Mrs Bolton paused too.
'Well!' she said. 'I had to do a good bit of coaxing, with him too. But he always knew what I was after, I must say that. But he generally gave in to me.'
'He was never the lord and master thing?'
'No! At least there'd be a look in his eyes sometimes, and then I knew I'd got to give in. But usually he gave in to me. No, he was never lord and master. But neither was I. I knew when I could go no further with him, and then I gave in: though it cost me a good bit, sometimes.'
'And what if you had held out against him?'
'Oh, I don't know, I never did. Even when he was in the wrong, if he was fixed, I gave in. You see, I never wanted to break what was between us. And if you really set your will against a man, that finishes it. If you care for a man, you have to give in to him once he's really determined; whether you're in the right or not, you have to give in. Else you break something. But I must say, Ted 'ud give in to me sometimes, when I was set on a thing, and in the wrong. So I suppose it cuts both ways.'
'And that's how you are with all your patients?' asked Connie.
'Oh, That's different. I don't care at all, in the same way. I know what's good for them, or I try to, and then I just contrive to manage them for their own good. It's not like anybody as you're really fond of. It's quite different. Once you've been really fond of a man, you can be affectionate to almost any man, if he needs you at all. But it's not the same thing. You don't really care. I doubt, once you've really cared, if you can ever really care again.'
These words frightened Connie.
'Do you think one can only care once?' she asked.
'Or never. Most women never care, never begin to. They don't know what it means. Nor men either. But when I see a woman as cares, my heart stands still for her.'
'And do you think men easily take offence?'
'Yes! If you wound them on their pride. But aren't women the same? Only our two prides are a bit different.'
Connie pondered this. She began again to have some misgiving about her gag away. After all, was she not giving her man the go-by, if only for a short time? And he knew it. That's why he was so queer and sarcastic.
Still! the human existence is a good deal controlled by the machine of external circumstance. She was in the power of this machine. She couldn't extricate herself all in five minutes. She didn't even want to.
Hilda arrived in good time on Thursday morning, in a nimble two-seater car, with her suit-case strapped firmly behind. She looked as demure and maidenly as ever, but she had the same will of her own. She had the very hell of a will of her own, as her husband had found out. But the husband was now divorcing her.
Yes, she even made it easy for him to do that, though she had no lover. For the time being, she was 'off' men. She was very well content to be quite her own mistress: and mistress of her two children, whom she was going to bring up 'properly', whatever that may mean.
Connie was only allowed a suit-case, also. But she had sent on a trunk to her father, who was going by train. No use taking a car to Venice. And Italy much too hot to motor in, in July. He was going comfortably by train. He had just come down from Scotland.
So, like a demure arcadian field-marshal, Hilda arranged the material part of the journey. She and Connie sat in the upstairs room, chatting.
'But Hilda!' said Connie, a little frightened. 'I want to stay near here tonight. Not here: near here!'
Hilda fixed her sister with grey, inscrutable eyes. She seemed so calm: and she was so often furious.
'Where, near here?' she asked softly.
'Well, you know I love somebody, don't you?'
'I gathered there was something.'
'Well he lives near here, and I want to spend this last night with him. I must! I've promised.'
Connie became insistent.
Hilda bent her Minerva-like head in silence. Then she looked up.
'Do you want to tell me who he is?' she said.
'He's our game-keeper,' faltered Connie, and she flushed vividly, like a shamed child.
'Connie!' said Hilda, lifting her nose slightly with disgust: a motion she had from her mother.
'I know: but he's lovely really. He really understands tenderness,' said Connie, trying to apologize for him.
Hilda, like a ruddy, rich-coloured Athena, bowed her head and pondered. She was really violently angry. But she dared not show it, because Connie, taking after her father, would straight away become obstreperous and unmanageable.
It was true, Hilda did not like Clifford: his cool assurance that he was somebody! She thought he made use of Connie shamefully and impudently. She had hoped her sister would leave him. But, being solid Scotch middle class, she loathed any 'lowering' of oneself or the family. She looked up at last.
'You'll regret it,' she said,
'I shan't,' cried Connie, flushed red. 'He's quite the exception. I really love him. He's lovely as a lover.'
Hilda still pondered.
'You'll get over him quite soon,' she said, 'and live to be ashamed of yourself because of him.'
'I shan't! I hope I'm going to have a child of his.'
'Connie!' said Hilda, hard as a hammer-stroke, and pale with anger.
'I shall if I possibly can. I should be fearfully proud if I had a child by him.'
It was no use talking to her. Hilda pondered.
'And doesn't Clifford suspect?' she said.
'Oh no! Why should he?'
'I've no doubt you've given him plenty of occasion for suspicion,' said Hilda.
'Not at all.'
'And tonight's business seems quite gratuitous folly. Where does the man live?'
'In the cottage at the other end of the wood.'
'Is he a bachelor?'
'No! His wife left him.'
'How old?'
'I don't know. Older than me.'
Hilda became more angry at every reply, angry as her mother used to be, in a kind of paroxysm. But still she hid it.
'I would give up tonight's escapade if I were you,' she advised calmly.
'I can't! I must stay with him tonight, or I can't go to Venice at all. I just can't.'
Hilda heard her father over again, and she gave way, out of mere diplomacy. And she consented to drive to Mansfield, both of them, to dinner, to bring Connie back to the lane-end after dark, and to fetch her from the lane-end the next morning, herself sleeping in Mansfield, only half an hour away, good going.
But she was furious. She stored it up against her sister, this balk in her plans.
Connie flung an emerald-green shawl over her window-sill.
On the strength of her anger, Hilda warmed toward Clifford.
After all, he had a mind. And if he had no sex, functionally, all the better: so much the less to quarrel about! Hilda wanted no more of that sex business, where men became nasty, selfish little horrors. Connie really had less to put up with than many women if she did but know it.
And Clifford decided that Hilda, after all, was a decidedly intelligent woman, and would make a man a first-rate helpmate, if he were going in for politics for example. Yes, she had none of Connie's silliness, Connie was more a child: you had to make excuses for her, because she was not altogether dependable.
There was an early cup of tea in the hall, where doors were open to let in the sun. Everybody seemed to be panting a little.
'Good-bye, Connie girl! Come back to me safely.'
'Good-bye, Clifford! Yes, I shan't be long.' Connie was almost tender.
'Good-bye, Hilda! You will keep an eye on her, won't you?'
'I'll even keep two!' said Hilda. 'She shan't go very far astray.'
'It's a promise!'
'Good-bye, Mrs Bolton! I know you'll look after Sir Clifford nobly.'
'I'll do what I can, your Ladyship.'
'And write to me if there is any news, and tell me about Sir Clifford, how he is.'
'Very good, your Ladyship, I will. And have a good time, and come back and cheer us
up.'
Everybody waved. The car went off Connie looked back and saw Clifford, sitting at the top of the steps in his house-chair. After all, he was her husband: Wragby was her home: circumstance had done it.
Mrs Chambers held the gate and wished her ladyship a happy holiday. The car slipped out of the dark spinney that masked the park, on to the highroad where the colliers were trailing home. Hilda turned to the Crosshill Road, that was not a main road, but ran to Mansfield. Connie put on goggles. They ran beside the railway, which was in a cutting below them. Then they crossed the cutting on a bridge.
'That's the lane to the cottage!' said Connie.
Hilda glanced at it impatiently.
'It's a frightful pity we can't go straight off!' she said. We could have been in Pall Mall by nine o'clock.'
'I'm sorry for your sake,' said Connie, from behind her goggles.
They were soon at Mansfield, that once-romantic, now utterly disheartening colliery town. Hilda stopped at the hotel named in the motor-car book, and took a room. The whole thing was utterly uninteresting, and she was almost too angry to talk. However, Connie had to tell her something of the man's history.
'he! he! What name do you call him by? You only say he,' said Hilda.
'I've never called him by any name: nor he me: which is curious, when you come to think of it. Unless we say Lady Jane and John Thomas. But his name is Oliver Mellors.'
'And how would you like to be Mrs Oliver Mellors, instead of Lady Chatterley?'
'I'd love it.'
There was nothing to be done with Connie. And anyhow, if the man had been a lieutenant in the army in India for four or five years, he must be more or less presentable. Apparently he had character. Hilda began to relent a little.
'But you'll be through with him in awhile,' she said, 'and then you'll be ashamed of having been connected with him. One can't mix up with the working people.'
'But you are such a socialist! you're always on the side of the working classes.'
'I may be on their side in a political crisis, but being on their side makes me know how impossible it is to mix one's life with theirs. Not out of snobbery, but just because the whole rhythm is different.'
Hilda had lived among the real political intellectuals, so she was disastrously unanswerable.
The nondescript evening in the hotel dragged out, and at last they had a nondescript dinner. Then Connie slipped a few things into a little silk bag, and combed her hair once more.
'After all, Hilda,' she said, 'love can be wonderful: when you feel you live, and are in the very middle of creation.' It was almost like bragging on her part.
'I suppose every mosquito feels the same,' said Hilda. 'Do you think it does? How nice for it!'
The evening was wonderfully clear and long-lingering, even in the small town. It would be half-light all night. With a face like a mask, from resentment, Hilda started her car again, and the two sped back on their traces, taking the other road, through Bolsover.
Connie wore her goggles and disguising cap, and she sat in silence. Because of Hilda's opposition, she was fiercely on the sidle of the man, she would stand by him through thick and thin.
They had their head-lights on, by the time they passed Crosshill, and the small lit-up train that chuffed past in the cutting made it seem like real night. Hilda had calculated the turn into the lane at the bridge-end. She slowed up rather suddenly and swerved off the road, the lights glaring white into the grassy, overgrown lane. Connie looked out. She saw a shadowy figure, and she opened the door.
'Here we are!' she said softly.
But Hilda had switched off the lights, and was absorbed backing, making the turn.
'Nothing on the bridge?' she asked shortly.
'You're all right,' said the man's voice.
She backed on to the bridge, reversed, let the car run forwards a few yards along the road, then backed into the lane, under a wych-elm tree, crushing the grass and bracken. Then all the lights went out. Connie stepped down. The man stood under the trees.
'Did you wait long?' Connie asked.
'Not so very,' he replied.
They both waited for Hilda to get out. But Hilda shut the door of the car and sat tight.
'This is my sister Hilda. Won't you come and speak to her? Hilda! This is Mr Mellors.'
The keeper lifted his hat, but went no nearer.
'Do walk down to the cottage with us, Hilda,' Connie pleaded. 'It's not far.'
'What about the car?'
'People do leave them on the lanes. You have the key.'
Hilda was silent, deliberating. Then she looked backwards down the lane.
'Can I back round the bush?' she said.
'Oh yes!' said the keeper.
She backed slowly round the curve, out of sight of the road, locked the car, and got down. It was night, but luminous dark. The hedges rose high and wild, by the unused lane, and very dark seeming. There was a fresh sweet scent on the air. The keeper went ahead, then came Connie, then Hilda, and in silence. He lit up the difficult places with a flash-light torch, and they went on again, while an owl softly hooted over the oaks, and Flossie padded silently around. Nobody could speak. There was nothing to say.
At length Connie saw the yellow light of the house, and her heart beat fast. She was a little frightened. They trailed on, still in Indian file.
He unlocked the door and preceded them into the warm but bare little room. The fire burned low and red in the grate. The table was set with two plates and two glasses on a proper white table-cloth for once. Hilda shook her hair and looked round the bare, cheerless room. Then she summoned her courage and looked at the man.
He was moderately tall, and thin, and she thought him good-looking. He kept a quiet distance of his own, and seemed absolutely unwilling to speak.
'Do sit down, Hilda,' said Connie.
'Do!' he said. 'Can I make you tea or anything, or will you drink a glass of beer? It's moderately cool.'
'Beer!' said Connie.
'Beer for me, please!' said Hilda, with a mock sort of shyness. He looked at her and blinked.
He took a blue jug and tramped to the scullery. When he came back with the beer, his face had changed again.
Connie sat down by the door, and Hilda sat in his seat, with the back to the wall, against the window corner.
'That is his chair,' said Connie softly.' And Hilda rose as if it had burnt her.
'Sit yer still, sit yer still! Ta'e ony cheer as yo'n a mind to, none of us is th' big bear,' he said, with complete equanimity.
And he brought Hilda a glass, and poured her beer first from the blue jug.
'As for cigarettes,' he said, 'I've got none, but 'appen you've got your own. I dunna smoke, mysen. Shall y' eat summat?' He turned direct to Connie. 'Shall t'eat a smite o' summat, if I bring it thee? Tha can usually do wi' a bite.' He spoke the vernacular with a curious calm assurance, as if he were the landlord of the Inn.
'What is there?' asked Connie, flushing.
'Boiled ham, cheese, pickled wa'nuts, if yer like.—Nowt much.'
'Yes,' said Connie. 'Won't you, Hilda?'
Hilda looked up at him.
'Why do you speak Yorkshire?' she said softly.
'That! That's non Yorkshire, that's Derby.'
He looked back at her with that faint, distant grin.
'Derby, then! Why do you speak Derby? You spoke natural English at first.'
'Did Ah though? An' canna Ah change if Ah'm a mind to 't? Nay, nay, let me talk Derby if it suits me. If yo'n nowt against it.'
'It sounds a little affected,' said Hilda.
'Ay, 'appen so! An' up i' Tevershall yo'd sound affected.' He looked again at her, with a queer calculating distance, along his cheek-bone: as if to say: Yi, an' who are you?
He tramped away to the pantry for the food.
The sisters sat in silence. He brought another plate, and knife and fork. Then he said:
'An' if it's the same to you, I s'll ta'e my coat off like
I allers do.'
And he took off his coat, and hung it on the peg, then sat down to table in his shirt-sleeves: a shirt of thin, cream-coloured flannel.
''Elp yerselves!' he said. ''Elp yerselves! Dunna wait f'r axin'!' He cut the bread, then sat motionless. Hilda felt, as Connie once used to, his power of silence and distance. She saw his smallish, sensitive, loose hand on the table. He was no simple working man, not he: he was acting! acting!
'Still!' she said, as she took a little cheese. 'It would be more natural if you spoke to us in normal English, not in vernacular.'
He looked at her, feeling her devil of a will.
'Would it?' he said in the normal English. 'Would it? Would anything that was said between you and me be quite natural, unless you said you wished me to hell before your sister ever saw me again: and unless I said something almost as unpleasant back again? Would anything else be natural?'
'Oh yes!' said Hilda. 'Just good manners would be quite natural.'
'Second nature, so to speak!' he said: then he began to laugh. 'Nay,' he said. 'I'm weary o' manners. Let me be!'
Hilda was frankly baffled and furiously annoyed. After all, he might show that he realized he was being honoured. Instead of which, with his play-acting and lordly airs, he seemed to think it was he who was conferring the honour. Just impudence! Poor misguided Connie, in the man's clutches!
The three ate in silence. Hilda looked to see what his table-manners were like. She could not help realizing that he was instinctively much more delicate and well-bred than herself. She had a certain Scottish clumsiness. And moreover, he had all the quiet self-contained assurance of the English, no loose edges. It would be very difficult to get the better of him.
But neither would he get the better of her.
'And do you really think,' she said, a little more humanly, 'it's worth the risk.'
'Is what worth what risk?'
'This escapade with my sister.'
He flickered his irritating grin.
'Yo' maun ax 'er!' Then he looked at Connie.
'Tha comes o' thine own accord, lass, doesn't ter? It's non me as forces thee?'
Connie looked at Hilda.
'I wish you wouldn't cavil, Hilda.'
'Naturally I don't want to. But someone has to think about things. You've got to have some sort of continuity in your life. You can't just go making a mess.'
Lady Chatterley's Lover Page 28