‘Perhaps they can’t help being upper class, any more than you can help being lower,’ said Connie.
‘No!’ he roared. ‘I know that. They can’t help it, to start with. But what I want to know, do they feel any sympathy with workin’-men as has nothing but work before them, till they drop. Do they sympathize—’
‘But do you sympathize with them?’ said Connie.
‘Eh? What? Sympathize with them? Who?’
‘The upper. classes. Do you sympathize with them?’
‘What for? They don’t need sympathy. They’ve got everything.’
‘Perhaps they haven’t. And in any case, sympathy can’t be on one side only. It must be on both sides. Both sides must be in sympathy with one another, if there’s to be any sympathy.’
‘How? Why how? If I give a blind man a penny, I don’t expect him to sympathize with me. He’s not got anything to sympathize with me about.’
‘But you’re not a blind man, are you?’ she said.
‘Compared to the rich, I’m as bad off,’ he said.
He jerked his head, and sat up in his chair, his face hike a mask of pain and weird passion. It was as if a gun had gone off in the room, and this silence was the after-vibration. Bill’s passion seemed to have exploded from him in smoke and noise, and now his consciousness was a blank cartridge.
‘What’s the good o’ talkin’ about it!’ said Parkin testily. ‘Leave it alone! You get no forrader, more you talk.’
‘Eh! Get no forrarder?’ said Bill, jerking forward to attention again. ‘Yi we do, lad! — Oh yi we do!’ He gave a hollow, roaring laugh. ‘We should understand a lot, if we could only get at the people of Lady Chatterley’s class, an’ have a straight talk with them. But we can’t get at ’em. They’re too close. They never come within a mile of us, as you may say. — Mind you, he turned to Connie again, ‘I’m not speaking personally! — What I should like to know is, if they have any feelings as a class with us chaps as does the dirty work: an’ we’re a hundred to one! Now I understand a lady like you. Your father was a painter a great painter —’ Hear, oh Sir Malcolm! — ‘and artists are more free, like, than the nobs. I can understand you might like bit of straight talk with Oliver, or even me, sometimes. An’ I can understand you might like to come ’ere, an’ see us in our ’omes. Something new for you, like! — But take Sir Clifford. Would he go even as far as that?’
The pale-grey, bright eyes glared with question into hers.
‘Perhaps not,’ she said.
‘Ha! perhaps not!’ he gave a blurt of laughter. ‘You mean certainly not. Certainly not! It’s a dead cert you wouldn’t catch him ’ere, ’aving tea with us, no matter what sort of tea we offered ’im. Would you?’
‘No!’ said Connie, who felt as she was being put on a very precise shelf of class-distinction, a little lower than Clifford.
‘No! You ma’ bet your bottom dollar. Yet why? — We aren’t fools altogether, even if we’re not that smart. An’ we’re men, aren’t we? We all went through th’ war. We’re all English. If we go smash, we all go smash together, don’t we? Then why aren’t we good enough to speak to? Why can’t a man like Sir Clifford come an’ sit down an’ talk to a man like me? What ’arm would it do him? His isn’t the only life on the face of the earth—’
He sat erect and stared at her with a strange, pallid-gleaming challenge. His spirit seemed so pallid and weird, even in its intensity: so little human.
‘I suppose he would feel uncomfortable,’ she said.
‘Feel uncomfortable!’ he repeated. ‘Does he think other people feels comfortable all the while —?’
He glimmered in a pallid flame of intense irony, then leaned back in his chair, his face very pale and spent, yet rapt. — So this man too had his weird raptus! — Then Bill quickly shoved his dust-coloured hair from his forehead, turned a bewildered. sort of face to Parkin, and gave a quick little bark of a laugh, saying in a roguish voice:
‘It’s what tha towd me, lad.’
‘What did he tell you?’ said Connie.
There was a pause.
‘I said as a man like Sir Clifford was frightened to come off his perch, and speak out to a workin’-man. He’s too frightened to do it,’ said Parkin unwillingly.
‘Perhaps he thinks it’s no good,’ said Connie.
There was a pause, after which Parkin admitted:
‘’Appen it isn’t.’
‘Well now!’ — up flickered the whitish flame in Bill’s face again.
‘Oh Bill, for goodness’ sake shut up, we’ve ’ad enough o’ your blather. — Can’t yer get Lady Chatterley t’eat somethink, an’ eat somethink yerself, an’ shut your mouth?’
‘I’ve finished!’ he said with decision, sweeping his cup further aside. Then he remembered sufficiently to ask, with some politeness, of Connie: ‘Shan’t y’ave something else? Have y’ad enough? Sure?’
‘’Ave a drop more tea now!’ said Mrs Tewson. ‘I’ve got ’alf a potful.’
But Connie refused. Bill accepted, and swallowed it in a mouthful.
‘Well then, if we’ve all finished, I think we’ll let th’ children go,’ said Mrs Tewson. ‘They’ve been very good! Harry an’ Dorothy, you ma’ leave the table. — An’ shall you mind Marjory while mother washes up?’
The two elder children had sat so mute and patient on the sofa, during all the talk, Connie had sympathized with them deeply. They slid under the table, and out by their mother’s chair.
‘Mind mother’s dress!’ Mrs Tewson admonished.
‘Well you were good children!’ said Connie. ‘Come and let me give you a penny.’
‘Oh, you shouldn’t bother!’ said Mrs Tewson.
Harry received half-a-crown, and Dorothy a florin, as there wasn’t another half-crown.
‘There now? What do you say?’ admonished the mother.
‘Thank you! Thank you!’ murmured the children, sidling to get away.
‘Wait for Marjory! Come Marjory-love, let mother wipe your face. Bring th’ flannel an’ towel, Harry! Come love! Are you going out with Dorothy an’ Harry? Now mind ’er, you two, an’ see as she doesn’t get into any danger—’
Marjory-love had her face and hands wiped and dried, and she howled with impatience.
‘There!’ said Connie, offering her also a florin. ‘There’s one for you too.’
The child took it in a chubby fist.
‘Oh you shouldn’t!’ said Mrs Tewson. Then to Marjory-love, ‘Say thank you! Say thank you to the pretty lady! Thank you! Thank you! — There, there’s a love!’ The child had coyly murmured her thank you! which her father echoed with a little blurt of a proud laugh, while the. mother kissed her with a smack of gratification.
‘Let mother take a pretty penny, an’ put it in Marjory’s money-box. Let mother take it an’ keep it for her — put it in Marjory’s money-box. Will Marjory put it in? Harry, get ’er money-box off parlour mantel.’
Oh the sound of that word munny-box!
The children departed, Mrs Tewson put an apron over her smart silk dress, that was very short in the leg and began to collect the cups. Bill, who had waited, wound-up, for the hubbub to settle, said to Connie:
‘You don’t think the upper classes feels guilty, then, at having ten times a hundred times more than their fair share of all the advantages?’
‘Now Lady Chatterley!’ said Mrs Tewson. ‘Don’t you pay no attention to these men. They’d talk the leg off an iron pot. An’ since Mr Seivers is ’ere, Bill’s worse. It’s politics from morning to night—’
‘Now my dear!’ said Bill to his wife. ‘This is a special occasion. Let me alone a bit. — You’re sure you don’t mind?’ he added, turning suddenly with naïve gravity to Connie.
‘Not at all,’ she said.
‘Ay well! — You don’t think, then, they feel a bit guilty, like —’
‘I don’t really know,’ said Connie. ‘They may feel a little uneasy sometimes. But I wouldn’t call it guilty!’
/>
‘You wouldn’t!’ He stared at her with strange intentness. ‘You don’t think they feel there might be a need to even things up a bit: let a bit more come our way, for example?’
‘I don’t really know,’ she said, ‘People never like giving up what they’ve got.’
‘Not till they’re forced to,’ said Bill, ‘They say as our rich people feels much more kindred feeling with other rich people, whether they’re Americans or Germans or Russians or Jews or anything, than they do with us, their own countrymen. It isn’t Germans they’re holding out against, and afraid of: it’s us working-men, who are Englishmen the same as they are an’ in a big majority when it comes to.’
Connie was silent. Parkin broke the pause.
‘What I say is, there’s only two sorts o’ folks on the face of the earth, them as ’as got money, an’ them as is after it. What’s it got to do with nations? Men’s all alike — an’ so’s their wives. When anybody’s different, they get trod on,’ said he, in his harsh, vibrant voice, that had a curious twang of cat-like, sardonic contempt in it.
‘An’ me an’ thee, lad, we belong to them as is after a bit more o’ the dirty stuff — eh boy?’ said Bill, with his queer mad guffaw.
‘I want to eat,’ said Parkin dismally. ‘I’ve got to keep myself. ’S all I want.’
‘Ay, ’appen so! But tha’d like to keep thysen a bit more easy, like, eh?’ said Bill.
‘But you don’t think the upper classes are responsible for all the devils on earth, do you?’ said Connie, turning to Parkin.
‘Me! I’m always saying it,’ he replied, ‘everybody’s alike, money smells to ’em like toasted cheese does to a mouse, an’ they go for it, if it’s fifty thousand mouse-traps. An’ that means folks an’ poor, just alike.’
‘Includin’ thysen, lad!’ Bill said, in his teasing, roguish way ‘Tha’rt after thy own bit.’
But Parkin did not answer.
‘I really must go!’ said Connie, rising. ‘I suppose I shall my way to York Road?’
‘Oh, Ohiver’ll go with you,’ said Bill, surprised.
‘Perhaps he doesn’t want to be bothered,’ she said, turning look at him.
He met her eyes, startled.
‘Why?’ he said.
‘Do you?’ she said.
‘If you’ll wait a minute for me!’ he replied, and he went upstairs,
‘Well!’ said Bill, rising and stretching himself. ‘It’s been rare havin’ a talk with somebody from up above, like. You’re a bit of a socialist yourself, aren’t you, like Lady Warwick? So you won’t take any notice of what we say! — Shall we be seeing you again, do you think?’
Mrs Tewson came in from the scullery, taking off her apron.
‘Shall yer ’ave to go!’ she said. ‘Well, I’m sure we’re very flattered to ’ave ’ad you. I hope you don’t mind the poor poky way we live in, but it’s all we can do, on what a man’s able to earn with ’is hands. We should be very pleased to see you any time you’d like to come, if you’d let us know. I’m sure it’ll cheer Mr Seivers up a lot, you ’avin’ come. Men does love talkin’ these politics, don’t they? Especially with one who is a lady born! It flatters them, you see.’
‘Quite!’ said Connie.
‘An’ Mr Seivers is a bit down on ’is luck just now! But I mother ’im all I can, an’ I think ’e feels at ’ome with us.’
‘I’m sure he does!’ said Connie.
He came downstairs, and in silence they departed, walking side by side down the steep stone slant of the hideous street. He looked a poor little working-man: and she knew he felt it. But she did not feel equal to any more efforts on his behalf.
In the tram-car that served this poorish quarter, he sat silent, with his damaged hands curled against his body, for comfort. Only he got the pennies out of his trousers’ pocket, to pay the fares, like a man. And Connie looked at the depressing ugliness of the other passengers, poorish working class, without colour, grace, or form: or even warmth of life. It was too gruesome.
‘Write to me!’ she said, as she left him.
‘All right!’ he answered.
CHAPTER XVI
The next day but one, she had a letter from him, not so very badly written. — ‘Bill told me about bribing Fellows to get me in the toolshop. But don’t do it. I’m leaving anyhow. I knew what you were thinking, Tuesday. So I went to give my notice in this morning, and they letting me off on Saturday. So I shall have to look round for something else. I shan’t stop in Sheffield anyhow. I shall go round the country, and try and get some farm-labouring, and I ought to find some, with corn harvest coming on. I can’t go far, because of my divorce hanging over me. But I give up trying to work with a lot of other chaps. I can’t stomach it. I have to be doing something where I can be by myself. I’m sorry as Bill talked so much on Tuesday. I’m sick and surfitted of talk. I don’t care what other folks does, I only want to be by myself. If I get a farm-labourer’s job, I shan’t get more than thirty shillings a week, so my mother will have to come down a bit. But I should be learning, for if ever there was anything in the future. I feel I care about nothing on earth, except to get away from folks, and perhaps if we had a farm in the future. I thought you were looking harassed on Tuesday over something, but I expect it was my imagination. Don’t think as I don’t remember the wood and the cottage and everything. I would give my head if it could but have lasted, but it couldn’t. You say you don’t believe in living together if you are married. Then there is nothing for it but living alone. I don’t seem to be much use on the face of the earth, I must say. But I don’t even feel I want to be. I shall go on quite quiet, and wait, it is all there is to do. I can make my living, and I care about nothing in the world, except I ache for the wood and the cottage these last few months, as if something was drawn out of me. I get a bursting sometimes inside me, till I feel I can’t breathe easy with other folks. I suppose it is my own fault. But it is no use talking. When a man has no money and no special qualifications for anything, he is not much cop. He just has to learn to contain himself. But I hope there is not anything fretting you at Wragby. You have to live easy and be contented now. I shall write to you when I get a place. Think of yourself, and don’t trouble about anything. — O.’
The same day that Connie received this, he had a letter from her. But he did not get it till he came home in the evening. ‘—I was sorry to see you looking so ill and depressed on Tuesday, you seem to be only half your natural size. I’m afraid that work is bad for you, but I know it is no use my saying anything. I asked Mr Tewson to use every effort to get you into another department, where the work will be lighter, and I do hope he will be successful.
‘I want to tell you that I have decided I must leave Clifford. It is not really on your account. But I feel I am living here on false pretences: I am in a false situation, I feel false all the time, and I can’t bring a child into the world like that. I am sorry for Clifford. He doesn’t really want me, except for a background. But I think it will be rather terrible for him if I have to give up being a background for him. But I must, I feel so false, so false to myself, and especially to the child, which is yours and mine, but which is also itself, and I mustn’t put my falsities over it, if I can help it. I should like you to be its father, as it grows up. Then it would have some freshness in its soul. People have no freshness in their souls. You still have some, if it isn’t soon killed off.
‘I wasn’t very happy at Mr Tewson’s. Perhaps we could meet somewhere else, before I leave. I shall go to my sister in Scotland, and perhaps winter abroad, if I am to be alone.
‘You must let me know when you are willing to try a little farm somewhere. We must talk it over in private. Will you meet me somewhere on Sunday afternoon, perhaps at Stanton. I shall expect to hear from you. — C.’
He replied to her by return, writing in the Mechanics Hall where there was a free club-room.
‘—I can understand what you feel about Wragby. I feel a bit that way about Bill’s h
ouse, I can’t breathe in it, something shuts me up so I can’t breathe. But I’m sorry you feel like that at Wragby, you will be so homeless, if you go. A sister’s home isn’t like your own. But then I think sometimes a dry ditch is better than a bed in people’s houses. Shall you go to Canada with me! I’ll go next week, if you will. I’ve a cousin there as would help me. I’d go anywhere with you, except stop round these parts. That is, if you wanted me. Bill has no business to talk so much. I am fair heartsick of talk, everybody has got so much to say, and where does it leave you? I wish you and I was on a desert island. I don’t think I should soon wish myself off it. I’ve only tomorrow and half-day Saturday at Jephson’s. Shall we say Hucknall on Sunday? I’ve got one of my own uncles, my father’s brother, who lives out Annesley Woodhouse way, and keeps a grocery shop. I could wait for you at Hucknall Church, any time after two. They’ve got Lord Byron’s heart buried there, though there’s nothing to see. But we could walk through Annesley park. I shouldn’t care if the bolshevists blew up one half of the world, and the capitalists blew up the other half, to spite them, so long as they left me and you a rabbit-hole apiece to creep in, and meet underground like the rabbits do.’
And by return, he had her answer.
‘I’m so glad you are leaving Sheffield. I was so afraid you were just going to deteriorate into a socialist or a fascist, or something dreary and political.
‘You shouldn’t trouble about money. You know I have enough. I have even saved some since I have been married, though I spent most on housekeeping. I can’t think it matters if you use my money. You don’t really care about it any more than I do.
‘I wish you said you loved me. I think you do. But I don’t feel certain. I am afraid I love you too much.
‘Shall we meet at Stanton on Sunday?’
They both had their letters on Friday. And both replied hot haste. He wrote:
John Thomas and Lady Jane Page 42