John Thomas & Lady Jane

supper of smoked salmon, roast pheasant, salade niçoise,
peaches and cream and Chateau Margaux. He got it all through the back door of
Lord Chatterley’s kitchen from a friendly cook.
    She found the doors of the house all
closed. This annoyed her. All her life she had been annoyed by having to ring
the bell.
    Mrs Bolton said, ‘Sir Clifford has
got Mr Linley in with him. Should I put dinner back a bit?’ she said.
    Put it back a month. By then he’ll be
gone. Mr Linley was the General Manager of the collieries, a thin, red-faced
man who was covered in layers of coal dust. His wife was a blonde, overdressed
woman out of the country vicarage, very obsequious and toadying. She wasn’t
there. As a guest Mr Linley had brought Clifford a hundredweight of best nuts.
Linley stayed to dinner and Connie was the hostess.
    With joy she was cherishing her
memories in reserve. She had been fucked by the gamekeeper. The man loved her
with his body — what else? That she knew, he had given her nine inches of it,
that she knew. She wanted the experience again. She had felt nothing so extreme.
It wasn’t as though it had gone right home to her. Nine inches were not enough.
You have to go to twelve or fifteen inches. He had a hard year ahead of him.
    She went to the wood in the
afternoon, the next day. She was not conscious of anything except her own
waiting. She came to the clearing of the hut and did some own waiting there. He
was not there, she did same more own waiting and got bloody fed up. She wanted
someone with nine inches.
    She had better go back to tea. Mrs
Bolton had made crumpets, had she suspected something? Far better to go home
and come back, after tea, for some more screwing. ‘Oh what a tangled web we
weave when first we practise to deceive.’
    She hurried home. And as she went, a
fine drizzle began to fall.
    ‘Is it raining again?’ said Clifford.
    ‘Yes, a fine drizzle has begun to
fall.’
    ‘We might have a game of bezique
after tea.’
    She looked at him in her slow,
inscrutable way. ‘Why are you looking at me in that slow, inscrutable way?’ he
said.
    ‘I thought the situation demanded it
— I better rest before dinner.’
    ‘If you rest until tomorrow morning
you could avoid dinner completely.’
    ‘Perhaps Mrs Bolton will arm wrestle
with you.’
    ‘She will if I ask her. But I shall
probably listen in to 2LO on the wireless.’
    When Constance heard the loud-speaker
switched on, in a velveteen sort of voice, announcing a series of London street cries, ‘Violets! Stop thief, help, murder!’, she slipped out of the side door
and hurried across the park for another nine inches.
    How still the wood was! Of course it
was still, trees don’t move about!
    Constance waited in the doorway of
the hut until at last came the owner of the nine inches slowly, unwillingly
towards her, glancing at her with a swift, unwilling glance.
    ‘You’re late,’ she said softly.
    ‘Late?’ he said. ‘Did we have an
appointment?’
    He looked away not saying anything
but he melted.
    ‘You’re melting,’ she said. ‘Do you
want to come into the hut before you disappear?’ she said, starting to undress.
    ‘Are you sorry about yesterday?’
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘T’were a good fuck.’
    ‘I’m so glad,’ she said.
    ‘Don’t you feel as you’ve lowered
yourself, with the likes of me?
    ‘Well, we were on the floor, we
couldn’t go any lower. Why? Do you feel I have lowered myself?’
    ‘Wi’ one o’ your husband’s servants
like,’ he said.
    ‘You are not a servant, you are the
gamekeeper,’ she replied.
    ‘I canna call yer your ladyship an’
then screw thee.’
    ‘I don’t want you to call me your
ladyship.’
    ‘Do yo’ like me?’ he said.
    ‘Yes!’ she said pathetically.
    ‘So yo’ love me pathetically. Ah!’ he
said. ‘’Appen tha’ does, ’appen tha does! But ’ow do we stan’, thee and me?’
    ‘Speak English for Christ’s sake,
man,’ she said.
    He gazed at her with bright,
concentrated eyes. They were so concentrated they almost met on the bridge of
his nose. ‘Tha’lt be sorry, tha’lt be sorry!’ he reiterated.
    ‘For Christ’s sake speak English,
man.’
    He gazed down on her, with a queer
baffled smile in his eyes.
    ‘Why are you gazing down at me with a
queer baffled smile in your eyes?’
    ‘Well,’ he said slowly. ‘If tha
doesna care — if tha wants it.’
    ‘If you knew how much it meant to
me,’ she said.
    ‘What way?’ he