BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 10 FEB. 1920
BRACERS 19614. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
70, Overstrand Mansions,
Prince of Wales Road,
Battersea, S.W.1^, 2
10 Feb. 1920

Beloved

I was very glad of your letter which came this morning, and to know your rehearsal had gone well. I have not seen Ramsgate3 since I was 5 years old, but I remember the harbour as if it were yesterday, because I saw it as a camera obscura (I wonder if it is there still?) which struck me as utterly marvellous. I remember the waves dancing in the sunlight, and boats bobbing up and down — and how one could see these things from a room with no windows. I couldn’t at all understand.

I should love to come with you to see Candida.4 It takes about 1 hr. 20 min. from Padd. to Oxford5 — There is probably a train at 4.45.

Darling I am sorry about your headaches.6 I think they are due to sorrow and worry, and will pass off if your time on tour is peaceful.

My shoulder gets no better. I am keeping even more quiet than before. I think in another week it will mend. It bores me. My relations with Miss Black7 go from bad to worse — because she can’t stand you. I am sorry — it robs me of a hope of happiness, and it will make it much harder for me not to ask too much of you. I feel caught in a trap from which there is no escape, and I see no way by which any ordinary sort of happiness can come my way. I am very depressed about it — but no doubt when the spring comes I shall cheer up —

Goodnight my Darling. All my heart is with you —

B —

• 1

  [document] Document 200607.

• 2

  [envelope] Miss Colette O’Niel | c/o Frank Forbes Robertson Esq., | “Mice and Men” Co. | Ramsgate. Pmk: BATTERSEA S.W.11 | 1.15 PM | 12 FEB 20

• 3

  Ramsgate A seaside town in Kent.  BR writes about his time there in his Autobiography. “In the summer of 1877 my grandparents rented from the Archbishop of Canterbury a house near Broadstairs, called Stone House” (Auto. 1: 28).

• 4

  to see Candida This play by Bernard Shaw, with Sybil Thorndike and Lewis Casson, opened at the Holborn Empire in London on 1 March with a review in The Times on the following day, “‘Candida’ Revived. Good Acting, But Bad Casting”.

• 5

  Oxford The touring theatre company that Colette was with was scheduled to be in Oxford for three days.

• 6

  your headaches She had written: “it’s queer that I can’t get rid of a perpetual headache, and simply can’t manage to relax” (BRACERS 113190).

• 7

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