The Charles Dickens Letters Project
To GEORGINA HOGARTH, 8 FEBRUARY 1864
MS State University of Buffalo, New York.
OFFICE OF ALL THE YEAR ROUND,
Monday Night Eighth February 1864
My Dearest Georgy
Charles Collins1 has been here to day, and says that Katie very much wishes to know when Mary and you are coming to town. I said I would tell you so by tonights2 post, and that no doubt one of you would write to her [ ]3 at once. I could not tell him explicitly, not knowing. Our right address is 57 Gloucester Place,4 Hyde Park Gardens. Charley has also been here today.
I think you had best have Marsh5 in, and tell him – reading from this note – what I think about having him in town. He had better come up from next6 Saturday to Monday or so (getting Blackman7 to look to the horses in the mean time), to assist at the new house in getting it to rights at once. Then he shall enquire about a Standing8 for Toby, and a coach-house, near us in London.9 These being found, I think I will have Marsh in town, with Toby and the Brougham.10 As it will of course be more expensive to Marsh to live by himself and to have his wife and children at the cottage, than to live as at present I propose to take five shillings a week off his present wages while we are in town, and to board and lodge him in our house. Also, about once a fortnight he shall have a third class return ticket to go home on a Saturday and come back on a Monday. I wish him to consult with Barber11 about getting some horse in for an hour occasionally, say from Youens,12 to draw up what supply of water13 Barber wants, and to place Noggs comfortably in Youens’s straw yard. Perhaps Noggs himself could be brought round to the well, when required. It would be a good opportunity for freshening Noggs up, and when Toby comes back to Gad’s, he shall have a rest. I should like you to have Barber and Marsh in, both together, and let them try to arrange the well-point in the best manner for us all. Tell Barber that I will come down soon, to see him and the house. And ask Mrs Barber if she will take it upon herself to give my pheasant a slice of bread every morning at half past 9.
The tradespeople at Gloucester Place, Mary and you will see to yourselves. Wines and spirits I will arrange about, so that they shall be in the house when we take possession. Nothing else to be arranged occurs to me at present.
In haste | Ever affecy
CD
- 1. Charles Alston Collins (1823-73; Dictionary of National Biography), painter; Wilkie Collins’s younger brother: see Pilgrim Letters 6, p. 378n. He had married Kate Dickens, 17 July 60.
- 2. No apostrophe in MS.
- 3. Illegible word crossed out.
- 4. Now named Gloucester Terrace. Rented by CD from George Beeston, from 10 Feb until June, to allow Georgina and Mamie to enjoy the Season and, he claimed, as a base while he wrote and prepared publication of Our Mutual Friend.
- 5. James Marsh, CD’s groom.
- 6. Written above caret.
- 7. Presumably an under-groom or stable-hand; not otherwise identified.
- 8. I.e. stable-accommodation.
- 9. Written above caret.
- 10. A one-horse closed carriage, with two or four wheels, for two or four people: pronounced “broom”. Named after Lord Brougham, who asked for a small neat carriage: produced from the later 1830s: see Marylian Watney, The Elegant Carriage, 1961, p. 65 & plate XXXVII.
- 11. Charles Barber, head-gardener at Gad’s Hill.
- 12. Thomas Youens, farmer of Higham.
- 13. For the problems of the Gad’s Hill water supply and digging of a well, see Pilgrim Letters 8. Water was originally pumped from the well by hand (Pilgrim Letters 8, p. 541), subsequently, as confirmed here, by horse-power: Noggs (below) was a pony; humanely put down in 1869 (Pilgrim Letters 12, pp. 30, 304).