Letter from Emma Hubbard to her cousin Arthur Phelps.
Transcribed from a scan of the original in March 2014 by Penelope
Forrest, born Phelps, great granddaughter of Arthur.
Bosworth Nov 2 [1857]
My dear boy Arthur
I was so glad to hear you were better again. It
was very sharp of you to write viâ Marseilles. How stupid of you to go & get
fever so often. Are the attractions of bitter beer too many for you? I have been
doing the same though – going & having the same gastric fever that laid me up
for so long last summer. I was not quite so ill this time, though I think I went
without food longer. I cd not eat anything – literally for 3 weeks
except one day, so I am rather lean now, & shaky as to understandings but I am
getting all right as fast as I can & 2 days ago drove Mamma to Osbaston to my
great delight.
We go on pleasantly here – have just been
building a little forcing pit which will be much too hot to keep plants in in
the winter, & won't be wanted all the summer. Also we have made the purchase of
a very pretty cow, whose acquaintance I made yesty for the first
time, John drawing me down to the field in the hand carriage.
Boy is very well & pleasant. I should like you
to see him. I don't mind people seeing him for he never is shy or gives himself
any silly airs. He is just beginning the accomplishment of walking. He will be a
year old on Saty & I feel rather unmotherly to have arranged to be
away on his first birthday. Is it not funny to think of B's having a house of
his own? Mary is of course worth anything to him in settling himself in it – &
writes Mamma the funniest graphic letters possible. I like the notion of going
to see him.
Dr Shaw of Leicester used to come over & doctor
me last year & did the same this – & all the summer my leisure time has been
given to carving him an ivory walking stick handle all covered with leaves which
I can't be bothered to do – & having his crest, a Talbot, & his initials G. S.
on the front & at the top "Saluti reduci" – pattern suggested by B though not
followed implicitly by any means. Motto also supplied by him. And it does look
so lovely – you know I would not say so if it did not. It is almost finished & I
have a sweet Malacca cane for it. I wanted to get it done for his birthday next
Saty, the same as the boy's – but I can't quite, so I mean to take it
to Birmm & get its silver mounting there.
I have neither heart nor room to talk of Indian
matters. Your description of the delight of the natives in your account of the
atrocities is one of the most horrible & alarming symptoms of all, it seems to
me.
God bless & keep you dear old boy. I did not
forget your birthday you may be sure. Many happy returns of it.
Ever your loving coz, Emma
Madlle is gone to Amorbach to try to get up a school there; if it
does not answer she is to return to the Copes, so one can't wish her much
success.