BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [4 AUG. 1919]
BRACERS 19517. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<West Lulworth>
Monday1^, 2^, 3

My Beloved

Your letter4 was waiting at the P.O. yesterday — I am glad about Helen of Troy5 — you ought to enjoy it very much indeed.

As to your watch,6 I believe the inscription was “Colette, April somethingth, 1917” [not 1916]a — I forget the date, but it was the day we went to Richmond and bought your cigarette case.7 I should tell the people you had already communicated with Scotland Yard, as they can ascertain by inquiry. That will show them you are all right.

Littlewood’s 2 wives8 arrived to tea on Saturday and Allen9 arrived about eleven, having had a Comee in town that day — It is a great joy having him — I don’t like Littlewood’s 2 wives:  one is affected and lackadaisical,b the other smells and is utterly masculine — C.A. and I use the dining-room and leave Littlewood10 to cope with the situation. Mrs Streatfeild declares herself to be ill and he runs upstairs to take her temperature — but she eats bacon and eggs — He seems to me to have muddled his affairs badly. C.A. is infinitely amused — I shall be glad when the cousin goes — she is hard and stupid and totally without merit.

Beloved I must get to work though I want to go on writing to you all morning. I love you with all my soul and with all my strength — every moment of my waking life you are in my thoughts, filling me with the sense and profound comradeship and a great wonderful still happiness in the heart —

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200504.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 6 Mecklenburgh Square | London W.C.1. Pmk: WEST LULWORTH | 4 AU | 19

• 3

  [date] Colette wrote“4 Aug. 1919” on the envelope.

• 4

  Your letter Not extant.

• 5

  Helen of Troy Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson had seen Colette’s performance in the Tagore play, The King and Queen, in February and a Stage Society production of Masefield’s The Faithful in April. The offer to play the part of Helen in Euripides’ The Trojan Women, translated by Gilbert Murray, came from Casson. In her autobiography, After Ten Years [London: J. Cape, 1931], she dates this offer incorrectly from her diary as being 18 August 1919 (p. 130). This is the first mention of this play to be discussed frequently in their correspondence. BR never tells her in writing that he went to see this play with his first wife, Alys, when it was performed at the Court Theatre in London in April 1905, although he might have done so in conversation (BR to Lucy Donnelly, 10 April 1905, BRACERS 58468).

• 6

  your watch See also BR’s letter of 2 Aug. (BRACERS 19516) in which the loss of the watch is discussed.

• 7

  inscription was ... day we went to Richmond ... cigarette case The day they went to Richmond was 24 October 1916, Colette’s birthday. On 18 April 1917 Colette lost her cigarette case. It was found on 23 April when she requested that the Richmond Park date be engraved on it. BR wanted to buy Colette a wristwatch as early as December 1916 but could not find the time. As late as 5 September 1917 they were to meet at Hatchett’s to shop for a watch. The watch was purchased that month as Colette wrote on 5 July 1918 (BRACERS 19318) that the watch would be celebrating its first birthday when BR got out of prison.

• 8

  Littlewood’s 2 wives Mrs. Streatfeild and Littlefield’s cousin, Miss Budden. Littlefield never married but did have two children, Philip and Ann Streatfeild, with the wife of Dr. Raymond Streatfeild.

• 9

  Allen (Reginald) Clifford Allen (1889–1939). For information on him, see BRACERS 19046, n.7.

• 10

  Littlewood John Edensor Littlewood (1885–1977), mathematician, was renting Newland Farm with BR.

Textual Notes

• a

  [not 1916] written above 1917

• b

  lackadaisical misspelt “lackadasical”