‘What is?’
‘Their equality of man, or whatever they call it. They know themselves that equality is all bunk. They know themselves the difference between a gentleman and a collier. And you’ve got to emphasise the difference and drive the fact home. Oh, property is at the root of all religion. Even The Times Literary Supplement says that the ownership of property has become a religious question. And they’re jolly well right. I own Wragby in so far as man does own earthly property. Wragby stands to me for what is decent and dignified and, if you like, godly in man. Pull Wragby down or turn it into a school for colliers’ kids, and you’ve pulled so much human dignity and decency and even godliness down into the muck. I believe it, religiously. Wragby is a ship that still sails on in the voyage of discovery of new human possibilities. It sails ahead, and the miners’ dwellings wash along, the dirty little craft, in the wake. — Do you think any miner’s dwelling would have had a piano, for example — the old example — if Wragby hadn’t helped to bring pianos into being three hundred years ago? So it goes on.’
Constance suddenly saw that this was true. Suddenly she knew really why she didn’t want to bear children in a miner’s dwelling, or bring them up in a gamekeeper’s cottage. They would only be born into the great flotilla of dirty little craft which by themselves were making for nowhere and had no direction, meant nothing. Only the proud ships like Wragby led the way into unknown seas. It was true. There would never be more than a few, comparatively few leaders and onward seekers. And these would always be ‘gentry’. And they must always have ultimate control over property. Must! Otherwise there would be no proud ships to dare the unknown seas, all would be a flat-bottomed squalor of nowhere-goers. It was not the giving up of property that would help mankind. She agreed with Clifford. Perhaps, on the contrary, it was a religious duty for a man to fight to keep his property today. She felt that to fight was more honorable than shoddily to let slide, to be bullied into yielding up.
‘But Clifford,’ she said, ‘do you really feel that the gentry are leading on in a voyage of discovery? If they are, why is there a tug-of-war?’
‘The tug-of-war is part of the great experiment. The property question has still to be finally settled.’
‘You mean settled to remain just as it is?’
He was quiet for a time.
‘Perhaps!’ he said. ‘Or at least, fight for every inch that is yielded. It’s a question that’s got to be fought out, you can’t argue it out or shake hands and agree. It’s a passionate question. I’m for sticking to every inch of Wragby, and of my rights to coal royalties and so on. The colliers can show me no better title. — If they’d turn Wragby into a day-school for kids, I should call it a degradation, a move in life on the downward scale. You must have the higher type of life.’
‘Yes!’ she said. ‘I know! And I do believe it. — But isn’t there anything else? — You see, Wragby isn’t mine to fight for. I’ve no ancestral halls. So it leaves me rather untouched.’
‘Does it?’ he said sarcastically. ‘It wouldn’t if you had children —’ he paused for a moment or two — ‘do you think you might have children?’ he asked, looking at her with strange bright eyes.
‘It is possible,’ she said, flushing darkly.
‘Well! I hope you may, if only to carry on this fight. By gad, it’s a big fight, and I’d like to help to train up a lad to hang on to Wragby. It’s the thing in our future — the fight for property, the right to own property, or to continue to own it.’ He looked round again at the old silent house that crouched its rather sad brown length in the May sunshine. ‘Imagine having to fight for the right to continue to own Wragby!’ he said. ‘Give me a son, Connie! It’s all I ask of you.’
She did not answer, but turned away, and he started his chair cautiously on the downslope of the path across the park. His face was gleaming with fight, as white clouds gleamed in the sky.
Give him a son to fight for Wragby! Only that! And the physical son of a gamekeeper, at that, and the grandson of a collier! Nay, it was too preposterous and cruel.
She followed the chair slowly along the red gravelled path in which the weeds were sadly encroaching, between the tasselled trees and the open spaces of grass where cottony young cowslips were coming forth from their cotton wool, between tufts of grass. And the funny, fluffy tenderness of the immature flowers stirred her strangely. That! That! That! That peculiar downy sensitiveness and that vulnerability of young things, which uncurl and come out into the world with such incredible daring, considering how the world is crowded and they are so soft and easily squashed! That! That kind of courage, and that kind of strength! That! That! That! That was what she wanted. Something so delicately sensitive and so softly daring, opening an eye on heaven.
Oh, why didn’t Clifford have some delicate, delicate soft physical feeling for the colliers, to wake a response in them? But he was so tough. He was so much more tough and insentient, really, than the ugly mute colliers. He was tough and clever, clever and tough, and with no soft, frail tendrils of perception and true intelligence reaching out on the air. She felt, if she had been a man, she could have found the clue to this gruesome business of class war, which she felt had really started. But she was only a woman, she could only sympathise with a particular man, not with a whole villageful or a whole class.
They came to the wood, and she opened the gate. In front stretched the open cleft of the riding between the silent grey trees. The chair pugged slowly in, slowly crushing its way over the forget-me-nots and the creeping-jinny and the woodruff. Clifford steered as far as possible clear of the flowers. But like foam after a storm, they were flung out right in the way.
‘You are right, my dear!’ he said. ‘It is amazingly lovely.’
They were passing the hazel copse, where among the many many brown chords of hazel stems, in hiding, tufts of tall fierce bluebells stood, and big, grey-green leaves spread themselves on the shadowy earth. A woodpecker darted away. Dead hazel catkins lay on the damp green leaves of the riding. The chair moved slowly ahead.
Till they passed the hazel thickets and at a cross-path came to the open oak-wood, which sloped uphill in a beautiful free slope. This hill had been cleared of undergrowth, and many trees had been cut during the war, so that it was rather sparse in cover, open to the light. And the bluebells made sheets and patches of living purplish blue in the clarity, and between the wreckage of stumps and old wood-chips, spaces on the earth of sheer blue, with only young trees rising around.
Clifford had to keep his chair going till he got to the top of the hill, for fear he might get stuck. Constance followed behind. If out of the cold, grim earth things came so tender and in a perfect glow of blueness that seemed somehow to chime, why need man be so tough, only tough, like the great sinews in a piece of boiled beef. Why? Why? Why, while one was alive, why be merely tough? Even the oak trees had the softest little brownish hands, feeling at the air, touching the soft air. The grey bark was hard and tough. But every twig ended in the softest little unfurling paw. Why not? Why not? One must fight the winter; but even then the tender little paws are only gloved. They shut up, but they don’t lose their sensitiveness.
Clifford at the top of the hill sat and looked down at the green interlacing of boughs and the heavenly sweeps of blueness that lit up all the green, downhill, downhill, below.
‘Yes!’ he said. ‘It’s very fine, a marvellous colour in itself. But it’s absolutely no good to paint.’
That too was probably quite true. So many things were true in a composite world.
To the left, in the thick old forest, ran the path that led down to the keeper’s hut. Thank heaven it was too narrow and uneven for the chair.
‘Shall we go down to the spring?’ said Clifford.
‘Let us!’ said Constance.
And the chair began slowly to advance down the gentle slope till it came to the great sheets of bluebells and rode through them. A strange ship! A strange vessel surging through scented blue seas!
The last pinnace left on the unknown oceans, steering to the last discoveries! Quiet and content, like the captain at the immortal wheel, Clifford sat in an old black hat and slowly, cautiously steered. And Constance, one of the mere boats, came slowly in his wake in a grey knitted dress, down the long gentle slope. And the chair softly curved out of sight as the riding swung round in the dip below.
And the keeper came striding rapidly from behind. She heard the drop of his feet, and turned.
‘I thought,’ he said with a faint smile, ‘you was going to be my wife in the wood, an’ his —’ he jerked his head in the direction of the vanished chair — ‘in a’ t’ rest o’ th’ world.’
His red-brown eyes looked annoyed, yet somehow, yes, they were like the as yet unfolded brown oak leaves, soft and aware.
‘I mean to be,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘But Clifford wanted to see the bluebells.’
He was silent and uneasy. Then came the low question that burned him before he could get it out:
‘When shall you come?’
She was just a little afraid. Yet a voice beyond her control spoke out of her.
‘Tonight,’ she said.
She saw the flash of his eyes, and turned aside.
‘Ay, tonight!’ he said in a low, strangled voice, ‘to th’ house, no? I mean th’ cottage?’
‘Yes.’
‘Am I to wait for yer inside park gate?’
‘Yes. Some time after ten.’
‘After ten.’
From below there came the sound of Clifford’s ‘coo-ee!’ among the trees.
‘Coo-ee!’ called Constance, back to him. It was their old call to one another.
‘He mun shout for me if ’e wants me,’ said the keeper softly.
Constance nodded, looked the man in the eyes for a moment — she was his wife in the wood — and hurried downhill after Clifford, calling.
The keeper turned away with a certain quickness of impatience.
Constance found Clifford already at the spring, a little way up the opposite dark hill, where the larch-wood bristled with a burnt appearance all round, and great leaves of the burdock shoved out into the riding. It was ghostly and sinister as ever.
Only the spring was pretty. It bubbled up in a little, brilliantly clear well that had pebbles on the bottom which wavered and danced. Bits of eyebright and cinquefoil flowered among the grass on the bank. Then the water ran rapidly downhill in a tiny ditch.
‘Will you drink?’ asked Constance.
‘Yes! Will you?’
‘Yes.’
There was a little enamel cup hanging on a tree. She took it and filled it for him as he sat in his chair.
‘Shall we wish?’ he said as he took the cup.
‘Yes, let us.’
‘Let me see — what shall I wish for?’ he asked.
‘You mustn’t tell!’ she said.
They heard the distant tapping of a woodpecker, then the cry of a cock pheasant. It was very still, though a soft wind was blowing, and more clouds were moving in the sky.
‘The water is so cold!’ he said, sipping. ‘One might wish extravagant things. I expect men and women have wished the most extraordinary things at this well.’
He drank slowly, in silence, and handed her the cup.
‘Have you wished?’ she said.
‘I have.’
‘You mustn’t tell me,’ she said.
‘No! You wish too.’
She stooped at the spring, rinsed her cup, and filled it. And she thought to herself: ‘I won’t wish. I might be meddling with my real destiny.’ So she drank slowly, gasping a little at the coldness.
‘Have you wished?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she gasped, taking no heed of what she said.
She gathered a bit of woodruff, and watched a mole rising to the surface, swimming out of the earth with its pink little hands and blind face.
‘Do you see the mole?’ she said.
‘Yes! I wonder Parkin hasn’t had him. — What a life, eh, burrowing and wriggling your way down in that yellow earth! Unpleasant little beasts!’
‘He seems to see with the pink tip of his nose,’ she said. ‘Do you think he smells, or what does he do, waving his nose-end in the air?’
‘He looks like an orator,’ he said.
She gave him the woodruff to smell.
‘Such a fashionable old-fashioned scent,’ he said.
The larches too were putting out tiny green brushes, out of their twiggy dreariness. Constance glanced up at the sky that seemed so disconnected.
‘I wonder if it will rain?’
They started slowly back, the motor-chair faintly puffing. Clifford steered carefully over the damp, grassy, uneven riding. And so they came to the bottom of the dip and turned to the long slope ahead, where bluebells spread in the light among their trees.
‘Will she get up, do you think?’ she asked.
‘We will try. I hope so.’
‘If not,’ she said, ‘you must call Parkin.’
The chair tugged slowly, unevenly up through the tall strong hyacinths that lit up a blueness around. More and more slowly it struggled. Then it stopped.
‘Call!’ she said.
‘Let’s try again.’ He did not want to call the man. The chair made funny convulsive noises and struggled a little further. A dog gave a short bark. The keeper’s spaniel came running up, wagging its tail to Constance, very friendly, but shying away from the chair.
Parkin came striding down the slope. He saluted as he came close, then stood at ease in front of the chair, looking down at the little motor.
‘I’m afraid she won’t get me up again,’ said Sir Clifford.
‘Looks like it, doesna’ it?’ said the keeper, pushing back his cap and gazing down at the chair. Then he stooped, touching the engine under the wheels. He tapped the little tank.
‘Got enough petrol?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I think so,’ said Clifford.
Parkin leaned his gun against a tree, and kneeled down to the little engine, touching various screws, and poking intently.
Then he stood up, his feet apart.
‘Try her again, sir!’ he said.
Clifford obediently tried his engine again.
‘There’s a bit o’ dust or something choking her,’ said the keeper. ‘Run her a bit hard, like.’
Clifford ran his engine faster. It stuttered and spluttered, then ran free.
‘There!’ said the keeper. ‘Sounds as if she’s come clear.’
Clifford in silence started the chair. It crept slowly forward as if it had not enough life to get up.
‘Am I to give her a push?’ said the keeper. ‘’Elp her a bit?’
‘She ought to do it,’ said Clifford. ‘Wait a bit.’
Constance and the keeper followed the chair, inch by inch. She was wondering at the curious freemasonry of men when a machine was in question. Parkin was a different man — a soldier. Yet he treated Clifford so freely, good-humouredly. Clifford was the officer, Parkin the Tommy.
The chair, as if dying of heart disease, came to an end amid a particularly fine patch of bluebells like a derelict in shallow water.
‘She’ll hardly do it! She’s hardly got power enough,’ said the keeper.
‘She ought to manage it — it’s not steep,’ Clifford persisted.
‘Ay, ought! She ought — but she won’t. You’d best let me push you, sir.’
‘Wait a bit,’ said Clifford.
And he began to run his engine fast: then he put her into gear with a jerk.
‘Nay!’ said the keeper. ‘You’ll rip her guts out.’
The chair charged in a wild swerve sideways to the trees.
‘Clifford!’ cried Constance, rushing forward. The keeper jumped and grasped the chair by the rail behind. But Clifford, putting on all his pressure, had steered into the riding, and with a strange buzzing noise the chair was fighting at the hill. Parkin pushed her from behind, and she went smoothly forward
, as if pacified.
‘She’s doing it all right,’ said Clifford, looking round in triumph, only to see Parkin’s red face over his shoulder.
‘Are you pushing?’
‘Ay, a bit.’
‘Don’t then! I asked you not.’
‘Why —’ Parkin began, slackening.
‘Let go!’ said Clifford; ‘she’s got to make it.’
‘Ay — got to!’ said the keeper.
And he released the chair: which immediately seemed to choke. Clifford, seated a prisoner, fought with his machine. Strange noises came out of the poor thing, and strange, pathetic lurches took place. But she refused to budge.
‘Curse her!’ said Clifford, violently shutting off, white with anger.
Parkin silently took the chair and gave it a gentle shove up the hill, among the shattered bluebells. Clifford glanced round, yellow with anger.
‘Will you get off there?’ he cried. ‘Wait till you’re asked.’
Parkin stepped smartly aside, automatic as a soldier forming fours. But once apart from the chair, he stood with his feet wide in the peculiar lounge of a man who does not stand at attention.
The chair began slowly to move backwards.
‘Clifford, your brake’s not on!’ cried Constance, rushing in to the rescue.
Clifford violently tugged at a light lever. The chair stopped.
‘It’s obvious I’m at everybody’s mercy,’ he said satirically.
There was a solemn pause, Clifford in the chair yellow with anger, Constance standing at a loss, the keeper standing at ease, save for the slight mocking tilt of his eyelids, and the keeper’s dog sitting behind his master, alert, eyeing the chair with greater suspicion and dislike. A cock pheasant bolted across the road absurdly. Everything was absurd. But the tableau vivant remained motionless.
‘I’m sorry I lost my temper, Con,’ said Clifford at length.
‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ said Constance.
‘Parkin, do you mind wheeling me? I beg your pardon for the way I spoke to you.’
‘The pesterin’ things ’ud make anybody get their rag out,’ said the keeper.
Even then it was not so easy to get the chair started, for the brake was jammed. They poked and pulled. The keeper sweated. At length he took off his coat, lifted the back of the chair bodily up and with a sudden jerk loosened the wheels, unconscious of everything save his effort. Clifford, tilted perilously, looked round in irritation and saw the red face of the keeper, the veins in the neck swollen.
The First Lady Chatterley's Lover Page 11