BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [20 JULY 1917]
BRACERS 19187. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

Friday night1^, 2^, 3

My Beloved

I am very unhappy, feeling I wrote you a horrible letter4 — please forgive me — I do hate to think of you unhappy and it makes me desperate to find some way out. Dear Heart I ama miserable thinking of you torturing yourself all alone — I have arranged to go off for the day with Dakyns5 Sunday but I could get out of it if your mood changed — You seemed so hurt with me at the lecture6 — I have thought of nothing else ever since. Tomorrow evening I am engaged but I have nothing to do all day — I long for you Dearest — I feel so utterly lost when you withdraw yourself — my whole world seems to crack — but I quiteb understand — Goodnight my Beloved — my thoughts are with you every moment —

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200167.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 6 Mecklenburgh Square | W.C.1. Pmk: LONDON. W.C | 1.5 PM |24  JUL 1917

• 3

  [date] This letter is with an envelope postmarked 24 July. Colette has noted on a separate piece of paper that the envelope must belong to a different letter. This letter must be Letter no. 2 of 20 July 1917.

• 4

  a horrible letter His letter written earlier in the day (BRACERS 19187). In her reply, Colette notes: “I wasn’t hurt; you weren’t horrid; and if you do lecture me it is no more than I lecture myself” (BRACERS 113039).

• 5

  Dakyns Arthur Dakyns (1883–1941). The Dakyns family lived in Haslemere so BR would have been acquainted with the family. BR had moved to Bagley Wood in 1905; Daykns was at Oxford, receiving his Lit. Hum. in 1906. In a letter of 1 January 1906 to Lucy Donnelly (Auto. 1: 181), BR writes: “Arthur has inherited a great deal of his father’s charm. He is the only person up here (except the Murrays) that I feel as a real friend….”

• 6

  lecture Unidentified.

Textual Notes

• a

  am “am” is underlined three times in a continuous stroke.

• b

  quite “quite” is underlined five times in a continuous stroke.