BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 13 MAY 1949
BRACERS 19870. ALS. McMaster. SLBR 2: #489
Edited by S. Turcon and N. Griffin. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Penralltgoch
Llan Ffestiniog
Merioneth1
13 May 1949

Dearest Colette

Two very dear letters2 have come from you — thank you for them with all my heart. I am sorry you have the grief of Kennard’s death.3 I remember very well when you used to talk of him.

Conrad4 is gradually growing gradually calmer. He had said he would never speak to me again unless I promised never to speak to you. Now he says he will be satisfied if you say that you regret the letter to me that Peter5 read to him, and that you admit that some of the things you said were mistaken. Would it be asking too much to suggest that, when you get back to Sundborn (not before), you should write me a letter in this sense, beginning “Dear Bertie,” that I could show him?6 I have told him we all lost our tempers and said things we should have done better not to say. I should be glad to avoid a breach with him.

Otherwise all goes well with me.

All my love, Dearest,
B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200878.

• 2

  Two very dear letters Not extant.

• 3

  Kennard’s death Sir Coleridge Arthur Fitzroy Kennard (1885–1948), diplomat and author, known as “Roy” to his friends. Colette already knew Kennard when she met BR in 1916 and was very briefly in love with Kennard (“evanescent, fragile, a moment only”, After Ten Years [London: J. Cape, 1931], p. 94). Kennard died on 7 October 1948.

• 4

  Conrad Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell, born 15 April 1937 to BR and his wife Patricia.

• 5

  Peter Patricia (“Peter”) Russell, née Spence (1910–2004). She and BR were married from 1936 until 1952.

• 6

  that I could show him? See BRACERS 19871 for this letter.