From H. E. Litchfield to Elizabeth Darwin 3 September [1873]

Dear Bessy

I am very glad to hear that F. is going to have A. Clarke by letter received yesterday. I hope Mother will send me a full account of what he says. Indeed I am waiting now in hopes of a letter which ought to have arrived last night. but didn't because the postman was drunk & forgot to call for the letters. Now Madame has sent a special messenger & so I hope they will come soon—only the roads are so bad in consequence of a violent storm yesterday I daresay it will be some time. I never saw such sheets of rain in my life—in a short time there was a complete river flowing across the road & down the meadows & our stream where R. sometimes bathes & has to choose the deepest pools to sit in, was a roaring coffee coloured wicked looking torrent, against which no man could have stood for an instant. Two foals were struck up on the mountain hard by here—one died with a mouthful of hay in his mouth. All the same the lightening & thunder weren't very splendid & I don't think a bit grander than on flat ground. The people here said they never saw such rain all the time they've lived here & we heard the alarm bell was rung at Ollon for all the men to to go & dig dykes t keep the Rhone in its banks. I don't think it rained for more than 1$\frac{1}{2}$ hours (yes, they say it did) so you may guess what rain it was. Everybody is getting cross with the bad weather & talking of going down. The Stansfields go on Thursday. I don't suppose we shall know them in England wh. seems funny to think of. We had a very jolly evening w. them last night—as R. said, relaxing all the bonds of decorum, beginning by M^rs. Stansfield calling me a ""nasty little thing"" because I knocked out the ashes of her cigarette in an attempt to light my own. We played whist & R. & M^r Stansfield talked over the fire & then when we'd done our whist we joined them. We got upon Swinbourne somehow in which there was much diversity of opinion—M^r Ashurst maintaining that he was a better man for having read Chasteland—& that you must forgive a great deal to genius—& M^rs. Stansfield on quite the other tack—she described some of his tipsy goings on very graphically & ended by saying she sh^d like to see his neck wrung like you wring a chicken's— One of his peculiarities is that if he comes to dine with you & you live a long way off, you must expect your butler to hold whispered conversation with him during the evening—the meaning of which is that he will never pay more than 1/– cabfare from whatever distance he has come—so the cab won't go away so eventually you have to pay it for peace & quiet. I don't think there is any more to say. R. has been watching for the letter but has at last given it up & come in to his Helmholz—so we must have patience—

Thanks for Frank's letter

Ever your | H.E.L.

You didn't date your letter!