BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [30 MAY 1919]
BRACERS 19484. AL. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<Battersea>
Friday1^, 2^, 3

It was delightful to get your letter from Paris4 this morning Darling and realize that you really arrived and found the place still in existence. — Nothing of interest has happened here — I didn’t answer Eve5 and she has not communicated again. Last night I went to a party at the Murrys,6 for the contributors to the Athenaeum — a very dismal affair. Swinnerton7 was there so I told him I wanted to fetch your cups8 and he said he would arrange it. He says the mouse or mice has or have disappeared. He knows all about Barbellion: he is in a nursing home, and the diary is true till just before the end. He told me his name: something like Cumnor,9 but I can’t remember it exactly.

I must get to work — Goodbye Dearest — I was glad of your letter — All love —

• 1

  [document] Document 200472.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | 15 Rue Saint Pierre | Avenue de Neuilly | Paris | France. Pmk:  BATTERSEA S.W.11. | 2.15 PM | 30 MAY 19

• 3

  [date] The date is taken from the envelope’s postmark.

• 4

  Paris Colette was on holiday with her mother, Priscilla.

• 5

  Eve Evelyn Walsh Hall, film and stage actress. For information on her, see BRACERS 19394, n.8.

• 6

  Murrys John Middleton Murry (1889–1957) and Katherine Mansfield (1888–1923), both writers. They married in May 1918 after her divorce from her first husband was finalized. Murry worked in political intelligence in the War Office, 1916–19. He edited The Athenaeum from 1919 to 1921.

• 7

  Swinnerton Frank Swinnerton (1884–1982), writer.

• 8

  to fetch your cups Presumably from the Studio which had been decorated by Colette. Colette and BR never spent much time there because of various complications and it was never intended to take the place of their own accommodations. Frank Swinnerton was subletting it in 1919. For more information on the Studio, see BRACERS 19240, n.9.

• 9

  Barbellion ... something like Cumnor W.N.P. Barbellion, The Journal of a Disappointed Man, was published in March 1919 and concerned Barbellion’s struggle with multiple sclerosis. Barbellion was a pseudonym for Bruce Frederick Cummings (1889–1919). BR had finished reading him on 21 April, BRACERS 19469.