BR TO OTTOLINE MORRELL, [8 APR. 1911]
BRACERS 17079. ALS. Morrell papers #22, Texas
Proofread by K. Blackwell and A.G. Bone

Fernhurst1^, 2
Sat. morning

My Dearest Dearest

First of all a thousand thanks for the lovely box, which I am overjoyed to have. The colours are very nice indeed. It was good of you when you were so tired. Dearest, I am very sorry you are so tired. Yes, I wish to goodness nobody knew. But you couldn’t have prevented Miss Sands knowing, and I could not have seen you except very rarely without the Whiteheads knowing. So we couldn’t well help it — but it is a desecration to speak to other people. I see Mrs Whitehead has worried and alarmed you as much as she did me, or nearly as much allowing for difference of character.

I think the things she fears are possible, but highly improbable — so improbable that they are better ignored.a That is what I have thought since that one night when I was agitated. As to Alys: I have not had a talk with her — I have given her opportunities but she hasn’t taken them. I shall see the Whiteheads Monday and find out what she said to them. I feel that she is becoming resigned, and will behave well in return for very small amounts of my society. I shall try to find out when I can. It would be absolutely useless, so far as she is concerned, for me not to come to Studland. If I come after term has begun, as you seemed to think would be best (i.e. after the 21st) she will not know I am away from Cambridge. In any case, unless from detectives she will know nothing. I told her once for all that I would tell her nothing further. Please don’t give up Studland if you can see your way to it. And the plan of putting me in lodgings seems to me worse than useless, as I should come back to them very late. You had better keep me in the house.

It makes no difference to Alys’s behaviour what you and I do with each other — it is what I do to her that matters. And I am certain I can keep her in hand, only it means enduring a certain amount of her. You would necessarily be dragged in if she went for a separation, as the ground would be adultery. I really know her better than Mrs Whitehead does, though Mrs W. would not admit that. I know that she likes getting private sympathy for her wrongs (which are real), and that she is willing to use any weapon in the way of convert threats to hold me, so long as the threats can be phrased so as to sound noble. But she has a horror of open strife, partly owing to cowardice, partly because it is impulses, not deliberate intentions, that lead her to injure people, partly that a weapon once discharged gives no further power. So I disbelieve in her going to law, tho’ I half believed it a few days ago. The fear that she will injure me at Cambridge is also, I think, quite groundless. And if she did, I could get on just as well in London. So that is nothing to bother about.

What would be consonant with Alys’s character would be if she could find ways of acting on Philip, so that the overt action might come from him. But I don’t see how she is to do that. I really think we worry too much. At any rate, don’t let us give up Studland. Mrs Whitehead’s heart makes her nervous; also she has had more experience of horrors of one sort or another than most people, so her mind is stocked with such things. But just as you felt we exaggerated the other day, so I feel you now. There are at all times risks and dangers in all situations, but life becomes impossible if one spends one’s time thinking of them all — which is what you said to me the other day.

Now I shall be horribly late for breakfast. I will write again later, but I am not certain that the 2nd post will reach you tomorrow. I have great difficulty in writing here except late at night and before getting up — life is so public. But I will manage this morning somehow. Dearest, I do hope the country will make you less tired and less worried, and make things seem simple to you again. Tomorrow, when you get this, it will be three weeks since we found each other — it seems to me like three eternities — I can hardly think so far back as before it happened. How full every moment has been since. It is like a melody in Beethoven coming to the surface sometimes, but going on all the time whatever else is happening. I regret not being able to hear music with you. O my heart, don’t let us be kept by other people from what is possible. I love you, love you, love you — we have had to wait for complete union, and if not at Studland it might be a long time. But if your judgment were clear, I would make myself acquiesce. But I feel that endless caution is ruin to things of real importance.

Goodbye my beloved. I must stop.

B.

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  [document] Document 000022. Proofread against a colour scan of the original.

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  [envelope] A circled “22”. The Lady Ottoline Morrell | Cliff End | Studland | near Swanage. Pmk: FERNHURST | AM | AP 9 | 11. On the verso: ? | 2 30PM | AP 9 | 11 | ?

Textual Notes

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  ignored written over obliterated word