TALBOT8537

Mount Edgcumbe ¹
Devonport
March 30^th 1862

My dear Henry

I wrote to Constance ² from Chippenham where we slept 2 nights, going home next day by the Express which passes Chippenham at 12. 40 11. 40. We were very comfortable at the Angel a nice old-fashioned inn, totally unlike in style to the new Railway Architecture. I went upstairs to look at the old Assembly room, where we used to have such merry balls in old times – when M^r Moore & M^r Bowles ³ were flourishing. I know it is very wrong but I feel now as if I only cared for what is past & gone – alas! never to return.

I know it is wrong – but my sympathies are so much with the past that I cannot help it – & you are almost the only one who can enter into these feelings – & now that the time is approaching for leaving this my own loved home for during so many happy years, I feel more heart-sore than you can imagine – tho’ I am going to another so near, & that he was so fond of too.

I did not intend however to attrister ⁴ you when I began this letter – so I will tell you that we saw all your flowers at Laycock, & Wilkins ⁵ was exceedingly kind & obliging – so was Banks. ⁶ I begged Flora ⁷ to send you a specimen of a creeper from the Winter Villa, ⁸ the day I went to Town & had not time to write. I hope you received it. Wilkins shewed me one something like it, only with smaller leaves, & I think not an evergreen, which our’s [sic] is.

There was snow on the ground – so that of course the place could not look in beauty – but it was extremely nice, tidy & soigné, ⁹ inside & out.

I also visited the Church where great alterations have been made – some of them are very good, & they want you to open a plaistered-up Arch behind the shelter of which, M^r Paley ¹⁰ used to put on his gown, for want of a Vestry – Now there is a vestry, the filing up of the Arch is of no use. It is similar to the 2 arches in front of Sir W. Sherrington’s ¹¹ Tomb, & is very handsome. I wonder why the pulpit has been moved close up to your pew? or what object was gained by removing moving it from one side to another? They have made a new one – carved wood from Devizes on a stone pedestal worked at Box.

In the kitchen at the Abbey there are threatenings of some mischief in the front of the chimney – It is like an arch thus [illustration]

resting upon two brackets which are, altho’ of stone, so old, that they are literally crumbling away – & there is great danger of the front of chimney [sic] coming down, & perhaps part of the wall.

Banks shewed me this – & I took upon me to tell him to shore it up till you come home – when you would no doubt give orders concerning it. I have not drawn it correctly – but that don’t [sic] signify. I hope Constance received my letter from Chippenham. They said at Laycock, that they rather expected you soon – Is it so? Ernestine ¹² sends you her love. I did not take the house in Rutland Gate ¹³ – it was too squeezy & too far off. Val ¹⁴ is now in London house hunting for himself.

You have heard Ilted Nicholl ¹⁵ is going to be married to the youngest of Captⁿ Jerningham’s ¹⁶ daughters? She is very pretty – of an uncommon style of beauty – rather foreign I think.

I believe they are to be married on the 30^th of April, as on the 1^st May Cap^tn Jerningham gives up his Command of the “Cambridge” Gunnery Ship – & his sailors want to have a garland at the mast head – the signal for a Wedding. Jane Nicholl ¹⁷ is at Torquay – & Miss J. is there now, making acquaintance with her belle-mère. ¹⁸

Johnny Nicholl ¹⁹ is studying musketry, (being a Volunteer) at Hythe – where my Charlie ²⁰ is doing the same. Charlie is there for ten weeks – It is excessively dull work; & it was bitter cold, out on the sands “judging distances” – but he is qualifying himself by this drudgery (quite useless I believe, in reality) to be Adjutant. There are so many new studies & examinations required now-a-days – that every profession becomes quite a drudgery, even in the higher grades – & the amount of head-work & writing required from the Captain of a man of War, would have made Nelson ²¹ & his brother Heroes open their eyes with astonishment, could they have seen it – & yet they got on very well without it.

Please give my love to all your ladies ²² –

& believe me y^r aff^te Sister
Caroline