She held the door open to him invitingly, and he climbed in, squeezing himself as far as possible into a corner. He was panting slightly with the hurry, and Constance felt the warmth of him through her coat.
‘You won’t be cold?’ she said to him. ‘You won’t be cold with no coat?’
‘I’m afraid he will,’ said Duncan, who was always warmly wrapped up. ‘Here, he’d better take my scarf.’
‘I’m all right!’ protested Parkin, turning up his coat collar and buttoning his coat.
But Constance insisted on his wrapping the warm scarf round his neck and over his throat.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Duncan.
They decided to go across Sherwood Forest to Southwell because Duncan had never seen the minster.
Parkin sat very still, and Constance nestled near to him. Secretly she took his hand and held it hidden between them. She felt his fingers close convulsively over her own with the sudden, unconscious, possessive clasp. And she exulted a little in the convulsive nervous clasp. It was really in spite of himself. His hands, his body, betrayed his will. They would not let him resist her. She nestled her hand in his, feeling the hard callouses in the palm. It was a pity! He used to have such warm, quick, live hands before he went to that brutalising work.
‘How have you been getting on with your work?’ she asked him. ‘Do you find it less trying?’
‘Ay! I’m about used to it.’
‘But you haven’t got a driver’s job yet?’
‘I’m to go with Bill as his man next month. And then in January, when they get a new lorry, I s’ll drive his old one.’
‘And where does he drive it to?’
‘Well, mostly over to Rotherham now, with steel rails.’
She leaned closer to him in the flood of desire which is quite safe because it knows it cannot abandon itself. Oh how voluptuously gratifying he was! She tenderly stroked the callouses in the palm of his hand, with pity. And he closed his fist and drew his hand away instinctively from her pity. So she laid her hand tremulously, tentatively, on his thigh, that seemed to her so strong and full of life. And she quivered with pleasure.
She knew he could make no demands on her. She was with child. She was safe from him. She could enjoy all the voluptuous pleasure of contact without any risk.
But he? How was he taking it? She glanced into his face, trying to make him look into her eyes, though she knew he would not. But she saw his whole body relaxing, and his face changing to that soft, unstrained stillness which made him beautiful. His eyes too were coming open.
Duncan glanced across at him. ‘You’re sure you’re all right?’ he asked kindly. ‘Not cold?’
‘I’m quite all right, thanks,’ said Parkin with one of his quick glances at Duncan’s long, pale, serious face. How men always sized one another up! thought Constance.
‘Mr Forbes is a painter. Will you let him paint your portrait?’ Constance said to Parkin.
‘Mine? What for?’ said the surprised and suspicious Op.
‘You’d like to, wouldn’t you?’ said Constance to Duncan.
Duncan rapidly scrutinised the face of the other man. ‘Yes! Very much!’ he said, in the brief, detached tone of an artist.
‘Will you let him?’ asked Constance.
Parkin smiled slowly, in amusement. ‘Has he painted yours?’ he asked her.
‘Mine? Often when I was younger,’ Constance said.
‘He’d better paint you again,’ said Parkin softly.
‘What I’d like to do,’ said Duncan, who was pure artist now, ‘is to paint you together. You’d be such an interesting contrast, and it would be so amusing to try to get the thing that’s beween you —something indefinable, yet it’s there.’
‘Oh, do paint us together!’ cried Constance.
‘Well!’ said Duncan. ‘When will you come to my studio in Chelsea?’
‘Oh, I’ll bring him one day!’ cried Constance gaily.
They had a jolly lunch, all three together, at Southwell. Parkin was amusing in a quiet way. Duncan seemed to draw him out. After luncheon Duncan went off alone to inspect the old church, Constance and Parkin walked slowly down the hill. They were warm and happy together, in sympathy.
‘I’m so glad your divorce went off all right,’ she said. ‘Weren’t you?’
‘Yes! But there’s six months yet afore it’s final.’
‘Ah, that will soon pass. And then what will you do?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘What shall we do at the end of six months?’ she said. ‘You and I? We can’t stay apart like this for ever, can we?’
‘Eh, I don’t know!’ he said dismally.
‘Why don’t you know?’
‘What can we do?’ he said desperately.
‘What can’t we do? It’s quite simple. We can do what we like. We can buy a little farm or a house somewhere, or even we can go abroad. There are lots of things we can do if we think of it.’
‘And what about Sir Clifford?’
‘He won’t mind so terribly. I often feel he hates me, lately — since I’ve loved you.’
‘Why? Does he know anything?’
‘Nothing at all. I think he thinks I’m in love with Duncan — Mr Forbes. But of course he never says anything. He wouldn’t! Only I know I rub him the wrong way. Mrs Bolton is much better for him, she’s so sly and soft and flattering with him. She’d soon console him if I left. No, he wouldn’t mind really. It would hurt his vanity and his self-esteem, but he hasn’t got a heart really, so it couldn’t hurt that.’
Parkin pondered for a while.
‘Nay!’ he said slowly. ‘It’d be a bitter blow to him. Ay! He’s sort o’ built up on the respect as everybody shows for him. And if you went he’d feel there was nothing left.’
‘But why? Me, the woman, he doesn’t care about. If he only cares about his wife then that’s his affair. I’m not his wife really — as you know very well. If I’m anybody’s wife, I’m yours.’
‘Ay!’ he replied slowly. ‘You’re not his wife of your own accord. But to him you’re his wife. I expect it’d kill him if you left him.’
‘Ah!’ she cried, quailing. ‘Don’t you believe it! He’s tough enough and knows how to draw into his own shell, and feel virtuous and noble and injured. He wouldn’t die! He’d live all the longer if I left him. And I believe he knows it. — Besides, do you care so terribly if he dies or not? You don’t like him.’
‘No!’ he said. ‘I don’t care if Sir Clifford dies. Maybe better if he did.’
‘Well then! When you’ve got your divorce why shouldn’t we live together, you and I, and really make a life? I haven’t told Clifford yet about the child — and I shan’t tell him. If you and I are going to make a life together, I shall never tell him. I shall go away to Hilda’s in Scotland and wait there till the child is born. And then in March, when you’re free you will come along and we can have a life of our own. I can get Clifford to divorce me, and we can marry or not as we like. About that I don’t care. But live together we ought, and I know it. If we don’t, it’s a denial of everything in life and of everything I believe in, in life. Don’t you feel the same?’
‘Ay!’ he said slowly. ‘It’d suit me right enough. On’y —’ and he looked her in the eye. ‘I shanna come an’ live in your house, on your money. I shanna! Because I canna!’
‘But why? Why this mean, paltry spirit about a bit of money? What will you do then?’
‘What will I do? This much! I’ve got to earn my own living an’ live on what I earn.’
‘But you could do that on a farm. You could make a farm pay,’ she cried.
He was silent a while, then he said: ‘Ay! If another man can I can. On’y—’
‘Only what? Don’t you want to?’ she cried irritably.
He looked her in the eyes with a sort of pain this time, and he rubbed up his forehead, pushing up his hat.
‘Back your life, I want to,’ he said harshly. ‘You can back you
r life, I do. I should be my own boss —’cept for you — an’ I should be makin’ my own way. Do you think a man loves draggin’ his guts out all day long for three pounds a week an’ niver no forrader, niver no forrader? It’s prison, I tell you. It’s worse than th’ war, for you’re doin’ it for the money an’ for nothing else. I’m glad to be able to earn three pounds a week — ay! But I’m a slave, doomed an’ damned, an’ I know it: with no hopes nor nothing. ’Cept ’appen the bloody show’ll smash up. It would if I could make it! Do you think I don’t want to get out? Do you think I don’t?’
He gazed at her fiercely, his eyes flashing again with ferocity as they did sometimes with desire.
‘Then why don’t you?’ she said. ‘You know I only love you.’
‘Ay!’ he said harshly. ‘Get out on it wi’ a woman’s money an’ live on a woman!’ He said it with extreme bitterness.
‘But what does it matter, you’d work!’ she said.
‘Ay! An’ t’ other chaps? Would they all find women wi’ money to pick ’em up an’ start ’em on their own? They’ve got to ding at it till Doomsday, and their children after them, with no more hope in it than if they was dead. — There’s Bill, he’s a nice chap an’ not touchy like I am. But he’s got the collar round his neck, and he knows it, and it takes the spunk out of him. — Ay, I should get away on a woman’s money! But what about all them chaps as’ll niver get away, niver, not till kingdom come an’ after? What about them?’
‘But what about them? You’re not responsible for them. When you were a gamekeeper, you didn’t care about them —’
‘Right! Right! I didn’t! When I was under Sir Clifford, I didn’t. I was like a bear with a sore nose, keepin’ mysen to mysen. But I shan’t do that no more. I’d rather work at Jephson’s than be under Sir Clifford or the servant of any man. Ay, or beholden that much to any woman.’
He was trembling with conflicting emotions and pale as death.
‘Why do you mind being so much beholden to me — or so little?’ she said numbly. ‘Are you afraid of me?’
He looked at her in torment. ‘I’m not exactly afraid of you,’ he said. ‘You’re a woman as wouldn’t let a man down in that way. I’d trust you like I’d trust myself not to punish me for being beholden to you as far as the money went. You’re on too high a level for that. Oh ay, I know it! I respect you!’
He stopped suddenly, looking at her.
‘But you’re afraid of me in some other way?’ she said quietly.
‘Ay!’ he answered softly. ‘Ay! I am! So I might as well own up, to mysen as well as to thee. I’m afraid of thee. Ay! That’s what it is! I’m afraid o’ thee!’ He spoke very softly, almost with bitterness.
‘But why?’ she said, her eyes wide.
‘How can I tell?’ he said. ‘But you’re not an easy woman, you know. You’d want your own way. And if I was beholden to you I should have to let you have it, or I should feel myself a rotter.’
And what would it matter if you did let me have my own way?’ she said indignantly. ‘I should have thought you’d want to.’
‘Ay, in a way! But a man likes to feel first in his own house. And it wouldn’t be my own house. And I should be second, no helping it.’
‘But what a paltry, cowardly way of looking at it! As if I cared who was first or second. Be first if you want to. I don’t care if I’m second or seventy-second,’ she cried.
‘Yi!’ he said. ‘The very way you say it shows you feel yourself top dog, an’ you’re going to be top dog no matter who the man is, nor what.’
‘But I’m not top dog, even with Clifford.’
‘You are as regards yourself. You’re top dog as regards yourself. You don’t care about him.’
She was breathless with indignation and anger. Her blue eyes blazed with angry contempt.
‘Well, if you won’t come into my house for fear of being under dog,’ she said scathingly, ‘what would you do? Would you let me come into your house and me be the under dog, and you be the top dog — live like Bill Tewson and his wife and brats, all in one heap? Would you like me to do that?’
‘You’d never do it, so what’s the talk?’ he said.
‘No! I wouldn’t! Not for you nor for any other little man who feels he must be God Almighty before he’ll let a woman look at him. — But don’t trouble, Mr Parkin! I’m running after you no more. We’ll say goodbye this time, and finally! — if you’re so afraid you’re not going to be top dog. In my house, if you please, there is no top dog and no under dog, nor any dogs at all. We are human beings, and we let one another alone, and there is no fight for who shall be top dog. We have the decency to remain free on our own levels in my house. And in my house it shall always be so. I understand nothing of the nasty common business of being top dog and under dog.’
He smiled silently and sourly. ‘All right!’ he said. ‘You asked me.’
‘I’m very glad I did! For now I know,’ she cried in contempt.
They walked back to the hotel in silence. Constance wanted now to get away. Her nerves were all on edge, and she was very angry. She sent Parkin to find Duncan — whom he found absorbed in some of the old Norman ornament of the church — and in a moment they were away.
‘We’ll go through Nottingham,’ said Constance suddenly.
‘Right you are!’ said Duncan. And he waited for a corner, to pull the car round. He himself was in a good humour. He had not yet realised the gloom of the other two.
But Constance, sitting between Parkin and Duncan, could not bear herself. She could not stand the close contact of two men’s bodies. But especially that of Parkin. She could not be unaware of him. There was his body touching her no matter how he squeezed himself into the corner. And the contact made her feel she could scream. The flow of sympathy was gone. He sat absolutely silent and withheld, hard and tense when the car swerved them against one another. But she could not get herself clear. Violent recoils ran through her nerves, and she felt at moments she could annihilate him.
The car sped along the narrow lanes through the still, fast-asleep villages of South Notts. It was all tall hedges and trees and old houses and cornsticks, the threshing machine standing silent in the stack yard because it was Sunday. A quiet little backwater of England.
But soon they came in sight of the Trent and the smoky heap of Nottingham. Thank God, she could get out soon. She could not sit between these two men any longer.
‘Go to the Midland Station, will you?’ she said. ‘I want to see about a train.’
Duncan drove on towards the dark tower of St Mary’s Church.
The town was quiet, with little traffic, and the railway station seemed deserted. But Constance found a porter and discovered that there was a quick train to Uthwaite in ten minutes, if she changed at Trent.
Duncan had come into the station with her, leaving Parkin with the car.
‘I’m going home by train,’ she said. ‘The car upsets me.’
‘By train!’ he exclaimed in astonishment.
But she had gone to get her ticket.
‘Perhaps you might pick me up in Uthwaite,’ she said. ‘Ask the porter when we shall get there.’
Duncan found that she would be in Uthwaite at 4.30.
‘But why?’ Duncan said. ‘Why?’
‘The car upsets me!’ she said.
‘If you’re crowded at all —’ he began.
‘It’s not that!’ she flashed, knitting her brows. ‘It’s the car.’
Duncan lifted his hands. He knew her of old. He took a platform ticket and accompanied her to the train.
‘Say goodbye to Parkin for me,’ she said. ‘Here! Take him my scarf. I don’t want it in the train.’
‘He can have mine,’ said Duncan.
But her inflamed look at him made him take the blue and grey scarf into his hands.
They waited in silence till the train, almost empty, pulled out. He watched her go — her face flushed, her eyes wide and strange. But he knew her. It was usel
ess to attempt anything.
He went up to the car and got in.
‘Come on then!’ he said to Parkin.
‘And Lady Chatterley?’
‘She’s gone by train. Here, she left you her scarf —’ he held it out to Parkin. ‘She asked me to say goodbye to you.’
Parkin got in without a word, and they set off.
‘She said the car upset her — in her condition —’ said Duncan, as he changed gear up the Alfreton Road.
‘In her condition?’ said Parkin, who was sitting silent, peaked round the nose.
‘When a woman is four months gone with child —, said Duncan.
The car sped on in silence. The two men sat in the unspoken sympathy of men who have suffered from the same woman. Duncan and Parkin liked one another instinctively.
‘Did she tell you she was four months gone then?’ said Parkin.
‘Oh, we’ve known one another since we were kids,’ said Duncan. ‘My father was the minister where her grandfather was the laird, in the same village. We were engaged to be married once — ten years ago —’
‘Ay?’ said Parkin dully.
‘We were both glad to break it off though. I think we both felt we knew each other too well. — Put the scarf on, won’t you? It’s none too warm.’
‘I’m not cold,’ said Parkin.
‘You will be though. Put the scarf on.’
‘Nay!’ said Parkin. ‘I’m all right. Let it be.’
After which, Duncan drove on in silence till they had passed Moorgreen.
‘How’s she going to get out from Uthwaite?’ Parkin asked.
‘I shall pick her up. The train isn’t in till after four. — You’ll be going back to Sheffield?’
‘Me? Yes! I can look after myself at Uthwaite. There’s train and bus.’
There was another long silence. The afternoon was grey and Parkin was cold.
‘Here!’ said Duncan, pulling off his own scarf and handing it to Parkin. ‘Put mine on then! I’ll take hers.’
And with one hand he quickly wound her blue and grey scarf round his neck, while Parkin silently pushed the ends of the f awn-coloured scarf deep inside his jacket.
The First Lady Chatterley's Lover Page 24