John Thomas & Lady Jane

back to Africa where there were elephants. So there was hope.
    She told Clifford she had had tea in
Uthwaite in Miss Bentley’s tea shop. ‘So you had tea at Miss Bentley’s tea
shop. Oh yes, you have to be in a tea shop if you want tea.’
    Miss Bentley was a sallow old maid,
dark skinned with a rather large nose which obscured her vision. She served
teas with careful intensity as if she was administering an oft-repeated
sacrament. She could only see you if you stood to one side. Yet she lived
dangerously. She didn’t wear any knickers.
    ‘It must be splendid’, said Clifford,
‘to put so much effort into making tea.’
    ‘Oh yes!’ Constance imitated Miss
Bentley’s hushed murmur.
    ‘Look, I can’t hear you in a hushed
murmur,’ said Clifford. ‘And I suppose you said I was blooming?’
    ‘Yes, I said you were wonderfully
well.’
    ‘Do you think she has a special
feeling about me?’
    ‘Yes, you are her roman de la rose .’
    ‘Come, Constance, don’t be too
far-fetched.’
    So Constance stopped being too
far-fetched.
    ‘We are a queer couple, you and I,
Connie. In a sense, we belong to one another. The house belongs to the Bradford
& Bingley and we belong to each other.’
    ‘Yes, I think so,’ she said.
    ‘There is something eternal between
us, don’t you think?’
    That frightened her a little. The
only thing that was eternal between them was breakfast, so that was two fried
eggs and bacon. Yes, that was what was eternal between them, breakfast.
    ‘There is a certain conjunction
between our mortal selves,’ he went on.
    Wouldn’t it be wonderful if he had a
stroke? It would be a stroke of luck for her.
    ‘I think we are eternal,’ said
Clifford.
    ‘Yes, two eggs and bacon,’ she
stressed.
    ‘For God’s sake, be careful what sort
of man you let be the father of your child. He mustn’t be of the lower orders.’
    ‘But there is no child,’ she said.

Chapter X
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    C OMING DOWNSTAIRS in the morning she
found Soames’s dog Flossie running around the hall making faint whimpers and piddling
down the table leg.
    ‘Hullo, Flossie!’ said Constance. ‘What are you doing here?’ And what she was doing there was piddling down the
table leg.
    The dog ran towards the door of
Clifford’s room. Why was the voice of Soames speaking to Clifford? Then she
said to the dog:
    ‘You want your master? Come along
then!’
    The dog slid in and widdled on Lord
Chatterley’s wheelchair.
    ‘I had to let Flossie in,’ she said.
‘She was flooding the house.’
    Gently Soames kicked its arse. ‘I’ll
push her out,’ he said to Lord Chatterley and he avoided looking at Constance for fear of an erection.
    ‘I found her in the hall,’ said Constance.
    Once she was physically near him Constance was only aware of him and Clifford was a mere cypher and there was fire in her
nethers. Should she call the fire brigade?
    Something in her rejoiced but she
wanted to know what his business was.
    ‘Did I interrupt you?’ said the silly
girl. Of course she had interrupted them.
    ‘No, no,’ said Sir Clifford, trying
to be tolerant.
    She looked at Soames. He had on his
furtive, gamekeeper’s look, which she did not like. Yet his physical presence
fascinated her. Oh the burning in her nethers.
    ‘These poachers got three rabbits
apiece on ’em an’ two of ’em wa’ does as would ha’ case in a day or two.’
    She was rather piqued that her
presence had no visible effect on him at all, there was no swelling in his
trousers.
    ‘How are the little pheasants?’ she
asked him.
    ‘Still little,’ he said.
    ‘I shall come and see them soon,’ she
said.
    ‘Oh Christ,’ he thought. ‘You’ll find
them running around nice and independent. Soon they be ready for Sir Clifford
to shoot them,’ he said.
    Not even the judge of judges would
have suspected that she had allowed him to make free with her body. She did not
charge him. He was just one lucky gamekeeper being able to screw the ladyship
of an aristocrat free of charge on an army blanket.
    She went that evening to the hut, and
found him there, apparently waiting for her.
    ‘You see I’ve come,’ she said.
    He smiled. ‘I can see that,’ he said.
‘I’m not daft.’
    He was in his shirt-sleeves working
at something. He was making a clockwork tortoise with revolving eyes. He wore
his flannelette shirt with bone buttons on the wrist. Yet his wrists looked so
full of life. Yes folks, wrists full of life and under