BR TO PETER BLAKE, [NOV. 1949]
BRACERS 111859. TC. McMaster. B&R C2019.01
Proofread by K. Blackwell

1 The trouble started with a suggestion of mine that the royalties on Authority and the Individual should go to John. As, in that case, they would have paid no surtax and very little income tax, the gain to him would have been great and the cost to me infinitesimal, and as he has three young children to support, his need of money is urgent. But Peter said she had done half the work, and was not willing John should get the money. So I dropped that plan, and said I would make it up to John in my will. (When we were poor, I made a will leaving everything to Peter, which would have put her about on a level with John and Kate. Now, such a will would make her rich while leaving them poor.) At this she burst out, saying I no longer loved her, and if I left anything at all to my children she would starve when I died. For three days she wept and did not speak to me. So I ostensibly gave way, and decided to do what I thought necessary secretly out of income, leaving my will unchanged. But relations remained very strained.

Then came a more serious matter, concerning Colette and our cottage in Wales (which I gave to Peter). Colette is a lady with whom I had an important love-affair, lasting from 1916 to 1920. From 1920 to 1930 I did not see her, but since 1930 we have been good friends. She is now middle-aged, very fat, nearly stone deaf, and without any traces of her former beauty. Peter has always known all about her, and had never shown any sign of jealousy; indeed, why should she? Peter lent her our cottage in Wales, and Colette lived in it without any domestic help. Peter kept telling me she must give up the cottage, because domestic help was so difficult to get; she gave me to understand that she wanted to let it. I came down on business for a day or two, and finding Colette quite content without help, I suggested to her that perhaps it would suit both her and Peter if she rented the cottage. But when I broached this scheme to Peter, she said I was plotting to live there with Colette. Colette is somewhat excessive in expression, and has always continued to write to me affectionately. This suddenly infuriated Peter. We were in Sicily; she went home in a fury, leaving Conrad and me. She wrote to Colette, rudely ordering her out of the house in Wales at a moment’s notice. Colette lost her temper, and wrote a very injudicious letter to me, addressed to Dorset House.

I was still in Sicily with Conrad. Peter opened Colette’s letter to me, kept it, telegraphed furiously to Sicily, Conrad got the telegram. When Conrad and I came home, Peter read Colette’s letter to Conrad. Peter and Conrad both demanded that I should promise never to speak or write to Colette again; I refused. Peter’s mother, who was staying with Peter, had her meals in her bedroom so as not to have to speak to me; the maid, Lena, refused to come while I was in the house. After two days I left.

Conrad wrote to say he would have nothing further to do with me unless I broke with Colette or she apologized. I got a semi-apology out of her, and Conrad, after calling in John as arbitrator, reluctantly accepted it. (I have not seen Colette since the breach.) As the summer went on, Conrad grew normal and friendly. He had been badly upset, his work suffered and his handwriting became like that of a lunatic; but all this gradually improved while he was with me. Now it is coming back.

It is now agreed that we are to live apart, though Peter refuses legal separation. The question of money has proved very difficult. She does not realize her position and is passionately anxious, if possible, to prevent John and Kate from ever getting any money from me, alive or dead. She has thought she could blackmail me by threats of divorce proceedings, but her evidence against me is quite inadequate, whereas I have good evidence of many adulteries on her part. At last her lawyer has made her see this, and she is now acquiescing, but telling Conrad and everybody that, for Conrad’s sake and to avoid scandal, she is submitting to beggary. If she accepts my offer, her assets will be as follows:

1. Part royalties on three of my books. This brings her at present about £2,000 a year, but will soon diminish.

2. The cottage in Wales, furnished, which I have offered to rent at £200 a year.

3. The interest on £10,000 for her lifetime—this sum to be in a trust, to be divided equally among my children when she dies.

4. While she and I both live, £800 a year if my income (gross) exceeds £4,000; £600 a year if my gross income is between £4,000 and £3,000; £400 a year if my income is between £3,000 and £2,000; and £300 a year if my income is less than £2,000.

5. The furniture at Dorset House.

I undertake to pay all Conrad’s expenses of every kind (he also has a trust of £3,000). She will thus have at present about £3,300 a year. At no time (short of public disasters) can she be really poor.

• 1The letter is a statement concerning BR’s relationships with Constance Malleson and Patricia Russell. (The salutation and closing are removed and the recipient is unidentified. But the typewriter and style of typewriting match that of Peter Blake’s letter of 1953/07/09. Moreover, in his letter to BR of 1949/11/22, he writes: “I was very touched by your long and detailed letter. I will type a few copies for you this week and send them on.” The rest of the letter concerns the same topic as the transcribed letter. BR told Kate Tait in his letter of 1950/01/07: “I wrote out a statement of the quarrel with Peter, which I enclose.” He also told Freda Utley that Blake had the statement.) (There are more typed copies at RA2 710.106144.)