“Am I late, Clifford?” she said, putting down the few flowers and taking up the tea-caddy, as she stood before the tray in her hat and scarf. “I’m sorry! Why didn’t you let Mrs. Bolton make the tea?”
“I didn’t think of it,” he said ironically. “I don’t quite see her presiding at the tea-table.”
“Oh, there’s nothing sacrosanct about a silver teapot,” said Connie.
He glanced up at her curiously.
“What did you do all afternoon?” he said.
“Walked and sat in a sheltered place. Do you know there are still berries on the big holly-tree?”
She took off her scarf, but not her hat, and sat down to make tea. The toast would certainly be leathery. She put the tea-cosy over the tea-pot, and rose to get a little glass for her violets. The poor flowers hung over, limp on their stalks.
“They’ll revive again!” she said, putting them before him in their glass for him to smell.
“Sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes,” he quoted.
“I don’t see a bit of connection with the actual violets,” she said. “The Elizabethans are rather upholstered.”
She poured him his tea.
“Do you think there is a second key to that little hut not far from John’s Well, where the pheasants are reared?” she said.
“There may be. Why?”
“I happened to find it today—and I’d never seen it before. I think it’s a darling place. I could sit there sometimes, couldn’t I?”
“Was Mellors there?”
“Yes! That’s how I found it; his hammering. He didn’t seem to like my intruding at all. In fact he was almost rude when I asked about a second key.”
“What did he say?”
“Oh, nothing: just his manner; and he said he knew nothing about keys.”
“There may be one in father’s study. Betts knows them all; they’re all there. I’ll get him to look.”
“Oh, do!” she said.
“So Mellors was almost rude?”
“Oh, nothing, really! But I don’t think he wanted me to have the freedom of the castle, quite.”
“I don’t suppose he did.”
“Still, I don’t see why he should mind. It’s not his home, after all! It’s not his private abode. I don’t see why I shouldn’t sit there if I want to.”
“Quite!” said Clifford. “He thinks too much of himself, that man.”
“Do you think he does?”
“Oh, decidedly! He thinks he’s something exceptional. You know he had a wife he didn’t get on with, so he joined up in 1915 and was sent out to India, I believe. Anyhow he was blacksmith to the cavalry in Egypt for a time; always was connected with horses, a clever fellow that way. Then some Indian colonel took a fancy to him, and he was made a lieutenant. Yes, they gave him a commission. I believe he went back to India with his colonel, and up to the northwest frontier. He was ill; he has a pension. He didn’t come out of the army till last year, I believe, and then, naturally, it isn’t easy for a man like that to get back to his own level. He’s bound to flounder. But he does his duty all right, as far as I’m concerned. Only, I’m not having any of the Lieutenant Mellors touch.”
“How could they make him an officer when he speaks broad Derbyshire?”
“He doesn’t… except by fits and starts. He can speak perfectly well, for him. I suppose he has an idea if he’s come down to the ranks again, he’d better speak as the ranks speak.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about him before?”
“Oh, I’ve no patience with these romances. They’re the ruin of all order. It’s a thousand pities they ever happened.”
Connie was inclined to agree. What was the good of discontented people who fitted in nowhere?
In the spell of fine weather Clifford, too, decided to go to the wood. The wind was cold, but not so tiresome, and the sunshine was like life itself, warm and full.
“It’s amazing,” said Connie, “how different one feels when there’s a really fresh fine day. Usually one feels the very air is half dead. People are killing the very air.”
“Do you think people are doing it?” he asked
“I do. The steam of so much boredom, and discontent and anger out of all the people, just kills the vitality in the air. I’m sure of it.”
“Perhaps some condition of the atmosphere lowers the vitality of the people?” he said.
“No, it’s man that poisons the universe,” she asserted.
“Fouls his own nest,” remarked Clifford.
The chair puffed on. In the hazel copse catkins were hanging pale gold, and in sunny places the wood-anemones were wide open, as if exclaiming with the joy of life, just as good as in past days, when people could exclaim along with them. They had a faint scent of apple-blossom. Connie gathered a few for Cllfford.
He took them and looked at them curiously.
“Thou still unravished bride of quietness,” he quoted. “It seems to fit flowers so much better than Greek vases.”
“Ravished is such a horrid word!” she said. “It’s only people who ravish things.”
“Oh, I don’t know… snails and things,” he said
“Even snails only eat them, and bees don’t ravish.”
She was angry with him, turning everything into words. Violets were Juno’s eyelids, and windflowers were unravished brides. How she hated words, always coming between her and life: they did the ravishing, if anything did: ready-made words and phrases, sucking all the life-sap out of living things.
The walk with Clifford was not quite a success. Between him and Connie there was a tension that each pretended not to notice, but there it was. Suddenly, with all the force of her female instinct, she was shoving him off. She wanted to be clear of him, and especially of his consciousness, his words, his obsession with himself, his endless treadmill obsession with himself, and his own words.
The weather came rainy again. But after a day or two she went out in the rain, and she went to the wood. And once there, she went towards the hut. It was raining, but not so cold, and the wood felt so silent and remote, inaccessible in the dusk of rain.
She came to the clearing. No one there! The hut was locked. But she sat on the log doorstep, under the rustic porch, and snuggled into her own warmth. So she sat, looking at the rain, listening to the many noiseless noises of it, and to the strange soughings of wind in upper branches, when there seemed to be no wind. Old oak trees stood around, grey, powerful trunks, rain-blackened, round and vital, throwing off reckless limbs. The ground was fairly free of undergrowth, the anemones sprinkled, there was a bush or two, elder, or guelder-rose, and a purplish tangle of bramble; the old russet of bracken almost vanished under green anemone ruffs. Perhaps this was one of the unravished places. Unravished! The whole world was ravished.
Some things can’t be ravished. You can’t ravish a tin of sardines. And so many women are like that; and men. But the earth…!
The rain was abating. It was hardly making darkness among the oaks any more. Connie wanted to go; yet she sat on. But she was getting cold; yet the overwhelming inertia of her inner resentment kept her there as if paralyzed.
Ravished! How ravished one could be without ever being touched. Ravished by dead words become obscene, and dead ideas become obsessions.
A wet brown dog came running and did not bark, lifting a wet feather of a tail. The man followed in a wet black oilskin jacket, like a chauffeur, and face flushed a little. She felt him recoil in his quick walk, when he saw her. She stood up in the handbreadth of dryness under the rustic porch. He saluted without speaking, coming slowly near. She began to withdraw.
“I’m just going,” she said.
“Was yer waitin’ to get in?” he asked, looking at the hut, not at her.
“No, I only sat a few minutes in the shelter,” she said, with quiet dignity.
He looked at her. She looked cold.
“Sir Clifford ’adn’t got no other key then?” he asked.
�
�No, but it doesn’t matter. I can sit perfectly dry under this porch. Good afternoon!” She hated the excess of vernacular in his speech.
He watched her closely, as she was moving away. Then he hitched up his jacket, and put his hand in his breeches pocket, taking out the key of the hut.
“ ’Appen yer’d better ’ave this key, an’ mun fend for t’bods some other road.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean as ’appen Ah can find anuther pleece as’ll du for rearin’ th’ pheasants. If yer want ter be ’ere, yo’ll non want me messin’ abaht a’ th’ time.”
She looked at him, getting his meaning through the fog of the dialect.
“Why don’t you speak ordinary English?” she said coldly.
“Me! Ah thowt it wor’ ordinary.”
She was silent for a few moments in anger.
“So if yer want t’ key, yer’d better ta’e it. Or ’appen Ah’d better gi’e ’t yer termorrer, an’ clear all t’ stuff aht fust. Would that du for yer?”
She became more angry.
“I didn’t want your key,” she said. “I don’t want you to clear anything out at all. I don’t in the least want to turn you out of your hut, thank you! I only wanted to be able to sit here sometimes, like today. But I can sit perfectly well under the porch, so please say no more about it.”
He looked at her again with his wicked blue eyes.
“Why,” he began, in the broad slow dialect, “your Ladyship’s as welcome as Christmas ter th’ hut an’ th’ key an’ iverythink as it. On’y this time o’ th’ year ther’s bods ter set, an’ Ah’ve got ter be potterin’ abaht a good bit, seein’ after ’em, an’ a’. Winter time Ah need ‘ardly come nigh th’ pleece. But what wi’ spring, an’ Sir Clifford wantin’ ter start th’ pheasants.… An’ your Ladyship’d non want me tinkerin’ around an’ about when she was ’ere, all th’ time.”
She listened with a dim kind of amazement.
“Why should I mind your being here?” she asked.
He looked at her curiously.
“T’ nuisance on me!” he said briefly, but significantly.
She flushed. “Very well!” she said finally. “I won’t trouble you. But I don’t think I should have minded at all sitting and seeing you look after the birds. I should have liked it. But since you think it interferes with you, I won’t disturb you, don’t be afraid. You are Sir Clifford’s keeper, not mine.”
The phrase sounded queer, she didn’t know why. But she let it pass.
“Nay, your Ladyship. It’s your Ladyship’s own ’ut. It’s as your Ladyship likes an’ pleases, every time. Yer can turn me off at a wik’s notice. It wor only…”
“Only what?” she asked, baffled.
He pushed back his hat in an odd comic way.
“On’y as ’appen yo’d like the place ter yersen, when yer did come, an’ not me messin’ abaht.”
“But why?” she said, angry. “Aren’t you a civilized human being? Do you think I ought to be afraid of you? Why should I take any notice of you and your being here or not? Why is it important?”
He looked at her, all his face glimmering with wicked laughter.
“It’s not, your Ladyship. Not in the very least,” he said.
“Well, why then?” she asked.
“Shall I get your Ladyship another key then?”
“No, thank you! I don’t want it.”
“Ah’ll get it anyhow. We’d best ’ave two keys ter th’ place.”
“And I consider you are insolent,” said Connie, with her color up, panting a little.
“Nay, nay!” he said quickly. “Dunna yer say that! Nay, nay! I niver meant nuthink. Ah on’y thought as if yo’ come ’ere, Ah s’d ’ave ter clear out, an’ it’d mean a lot o’ work, settin’ up somewheres else. But if your Ladyship isn’t going ter take no notice o’ me, then… it’s Sir Clifford’s ’ut, an’ everythink is as your Ladyship likes, everythink is as your Ladyship pleases, barrin’ yer take no notice o’ me, doin’ the bits of jobs as Ah’ve got ter do.”
Connie went away completely bewildered. She was not sure whether she had been insulted and mortally offended, or not. Perhaps the man really only meant what he said; that he thought she would expect him to keep away. As if she would dream of it! And as if he could possibly be so important, he and his stupid presence.
She went home in confusion, not knowing what she thought or felt.
Chapter Nine
Connie was surprised at her own feeling of aversion for Clifford. What is more, she felt she had always really disliked him. Not hate: there was no passion in it. But a profound physical dislike. Almost it seemed to her, she had married him because she disliked him, in a secret, physical sort of way. But of course, she had married him really because in a mental way he attracted her and excited her. He had seemed, in some way, her master, beyond her.
Now the mental excitement had worn itself out and collapsed, and she was aware only of the physical aversion. It rose up in her from her depths: and she realized how it had been eating her life away.
She felt weak and utterly forlorn. She wished some help would come from outside. But in the whole world there was no help. Society was terrible because it was insane. Civilized society is insane. Money and so-called love are its two great manias; money a long way first. The individual asserts himself in his disconnected insanity in these two modes: money and love. Look at Michaelis! His life and activity were just insanity. His love was a sort of insanity.
And Clifford the same. All that talk! All that writing! All that wild struggling to push himself forward! It was just insanity. And it was getting worse, really maniacal.
Connie felt washed-out with fear. But at least, Clifford was shifting his grip from her on to Mrs. Bolton. He did not know it. Like many insane people, his insanity might be measured by the things he was not aware of; the great desert tracts in his consciousness.
Mrs. Bolton was admirable in many ways. But she had that queer sort of bossiness, endless assertion of her own will, which is one of the signs of insanity in modern woman. She thought she was utterly subservient and living for others. Clifford fascinated her because he always, or so often, frustrated her will, as if by a finer instinct. He had a finer, subtler will of self-assertion than herself. This was his charm for her.
Perhaps that had been his charm, too, for Connie.
“It’s a lovely day, today!” Mrs. Bolton would say in her caressive, persuasive voice. “I should think you’d enjoy a little run in your chair today, the sun’s just lovely.”
“Yes? Will you give me that book—there, that yellow one. And I think I’ll have those hyacinths taken out.”
“Why, they’re so beautiful!” She pronounced it with the “y” sound: be-yutiful!—”And the scent is simply gorgeous.”
“The scent is what I object to,” he said. “It’s a little funereal.”
“Do you think so!” she exclaimed in surprise, just a little offended, but impressed. And she carried the hyacinths out of the room, impressed by his higher fastidiousness.
“Shall I shave you this morning, or would you rather do it yourself?” Always the same soft, caressive, subservient, yet managing voice.
“I don’t know. Do you mind waiting a while. I’ll ring when I’m ready.”
“Very good, Sir Clifford!” she replied, so soft and submissive, withdrawing quietly. But every rebuff stored up new energy of will in her.
When he rang, after a time, she would appear at once. And then he would say:
“I think I’d rather you shaved me this morning.”
Her heart gave a little thrill, and she replied with extra softness:
“Very good, Sir Clifford!”
She was very deft, with a soft, lingering touch, a little slow. At first he had resented the infinitely soft touch of her fingers on his face. But now he liked it, with a growing voluptuousness. He let her shave him nearly every day: her face near his, her eyes so very concentrated, watching
that she did it right. And gradually her fingertips knew his cheeks and lips, his jaw and chin and throat perfectly. He was well-fed and well-groomed, his face and throat were handsome enough, and he was a gentleman.
She was handsome, too, pale, her face rather long and absolutely still, her eyes bright, but revealing nothing. Gradually, with infinite softness, almost with love, she was getting him by the throat, and he was yielding to her.
She now did almost everything for him, and he felt more at home with her, less ashamed of accepting her menial offices, than with Connie. She liked handling him. She loved having his body in her charge, absolutely, to the last menial offices. She said to Connie one day: “All men are babies, when you come to the bottom of them. Why, I’ve handled some of the toughest customers as ever went down Tevershall pit. But let anything ail them so that you have to do for them, and they’re babies, just big babies. Oh, there’s not much difference in men!”
At first Mrs. Bolton had thought there really was something different in a gentleman, a real gentleman, like Sir Clifford. So Clifford had got a good start of her. But gradually, as she came to the bottom of him, to use her own term, she found he was like the rest, a baby grown to man’s proportions: but a baby with a queer temper and a fine manner and power in its control, and all sorts of odd knowledge that she had never dreamed of, with which he could still bully her.
Connie was sometimes tempted to say to him:
“For God’s sake, don’t sink so horribly into the hands of that woman!” But she found she didn’t care for him enough to say it, in the long run.
It was still their habit to spend the evening together, till ten o’clock. Then they would talk, or read together, or go over his manuscript. But the thrill had gone out of it. She was bored by his manuscripts. But she still dutifully typed them out for him. But in time Mrs. Bolton would do even that.
For Connie had suggested to Mrs. Bolton that she should learn to use a typewriter. And Mrs. Bolton, always ready, had begun at once, and practiced assiduously. So now Clifford would sometimes dictate a letter to her, and she would take it down rather slowly, but correctly. And he was very patient, spelling for her the difficult words, or the occasional phrases in French. She was so thrilled, it was almost a pleasure to instruct her.
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