From H. E. Litchfield to Emma Darwin 21 August [1873]

Dear Mother

I am sorry you have been so long thinking I hadn’t got letters, because now it is all over & gone it doesn’t seem so very long. It was just 12 days since Bessys letter at Abbeville & my getting yr Aigle one. The Paris one I suppose may as well give up now. Frank sounds extremely happy—& his letter properly full of Amy— R. is going to write to you too so every now & then we must have a clearing house & see that we aren’t clashing. I wonder if you have remembered that today is the 31^st Aug. We have been keeping it very happily, thinking over the past year & looking forward to the future years. In the winter we thought it wd be a g^t. achievement if I should manage to exist at this anniversary, & here I am getting on well in Switzerland. I hope my strength isn't fictitious but I don’t think it can be as I do everything better, eating & sleeping included. Just every now & then I get into a restless state & can’t resist [bang]. but I generally manage to go off to sleep quite early without it. We have celebrated our wedding day by a bottle of champagne & my hair being plaited grecian which only affords an inward satisfaction to myself for R. wdn’t notice such a detail—& an exped in a one horse chayQQQQ. We must have looked a very funny little couple slammacking down hill with a wild little horse with no blinkers in a ramshackle little car & two very scruffy waterproofs over our respective bodies. However we are decidedly m. imposing looking than the last new couple. I’m afraid there must be some flaw in our marriage for I’m not got to look the least married—every body calls me mademoiselle without the least hesitation—& only after mature reflexion do they conclude that as I’ve got a man belonging to me I may be married. I find R. is telling abt Panex so I'll tell abt Chamossaire which I too ascended yesterday. Upon second thoughts I don’t seem to have anything to tell except that we had lovely weather for all the road up & that I walked all the way down which is much my longest walk. We were out the whole day & I wasn’t too tired at all. Now my back tells me it has had 3 hours jolting & wants to be down so Goodbye— Tell me abt At Jessie when you next write.

Goodbye dearest Mother | your loving | H.E.L.

Thank B. for her pleasant letter. More wedding presents for all of us!