Lady Chatterley's Lover

must surely goeth away, and they that bring not fish, will beat their breasts knees and teeth, and lo it will be Friday.” ‘
    Clifford stayed silent. Constance was arranging yellow tulips in a vase.
    ‘Father wants me to go on holiday to Venice with them, won’t you come too?’
    ‘I won’t travel abroad,’ he said. ‘Lewisham is as far as I go. How long will you be there?’
    ‘Five foot seven,’ she said.
    ‘Five foot seven,’ he repeated. He looked through his conversion table. ‘Five foot seven, that’s twenty-one days. I suppose I could stand three weeks.’
    ‘My God,’ thought Constance, ‘on those legs how is he going to stand for three weeks!’ She was thinking of the man with the blanket.
    ‘I should like to see Venice again,’ she said. ‘But I loathe the Lido!’
    Clifford was stunned, he wheeled his chair so close to her he could see up her nose. ‘All these years I’ve known you and I never knew you loathed the Lido.’
    ‘Are you sure you won’t come nearer than Lewisham?’ she said.
    He gave a wan smile. ‘No, just think of me at the Gare du Nord: at Calais quay!’
    She promised him she would.
    ‘Why not come,’ she said, taking the tulips across the room to the window and throwing them out. it wouldn’t be a difficult journey, we’d motor all the way.’
    ‘I’d never be able to keep up in a wheelchair,’ he said. Very well. She reckoned that if she had a child he’d think she’d had a lover in Venice. For a hundred lire any gondolier would screw you and chuck in a couple of arias free, and a Give-it-to-me ice-cream. She went for a ride, Field driving her. She passed grim-looking shops selling soap, rhubarb, Anzora haircream and lavatory brushes. There was a chapel or two, a shop or two and cocktails for two. The country rolled away, south towards the Peak, east towards Mansfield and in the far distance the dome of Lewisham Hippodrome. Constance was travelling south, how it was hard to say, as the car was going north. They passed miners coming home from work, some of whom that might be poaching Clifford’s rabbits and salmon. Mind you, she didn’t like them poached, but grilled, yes, many miners were caught grilling rabbits and salmon. They drove through Shipley Deer Park on Mr Winter’s land. He said miners were not as ornamental as deer, but far more profitable. He had an open season on miners to thin them out. Mr Winter told her he no longer went for walks in the park; only recently he had been butted by a miner during the rutting season. ‘He crupled my blurzon,’ he said showing her the bruise on his blurzon. It happened when he was wearing patent-leather shoes and purple silk socks; alas! they didn’t save him. He had read an advert ‘Wear Harrods’ silk purple socks and avoid attacks by rutting miners’. He felt guilty about being rich, but nothing would change his lifestyle, only death.
    This happened soon after Constance’s visit. His heirs at once ordered Shipley Hall pulled down, perhaps that’s what killed him, he was still living in it. He remembered Clifford in his will, he didn’t leave him any money, but he remembered him. A Shipley Hall estate sprang up, no one, but no one, would have dreamed that Shipley Hall once stood there. Strangely enough, Mrs Bolton dreamed that Shipley Hall stood there. She dreamed it two nights running. At midnight Constance saw her in her nightdress racing round and round Wragby.
    Constance could see the buildings spreading into the fields, and the new erectum rising at the collieries. 47 At the Pally, new girls in their silk stockings were dancing the depraved fox-trot with young louts.
    ‘I dropped off for tea with Miss Bentley,’ said Constance.
    ‘Did she ask after me?’ said Clifford.
    ‘She worships you. St George of Cappadocia was nothing to you in her eyes.’
    ‘She must have very bad eyesight.’
    ‘She ranks you higher than Nurse Cavell.’
    ‘Higher than Nurse Cavell? She’s dead and buried six foot down. Of course I’m higher.’
    ‘Miss Bentley is a darling. Why don’t men marry women who adore them?’
    ‘Women start admiring men too late, they should start about ten-thirty, ugly women should start earlier.’
    ‘Clifford, do you realize you are the Roman de la Rose of Miss Bentley and lots like her!’
    ‘Are they in lots?’ he said. ‘Can you bid for them?’
    ‘You are cruel.’
    ‘And who was the Roman of the Rose?’
    ‘Oh, it’s just a saying.’
    ‘I know, I heard