BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 2 DEC. 1918
BRACERS 19392. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

In the train1^, 2
<letterhead>
Telegraph House
Chicester.
Monday Dec 2. 1918

aIt has been the most heavenly and wonderful time my heart’s Darling — full of beauty and deep deep happiness. I don’t want ever to fail you when you are in any trouble3 — I want you to feel you can turn to me and trust me to be gentle and loving — it brings us so near together — I do want you to feel happiness deep down, Darling. I want you to feel my thoughts of love hovering round you every moment — I want to help your life. Don’t wonder if I don’t write much this week4 — I must immerse myself in work, but I want to get letters from my Cherub and know all her news and thoughts and feelings —

Goodbye till Sat. my dearest Darling. I love you love you love you.

B

• 1

  [document] Document 200382.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 34 Russell Chambers | Bury Street | W.C.1. Pmk: HIGH WYCOMBE | 4 PM | 2 DE | 18 | 2

• 3

  when you are in any trouble Colette was pregnant. Neither BR nor Miles Malleson was the father. Both Griffin and Monk in their books write that Maurice Elvey was the father, but do not cite a source (Ray Monk, Bertrand Russell: the Spirit of Solitude [London: Jonathan Cape, 1996], p. 543; Nicholas Griffin, The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: the Public Years, 1914–1970 [London: Routledge, 2001], p. 185). Col. J. Mitchell is another possibility, although Colette denied that she was romantically involved with him. Colette confirmed that she had had an abortion “almost certainly December 1917” in a letter to Kenneth Blackwell (1 February 1975; Rec. Acq. 1233). There is no indication in this correspondence of an abortion in 1917.

• 4

  don’t write much this week BR was en route to Garsington, after spending some time in London. After learning that Colette was pregnant in November 1918, he turned to Lady Ottoline, asking if he could live at Garsington four days a week for the near future, adding that “Colette has behaved angelically but the shock was so severe that I cannot get any rest except away from her” (20 Nov. 1918, BRACERS 18704).

Textual Notes

• a

  [salutation] The salutation of five or six words is so sparsely linked that it cannot be read.