BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [28 JAN. 1920]
BRACERS 19599. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
70, Overstrand Mansions,
Prince of Wales Road,
Battersea, S.W.1
Wed. night2

Beloved

Your letter came3 a few minutes after you had phoned. You were quite right to stay with Bradley4 — you couldn’t do less for him — I am sorry I didn’t say so more definitely over the phone, but I was so terribly disappointed — I had been thinking and thinking of you ever since you went away, counting the hours, longing for you — I have been feeling rather sad and desolate. I know you love me, but not with passion — often I don’t mind much, as I wrote to you the other day, and then at other times pictures of old days haunt me, when you were in love with me — I think of the first Ashford,5 and the Cat and Fiddle6 — I am still in love with you, in just that way, tho’ I can’t show it because you are not — It doesn’t really matter — and I love you so that I feel nothing really matters in that way — but it does sometimes make me feel old, so that I am sorry to have lived after the first Ashford —

I am feeling just now that life is very stern, nothing but duties — but that mood will pass. I was very happy while you were here, in spite of your unhappiness — O Colette I worship you —

Tell me one thing Dearest. Do you think it is within the bounds of possibility that some day — say ten years hence — you may feel you would like to live with me? I ask because, if there were even a faint chance of it, it would be to me a good reason for not getting into relations with any one else such as I had contemplated with Miss Black7 —

Goodnight my sweet Love — I do hope you will get the tour8 — Blessings on you my Heart’s Comrade9 —

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200591.

• 2

  [date] The letter is dated from its reference to Bradley.

• 3

  your letter came Undated letter, BRACERS 113187.

• 4

  Bradley Colette had written that she was having lunch at Claridge’s with H. Dennis Bradley (1878–1934), who was terribly depressed (BRACERS 113187). Bradley was a businessman, author and producer. One of the plays he produced was Shakuntala, an ancient Indian work. Colette appeared in it in November 1919. She writes about him in her autobiography, After Ten Years ([London: J. Cape, 1931], pp. 129–30), and also describes him in detail in her letter of 2 September 1918 (BRACERS 113155). He was one of the people on the Experimental Theatre Committee (BRACERS 19458, n.2) in 1918. See his obituary, The Times, 21 Nov. 1934, p. 9.

• 5

  the first Ashford Colette and BR vacationed twice in a house, The Avenue, near Ashford Carbonel in Shropshire. Their first visit for two weeks in early to mid-August 1917 was idyllic. For further information, see BRACERS 19217, n.4.

• 6

  Cat and Fiddle An isolated pub on the moors high above Buxton, Derbyshire where he and Colette had stayed from 14 to 17 November 1916. They returned there in April 1918. For further information, see BRACERS 19065, n.5.

• 7

  Miss Black Dora Black (1894–1986). She and BR were married from 1921 until 1935. For information on her, see BRACERS 19506, n.6.

• 8

  the tour The next day Colette wrote (BRACERS 113188) that she had secured a job with a touring theatre company headed by Frank Forbes Robertson. The company performed Mice and Men (1902), a romantic comedy by Madeleine Lucette Ryley. The touring schedule included Shropshire and Yorkshire. Colette played the role of Joanna. It is not known whether she was still with the company when they performed at the Windsor Theatre for several members of the royal family in April 1920 (Court Circular, The Times, 19 April 1920). This was to be the first of many theatrical tours in which Colette took part over the next decade or so.

• 9

  Heart’s Comrade For information on the use of the term, see BRACERS 19145, n.12.