John Thomas & Lady Jane

put her off. Oh those huge feet. He was a good fuck and that is
all she wanted.
    How Clifford had changed from the
once pale, poem-writing idealist Clifford! ‘After all,’ he said, ‘you’ve got all
the important feelings there in Racine.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’m sure that is
true.’
    ‘Of course it’s bloody true, that’s
why I said it.’
    Mrs Bolton brought in the tray with a
cup of some nourishing hot drink which she had introduced as a nightcap for him.
It was Horlicks laced with brandy and a wad of chloroform.
    ‘Good-night Clifford! Do sleep well!’
    ‘Good-night.’ He watched her with
lynx eyes, his own were at the opticians. Even that she could forget! And he
was too proud, too offended to remind her of the kiss though it was but a
formality. So she gave him a formality.
    She drifted out with her glass of
Horlicks, closed the door behind her. He gazed angrily at the door-panels, it
was pointless gazing angrily at door-panels. Mrs Bolton had put him in the day-time
on Kepplers Malt. He knew he was crippled, he stared angrily at the
door-panels.
    His dread was the night when he
couldn’t sleep with anybody. But Mrs Bolton had added half a bottle of brandy
to the Horlicks until it had turned brown. It seemed to help him into the land
of dreams.
    Mrs Bolton would spent the night
wondering who Lady Chatterley’s lover was. It was impossible, there was no man
at Marehay and she couldn’t do it with nobody. There was Soames in the woods.
Mrs Bolton knew that when young many times he had had his hands in her
knickers. Then Lady Chatterley would never stoop to him. He was so common and
that wife of his had made him commoner. He might be attractive to a low sort of
woman, like a dwarf, but for a refined woman, he was a snarling nasty brute.
    Still, you never know. When women did
fall, they sometimes fell in love with creepie-crawlers. So her ladyship might
enjoy demeaning herself. But there, she’d had her own way so long she might be
asking to be bullied.
    Mrs Bolton was thinking of Lady
Chatterley’s lover. There was Soames in the woods, of course, with his nine
inches. He might be attracted to lower women like a dwarf but for the refined
woman he was just a snarling nasty brute with the attraction of nine inches of
gristle that hung down his trousers to his knee.
    Constance was in bed. Soames, after she had left him,
went to the hut, swept up the chicken shit, and put the blankets down in
anticipation of her return. He even had his evening meal of pate, smoked
salmon, venison cutlets, New Jersey potatoes, asparagus and Crepes Suzette with
a bottle of Chateau Lafitte. This woman had disorientated him. He could no
longer tell East from West. He did not really care. He wanted the woman.
Nevertheless he made his rounds cautiously. He was like one in a dream. He kept
walking over cliffs but he refused to be conscious of it as he lay half
unconscious at the foot of a cliff.
    He went at last to the hut and sat a
while waiting for an erection. He looked out at the stars and the silent darkness
of growing trees. And for some reason they were like the body of a woman. In
his opinion some women had bodies like trees. He tried to screw a tree and all
he got was a prick full of splinters.
    After gazing a long time motionless
into the night, becoming again conscious of a certain weariness that was upon
him, he shut the door of the hut, he went heavily to sleep. Yet he woke,
uneasily, after a while. It was still dark night. He put on his coat and his
hat, took his gun, and went out, followed by the dog. He walked away into the
wood, without knowing in which direction, if he had continued on this course,
he would have reached Bexhill-on Sea and the Channel. Finally he reached
Bexhill-on-Sea and he did not know what to do so he climbed uphill to the knoll,
to listen and look out. He heard nothing, he saw nothing. So much for
knoll-climbing. The world was utterly still, wan and dead. He moved to a fresh
knoll, hearing nothing and seeing nothing. There must have been better knolls.
He went back across the wood and when he got there there was nothing to do so
he did that for half an hour. The chill that was in his heart, and the pain of
uncertainty that was in his bowels must have been what he had for dinner or the
halfbottle of Chateau Lafitte. He reached the gate to Wragby Manor, he opened
that gate. That was one of the things you could do with a gate. He came to the
top of a knoll and he slid backwards