BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 17 DEC. 1941
BRACERS 19815. AL. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Little Datchet Farm
Malvern, R. D. 1
Pennsylvania1
17 December 1941

Dearest Colette

I got your telegram2 telling of your mother’s death.3 I hope it was not a very great grief to you — I hardly know how much she was to you in recent years.  I know, in any case, that every severance of an old tie is painful — I minded my brother’s death4 a great deal.

This is not a real letter5 but only a line to give you love and sympathy.

• 1

  [document] Document 200821.

• 2

  your telegram It is not extant but her letter which followed is (23 Nov. 1941, BRACERS 98437).

• 3

  your mother’s death Priscilla, Lady Annesley (1870–1941), the second wife of Hugh Annesley, 5th Earl Annesley (1831–1908). Colette had written on 23 November (BRACERS 98437): “It was a great shock and blow — as she was always a really good friend to me. ... everything interested her — in a way, I suppose that only parents (or lovers) are interested.” Priscilla had died on 9 October 1941 in Bath, Somerset. Colette was notified a few days later by the Foreign Office.

• 4

  my brother’s death John Francis (“Frank”) Stanley Russell (1865–1931), the 2nd Earl Russell from 1878. He died in France in 1931. For information on him, see BRACERS 19046, n.3.

• 5

  not a real letter Part of it no longer exists, the lower third of the sheet having been excised. Perhaps it was only for the signature, since there is no writing on the verso.