BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [5 DEC. 1918]
BRACERS 19395. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
The Manor House
Garsington
Oxford1^, 2
Thursday3

My dearest Love

Never mind about the boarding-house. I find from November Bradshaw4 that the Cottage Hotel5 advertises there, so it must be open. It has a lovely situation. We could go there to begin with, and move into lodgings after a day or two if we thought fit. I enclose a letter6 which, if you approve of it, you might post at once — otherwise it won’t arrive till Monday. I suppose you haven’t heard from C.A.7 yet. Obviously, now, you won’t be able to go till Monday week at the very earliest. I suppose I should not be allowed to see you8 in the nursing home9 so if C.A is willing I would go with him as soon as he can, and await you there, unless I could be any comfort to you by waiting for you.

Dear Heart’s Love I do miss you so terribly. I think of you morning noon and night. I long to be with you — But my work prospers here and it is better I should be away — It was such a wonderful wonderful time we had together — I can’t bear to think of my cherub having horrid painful things ahead — but I don’t think it will be very bad — O my love my love I feel so full of tenderness — I long for you to be happy my dear one — Thank Heaven it is not long now till Saturday — between 1.15 and 1.30 I shall arrive.

My Beloved, my heart is bound up with you — I love you with all my soul.

B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200385.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 34 Russell Chambers | Bury Street | W.C.1. Pmk: GARSINGTON | OXFORD | DE | 18

• 3

  [date] Colette wrote “Thursday approx 6 Dec 1918 before operation” on the envelope. Thursday falls on the 5th so that date was chosen.

• 4

  BradshawBradshaw’s Guide to railway timetables, named after their creator, George Bradshaw, were quite thick and took some skill to interpret (“Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–1969”, p. 301; ts. in RA). BR relied upon his skill in Bradshaw, as shown by his use of the latest edition.

• 5

  Cottage Hotel Lynton, Devon. Colette describes it from a brochure sent to her by the hotel as a “charming, well-built place, with a beautiful thatch and stone-paved verandah. It stands 500 feet about the sea, in wooded grounds which look delightful” (“Letters”, p. 301; cited in full in n.4).

• 6

  enclose a letter A draft letter to the hotel for Colette to sign (document 200383, BRACERS 19393).

• 7

  C.A. (Reginald) Clifford Allen (1889–1939). For information on him, see BRACERS 19046, n.7.

• 8

  not be allowed to see you In fact BR did visit.

• 9

  in the nursing home In Endsleigh Gardens, London, where Colette would have an abortion later that month. The word “abortion” is never used in their correspondence. Even though the procedure was then illegal, there seemed to have been no problem with arranging to have one. Neither BR nor Miles Malleson was the father. Colette reminded BR that she and Malleson had been on a platonic footing since Miles had gone to Glastonbury while BR was in Brixton (c.2 March 1919, BRACERS 113178). Both Griffin and Monk 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.