BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [13 APR. 1917?]
BRACERS 19148. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<London>1 ^, 2

My Darling —

This is about tomorrow: too complicated for the telephone with Smith3 listening.

I can’t think of any new place we could go to, but there are lots of new walks from old places. The neighbourhood of Pangbourne and Goring still has infinite possibilities, e.g.

Chilterns →      Pangbourne
                } Checkendon, Stoke Row, Ipsden, Goring
           or Goring
Berkshire downs → Pangbourne, Upper Basildon, Ashampstead, Aldworth, Streatley

               [the last 2 miles of this we have already done.]

Or we could again go from Guildford to Dorking, as we did on the Merrow Down day4 — we would keep high longer.

The first 2 plans mean leaving Paddington 10.20; the other means leaving Waterloo 10.22. In either case, there is a train back after dinner. In either case, I will call for you at 9.45. From Goring, one can get back before dinner if necessary.

If you could stay away for the night, I should like Goring best, because I should like to go back to the same inn.5 But I don’t suppose that is possible? I believe it will be warm tomorrow, with sun and showers, and a feeling of spring.

I will leave this at your door — will let me know what you decide by telephone. I shall be out from 4 till 6, but in the rest of the time. — Our talk yesterday made me very unhappy — I can’t bear it when you are miserable. But I am all right again now.

B.

Notes

• 1

  [document] Document 200124.

• 2

  [date] Colette wrote “possibly Friday 13 April 1917” on the letter.

• 3

  Smith The butler at Frank Russell’s home in Gordon Square where Russell was staying.

• 4

  Merrow Down day Colette and BR took their first walk to Merrow Down in early December 1916; what was so important about this day is not known. However, BR recollected the day in this letter and also again in a letter written on 3 December 1920 from Beijing (BRACERS 19714) in which he notes that “it is almost exactly 4 years” since their first walk there. Colette mentions meeting Roger Fry on the fringe of Merrow Down when she and BR were just setting out for a walk (In the North: Autobiographical Fragments in Norway, Sweden, Finland: 1936–1946 [London: Gollancz, 1946], p. 149). She also recalls the walk from Dorking to Merrow Down as her favourite of the many country walks that they took (After Ten Years: A Personal Record [London: J. Cape, 1931], p. 124).

• 5

  the same inn Presumably the Swan at Streatley, just across the river from Goring.