BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [19 JAN. 1920]
BRACERS 19605. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<Battersea>
Monday mg1^, 2^,3

My Heart’s Comrade4

Your letter which reached me5 Saturday night touched my heart very deeply. Don’t hate yourself, my Darling — to me, at any rate, you have been angelic all these days — My love, my Dear, I wish I could give you all the world, and all the capacities that would make you glorious. — You are right to believe in yourself through everything. I am quite certain that you have great and extraordinary powers of some kind — Sometimes I wonder whether acting is the kind — but I feel sure there is in you something that will bring you all you want in the end, if you can keep alive through the waiting.

I am not surprised at what you say about Miles.6

Now, my loved one, I want to say something, very simply and seriously. What I want to say is this: there is no limit, absolutely none, to what I would do for you if it could make you any happier or ease your despair. I should of course still, for my own part, like to live with you — it would make all life important to me if I could — and, although you don’t believe me, I am no longer liable to serious jealousy. But I don’t suppose you would like me to live with you — What I do want you to believe is that your unhappiness is terrible to me, and that I love you, and that you can count on me — if you wanted me not to see you for 3 years (say) I could even do that for you, and love you just as deeply at the end. I have never loved any one before in the kind of way in which I now love you. It dates from that day, after Lulworth,7 when you wanted to part from me, when for the first time I really understood the inside of all your troubles. It is not a reasonable feeling that I have about you — but in my bones I feel I could throw over work, or other friends, or anything, if it would ease your suffering. I have been having difficulties with Miss Black,8 and I find they are all due to her being jealous of you, which she struggles against. I cannot say anything to ease her jealousy. Even the desire for children would grow dim in my mind if I could look after you and take care of you. Of course if I had a child that would be an obligation which I could not sacrifice9 for you.

Dear one, my love surrounds you always — you can never be quite solitary, while my thoughts are with you. Goodbye, Beloved.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200598.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 6 Mecklenburgh Square | W.C.1. Pmk: BATTERSEA | 1.15 PM | 19 JAN 20

• 3

  [date] The date is taken from the envelope’s postmark.

• 4

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

• 5

  letter which reached me This is possibly her letter of c.16 January, which was probably condensed when it was typed (BRACERS 113185).

• 6

  what you say about Miles Miles Malleson (1888–1969), her husband. She had written c.16 January that Miles “doesn’t really know what he wants of life.” She hopes “that he may wander into personal happiness in the same casual way that he’s wandered into success in the theatre.” For more information on him, see BRACERS 19046, n.4.

• 7

  Lulworth BR and Colette were together at Lulworth Cove, Dorset, 16–19 October 1918.

• 8

  Miss Black Dora Black (1894–1986). She and BR were married from 1921 until 1935. For more information on her, see BRACERS 19506, n.3.

• 9

  an obligation which I could not sacrifice And, in fact, once his son John Conrad was born in 1921, he and Colette parted for several years.