`You must have a nurse or somebody, to look after you personally. You

should really have a manservant,' said Hilda as they sat, with apparent

calmness, at coffee after dinner. She spoke in her soft, seemingly gentle

way, but Clifford felt she was hitting him on the head with a bludgeon.

`You think so?' he said coldly.

`I'm sure! It's necessary. Either that, or Father and I must take Connie

away for some months. This can't go on.'

`What can't go on?'

`Haven't you looked at the child!' asked Hilda, gazing at him full

stare. He looked rather like a huge, boiled crayfish at the moment;

or so she thought.

`Connie and I will discuss it,' he said.

`I've already discussed it with her,' said Hilda.

Clifford had been long enough in the hands of nurses; he hated them,

because they left him no real privacy. And a manservant!...he couldn't

stand a man hanging round him. Almost better any woman. But why not

Connie?

The two sisters drove off in the morning, Connie looking rather like

an Easter lamb, rather small beside Hilda, who held the wheel. Sir Malcolm

was away, but the Kensington house was open.

The doctor examined Connie carefully, and asked her all about her life.

`I see your photograph, and Sir Clifford's, in the illustrated papers

sometimes. Almost notorieties, aren't you? That's how the quiet little

girls grow up, though you're only a quiet little girl even now, in spite

of the illustrated papers. No, no! There's nothing organically wrong,

but it won't do! It won't do! Tell Sir Clifford he's got to bring you

to town, or take you abroad, and amuse you. You've got to be amused,

got to! Your vitality is much too low; no reserves, no reserves. The

nerves of the heart a bit queer already: oh, yes! Nothing but nerves;

I'd put you right in a month at Cannes or Biarritz. But it mustn't go

on, mustn't, I tell you, or I won't be answerable for consequences.

You're spending your life without renewing it. You've got to be amused,

properly, healthily amused. You're spending your vitality without making

any. Can't go on, you know. Depression! Avoid depression!'

Hilda set her jaw, and that meant something.

Michaelis heard they were in town, and came running with roses. `Why,

whatever's wrong?' he cried. `You're a shadow of yourself. Why, I never

saw such a change! Why ever didn't you let me know? Come to Nice with

me! Come down to Sicily! Go on, come to Sicily with me. It's lovely

there just now. You want sun! You want life! Why, you're wasting away!

Come away with me! Come to Africa! Oh, hang Sir Clifford! Chuck him,

and come along with me. I'll marry you the minute he divorces you. Come

along and try a life! God's love! That place Wragby would kill anybody.

Beastly place! Foul place! Kill anybody! Come away with me into the

sun! It's the sun you want, of course, and a bit of normal life.'

But Connie's heart simply stood still at the thought of abandoning

Clifford there and then. She couldn't do it. No...no! She just couldn't.

She had to go back to Wragby.

Michaelis was disgusted. Hilda didn't like Michaelis, but she almost

preferred him to Clifford. Back went the sisters to the Midlands.

Hilda talked to Clifford, who still had yellow eyeballs when they got

back. He, too, in his way, was overwrought; but he had to listen to

all Hilda said, to all the doctor had said, not what Michaelis had said,

of course, and he sat mum through the ultimatum.

`Here is the address of a good manservant, who was with an invalid

patient of the doctor's till he died last month. He is really a good

man, and fairly sure to come.'

`But I'm not an invalid, and I will not have a manservant,' said Clifford,

poor devil.

`And here are the addresses of two women; I saw one of them, she would

do very well; a woman of about fifty, quiet, strong, kind, and in her

way cultured...'

Clifford only sulked, and would not answer.

`Very well, Clifford. If we don't settle something by to-morrow, I

shall telegraph to Father, and we shall take Connie away.'

`Will Connie go?' asked Clifford.

`She doesn't want to, but she knows she must. Mother died of cancer,

brought on by fretting. We're not running any risks.'

So next day Clifford suggested Mrs Bolton, Tevershall parish nurse.

Apparently Mrs Betts had thought of her. Mrs Bolton was just retiring

from her parish duties to take up private nursing jobs. Clifford had

a queer dread of delivering himself into the hands of a stranger, but

this Mrs Bolton had once nursed him through scarlet fever, and he knew

her.

The two sisters at once called on Mrs Bolton, in a newish house in

a row, quite select for Tevershall. They found a rather good-looking

woman of forty-odd, in a nurse's uniform, with a white collar and apron,

just making herself tea in a small crowded sitting-room.

Mrs Bolton was most attentive and polite, seemed quite nice, spoke

with a bit of a broad slur, but in heavily correct English, and from

having bossed the sick colliers for a good many years, had a very good

opinion of herself, and a fair amount of assurance. In short, in her

tiny way, one of the governing class in the village, very much respected.

`Yes, Lady Chatterley's not looking at all well! Why, she used to be

that bonny, didn't she now? But she's been failing all winter! Oh, it's

hard, it is. Poor Sir Clifford! Eh, that war, it's a lot to answer for.'

And Mrs Bolton would come to Wragby at once, if Dr Shardlow would let

her off. She had another fortnight's parish nursing to do, by rights,

but they might get a substitute, you know.

Hilda posted off to Dr Shardlow, and on the following Sunday Mrs Bolton

drove up in Leiver's cab to Wragby with two trunks. Hilda had talks

with her; Mrs Bolton was ready at any moment to talk. And she seemed

so young! The way the passion would flush in her rather pale cheek.

She was forty-seven.

Her husband, Ted Bolton, had been killed in the pit, twenty-two years

ago, twenty-two years last Christmas, just at Christmas time, leaving

her with two children, one a baby in arms. Oh, the baby was married

now, Edith, to a young man in Boots Cash Chemists in Sheffield. The

other one was a schoolteacher in Chesterfield; she came home weekends,

when she wasn't asked out somewhere. Young folks enjoyed themselves

nowadays, not like when she, Ivy Bolton, was young.

Ted Bolton was twenty-eight when lie was killed in an explosion down

th' pit. The butty in front shouted to them all to lie down quick, there

were four of them. And they all lay down in time, only Ted, and it killed

him. Then at the inquiry, on the masters' side they said Ted had been

frightened, and trying to run away, and not obeying orders, so it was

like his fault really. So the compensation was only three hundred pounds,

and they made out as if it was more of a gift than legal compensation,

because it was really the man's own fault. And they wouldn't let her

have the money down; she wanted to have a little shop. But they said

she'd no doubt squander it, perhaps in drink! So she had to draw it

thirty shillings a week. Yes, she had to go every Monday morning down

to the offices, and stand there a couple of hours waiting her turn;

yes, for almost four years she went every Monday. And what could she

do with two little children on her hands? But Ted's mother was very

good to her. When the baby could toddle she'd keep both the children

for the day, while she, Ivy Bolton, went to Sheffield, and attended

classes in ambulance, and then the fourth year she even took a nursing

course and got qualified. She was determined to be independent and keep

her children. So she was assistant at Uthwaite hospital, just a little

place, for a while. But when the Company, the Tevershall Colliery Company,

really Sir Geoffrey, saw that she could get on by herself, they were

very good to her, gave her the parish nursing, and stood by her, she

would say that for them. And she'd done it ever since, till now it was

getting a bit much for her; she needed something a bit lighter, there

was such a lot of traipsing around if you were a district nurse.

`Yes, the Company's been very good to me, I always say it. But I should

never forget what they said about Ted, for he was as steady and fearless

a chap as ever set foot on the cage, and it was as good as branding

him a coward. But there, he was dead, and could say nothing to none

of 'em.'

It was a queer mixture of feelings the woman showed as she talked.

She liked the colliers, whom she had nursed for so long; but she felt

very superior to them. She felt almost upper class; and at the same

time a resentment against the ruling class smouldered in her. The masters!

In a dispute between masters and men, she was always for the men. But

when there was no question of contest, she was pining to be superior,

to be one of the upper class. The upper classes fascinated her, appealing

to her peculiar English passion for superiority. She was thrilled to

come to Wragby; thrilled to talk to Lady Chatterley, my word, different

from the common colliers' wives! She said so in so many words. Yet one

could see a grudge against the Chatterleys peep out in her; the grudge

against the masters.

`Why, yes, of course, it would wear Lady Chatterley out! It's a mercy

she had a sister to come and help her. Men don't think, high and low-alike,

they take what a woman does for them for granted. Oh, I've told the

colliers off about it many a time. But it's very hard for Sir Clifford,

you know, crippled like that. They were always a haughty family, standoffish

in a way, as they've a right to be. But then to be brought down like

that! And it's very hard on Lady Chatterley, perhaps harder on her.

What she misses! I only had Ted three years, but my word, while I had

him I had a husband I could never forget. He was one in a thousand,

and jolly as the day. Who'd ever have thought he'd get killed? I don't

believe it to this day somehow, I've never believed it, though I washed

him with my own hands. But he was never dead for me, he never was. I

never took it in.'

This was a new voice in Wragby, very new for Connie to hear; it roused

a new ear in her.

For the first week or so, Mrs Bolton, however, was very quiet at Wragby,

her assured, bossy manner left her, and she was nervous. With Clifford

she was shy, almost frightened, and silent. He liked that, and soon

recovered his self-possession, letting her do things for him without

even noticing her.

`She's a useful nonentity!' he said. Connie opened her eyes in wonder,

but she did not contradict him. So different are impressions on two

different people!

And he soon became rather superb, somewhat lordly with the nurse. She

had rather expected it, and he played up without knowing. So susceptible

we are to what is expected of us! The colliers had been so like children,

talking to her, and telling her what hurt them, while she bandaged them,

or nursed them. They had always made her feel so grand, almost super-human

in her administrations. Now Clifford made her feel small, and like a

servant, and she accepted it without a word, adjusting herself to the

upper classes.

She came very mute, with her long, handsome face, and downcast eyes,

to administer to him. And she said very humbly: `Shall I do this now,

Sir Clifford? Shall I do that?'

`No, leave it for a time. I'll have it done later.'

`Very well, Sir Clifford.'

`Come in again in half an hour.'

`Very well, Sir Clifford.'

`And just take those old papers out, will you?'

`Very well, Sir Clifford.'

She went softly, and in half an hour she came softly again. She was

bullied, but she didn't mind. She was experiencing the upper classes.

She neither resented nor disliked Clifford; he was just part of a phenomenon,

the phenomenon of the high-class folks, so far unknown to her, but now

to be known. She felt more at home with Lady Chatterley, and after all

it's the mistress of the house matters most.

Mrs Bolton helped Clifford to bed at night, and slept across the passage

from his room, and came if he rang for her in the night. She also helped

him in the morning, and soon valeted him completely, even shaving him,

in her soft, tentative woman's way. She was very good and competent,

and she soon knew how to have him in her power. He wasn't so very different

from the colliers after all, when you lathered his chin, and softly

rubbed the bristles. The stand-offishness and the lack of frankness

didn't bother her; she was having a new experience.

Clifford, however, inside himself, never quite forgave Connie for giving

up her personal care of him to a strange hired woman. It killed, he

said to himself, the real flower of the intimacy between him and her.

But Connie didn't mind that. The fine flower of their intimacy was to

her rather like an orchid, a bulb stuck parasitic on her tree of life,

and producing, to her eyes, a rather shabby flower.

Now she had more time to herself she could softly play the piano, up

in her room, and sing: `Touch not the nettle, for the bonds of love

are ill to loose.' She had not realized till lately how ill to loose

they were, these bonds of love. But thank Heaven she had loosened them!

She was so glad to be alone, not always to have to talk to him. When

he was alone he tapped-tapped-tapped on a typewriter, to infinity. But

when he was not `working', and she was there, he talked, always talked;

infinite small analysis of people and motives, and results, characters

and personalities, till now she had had enough. For years she had loved

it, until she had enough, and then suddenly it was too much. She was

thankful to be alone.

It was as if thousands and thousands of little roots and threads of

consciousness in him and her had grown together into a tangled mass,

till they could crowd no more, and the plant was dying. Now quietly,

subtly, she was unravelling the tangle of his consciousness and hers,

breaking the threads gently, one by one, with patience and impatience

to get clear. But the bonds of such love are more ill to loose even

than most bonds; though Mrs Bolton's coming had been a great help.

But he still wanted the old intimate evenings of talk with Connie:

talk or reading aloud. But now she could arrange that Mrs Bolton should

come at ten to disturb them. At ten o'clock Connie could go upstairs

and be alone. Clifford was in good hands with Mrs Bolton.

Mrs Bolton ate with Mrs Betts in the housekeeper's room, since they

were all agreeable. And it was curious how much closer the servants'

quarters seemed to have come; right up to the doors of Clifford's study,

when before they were so remote. For Mrs Betts would sometimes sit in

Mrs Bolton's room, and Connie heard their lowered voices, and felt somehow

the strong, other vibration of the working people almost invading the

sitting-room, when she and Clifford were alone. So changed was Wragby

merely by Mrs Bolton's coming.

And Connie felt herself released, in another world, she felt she breathed

differently. But still she was afraid of how many of her roots, perhaps

mortal ones, were tangled with Clifford's. Yet still, she breathed freer,

a new phase was going to begin in her life.