BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, [15 JULY 1920]
BRACERS 19668. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
70, Overstrand Mansions,
Prince of Wales Road,
Battersea, S.W.1^, 2
Thursday3

My Darling

I hope your Milestones4 came back all right, with my letter in the same envelope — The key5 arrived, but I’m afraid it was the wrong one. — I see C.A.6 gave an interview to the Morning Post, when he was in Stockholm, saying he hated the Bolshies.  He is to be at Harwich at 10 tomorrow, so he ought to be here by about 2 or 3. I don’t know how he is. Guest7 wants him to go to the Ellises8 — I don’t know what C.A. will feel.

Beloved, it was a wonderful time,9 from the moment we met at King’s X. — I can come to you any time during the next fortnight or 3 weeks, but probably not after that. Bless you my Heart’s Life — Go on with your “Letters to Russia”10 as soon as you can — Good luck to you — All my heart, my lovely Darling —

B

Your lilies are too divine.

• 1

  [document] Document 200672.

• 2

  [envelope] Miss Colette O’Niel | “Milestones” Co. | Theatre Royal | Nottingham. Pmk: BATTERSEA S.W.11. | 1.15 PM | 15 JUL 20

• 3

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

• 4

  MilestonesColette was playing Emily in Milestones by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblock. It was being put on by the Milestones Theatre Co., which Colette had recently joined. A touring company, it was in Nottingham at this time.

• 5

  key Unidentified.

• 6

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

• 7

  Guest Leslie Haden Guest (1877–1960) was the medical doctor with the British Labour Delegation. Active both in the Fabian Society and the London branch of the Independent Labour Party, he was, with Charles Roden Buxton, also joint secretary of the Delegation, and authored much of the official report, the British Labour Delegation to Russia 1920: Report. He was viewed with suspicion by the Bolsheviks, who believed him to be a hostile British agent masquerading as a sympathizer of the Revolution. BR remembered him as a “theosophist with a fiery temper and a considerable libido” (Auto. 1: 102).

• 8

  Ellises Possibly Edith M. Ellis of the Friends Service Committee, with whom BR and Allen had worked during the war.

• 9

  a wonderful time They had gone for a week in the country, spending part of their time at the Mermaid Inn in Rye, Sussex.

• 10

  your “Letters to Russia” Her part of their Russian letters project. She wrote four letters, numbers 2–4 and 7.