Seward House
Badsey
9th March 1899
My dear Kathleen,
I may as well begin a letter to you while superintending Baby’s tea, though it may very quickly not be ready to post till tomorrow morning.
May is waiting to ask Ruth to stay here during the Easter holidays, it will be nice if she can come. Is there any chance of Joyce being at Stratford? If so, she ought to come to us too for a few days.
We had a flying visit from Jack on Sunday, he had to come & be examined by Mr Haynes, so he arrived on Sunday evening & went back again by the last train on Monday, catching an excursion train in London which reached Ramsgate at half-past two in the morning. Mr Haynes passed him all right, so now he will give notice at the Bank, leave probably the end of this month, after spending a few days at Folkestone, come home & wait till he gets his appointment. He was looking well & is I think pleased at getting out the Civil Service, but as you know he never says much.
May has got the new bicycle, she rode it down from Evesham on Tuesday, it looks a very nice one, & when she has got herself a new bicycling skirt, she will be quite a swell.
Do you know you put your letter to May & Ethel’s to Lily in Jack’s letter, so they went to Ramsgate & he forwarded them; May was calling you names for not having written.
Mrs Price has a little girl born yesterday morning, she has been rather bad & poor Mr Price is in a proper state of mind about her, however she is rather better tonight & I hope she will get on all right.
May & I walked over to Wickhamford this evening to service, it is the first time I have seen it lit up, there were quite a fair number of Wickhamfordites in church. Clara’s Confirmation is to be next Monday at half-past eleven, at Bengeworth Church; I shall try & go up with her, as her Mother cannot come.
Baby’s vocabulary is increasing, her last word to Cyril’s intense amusement is “dacodaco”, by which she means her little drawers, & she will pull up her frock to point to them! She walks a little by herself now, but is a bit nervous about it; she looks so rosy & well now.
I have not heard from Richmond for some time, so have had no further news of the baby & Fanny; but I see in the paper that Mr Walton died last Sunday.
I can’t think of any more news, so must leave off.
May encloses a letter for Ruth.
With much love to both of you
I remain
your loving mother
Eugénie N Sladden
P.S. Father is enclosing a letter of the Bishop of Winchester & a leading article for your perusal. We went up to Evesham by train on Tuesday for the Literary & on arriving at Badsey station, found that the train had been altered, so had to wait over half an hour & were three quarters of an hour late.
Father’s part in the first act had to be read by someone else, & May & my duet came rather later in the programme, we got through it all right so played Germany & Hungary from Moszkowski’s Foreign Parts.
