第48章

Stretching with the curious yawn of desire,for he had been alone and apart from man or woman for four years,he rose and took his coat again,and his gun,lowered the lamp and went out into the starry night,with the dog.Driven by desire and by dread of the malevolent Thing outside,he made his round in the wood,slowly,softly.He loved the darkness arid folded himself into it.It fitted the turgidity of his desire which,in spite of all,was like a riches;the stirring restlessness of his penis,the stirring fire in his loins!Oh,if only there were other men to be with,to fight that sparkling electric Thing outside there,to preserve the tenderness of life,the tenderness of women,and the natural riches of desire.If only there were men to fight side by side with!But the men were all outside there,glorying in the Thing,triumphing or being trodden down in the rush of mechanized greed or of greedy mechanism.

Constance,for her part,had hurried across the park,home,almost without thinking.As yet she had no afterthought.She would be in time for dinner.

She was annoyed to find the doors fastened,however,so that she had to ring.Mrs Bolton opened.

'Why there you are,your Ladyship!I was beginning to wonder if you'd gone lost!'she said a little roguishly.'Sir Clifford hasn't asked for you,though;he's got Mr Linley in with him,talking over something.It looks as if he'd stay to dinner,doesn't it,my Lady?'

'It does rather,'said Connie.

'Shall I put dinner back a quarter of an hour?That would give you time to dress in comfort.'

'Perhaps you'd better.'

Mr Linley was the general manager of the collieries,an elderly man from the north,with not quite enough punch to suit Clifford;not up to post-war conditions,nor post-war colliers either,with their 'ca'canny'

creed.But Connie liked Mr Linley,though she was glad to be spared the toadying of his wife.

Linley stayed to dinner,and Connie was the hostess men liked so much,so modest,yet so attentive and aware,with big,wide blue eyes arid a soft repose that sufficiently hid what she was really thinking.Connie had played this woman so much,it was almost second nature to her;but still,decidedly second.Yet it was curious how everything disappeared from her consciousness while she played it.

She waited patiently till she could go upstairs and think her own thoughts.

She was always waiting,it seemed to be her forte .

Once in her room,however,she felt still vague and confused.She didn't know what to think.What sort of a man was he,really?Did he really like her?Not much,she felt.Yet he was kind.There was something,a sort of warm naive kindness,curious and sudden,that almost opened her womb to him.But she felt he might be kind like that to any woman.Though even so,it was curiously soothing,comforting.And he was a passionate man,wholesome and passionate.But perhaps he wasn't quite individual enough;he might be the same with any woman as he had been with her.It really wasn't personal.She was only really a female to him.

But perhaps that was better.And after all,he was kind to the female in her,which no man had ever been.Men were very kind to the person she was,but rather cruel to the female,despising her or ignoring her altogether.Men were awfully kind to Constance Reid or to Lady Chatterley;but not to her womb they weren't kind.And he took no notice of Constance or of Lady Chatterley;he just softly stroked her loins or her breasts.

She went to the wood next day.It was a grey,still afternoon,with the dark-green dogs-mercury spreading under the hazel copse,and all the trees making a silent effort to open their buds.Today she could almost feel it in her own body,the huge heave of the sap in the massive trees,upwards,up,up to the bud-a,there to push into little flamey oak-leaves,bronze as blood.It was like a ride running turgid upward,and spreading on the sky.

She came to the clearing,but he was not there.She had only half expected him.The pheasant chicks were running lightly abroad,light as insects,from the coops where the fellow hens clucked anxiously.Connie sat and watched them,and waited.She only waited.Even the chicks she hardly saw.

She waited.

The time passed with dream-like slowness,and he did not come.She had only half expected him.He never came in the afternoon.She must go home to tea.But she had to force herself to leave.

As she went home,a fine drizzle of rain fell.

'Is it raining again?'said Clifford,seeing her shake her hat.

'Just drizzle.'

She poured tea in silence,absorbed in a sort of obstinacy.She did want to see the keeper today,to see if it were really real.If it were really real.

'Shall I read a little to you afterwards?'said Clifford.

She looked at him.Had he sensed something?

'The spring makes me feel queer--I thought I might rest a little,'she said.

'Just as you like.Not feeling really unwell,are you?'

'No!Only rather tired--with the spring.Will you have Mrs Bolton to play something with you?'

'No!I think I'll listen in.'

She heard the curious satisfaction in his voice.She went upstairs to her bedroom.There she heard the loudspeaker begin to bellow,in an idiotically velveteen-genteel sort of voice,something about a series of street-cries,the very cream of genteel affectation imitating old criers.She pulled on her old violet coloured mackintosh,and slipped out of the house at the side door.

The drizzle of rain was like a veil over the world,mysterious,hushed,not cold.She got very warm as she hurried across the park.She had to open her light waterproof.

The wood was silent,still and secret in the evening drizzle of rain,full of the mystery of eggs and half-open buds,half unsheathed flowers.

In the dimness of it all trees glistened naked and dark as if they had unclothed themselves,and the green things on earth seemed to hum with greenness.