Envelope with seal, postmarks and Dickens' signature to "Miss Burdett Coutts / Stratton Street / Piccadilly / London."
The letter is part of a collection, MA 1352, which consists of letters from Charles Dickens to the Baroness, to her companion Hannah (Meredith) Brown, or the latter's husband, William Brown; with 70 letters written by others to Miss Coutts or to Dickens in his capacity as her unofficial almoner; and a few others. See the collection-level record for more information.
Written from "Broadstairs, Kent / Thursday Tenth August / 1848."
Enclosing two accounts related to Charley's education; relating a conversation with Mrs. Holdsworth on her duties with respect to washing-day; saying "I told her, in the course of the committee proceedings the other day, that you wished her to get up on every alternate washing-day; Mrs. Graves taking the other. She did not object then, but afterwards - when I was going, and the rest were gone - informed me, with a face of most portentous woe and intensity, that 'she couldn't do it'. I informed her, in reply, that that was an answer which I could by no means give to you, in so easy a matter, and that she must make that communication to you herself;" relating an accident Mrs. Dickens had when the pony pulling her phaeton "made a sudden start, and the man instantly jumped out (he says he was thrown out, but it could not have been so) leaving her gallopping down a steep hill, with the reins wound round the wheel, and his mistress astounding the whole Isle of Thanet with her screams. However, she kept her seat and the poney plunging over a steep bank, broke the shafts and tumbled down on her side, without upsetting the carriage [...] She is none the worse, I hope, for the fright, but the man is greatly cut and bruised from head to heel, and the Surgeon is afraid he may be lamed, from the injury done to some leading sinews of his legs. I am going to take the poney to the scene of the disaster this morning, where I shall try to cure her of such freaks for the future."