`An' if tha shits an' if tha pisses, I'm glad. I don't want a woman

as couldna shit nor piss.'

Connie could not help a sudden snort of astonished laughter, but he

went on unmoved.

`Tha'rt real, tha art! Tha'art real, even a bit of a bitch. Here tha

shits an' here tha pisses: an' I lay my hand on 'em both an' like thee

for it. I like thee for it. Tha's got a proper, woman's arse, proud

of itself. It's none ashamed of itself this isna.'

He laid his hand close and firm over her secret places, in a kind of

close greeting.

`I like it,' he said. `I like it! An' if I only lived ten minutes,

an' stroked thy arse an' got to know it, I should reckon I'd lived one

life, see ter! Industrial system or not! Here's one o' my lifetimes.'

She turned round and climbed into his lap, clinging to him. `Kiss me!'

she whispered.

And she knew the thought of their separation was latent in both their

minds, and at last she was sad.

She sat on his thighs, her head against his breast, and her ivory-gleaming

legs loosely apart, the fire glowing unequally upon them. Sitting with

his head dropped, he looked at the folds of her body in the fire-glow,

and at the fleece of soft brown hair that hung down to a point between

her open thighs. He reached to the table behind, and took up her bunch

of flowers, still so wet that drops of rain fell on to her.

`Flowers stops out of doors all weathers,' he said. `They have no houses.'

`Not even a hut!' she murmured.

With quiet fingers he threaded a few forget-me-not flowers in the fine

brown fleece of the mound of Venus.

`There!' he said. `There's forget-me-nots in the right place!'

She looked down at the milky odd little flowers among the brown maiden-hair

at the lower tip of her body.

`Doesn't it look pretty!' she said.

`Pretty as life,' he replied.

And he stuck a pink campion-bud among the hair.

`There! That's me where you won't forget me! That's Moses in the bull-rushes.'

`You don't mind, do you, that I'm going away?' she asked wistfully,

looking up into his face.

But his face was inscrutable, under the heavy brows. He kept it quite

blank.

`You do as you wish,' he said.

And he spoke in good English.

`But I won't go if you don't wish it,' she said, clinging to him.

There was silence. He leaned and put another piece of wood on the fire.

The flame glowed on his silent, abstracted face. She waited, but he

said nothing.

`Only I thought it would be a good way to begin a break with Clifford.

I do want a child. And it would give me a chance to, to---,' she resumed.

`To let them think a few lies,' he said.

`Yes, that among other things. Do you want them to think the truth?'

`I don't care what they think.'

`I do! I don't want them handling me with their unpleasant cold minds,

not while I'm still at Wragby. They can think what they like when I'm

finally gone.'

He was silent.

`But Sir Clifford expects you to come back to him?'

`Oh, I must come back,' she said: and there was silence.

`And would you have a child in Wragby?' he asked.

She closed her arm round his neck.

`If you wouldn't take me away, I should have to,' she said.

`Take you where to?'

`Anywhere! away! But right away from Wragby.'

`When?'

`Why, when I come back.'

`But what's the good of coming back, doing the thing twice, if you're

once gone?' he said.

`Oh, I must come back. I've promised! I've promised so faithfully.

Besides, I come back to you, really.'

`To your husband's game-keeper?'

`I don't see that that matters,' she said.

`No?' He mused a while. `And when would you think of going away again,

then; finally? When exactly?'

`Oh, I don't know. I'd come back from Venice. And then we'd prepare

everything.'

`How prepare?'

`Oh, I'd tell Clifford. I'd have to tell him.'

`Would you!'

He remained silent. She put her arms round his neck.

`Don't make it difficult for me,' she pleaded.

`Make what difficult?'

`For me to go to Venice and arrange things.'

A little smile, half a grin, flickered on his face.

`I don't make it difficult,' he said. `I only want to find out just

what you are after. But you don't really know yourself. You want to

take time: get away and look at it. I don't blame you. I think you're

wise. You may prefer to stay mistress of Wragby. I don't blame you.

I've no Wragbys to offer. In fact, you know what you'll get out of me.

No, no, I think you're right! I really do! And I'm not keen on coming

to live on you, being kept by you. There's that too.'

She felt somehow as if he were giving her tit for tat.

`But you want me, don't you?' she asked.

`Do you want me?'

`You know I do. That's evident.'

`Quite! And when do you want me?'

`You know we can arrange it all when I come back. Now I'm out of breath

with you. I must get calm and clear.'

`Quite! Get calm and clear!'

She was a little offended.

`But you trust me, don't you?' she said.

`Oh, absolutely!'

She heard the mockery in his tone.

`Tell me then,' she said flatly; `do you think it would be better if

I don't go to Venice?'

`I'm sure it's better if you do go to Venice,' he replied in the cool,

slightly mocking voice.

`You know it's next Thursday?' she said.

`Yes!'

She now began to muse. At last she said:

`And we shall know better where we are when I come back, shan't we?'

`Oh surely!'

The curious gulf of silence between them!

`I've been to the lawyer about my divorce,' he said, a little constrainedly.

She gave a slight shudder.

`Have you!' she said. `And what did he say?'

`He said I ought to have done it before; that may be a difficulty.

But since I was in the army, he thinks it will go through all right.

If only it doesn't bring her down on my head!'

`Will she have to know?'

`Yes! she is served with a notice: so is the man she lives with, the

co-respondent.'

`Isn't it hateful, all the performances! I suppose I'd have to go through

it with Clifford.'

There was a silence.

`And of course,' he said, `I have to live an exemplary life for the

next six or eight months. So if you go to Venice, there's temptation

removed for a week or two, at least.'

`Am I temptation!' she said, stroking his face. `I'm so glad I'm temptation

to you! Don't let's think about it! You frighten me when you start thinking:

you roll me out flat. Don't let's think about it. We can think so much

when we are apart. That's the whole point! I've been thinking, I must

come to you for another night before I go. I must come once more to

the cottage. Shall I come on Thursday night?'

`Isn't that when your sister will be there?'

`Yes! But she said we would start at tea-time. So we could start at

tea-time. But she could sleep somewhere else and I could sleep with

you.

`But then she'd have to know.'

`Oh, I shall tell her. I've more or less told her already. I must talk

it all over with Hilda. She's a great help, so sensible.'

He was thinking of her plan.

`So you'd start off from Wragby at tea-time, as if you were going to

London? Which way were you going?'

`By Nottingham and Grantham.'

`And then your sister would drop you somewhere and you'd walk or drive

back here? Sounds very risky, to me.'

`Does it? Well, then, Hilda could bring me back. She could sleep at

Mansfield, and bring me back here in the evening, and fetch me again

in the morning. It's quite easy.'

`And the people who see you?'

`I'll wear goggles and a veil.'

He pondered for some time.

`Well,' he said. `You please yourself as usual.'

`But wouldn't it please you?'

`Oh yes! It'd please me all right,' he said a little grimly. `I might

as well smite while the iron's hot.'

`Do you know what I thought?' she said suddenly. `It suddenly came

to me. You are the "Knight of the Burning Pestle"!'

`Ay! And you? Are you the Lady of the Red-Hot Mortar?'

`Yes!' she said. `Yes! You're Sir Pestle and I'm Lady Mortar.'

`All right, then I'm knighted. John Thomas is Sir John, to your Lady

Jane.'

`Yes! John Thomas is knighted! I'm my-lady-maiden-hair, and you must

have flowers too. Yes!'

She threaded two pink campions in the bush of red-gold hair above his

penis.

`There!' she said. `Charming! Charming! Sir John!'

And she pushed a bit of forget-me-not in the dark hair of his breast.

`And you won't forget me there, will you?' She kissed him on the breast,

and made two bits of forget-me-not lodge one over each nipple, kissing

him again.

`Make a calendar of me!' he said. He laughed, and the flowers shook

from his breast.

`Wait a bit!' he said.

He rose, and opened the door of the hut. Flossie, lying in the porch,

got up and looked at him.

`Ay, it's me!' he said.

The rain had ceased. There was a wet, heavy, perfumed stillness. Evening

was approaching.

He went out and down the little path in the opposite direction from

the riding. Connie watched his thin, white figure, and it looked to

her like a ghost, an apparition moving away from her.

When she could see it no more, her heart sank. She stood in the door

of the hut, with a blanket round her, looking into the drenched, motionless

silence.

But he was coming back, trotting strangely, and carrying flowers. She

was a little afraid of him, as if he were not quite human. And when

he came near, his eyes looked into hers, but she could not understand

the meaning.

He had brought columbines and campions, and new-mown hay, and oak-tufts

and honeysuckle in small bud. He fastened fluffy young oak-sprays round

her breasts, sticking in tufts of bluebells and campion: and in her

navel he poised a pink campion flower, and in her maiden-hair were forget-me-nots

and woodruff.

`That's you in all your glory!' he said. `Lady Jane, at her wedding

with John Thomas.'

And he stuck flowers in the hair of his own body, and wound a bit of

creeping-jenny round his penis, and stuck a single bell of a hyacinth

in his navel. She watched him with amusement, his odd intentness. And

she pushed a campion flower in his moustache, where it stuck, dangling

under his nose.

`This is John Thomas marryin' Lady Jane,' he said. `An' we mun let

Constance an' Oliver go their ways. Maybe---'

He spread out his hand with a gesture, and then he sneezed, sneezing

away the flowers from his nose and his navel. He sneezed again.

`Maybe what?' she said, waiting for him to go on.

He looked at her a little bewildered.

`Eh?' he said.

`Maybe what? Go on with what you were going to say,' she insisted.

`Ay, what was I going to say?'

He had forgotten. And it was one of the disappointments of her life,

that he never finished.

A yellow ray of sun shone over the trees.

`Sun!' he said. `And time you went. Time, my Lady, time! What's that

as flies without wings, your Ladyship? Time! Time!'

He reached for his shirt.

`Say goodnight! to John Thomas,' he said, looking down at his penis.

`He's safe in the arms of creeping Jenny! Not much burning pestle about

him just now.'

And he put his flannel shirt over his head.

`A man's most dangerous moment,' he said, when his head had emerged,

`is when he's getting into his shirt. Then he puts his head in a bag.

That's why I prefer those American shirts, that you put on like a jacket.'

She still stood watching him. He stepped into his short drawers, and

buttoned them round the waist.

`Look at Jane!' he said. `In all her blossoms! Who'll put blossoms

on you next year, Jinny? Me, or somebody else? "Good-bye, my bluebell,

farewell to you!" I hate that song, it's early war days.' He then

sat down, and was pulling on his stockings. She still stood unmoving.

He laid his hand on the slope of her buttocks. `Pretty little Lady Jane!'

he said. `Perhaps in Venice you'll find a man who'll put jasmine in

your maiden-hair, and a pomegranate flower in your navel. Poor little

lady Jane!'

`Don't say those things!' she said. `You only say them to hurt me.'

He dropped his head. Then he said, in dialect:

`Ay, maybe I do, maybe I do! Well then, I'll say nowt, an' ha' done

wi't. But tha mun dress thysen, all' go back to thy stately homes of

England, how beautiful they stand. Time's up! Time's up for Sir John,

an' for little Lady Jane! Put thy shimmy on, Lady Chatterley! Tha might

be anybody, standin' there be-out even a shimmy, an' a few rags o' flowers.

There then, there then, I'll undress thee, tha bob-tailed young throstle.'

And he took the leaves from her hair, kissing her damp hair, and the

flowers from her breasts, and kissed her breasts, and kissed her navel,

and kissed her maiden-hair, where he left the flowers threaded. `They

mun stop while they will,' he said. `So! There tha'rt bare again, nowt

but a bare-arsed lass an' a bit of a Lady Jane! Now put thy shimmy on,

for tha mun go, or else Lady Chatterley's goin' to be late for dinner,

an' where 'ave yer been to my pretty maid!'

She never knew how to answer him when he was in this condition of the

vernacular. So she dressed herself and prepared to go a little ignominiously

home to Wragby. Or so she felt it: a little ignominiously home.

He would accompany her to the broad riding. His young pheasants were

all right under the shelter.

When he and she came out on to the riding, there was Mrs Bolton faltering

palely towards them.

`Oh, my Lady, we wondered if anything had happened!'

`No! Nothing has happened.'

Mrs Bolton looked into the man's face, that was smooth and new-looking

with love. She met his half-laughing, half-mocking eyes. He always laughed

at mischance. But he looked at her kindly.

`Evening, Mrs Bolton! Your Ladyship will be all right now, so I can

leave you. Good-night to your Ladyship! Good-night, Mrs Bolton!'

He saluted and turned away.