December 20, 1889

BY HAND

Dear Lady Claire,

Thank you for your tube of yesterday’s date. I am pleased you are safely returned to London, and hope I will have the pleasure of seeing you before you journey to Prussia to begin your university career.

In a strange coincidence, you may have read in the Evening Standard this week that Her Majesty has granted a royal warrant to Count von Zeppelin for exclusive rights to transatlantic shipping between the countries of her glorious Empire and her nephew’s kingdom of Prussia, excluding Great Britain herself, which is the sole province of the Cunard family’s shipping company. Needless to say, your instructions to me to invest your capital in the Zeppelin Airship Works seem timely to the point of prescience. I have taken your excellent example and invested some of my own small funds in Zeppelin as well.

Which brings me to your instructions of yesterday. Since your investment in Zeppelin tripled its value practically overnight, I have been able to pay off that portion of your father’s debt that was tied up in the property in Wilton Crescent. In short, Carrick House is yours again, free and clear. If, as you say, you wish to install your wards there as residents in the care of your former housekeeper, Mrs. Morven, assisted by a certain Mrs. Protheroe, I shall begin at once to have the place refurbished and its furnishings replaced. I do hope your wards are housed somewhere satisfactory in the meantime; I trust I shall be able to complete these tasks in two to three weeks.

May I offer my thanks for your generous Christmas gift. It is my great pleasure to be able to assist you in some small capacity. I predict that I shall shortly be taking on a junior solicitor whose entire brief will lie in managing your business affairs.

I remain
Your servant,

Richard Arundel, Esq.
Arundel & Hollis, Solicitors