BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [12 OCT. 1917]
BRACERS 19229. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Telegraph House,
Chichester.1^, 2^, 3
10.45 p.m.

My Dearest

I am just back from the Comee.4 and have found your letter — you are so good and kind — I too have a spark of hope.5 I found last night that I had got my feet on a firm rock, and could begin to climb up again — There is something left that may be the beginning of a new love — perhaps quite as good as the old.

I don’t mean to be oppressive to you — and that means keeping my ordinary daily life rather separate — If it is a tolerable daily life, I shan’t suffer so much from jealousy, and shall not want to make you different. Possibilities gradually form themselves in my mind.

It has been dreadful to feel you so unhappy — but there was no other way by which we could have come together again.

I have a very deep love — apart from passion — which belongs to you always. It had grown obscured, but last night I found it again.  Goodnight my dear one.

B.

I heard of you from Gladys6 and blest you, and her for speaking of you. I shall not at all mind if I meet you there.

• 1

  [document] Document 200215.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 6 Mecklenburgh Square | W.C.1. Pmk: LONDON.W.C | 1.15 AM | OCT 13 17A

• 3

  [date] The letter was written in the evening, then posted and postmarked the next day in London. Since BR was just back from a committee meeting, he could not have written from Telegraph House, despite the use of its letterhead.

• 4

  Comee. One of the committees of the No-Conscription Fellowship.

• 5

  I too have a spark of hope. The typed edited copy of her letter of 11 October (BRACERS 113075) is not at all hopeful. It is bleak, informing BR that she feels herself to be “nothing”, with “nothing to give”. She will return all his letters. In it, however, she does say that she will break with her lover Maurice Elvey. It appears her letter has been highly edited. Part of it appears in “literary” letter no. 23, document 007052 FC with a date of 26 September.

• 6

  GladysW. Gladys Rinder worked for the No-Conscription Fellowship. For further information on her, see BRACERS 19044, n.5.