5 Royal Crescent <1>
October 26th
My dear Henry
I think you will be sure to like this house & not find it too squeezy – for the back rooms, both Drawing room & parlour are quite spacious enough to divide from the front, & thus afford 2 distinct sitting rooms on each floor – When you come you shall have the Dining room floor entirely to yourself if you chuse & I will give the children <2> the back Drawing room for their sitting & eating. – Your bed room is next to mine, in the best bed room floor & over the back Drawing-room. – & there is a small room besides on that floor in which a bed is to be put up for Nicholl. <3> – We have no spare apartments for Lady Elisabeth <4> – but the Royal Hotel is only a few doors off & there are plenty of small lodging houses near – if she should at any time take a fancy to come & remain. – I have written twice to Lady Elisabeth since I left Abbotsbury <5> viz – on Friday & Sunday last – did she not impart the circumstance to you? – To yourself I did not continue writing, thinking that by silence I should ensure hearing from you sooner or later – and the ruse seems to have succeeded. Thanks for your letter received this morning. – I am so glad you did at last find a comfortable logement at Tunbridge – for previous to that you seemed fated to meet with nothing but discomforts. – I hope you will come here soon, for I should not be surprised if the air were to suit you as well as it does me. For, wonderful to say, I have got a real appetite & am better in various ways than I was at home – The children too seem perfectly well & are certainly very joyous. – My Sisters <6> are returning to their home in Duchess Street tomorrow. – They have forwarded for my perusal a very nice letter jointly written by Harriet & my Brother <7> from Milan – They had passed the Stelvio about the last day of September, spent one day at Veruna, & one at Varese – At the latter place they were visited by a tremendous thunder storm which began on the 3d. of Oct. at noon & lasted 14 hours with continual lightening [sic] & thunder claps the whole time. – In the course of the night, the adjoining house (an unfinished one) fell down with a loud crash & alarmed the whole hotel. – Which adventure so much [illegible] <8> the travellers that (having a prospect of bad weather) they actually gave up visiting the Lago Maggiore & Borronean Islands – I think they might have had the patience to wait another day at Varese instead of hurrying on to Milan. – On the 11th. they intended to proceed towards Florence by way of Parma & Modena.– Has Horatia <9> been heard of lately? no tidings of her have reached me since I left home – & I long to hear how she bears her disappointment. – We have had the same sort of variable weather as you have, with a preponderance of rain – but now I really hope the storms are passed, for I have had quite enough of those boisterous nights which prevented me from sleeping.
Your affectionate
Constance.
Why do you continue to direct to me at the Post office, when I live at 5. Royal Crescent?
H. F. Talbot Esqre
31 Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. Weymouth.
2. 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.
3. Nicolaas Henneman (1813–1898), Dutch, active in England; WHFT’s valet, then assistant; photographer.
4. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.
5. Abbotsbury, Dorset: home of William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways.
6. Laura Mundy (1805–1842); Marian Gilder, née Mundy (1806 – 14 October 1860); m. 6 August 1844 William Troward Gilder (d. 1871), Army Surgeon (ret).; WHFT’s sisters-in-law.
7. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law, and her husband, William Mundy (1801-1877), politician, WHFT’s brother-in-law.
8. Text torn away under seal.
9. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.