Horatia
Monsieur
Monsieur Talbot (W. H. F.)
Poste Restante
à Cologne
Allemagne
Notes:
1. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.
2. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
3. Thomas Gray, Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College (1742).
4. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
5. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
6. Text obscured under seal.
7. William Henry Edgcumbe, ‘Val’, 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832–1917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT’s nephew ‘Bimbo’.