John Thomas and Lady Jane

by D. H. Lawrence

  ‘Who? Us or who?’

  ‘Folks! Other folks!’he said.

  ‘But that’s everybody except you and me!’ she said, laughing at the idea.

  ‘’Appen so!’ he said complacently.

  There was a funny sort of anger in him. But it wouldn’t prevent his making love. It was an anger that amused her and made her want him. It was a queer, atmospheric anger that she wanted to feel in her body. Perhaps it was part of her own revolt. She wanted it to be let loose in love.

  It was a night of sensual passion, in which she was a little scared, and almost unwilling. But she let him have his way, and the reckless sensuality shook her to her foundations, and made another consciousness wake deeper in her. It was not love, in the emotional sense. And it was not voluptuousness, nothing so soft and gluttonous. It was sensuality sharp as fire, burning the soul to tinder.

  She had always wondered what Abélard meant when he said, in the long fragment of his autobiographical letter, that in their year of love he and Héloïse had gone through all the stages of passion, and had known all the refinements of passion. She had always wondered what they were, the stages and the refinements of passion. Vaguely, she had imagined it meant some sort of emotional, perhaps sentimental development.

  Now, however, after this night, she knew it meant stages of sensual intensity, and degrees of refinement in the different practices of sensuality. In this one short summer night, a new range of experience opened out to her, frightening, but acute as fire, and and necessary. She had never known it was necessary, till she had it. And now at last she felt she was approaching the real bed-rock of her nature, her intrepid sensual self. She thought she would have been ashamed. But she was not ashamed. She felt a triumph, almost a vainglory. So that was what one was! That was it! There was no more to suppress.

  But what a reckless devil the man was! One had to be strong to bear him! She felt that she was mated. And that was what had been at the bottom of her soul all the time! the hunger for the daredevil, sensual mate! What liars poets were! at least for her Communion of love, and all the rest! When the bed-rock was sharp, flamey, rather awful sensuality. And the man who dare do it, without shame or sin or abating his pride. If he had been shamed, it would have been awful. But now, in the morning light, he slept with the innocence and also the mystery of the full sensual creature. As a tiger sleeps, with its ears half pricked.

  She leaned against his firm, warm, living body, and dozed to sleep again, in complete confidence. And till his rousing waked her, she was aware of nothing. When she did open her eyes, he was sitting up in bed, looking down at her. A queer, fluid maleness seemed to flow out of his eyes into hers, and she stretched voluptuously. Oh, how voluptuous it was, to have limbs and a body half sunk in sleep, yet so strong with life.

  ‘Are you wake?’ he said.

  ‘Yes! Are you?’

  ‘Ay! I woke at half-past five, as usul’

  ‘What time is it now?’

  ‘Nigh on seven. I’d better go down an’ get breakfast. Flossie’s whimperin’. Should I bring it up here, on a tray?’

  ‘Oh do!’ she said. ‘Then I can stay in bed! It’s so lovely.’

  He smiled a slight smile, and got up, quick and alert as ever.

  ‘Pull the blind!’ she said.

  He drew up the blind and opened the window wide. The sun was shining already on the tender green leaves of morning, on the wood that stood a little way back, across the clearing. She sat up in bed, looking out of the low dormer window.

  ‘Where is my nightie?’ she said, looking round.

  He pushed his hand into the bed, and produced the flimsy silk nightdress.

  ‘I knowed I could feel it under my ribs — summat silk!’ he said. ‘Did it rip, though?’ and he held it in the air.

  The nightdress was torn almost in two.

  ‘Never mind!’ she said. ‘I’ve got others. I can leave it. It’s not a smart one.’

  ‘Ay! Leave it!’ he said. ‘I like the feel an’ the smell of it. I can put it between my legs for company, at night sometimes! There isn’t any name nor nothing on it, is there?’

  ‘No!’ she said carelessly. ‘It’s just a plain one that anybody might have.’

  She slipped on the torn thing, as she sat in bed, and was perfectly content, looking out of the open window. It didn’t even occur to her that in about an hour’s time she would have to depart. She was content. She could hear him starting the fire and pumping water. And by and by she could smell bacon frying, which made her feel hungry.

  At last he came slowly up the stairs, with a huge black tray that would only just pass through the door. She made room on the bed for the tray. He poured out tea and set the tea-pot on the floor, then sat on a chair by the bed, his plate with egg and bacon on his knees.

  ‘How good it is!’ she said, as she sat squatting in bed in the torn nightdress, and eating voraciously. ‘How good to have breakfast in bed, for once!’

  ‘Don’t you have it in bed?’ he asked.

  ‘Never! I don’t want to, just myself!’

  He ate in silence. He was already thinking of the departure. This made her remember it too.

  ‘How I wish you were coming along with me!’ she said.

  ‘Ay!’ he said.

  ‘Would you like to?’

  ‘Me?’ He thought about it. ‘Yes, I should — if it worn’t for a’ t’other people,’ he added, with a slight ironical smile.

  ‘One day — soon! — we’ll really have a time together, quite together! Shall we?’

  ‘It’d suit me!’ he said. ‘When it comes off!’

  ‘Yes, it’ll come off. I really feel married to you, as much as a woman ever need feel married to a man, in her real feelings — not just social. Do you feel married to me?’

  He looked at her with queer eyes.

  ‘Married! No! But that’s how I don’t want to feel — I feel all right with you!’ He added this last in an odd, easy indifferent voice, that amused her. She gave a quick laugh.

  ‘I should think you do!’ she cried.

  But he suddenly started and lifted his hand. Flossie had given a short bark, then three yaps. Silent, muted, he put his plate on the floor and hastily went downstairs. Constance heard the gate click and a knock at the door, when the door opened and Parkin’s voice, frank and cheerful:

  ‘What have you got for me this time?’

  ‘Letter!’

  ‘All right! I’ll keep it in mind.’

  ‘Right-o! Mornin’.’

  She heard the gate click again, then silence. In a minute he came upstairs with a letter in his hand.

  ‘Postman !’ he said, in a low voice.

  ‘He’s very early.’

  ‘It’s th’ rural round.’

  ‘Do you think he heard?’

  ‘I s’d think not. A bicycle comes so quiet, else Floss would have heard him sooner.’ But he was angry, none the less.

  ‘Anyhow he wouldn’t know anything.’

  ‘No!’

  But he seemed troubled, gloomy, and before he let Connie go out, he went and looked round outside, with his dog.

  ‘Nowt’s safe!’ he said gloomily, as he came in again. She was ready. He took her in an overgrown path through the wood, rather than go by the lane.

  ‘Lucky he didn’t come just when the car was there!’ he said. ‘Or when we was walking up. — I don’t have a letter more than twice a year, I should think. But it’s sure to come on the day you don’t want it.’

  ‘Is it a nice letter?’

  ‘I’ve not read it! It’s from a cousin of mine in Canada. I wrote to him as ’appen I might go out there.’

  ‘You won’t though, will you?’

  ‘Not this summer, anyhow,’ he said.

  She walked away in silence, then she said:

  ‘You must stay for me, now. I really do feel married to you, so you mustn’t leave me. — Don’t you think one lives for times like last night?’

  He walked on in si
lence. Then he said:

  ‘Ay, one lives for that! But in between, you’ve got to keep your pecker up. That’s what a man lives by.’

  ‘Is that what a man lives by? — keeping his pecker up? Then I think you’ll be all right!’ she said, with an easy laugh.

  He walked in silence, oppressed by the noise. The path was overgrown and difficult, and he went quickly, she had to hurry, and she felt hot. He was silent, shut up. Sometimes he spoke a low word to the dog.

  At last he said to Constance:

  ‘Wait here a minute!’

  He strode off through the brambles to the right, and through a thick screen of hazel. Then he came back.

  ‘Car’s not there yet!’ he said in an undertone.

  She looked at him curiously, he seemed so depressed.

  ‘Is it time?’ she said.

  ‘Hark!’

  His ears had caught the distant sound of a car. They waited.

  The sound drew nearer, the car was on the bridge, slowing down.

  ‘There she is!’ said Constance.

  ‘Wait till she’s turned!’ he said quickly.

  They heard the car buzz, and whirr, and then there was silence.

  ‘She’s backed into th’ lane!’ he said. ‘I shan’t come out. — Mind the brambles!’

  She followed him through the undergrowth to the thick hazel screen, into which he had wound his way. She followed. But he stood still.

  ‘Go on!’ he said. ‘Go! I shan’t come out o’ th’ wood.’

  She looked at him in sudden dismay. She had not realised to this minute that she was parting from him.

  ‘Go!’ he said fiercely, with a flash in his eyes. ‘You don’t want that car standing there!’

  ‘Goodbye!’ she faltered, gazing into his face.

  But with a fierce motion of his hand he made her go, creeping through the hazels, till she came to the nettles at the edge the lane. Hilda was just getting out of the car.

  ‘Hilda!’ said Connie softly.

  ‘Goodness!’ cried Hilda with a start. ‘Were you waiting? — There’s been a bicycle down the lane.’

  ‘Yes! The postman! He didn’t see anything!’ said Connie as she got in the car and slammed the door violently.

  Hilda was busy starting the car. It gave a heave of motion. Connie looked back into the lane. Nothing! not even Flossie. Nothing! she waved her hat, tears blinding her eyes. And the car leaped over the bridge.

  ‘You know it’s not worth it, Connie!’ said Hilda vexedly, as the car sped away.

  But Connie was gone in bitter tears. She had never realised it was parting. And death might come like that, unbeknown.

  CHAPTER XIII

  They were in London by tea-time, staying in a little hotel near the Haymarket. Sir Malcolm was at his club, but he came to take his daughters to the theatre. And there was a certain family thrill, for all three of them, that they were together, and apart from all other people for the time being. They were a little clan in themselves. And Connie realized, rather unexpectedly, how strong the family bond was in her. She had so often denied it. But now, being out with Hilda and her father, and away from every other connection, again she realized the sense of ease and gratification. It was something in the physical vibration. They vibrated, the three of them, more or less with the same wavelength, from the blood, and that was a substantial relief and gratification.

  Connie found that her family feeling did not at all interfere with her feeling for Parkin, as it had done with her feeling for Clifford. In the past, when she was with her people, she felt inside herself an instinctive, or at least involuntary hostility to poor Clifford, amounting almost to malevolence. But now she sat between the burly, well-groomed Sir Malcolm, and Hilda, who looked distinguished without trying to, and she felt that both of them were bulwarks to her passion for Parkin. She was safe between two rocks.

  To be sure, Hilda disapproved of the tiresomeness of the mésalliance. But she was in instinctive sympathy with the passion itself. And now that Connie was safely under her wing, she had nothing to complain of.

  Sir Malcolm was in ignorance of his daughter’s connection. But the vibration of his blood seemed to know, and seemed pleased. He was happy as a young man, out with his daughters, and his tenderness for Connie, in her soft, attractive vagueness, stimulated him and filled him with new energy. With his sensitive nostrils, he sniffed a genuine sensual passion, and took heart. And Connie, looking at the round, well-nourished thighs of her father in the fine black cloth, realised that underneath him too was a Parkin, but a Parkin that had never been hurt so much, and in whom the passion was more of an easy heat, than a hard fire. Still, there it was, basic: the son of Adam. Clifford had always been different: as if he had never had a really physical father, had never been born of the blood, only of the nerves.

  They were a few days in London, shopping and seeing the dentist. Connie still vaguely, in the depths of her, lamented and wailed at being far from Parkin. She did not want to be far from him. Yet she had a strange superficial submission to circumstances, as if it were fate. She wrote two letters, nice and chatty, to Clifford. To the other man she did not write at all. She didn’t even want to. What was the point of writing! And she did the things her father or Hilda suggested, acquiescent, and quite pleased. She saw a few people. But they were all vague to her, quite nice, but vague. Her nervous social consciousness was in abeyance.

  In Paris, she was happier than in London: she felt nearer to the man. It was not miles that mattered: it was the psychic influence. In London, at the theatre, or at people’s houses or even in the street, she felt the whole influence of all the people dead against her own rhythm, her own slowly-pulsing but vital passion. They seemed dead against it, and she had to sink deep, deep down into herself, to escape them: leaving her social consciousness floating like shallow scum on the surface, for other people.

  London was far, far worse than the Midlands, than Uthwaite or Tevershall, in spite of the ugliness of these latter. The noise of London, and the endless chatter, chatter, chatter of the people seemed like a death’s-head chattering its teeth in a sort of cold frenzy. So many dead people! So many dead ones, masquerading with life!

  But in Paris, she felt a certain tenderness again. In the restaurants, where the well-nourished men ate their food with a long-refined passion of the stomach, and then cast glistening eyes at the young woman, as if she were some soft persimmon just in perfect condition for dessert, she had to laugh. She didn’t resent it. She didn’t mind the so-called lustful glances of the men. They didn’t do her any harm. Not like the cold, analysing eyes in London.

  And in Paris, the lewd people, and they were plenty, did not frighten her like the lewd people of London. The sensual lewdness is not so terrifying as the mental, spiritual lewdness of the north. And there were many men, workmen, students, all kinds of Frenchmen, who reminded her a little of Parkin. Only they hadn’t got his deep defiance. They were willing, in the last issue, to have the phallus, the phallic man, despised and done to death, crucified in ignominy so that the mental-spiritual man might rise from the corpse. This, to her, was the feebleness of the French. The women lived for money, and the power of money. And the men, half-worshipping the phallic principle, were willing to betray this principle with a kiss, to the Judas of woman-mammon. The woman-mammon in the shops and the streets, the woman who is female-mammon, with money or property or material, for her ultimate significance, struck Connie as barren, and rather repellent. Though even then, less repellent than the mental female-mammon of England.

  And the men, the true Frenchmen, a little pathetic! often very attractive, but a little pathetic, so willing to sell the phallic man in themselves, to the female mammon. There they were, all self-sold, one way or another, to the mammon, usually female. Never being able to muster themselves to fight for the phallic man in themselves. Like Abélard, a thousand years before, undergoing the final mutilation, because they would not openly stand by their own phallic body.

&nbs
p; But they left Paris, and drove south, through Chartres and down the Loire. Gothic, however, though she still saw its beauty, no longer moved the soul of Connie. She preferred the empty, open spaces of the country, the sense of the past, the queer bleak past, filling France up again; gradually. Yet even the past did not really interest her. She felt the present moment swaying with silent momentousness, inside herself. And France, with its shadows of woods, and lonely hillsides in the sun, its flat places so still and void, passed like the dream it is, the old past slowly filtering back and taking possession.

  But it was pleasant, motoring slowly along, and stopping often. The people were nearly all quite nice. They liked Sir Malcolm, who was at home in France. And to Connie they were gentle and friendly. To be sure, they all accepted money. But who doesn’t, in this world! So the family got on very well. They were rich enough, and they were Scotch. ‘Ah, Monsieur est Ecossais! Très bien! Et la jeune Madame est belle comme la reine Marie Stuart!’

  It was not true, however, that a woman in love is a prey to all other men. Connie found the men very nice and attentive to her, running round for her. But they were not pressing or insolent. And she felt a certain gentleness for them, because they were men, sexual men. But this gentleness, this queer sympathy that had a touch of compassion in it, for the odd generosity and the equally odd cold selfishness of the Frenchman, did not expose her at all to familiarities. On the contrary, the men seemed to like her with real warmth, because her woman’s humanness was not flirtatious, not suggestive. There was no sexual end in view. It was the simple human sympathy of a woman who was sensually wrapped up in her own man, and so was never naked to other men, yet had the basic sympathy for them. And she was amazed how they responded the same to her, kind and warm and glad, really, not to have to force the sexual game.

  At last, however, they crossed the frontier and came to the Villa Natividad. It was some distance beyond Biarritz, above a little bay, and the mountains went up steep behind it. The sun poured on it, yet the air was fresh. And it was a lovely place, a villa built in the Spanish style, built square round a patio, or courtyard, in the midst of which was a fountain and tubs of flowering oleander. The façade, rather showy, faced west, facing the sea. But Connie had a room on the east side, where the hot sun poured in for only a brief while, and she looked at the dark mountains. Hilda and she had a little sitting-room between them and a very modern bathroom, and were altogether comfortable.