The First Lady Chatterley's Lover

by D. H. Lawrence

He stroked his arm down her tense, chill back, and the silky, cool sense of beauty, the beauty of her, took away his worldly consciousness for a while.

  ‘Tha’rt real an’ nowt else is!’ he said.

  She shivered with pleasure.

  ‘Yes! The moon! And the flowers! And you!’ she insisted. ‘The wood is real. The sky is real. Only people aren’t real.’

  ‘Maybe!’ he said. ‘Maybe they aren’t!’

  This was the admission she wanted of him. She shivered again.

  ‘Thar’t cold!’ he said.

  He took her into the hut, and they lay down on his bed, wrapped in a blanket. And immediately she fell fast asleep. He lay with her in his arms, thinking and feeling as he felt when a boy, when he lay and saw the moon through the window, and he felt the dim great trust in his soul. It filled his soul now with the same vast stillness. And he lay with his back to Tevershall, indifferent to the whole of life as it lay outside. Somehow in the circle of his arms was the whole sky, the whole of another sort of life, the great living stillness. All he wanted now was to breathe the living stillness. He cared nothing about Tevershall and the days behind.

  He did not sleep. And when the dawn came he woke her. She was warm as in a nest, with him: he had pulled the blankets and his coat over her, and she had slept in complete unconsciousness. Now she must wake, and the dawn was chill.

  ‘Tha maun go,’ he said. ‘Joe an’ Albert’ll be comin’.’

  ‘I don’t want to leave you,’ she said.

  ‘No! Tha maun though!’

  ‘I want to come and live with you,’ she said.

  ‘’Appen we can contrive!’ he said quietly.

  She looked at him closely. In his face was that still, soft unfoldedness, like a very fresh, sensitive flower. It was this look, unconscious and unseizable, that filled her with mad love for him. It was so vulnerable, like a flower unsheathed from its defences, in pure living petals and breath of perfume.

  And in all the sensitive unfoldedness a quiet repose of power, the power to live and to set life flowing. In the long run he was the master because life was with him. And Clifford, though he had a diabolic will and cleverness, had lost the softness and mystery of life.

  But for the time being, the external power was in Clifford’s hands, and Parkin was powerless.

  So she left him, while he looked after her with the pupils of his eyes widened and softened; and she turned again, to see the mystery and the power in them. She smiled to him, and he nodded but without smiling. He was waiting again for his destiny.

  She had arranged to see him again on the next day, which was Friday, his last day in the wood. On Saturday he would come for his wage and depart for Sheffield, leaving the unknown Albert in the cottage. Albert was a Scotchman who had married a Tevershall girl in New Zealand. They had come home for the war. They had five children, all of them to be poked in the cottage. This was as much as Constance knew.

  The afternoon was hot and quiet when she walked to the wood to meet Parkin for the last time. How quickly her woodland idyll had come to an end! How soon he and she had ceased to have a home among the trees!

  He met her in the big riding. His dog came running to her.

  ‘What shall you do with Flossie?’ she asked.

  ‘I s’ll leave her with Albert — she’ll mind him.’

  They turned off down the path towards the hut. When they came to the clearing she said, crossing to the oak tree: ‘Let us look at our two nails.’

  He came with her. The two nail-heads, rather rusty, were there just the same. She put her fingers on them.

  ‘Side by side !‘ she said, looking at him.

  ‘Ay!’ he replied, turning his face away.

  She glanced at him. He seemed to be withheld from her. She went and sat on the log at the hut. He took off his coat, repairing some traps.

  ‘Where are you going to live in Sheffield?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’m lodging with Bill Tewson for a bit — him as I was with in the war — drivin’ a lorry with the artillery.’

  ‘What does he do now?’

  ‘He drives a lorry for Jephson’s Steel Works.’

  ‘And will you do the same?’

  ‘He says he’ll get me on somewhere. Then when there’s a driver’s place comes empty I s’ll get it. But I s’ll have to be a laborer for a bit.’

  ‘Hard work!’ she said, looking up at him.

  ‘Ay — what else, if you’re going to earn your living?’

  ‘Why don’t you let me find us a little farm that you could work —and I could come to live with you?’

  He was silent for a time, pottering with the traps. Then he stood up and looked at her.

  ‘Are yer sure as you’re havin’ a child?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes! I think so,’ she murmured.

  ‘An’ you don’t want to have anything to do with me, like — you know what I mean — while that’s comin’?’

  ‘I think it’s better, don’t you?’

  He did not answer for some time. Then he said: ‘It’s the way o’ th’ animals, so I should think it’s right.’

  ‘Yes!’ she said softly, glad to get her own immunity.

  ‘You know as I’ve put up for a divorce?’ he said.

  ‘Yes! When will your case be heard?’

  ‘Not afore September. An’ then there’s another six months. Brings it about to next April afore I’m clear, all bein’ well.’

  She looked at him — and realised partly what he meant.

  ‘Yes! I want no more of what I’ve had.’

  She found him a stranger again. There was something hard and decided about him.

  ‘So we mustn’t live together before you’ve got your divorce?’ she said, murmuring, looking up at him. His red-brown eyes with the small pupils looked keenly into hers. Today he was hard, and decided on his own way. Even the cut and swollen mouth only made him look more tiresomely resolute.

  ‘Not afore then, whatever happens,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to be clear of ’er, if I live. — But you! You don’t want to come and live with me, you know!’

  ‘Why don’t I?’ she said softly.

  His face had a peculiar expression of distaste, like a dog that wrinkles its nose in distaste.

  ‘Why don’t you? You know, though. You’ve had me — you know what I am like. It’s comin’ of a year afore you’ll want me again — for that. An’ you don’t want to live with me. What’s the sense of it! You only imagine it.’

  ‘But why don’t I want to live with you?’

  ‘Why? Because you’ll never make a gentleman of me, any more than you would o’ Flossie there.’

  ‘You’ll be as much of a gentleman as I want you to be.’

  He turned to her quickly with that sudden dangerous move that always made her wince.

  ‘Ay!’ he said. ‘An’ ’appen I shan’t — and shouldn’t! ’Appen I shouldn’t neither: for I’ve no intentions o’ bein’.’

  The peculiar expression of vicious distaste wrinkled his face. She eyed him up and down and saw an enemy in him, to her hopes.

  ‘But I don’t want you to be a gentleman. I want you to be just a common man,’ she said.

  ‘Ay, a common man! An’ what about you? Are you goin’ to be a common woman?’

  ‘I can try,’ she said, looking up at him in innocence.

  He threw back his head and shoulders in the violent gesture of impatience.

  ‘What do you say so for!’ he cried. ‘It’s nawt but foolery! You’re a lady, you’re more a lady than a woman — how can you help it? You’re not a common woman, nor ever could be. No more could I be a gentleman. — But what’s your idea, about living with me? What’s your idea?’

  ‘Well! I thought we might rent a farm — a nice little farm — or something else if you’d rather—’

  ‘Wi’ whose money?’

  ‘Mine! I’ve got three hundred a year of my own.’

  As a matter of fact, she had five hundred. But she thought
it better to understate it.

  ‘Six pounds a week, like?’ he said.

  ‘Yes! A bit more. We could live on that. And if we had a farm or something, you would be earning more.’

  ‘Ay, two folks ought to be able to live on six pounds a week. An’ what should you think of me if I was living on your money?’

  ‘I should think a great deal less of you if you let my little bit of money come between us.’

  He watched her keenly for a long time. Then he shook his head.

  ‘You’re foolin’ yourself, you know,’ he said. ‘You think you can make a nice little place for me an’ put me in it, an’ keep it all nice accordin’ to your own ideas: and say come! when you want me to come, and keep off! when you don’t want me: and puss! puss! when you’re pleased and summat else when you’re not pleased. — But it’d niver work. I’ve got to be th’ man i’ my own house. An’ you’d have to be my lady no matter wheer you was — except ’appen in Canada, when you’d have to wash it off a bit. But I don’t care about Canada neither.’

  He came to a stop, angry and clumsy.

  She looked up at him, and angry flushes burnt in her cheeks.

  ‘And what about your child?’ she said. ‘You don’t want to make a home for that?’

  ‘Eh!’ — he threw back his head. ‘That’s yours! If it’s a child it’s yours. — And Sir Clifford’s, if he wants it.’

  The flushes burnt deeper in her cheeks.

  ‘You mean now you can’t get any pleasure out of me, you want to be rid of me — you don’t want to think about me any more — you want to clear out to Sheffield or wherever you go, and be free? Perhaps you’re not even going to Sheffield! Perhaps you’re going to get away to Canada and wash your hands of everything.’

  He looked at her curiously for a long time.

  ‘Well!’ he said at last. ‘I don’t see the good of foolery. I’m going to Sheffield to work in a steel works, and count myself lucky if I get fifty shillings a week. That’s what I’m goin’ to do. You, you’re a woman wi’ money an’ used to money. You’re a lady an’ used to a lady’s life—’

  ‘I don’t want a lady’s life. I should like to learn to cook and bake and wash. If we had a cottage—’

  ‘Ay!’ he said sadly. ‘At your own convenience, maybe. But if it was a force-put all your life long, you’d not like it. No, you’d wish yourself back in Wragby Hall. Don’t talk! You don’t know what it means and you never will: to be a working man’s wife and bring up a family on three pounds a week at the best. I wouldn’t want you to know what it means.’

  ‘What does it mean that I don’t know?’ she asked proudly.

  ‘It means drudging and dragging and whittling and worrying and bein’ worn out wi’ doin’ things — an’ bein’ under.’

  ‘Why should you be so afraid for me if I’m not afraid for myself?’ she demanded.

  ‘Because I know better what it means. You’ve never lived in a collier’s kitchen, you know—’

  ‘Good God! — Then I’ve lived somewhere else. You talk as if a collier’s kitchen was some mysterious place like the Spanish Inquisition. Did you find it so awful?’

  ‘Not me. But you would.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because I do.’

  ‘Ha!’ she cried. ‘Men are all alike. They’re all gentlemen when it comes to preventing a woman from living.’

  ‘It’s like this,’ he said harshly. ‘You’re up, and I’m down. You think if you came down a little bit you could drag me up a long way. If I held my mouth shut you might pass me off. Hell!’ He looked her suddenly in the eyes. ‘I don’t want to be no higher than I am. I don’t want it. Not for a woman’s sake, nor for anything else. I don’t want to climb up the ladder on your money. I want to stop where I am. I don’t want you. I don’t want nothing of yours.’

  She went pale. This was an obstinacy and an imperviousness as bad as anything she met in Clifford.

  ‘But — but why did you make love to me then?’ she stammered.

  ‘You wanted it,’ he said crudely.

  ‘And didn’t you?’ she cried.

  He turned and looked at her.

  ‘Ay!’ he said slowly softly. ‘Ay! I’ve loved it. I know it. — But I shanna ha’e yer tryin’ ter ma’e a gentleman on me. There’s too much difference atween us. I dunna want ter come up, mysen. — An’ I don’t want yo’ to come down. I don’t want it.’

  ‘What do you want then?’ she cried.

  ‘Let be!’ he said. ‘Let be! Let me go to Sheffield an’ get a job — an’ let’s see.’

  ‘But if I have to go on living here the child will be Clifford’s!’ she cried.

  ‘Well! It’ll have a good home — aren’t you pleased?’

  ‘Don’t you care? Don’t you care about your child?’ she asked in angry amazement.

  ‘Me? No!’

  ‘But you’re unnatural!’

  ‘It’ll be thy childt. Tha’lt ha’e it.’

  ‘But it will be legally Clifford’s. And if I want to come to you later he can take it from me.’

  ‘Let him ha’e it if he wants it. ’Appen when he knows who th’ dad is ’e’ll be glad to be shut on’t.’

  ‘Do you hate Clifford?’

  ‘Me? What have I got to hate him for?’

  Flossie gave a soft little bark, and went running down the path.

  ‘It’ll be Albert,’ said Parkin softly. And he went on with his trap-mending.

  Out of the path emerged a tall, clean-shaven man with a close-pressed mouth and a hard, keen blue eye that had seen all round the world without having been very much interested. He came forward awkwardly yet with the colonial challenge. Parkin stood and waited for him. Albert lifted his hat a little, awkwardly yet with the bacwoodsman’s canny self-sufficiency.

  ‘My lady, this is the new gamekeeper, Albert Adam.’

  ‘How do you do!’ said Constance. ‘Have you moved into the cottage?’

  ‘On Monday, mam!’

  The man stood attentive, holding himself suspiciously out of communication.

  ‘Last Monday?’ said Constance.

  ‘Yes mam!’

  ‘Do you think your wife will like it?’

  ‘Yes mam! Sure!’

  ‘She was a Wragby girl, my lady. Her father was gardener in Sir Geoffrey’s time,’ said Parkin.

  ‘And you,’ said Constance to the new man, ‘have been in New Zealand, haven’t you?’

  ‘In New Zealand and in California, mam.’

  ‘And does England seem very small? I suppose this wood seems like nothing to you?’ she said.

  ‘A man does seem to be running up again a fence pretty often,’ said the new gamekeeper. ‘But if the country’s small the people’s plenty.’

  ‘Yes indeed!’

  There was an awkward pause.

  ‘I shall be comin’ down th’ new warren in a while,’ said Parkin.

  ‘You will! Right you are!’

  And lifting his hat, the new man departed again without a word.

  ‘Where have you put your furniture, from the cottage?’ she asked Parkin.

  ‘My mother’s got some — the rest is sold.’

  ‘You’ve broken up your home?’

  ‘I have that!’

  He looked at her curiously.

  ‘Do you like our new gamekeeper?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes! He seems plain and honest.’

  ‘Oh, I think he’s a good man all right — if you can stand his lingo.’

  ‘Will you write me down your address in Sheffield?’ she asked.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He went to his coat and found an old bit of paper and a pencil. He wrote out the address: Mr W. H. Tewson, 47 Blagby Street. He gave it to Constance.

  ‘Do you think I could come to see you?’ she said. ‘I could come quite simply, as Lady Chatterley coming to see one of the men who had worked on the estate. Perhaps for half an hour some afternoon.’

>   ‘Then it’d have to be Saturday. I’ll ask Bill, if you like.’

  ‘And write me a letter,’ she said.

  He hesitated. Then he replied:

  ‘I’d better not be writing.’

  ‘Send me a letter to Hilda in Scotland, and she’ll forward it to me. Will you do that?’

  ‘Ay!’ he said reluctantly.

  She wrote him down the address.

  ‘And now goodbye!’ she said, tears springing to her eyes.

  He turned pale. Then he leaned forward and kissed her gently.

  ‘Ay! We s’ll see one another afore long,’ he said softly.

  ‘I wish you weren’t going! I wish you were still in the cottage, and we had the wood for our own! I need you so, whatever you may say about being a lady and all those things. — Don’t you need me a little bit?’ she asked him.

  He pulled on his coat.

  ‘If things was different!’ he said. ‘If things was different, you an’ me, we mightn’t have been so fur fra one another.’

  ‘But why need we be so far from one another, now?’

  ‘Because things are as they are. High an’ low, an’ low an’ high —it’s further than California or New Zealand, as you met see by Albert Adam. Ay! It’s about as far as life an’ death.’

  ‘But that’s silly. You and I aren’t so far from one another.’

  ‘No! Not this minute. In an hour’s time where shall we be?’

  ‘I shall be in Wragby.’

  ‘An’ me goin’ home to my mother’s in Tevershall. I believe if I wanted, I could be as good a gentleman as any of ’em — if I wanted.’

  ‘Why of course — better!’

  ‘On’y I dunna want, an’ there it is.’

  He looked at her unhappily, but with some decree of destiny written on his face.

  ‘I only know I love you,’ she said. ‘I can’t see that the other things matter.’

  ‘They matter!’ he said nodding. ‘Oh, they matter! An’ I wouldn’t have not even you try to make a gentleman of me — I wouldn’t.’

  ‘But I wouldn’t try.’

  ‘You couldn’t help it.’

  She shook her head woefully. It seemed all so obstinately beside the point: like Clifford but at the other extreme.

  ‘Well, goodbye! You will write to me?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll write.’

  ‘And let me come and see you?’