Seward House
Badsey
Evesham
8th August 1905
My dear Ethel,
We were rather disappointed at not getting a letter from you today, perhaps Bank holiday may have upset the post. We were glad to get your post-card yesterday, & Mrs Idiens had Daisy’s letter & very kindly sent it over for us to see.
We were glad that neither of you were sea-sick, you poor things, you must have felt tired & dirty by the time you got to Sépey. You will be wanting to get home news, so I will write by this afternoon’s post, without waiting to hear from you.
We are still servantless & at present there is no probability of getting one, the Registry sends me names & I write to them, but get no letters back again; so Kathleen & I are having a lively time & it is a good thing we are not too large a party. Kathleen has been obliged to write & put off Faith Watson’s visit, it is annoying, but she would not have been able to entertain her properly, as we can’t even get a stop gap. Florence then couldn’t come & Louisa couldn’t or wouldn’t. So we have to manage; Kathleen gets up about ½ six and does the dining room & gets breakfast, Brailsford lights the fire for her, then we do the rest of the work between us, & at twelve o’clock Olive comes in, does any little job of cleaning that is required & washes up the dinner things & tidies up the kitchen, going off again about 1 o’clock.
Juliet is such a handy little girl, she often helps Kathleen get breakfast, & several times she has washed up afterwards. She is looking forward very much to getting Cyril home, he comes tomorrow by way of Gloucester; he has had rather a wet time in camp. Did you know he had won the reading prize, as well as Geography & Mathematics? His report is excellent.
Arthur is with the Schenks till the 15th when he goes on to the Philipps.
Kathleen is going to Miss Pollard’s on the 17th for a couple of nights, she & Jack has taken two berths on the “Grange” which starts from London on the 19th & goes to Grangemouth.
May comes home on the 18th so I shall only be one day alone.
Kathleen may enclose a letter in this, but she has gone to see Mrs Idiens.
I must go now to Mrs Wilson’s to pay Agg’s rent, then there will be supper to get, I do hope we shall manage to get a servant before Uncle George arrives at the end of the month.
Give my love to Daisy. I hope you are both enjoying yourselves & will come back as fat & rosy as possible.
Juliet sends her love & a kiss, I found her in tears over your photo one evening when she had gone up to bed rather tired. Much love dear from
your loving mother
Eugénie N Sladden
