BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [1 MAR. 1920]
BRACERS 19626. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
70, Overstrand Mansions,
Prince of Wales Road,
Battersea, S.W.1^, 2
Monday3

My Darling

Thank you for your letter from Bradford4 — I will come to the restaurant in Hammersmith5 — 1 hour before the show. You say you are “longing to see me” but I take that as merely a polite phrase, because the plans you have made mean that we shan’t see each other at all in any real sense — only in public. Don’t bother to be polite with me — it isn’t necessary — I quite understand your state of nerves, and don’t feel hurt. 

I have never been to March6 except in the train.  It is north of Elya — you could stay at Camb.7

March dp.  11.34 
Camb. arr. 12.45 is possible
There is no earlier train after 5.

I am very well now, and very full of Russia8 — I am pretty sure to go, probably for all the summer. You wrote such a dear letter about it.9

Bless you my Darling — All my heart.

B

C.A.10 and I spent Sat. walking over Leith Hill.  That was why I wired from Coldharbour.11

• 1

  [document] Document 200619.

• 2

  [envelope] Miss Colette O’Niel | c/o F. Forbes-Robertson Esq | “Mice and Men” Co. | Ulverston. Pmk: LONDON S.W.1 | 1 MAR | 1920 | 2.15 PM

• 3

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

• 4

  your letter from Bradford Colette’s letter was written on 29 February 1920 (BRACERS 113200).

• 5

  restaurant in Hammersmith — 1 hour before the show Colette had written on 29 February 1920: “Miles is getting the seats for St. John Ervine’s play: so let us meet at Clarendon, 2 doors from Hammersmith Tube, an hour before the show” (BRACERS 113200). The play was John Ferguson and was at the Lyric.

• 6

  March Just outside Cambridge.

• 7

  Camb. Cambridge.

• 8

  full of Russia BR travelled there in May and returned near the end of June.

• 9

  such a dear letter about it In her letter of 27 February 1920 Colette wrote: “I’ve been thinking so much about your Russian journey, and I’m hoping that I didn’t sound unenthusiastic about it in my last letter; because, whichever way it turns out, it’ll be instructive; and there will be lots to learn while you are there” (BRACERS 113199).

• 10

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

• 11

  wired from Coldharbour This telegram, from Coldharbour, Surrey, is not extant.

Textual Notes

• a

  It is north of Ely after deleted I don’t think