Thursday December 7th 1850 Brunswick Square

Boo and her husband called this afternoon – not Wednesday, when we are ready to receive callers. Brought Baby Pitt with them. For a reason I cannot fathom they have called him Bradstone Josiah Pitt. I coo’d and twitted about of course but the moment she said the infant’s name I was struck like stone. Why has she given him the name Josiah?

He is a pretty enough child, I suppose. They have already had his image recorded and he does seem a bright and chubby thing. But Josiah? What can they be thinking of? She knows I am anxious for a child of my own. Does it not strike her that I might have a son and want to name him Josiah? I cannot name my child after hers, I should look as though I am a sheep.

No, I am disappointed in Boo. I can say it here if nowhere else. She shall never know it – when she brings him on our walks and I give him flapdoodle about how clever he is or some such. But I shall never call him Josiah, not even in a letter. Never.

Mrs Euphemia Hatherwick
34 Brunswick Square
London

December 4th 1850

Dear Mrs Hatherwick

I received your letter of the 27th ult. with great regret. I shall, of course, investigate the loss of your brooch thoroughly and shall inform you without delay of my findings.

In the meantime I thank you for your kind comments about your stay here are trust that you will feel able to recommend The Excelsior to any friends or acquaintances considering a stay in this fine town.

Yours faithfully

Ogden Browne
Proprietor
Excelsior Hotel

Boo! A Boy! Oh, Boo – I can hardly write for excitement!

Tell me everything, Boo, what was it like? How is he? How are you? Mr Pitt must be ten feet tall with pride….

I shall come to visit you in your nursery as soon as you send word that I may.

Oh, Boo – you are such a clever goose! Well done!

E xxxxxxx

The Proprietor
Excelsior Hotel
Esplanade
Clacton-by-Sea

November 27th 1850

Dear Sir

I write with regret, having enjoyed a brief but refreshing stay at your establishment last week. My husband, Mr Josiah Hatherwick, and I were delighted with the accommodation you offer and took great pleasure in sampling the best from your fine menu.

The beds were comfortable, the water nicely warmed by your staff and you yourself showed us genuine welcome.

However, I feel I must write this letter – in the best of faith that you will receive it in the spirit in which it is sent. That is, as a warning from a friend, not a barb from your enemy.

I have arrived back in London without an item that is most precious to me. I am assiduous in the care of my belongings and it would be quite out of character for me to mislay such an item. My husband has no knowledge of its whereabouts and I am forced to conclude that it has been taken from me whilst I was in your hotel.

The item in question is a brooch. It contains an amethyst set in a double row of seed pearls. The brooch was a wedding gift to me from my Mother and I am distressed to be without it.

I fear your staff are not all as trustworthy as you would hope. Please carry out a search of your premises and room-tending staff at your earliest convenience. I am sure that my brooch will be found in the temporary possession of one of them.

I await your reply

Yours in anticipation

Euphemia Hatherwick (Mrs)

My Dear, Brave Boo

When I saw you last I felt sure you would produce your child on the very rug in front of me! Surely it cannot be long now? Just think, you may be in the depths of childbirth even as I write. I stand at the window a great deal at the moment watching for your boy to come with a note telling me I am an honorary Aunt…

I cannot imagine what you will have gone through, Boo. Only that it will have been worth every moment.

Please let me know as soon as you can. Send word whatever the time, day or night. I am not going to settle til I know you are safely delivered of your child.

Yrs

Effie xxx

p.s. Mr Hatherwick asks me to send his best. He is pacing the floor with me, bless him. He has such empathy – for a mere male!

Oh Boo!

Mr Hatherwick and I have been to Clacton!

A day or two ago he came to me after breakfast and said

“Effie, now the Girl is no longer with us I cannot help but notice you are more tired. Until we engage the services of another Girl, perhaps an older one this time, I do not wish you to become worn out.”

I am such a lucky wife. We took an open carriage and were on the beach by mid-day. Oh, it was glorious, Boo. So wide, so open and so so blue. We walked up and down the front and stopped for a cup of tea and some cake. The people of Clacton are very jolly, on the whole, and we were approached more than once in the afternoon by men wanting us to buy eels and the like. We said no.

Mr Hatherwick then walked me up to quite the grandest hotel, straight across from the seafront and said “Say hello to our lodgings, Effie.” I have never seen such a place! You might think that someone used to the grandeur of Blindingham would not care for white stucco and swirls, but I thought it was delightful.

We spent an hour or so in our room before dinner. Mr Hatherwick took a nap and I read a little. Then we ate the loveliest local food – those eels again, I expect – and I drank a glass or two of brandy I don’t mind admitting it.

Clacton by night is a very different place!

After dinner we went for another stroll along the Front. There were no families or nurses with their charges. They were all safely tucked in their rooms by then. So the people we met were much more lively. We saw men singing and rolling along, laughing at the slightest joke and calling out to their friends. They must know each other very well in a small town, I suppose, to be able to shout across the street like that.

And Boo, the women were a sight to behold. So colourful and gay, I felt positively dowdy amongst them. They wandered about in twos or threes, smiling at us as we passed. Mr Hatherwick is a sociable man when at play and he took his hat off to any woman who caught his eye. Most of the women seemed very happy to be out after dark, although I did wonder where their husbands were at such an hour. I am sure I would not want to walk the streets of Clacton in a red dress without Mr Hatherwick beside me.

The rest of our night was quiet and we were back in Brunswick Square by 11 o’clock the next morning. What memories I have!

Mr Hatherwick declared himself to be so taken with Clacton that he will take me again next year. He said he will go there alone beforehand to settle upon the very best Hotel. I shall be treated like a Queen, I can tell.

Mrs Cooper asked me to pass on her best wishes for your imminent event. May I call soon and see you – it may be the last time I see you without an infant on your knee!

Effie x

Dearest Boo

I have informed Mr Hatherwick of the Girl’s predicament. He looked as astonished as anyone could.

He flew to her quarters and I heard an ungodly amount of raging from him, followed by her coming down the stairs at greater speed than she has managed for a month. She is to be sent back to Blindingham and kept there until her confinement, which I think, my own sweet Boo, is to be at a similar time as your own.

I am to be surrounded by dandling babies in the New Year, evidently.

I will not write more now. The Girl is making the most awful wailing noises and sniffling and I cannot think to set down my own thoughts. I must compose a note for the hapless booby’s poor mother to explain why she will not be receiving her daughter’s wage for a few months.

Call on Wednesday, Boo. Mrs Cooper and her daughter have promised to take tea with me and I should love to show you off to them. You are the most sophisticated of my friends and I know they will love you every bit as much as I do.

Effie x

B

I cannot believe it! I simply do not understand how this could have happened! The silly child must have been meeting in secret, but with whom? The gardener’s boy at Blindingham? The herdsman? She must have been well advanced in her condition before we arrived in Town.

I had thought her to have been too busy for romantic assignations whilst in the Country. Indeed I know that when she was not tending to me she was kept hard at it by Mr Hatherwick, who brooks no laziness.

What shall I tell her Mother?

Oh, it is too tiresome to have to deal with! I shall walk in the Square and ponder my next actions.

Yrs in botheration

E

Dearest Boo

I’m sending yr gloves back with the Girl, as arranged. What a clever Boo you are to have hatched such a plot – let her wait a while in yr lobby and watch how she behaves. Then send her back to me carrying your handwritten verdict. She will be judged, and none the wiser for it.

If motherhood doesn’t suit, you might want to offer your services to the police!

Mr Hatherwick took a step back when he saw yr gloves on the hall stand. He asked most anxiously if you had called at Brunswick Square. I was surprised he knew them immediately to be yrs. He’s a man who notices such things, Boo, I am indeed blessed with such a husband.

I did not tell him of our fiendish plot, though. He seems quite blinkered when it comes to the Girl and is more lenient with her than I would like. It would vex him to know you were planning to assess her.

Here she comes, the lumpen booby, with her outdoor coat and her miserable face.

I shall hand her this note and despatch her to yrs straight away.

I am quite alive with the intrigue of it all!

Yr thoughts by return

Effie (of The Yard) x

Boo

The boy has just come to the door with your message. Tomorrow it shall be. I will call at 3 o’clock with my stoutest walking shoes on!

I confess there is a matter concerning the Girl that I wish to consult you about. She is becoming surly and is slow to help me in the mornings. She is vague until gone lunchtime and then she spends the rest of her day yawning and sighing. I have told her that she must buck herself up when Mr Hatherwick returns and that she is lucky I am a tolerant mistress. She gave me a look I could not quite decipher, Boo, but it was not one of gratitude I must say.

Tomorrow at 3

E x