no  doubt  she  has  connived at  your  desertion of  your duties  and
responsibilities, so do not expect me to show pleasure in seeing her.
     They went  to Wragby. Clifford was  away when they arrived. Mrs  Bolton
received them.
     `Oh, your  Ladyship,  it isn't the  happy  home-coming we hoped for, is
it!' she said.
     `Isn't it?' said Connie.
     So  this woman  knew!  How much  did the rest  of the servants  know or
suspect?
     She  entered  the house, which  now she hated  with every fibre in  her
body. The great, rambling mass of a place seemed evil to her, just a  menace
over her. She was no longer its mistress, she was its victim.
     `I can't stay long here,' she whispered to Hilda, terrified.
     And   she  suffered  going  into  her  own  bedroom,  re-entering  into
possession  as  if nothing had happened. She hated every minute  inside  the
Wragby walls.
     They did  not  meet  Clifford till they went  down to  dinner.  He  was
dressed, and with a  black  tie: rather reserved, and very much the superior
gentleman. He behaved perfectly politely  during the meal and kept a  polite
sort of conversation going: but it seemed all touched with insanity.
     `How much do  the servants know?' asked  Connie, when the woman was out
of the room.
     `Of your intentions? Nothing whatsoever.'
     `Mrs Bolton knows.'
     He changed colour.
     `Mrs Bolton is not exactly one of the servants,' he said.
     `Oh, I don't mind.'
     There was tension till after coffee, when Hilda said she would go up to
her room.
     Clifford  and Connie sat in silence  when she had  gone. Neither  would
begin to speak.  Connie was so glad that he wasn't taking the pathetic line,
she kept him up to as  much haughtiness as possible. She just sat silent and
looked down at her hands.
     `I  suppose you  don't at all  mind having gone back on your  word?' he
said at last.
     `I can't help it,' she murmured.
     `But if you can't, who can?'
     `I suppose nobody.'
     He looked at her with curious cold rage. He was used to her. She was as
it were embedded in his will. How dared she now go back on  him, and destroy
the  fabric  of  his  daily  existence?  How  dared  she  try  to cause this
derangement of his personality?
     `And for what do you want to go back on everything?' he insisted.
     `Love!' she said. It was best to be hackneyed.
     `Love of Duncan Forbes?  But you didn't  think that worth  having, when
you met me. Do you mean to say you now love him better than anything else in
life?'
     `One changes,' she said.
     `Possibly! Possibly you may have whims. But you still have  to convince
me of the importance  of the change. I merely don't believe in  your love of
Duncan Forbes.'
     `But why should you believe in it? You have only to divorce me, not  to
believe in my feelings.'
     `And why should I divorce you?'
     `Because I don't want to live here  any more. And you really don't want
me.'
     `Pardon  me! I  don't  change.  For my part,  since  you are my wife, I
should  prefer that  you  should stay  under  my  roof in dignity and quiet.
Leaving aside personal feelings, and I assure you, on  my part it is leaving
aside a great deal, it  is bitter as death to  me to have this order of life
broken up, here in Wragby,  and the decent round of daily life smashed, just
for some whim of yours.'
     After a time of silence she said:
     `I can't help it. I've got to go. I expect I shall have a child.'
     He too was silent for a time.
     `And is it for the child's sake you must go?' he asked at length.
     She nodded.
     `And why? Is Duncan Forbes so keen on his spawn?'
     `Surely keener than you would be,' she said.
     `But really? I want my wife, and I see no reason for letting her go. If
she likes to bear  a child under my  roof, she is welcome,  and the child is
welcome: provided that the decency  and  order of life  is preserved. Do you
mean to tell  me that  Duncan Forbes has a  greater  hold over you? I  don't
believe it.'
     There was a pause.
     `But  don't you see,' said Connie. `I must go away from you, and I must
live with the man I love.'
     `No, I  don't see  it! I don't give tuppence for your love, nor for the
man you love. I don't believe in that sort of cant.'
     `But you see, I do.'
     `Do you?  My dear  Madam, you are  too intelligent,  I  assure you,  to
believe in your own love for Duncan Forbes.  Believe me, even now you really
care more for me. So why should I give in to such nonsense!'
     She  felt he  was  right there. And she felt she  could keep  silent no
longer.
     `Because it isn't Duncan that I do love,' she said, looking up at him.
     `We only said it was Duncan, to spare your feelings.'
     `To spare my feelings?'
     `Yes!  Because who  I really love, and it'll  make you  hate  me, is Mr
Mellors, who was our game-keeper here.'
     If he  could have sprung out of his chair, he  would  have done so. His
face went yellow, and his eyes bulged with disaster as he glared at her.
     Then he dropped  back  in  the  chair,  gasping and  looking  up at the
ceiling.
     At length he sat up.
     `Do  you mean to say you re telling me  the  truth?' he  asked, looking
gruesome.
     `Yes! You know I am.'
     `And when did you begin with him?'
     `In the spring.'
     He was silent like some beast in a trap.
     `And it was you, then, in the bedroom at the cottage?'
     So he had really inwardly known all the time.
     `Yes!'
     He  still leaned forward  in his chair, gazing  at her like  a cornered
beast.
     `My God, you ought to be wiped off the face of the earth!'
     `Why?' she ejaculated faintly.
     But he seemed not to hear.
     `That scum!  That bumptious lout! That  miserable  cad! And carrying on
with him all the time, while you were here and he was one of my servants! My
God, my God, is there any end to the beastly lowness of women!'
     He was beside himself with rage, as she knew he would be.
     `And you mean to say you want to have a child to a cad like that?'
     `Yes! I'm going to.'
     `You're going to! You mean you're sure! How long have you been sure?'
     `Since June.'
     He was speechless, and the queer  blank  look of a child came over  him
again.
     `You'd wonder,' he said at last, `that such beings were ever allowed to
be born.'
     `What beings?' she asked.
     He looked at her  weirdly,  without  an  answer.  It  was  obvious,  he
couldn't even accept the fact  of the existence of Mellors, in any connexion
with his own life. It was sheer, unspeakable, impotent hate.
     `And do you mean to say you'd marry him?---and bear his foul  name?' he
asked at length.
     `Yes, that's what I want.'
     He was again as if dumbfounded.
     `Yes!' he  said at  last. `That  proves that  what  I've always thought
about  you is correct:  you're not normal, you're not in  your right senses.
You're  one  of  those  half-insane, perverted  women  who  must  run  after
depravity, the nostalgie de la boue.'
     Suddenly  he  had  become  almost  wistfully moral, seeing himself  the
incarnation of  good, and people like Mellors  and Connie the incarnation of
mud, of evil. He seemed to be growing vague, inside a nimbus.
     `So don't you think you'd better divorce me and have done with it?' she
said.
     `No!  You  can  go where you like,  but I shan't divorce  you,' he said
idiotically.
     `Why not?'
     He was silent, in the silence of imbecile obstinacy.
     `Would you  even let the  child  be  legally yours, and your heir?' she
said.
     `I care nothing about the child.'
     `But if  it's a  boy it will  be legally your  son, and it will inherit
your title, and have Wragby.'
     `I care nothing about that,' he said.
     `But you must! I shall prevent the child from being legally yours, if I
can.  I'd  so much rather  it were illegitimate,  and mine:  if  it can't be
Mellors'.'
     `Do as you like about that.'
     He was immovable.
     `And won't you divorce me?' she said. `You can use Duncan as a pretext!
There'd be no need to bring in the real name. Duncan doesn't mind.'
     `I shall never divorce you,' he said, as if a nail had been driven in.
     `But why? Because I want you to?'
     `Because I follow my own inclination, and I'm not inclined to.'
     It was useless. She went upstairs and told Hilda the upshot.
     `Better  get  away  tomorrow,' said  Hilda,  `and let  him come  to his
senses.'
     So Connie  spent half the night packing her really private and personal
effects.  In the morning  she had her trunks  sent to  the  station, without
telling Clifford. She decided to see him only to say good-bye, before lunch.
     But she spoke to Mrs Bolton.
     `I must say good-bye to you,  Mrs Bolton, you know why. But I can trust
you not to talk.'
     `Oh,  you can trust me,  your  Ladyship, though it's a  sad blow for us
here, indeed. But I hope you'll be happy with the other gentleman.'
     `The other gentleman! It's Mr Mellors, and I care for him. Sir Clifford
knobs. But  don't say anything to anybody. And  if  one day  you  think  Sir
Clifford  may be willing to divorce me, let me know, will you? I should like
to be properly married to the man I care for.'
     `I'm sure you would, my Lady. Oh, you can trust me. I'll be faithful to
Sir  Clifford, and I'll  be faithful to you, for I can see you're both right
in your own ways.'
     `Thank you! And look! I want  to give you this---may I?' So Connie left
Wragby once more, and went on with Hilda to Scotland. Mellors went into  the
country and got work on a farm. The idea was, he should get  his divorce, if
possible, whether Connie got hers or not. And for six  months he should work
at farming, so  that eventually he and Connie could have  some small farm of
their  own,  into which he could put his  energy.  For he would have to have
some work, even hard work,  to do, and he would have to make his own living,
even if her capital started him.
     So  they would have to wait till spring was in, till the baby was born,
till the early summer came round again.
     The Grange Farm Old Heanor 29 September
     I  got on here with a bit of  contriving, because I knew Richards,  the
company engineer, in the army. It is a  farm belonging to Butler and Smitham
Colliery Company, they use  it for raising hay and oats for the  pit-ponies;
not a private concern. But they've got cows and pigs and all the rest of it,
and I get thirty shillings  a week as labourer.  Rowley, the farmer, puts me
on to as  many jobs  as he  can,  so that I  can  learn as much  as possible
between now and  next Easter. I've not heard a  thing about  Bertha. I've no
idea why she  didn't show up at the divorce, nor where she is nor what she's
up to. But  if I keep quiet till March  I suppose I shall be free. And don't
you bother about  Sir  Clifford. He'll want  to  get rid of you one of these
days. If he leaves you alone, it's a lot.
     I've got lodging in a bit of an old cottage in Engine Row very  decent.
The  man is engine-driver at High Park, tall, with a beard, and very chapel.
The woman  is a  birdy bit  of  a thing who  loves anything superior. King's
English and allow-me! all the time. But they lost their only son in the war,
and it's  sort of knocked  a  hole in them.  There's a long gawky  lass of a
daughter  training for  a  school-teacher, and  I help  her with her lessons
sometimes, so we're  quite the family.  But  they're very decent people, and
only too kind to me. I expect I'm more coddled than you are.
     I  like farming all right. It's not inspiring, but then  I don't ask to
be inspired. I'm used to horses, and cows, though they are very female, have
a soothing effect on me.  When I sit  with my head in  her side,  milking, I
feel very  solaced. They have six rather fine Herefords. Oat-harvest is just
over  and I  enjoyed it, in spite of sore hands and  a lot of rain. I  don't
take much notice of people, but get  on with them all right. Most things one
just ignores.
     The  pits  are  working  badly;  this   is  a  colliery  district  like
Tevershall. only prettier. I sometimes sit in the Wellington and talk to the
men.  They grumble  a  lot, but  they're  not  going  to alter  anything. As
everybody  says, the Notts-Derby miners have got their  hearts  in the right
place. But the rest of their anatomy must be in the wrong place, in  a world
that has no  use for  them. I  like them, but they don't cheer  me much: not
enough   of  the  old   fighting-cock   in  them.  They  talk  a  lot  about
nationalization, nationalization of royalties, nationalization of the  whole
industry. But  you can't nationalize coal and leave all the other industries
as  they are. They talk about putting coal to new uses, like Sir Clifford is
trying to  do. It  may  work here and there, but not  as a  general thing. I
doubt. Whatever you  make you've got to sell it. The men are very apathetic.
They feel the whole  damned thing is doomed, and  I  believe it is. And they
are doomed along with  it. Some of the young  ones spout about a Soviet, but
there's  not much conviction  in them.  There's no sort of  conviction about
anything, except  that  it's all a  muddle  and a hole. Even  under a Soviet
you've still got to sell coal: and that's the difficulty.
     We've got this great industrial population,  and they've got to be fed,
so the damn show has  to be kept going somehow.  The women talk a  lot  more
than the men, nowadays, and  they  are a sight  more  cock-sure. The men are
limp, they feel  a doom somewhere, and they go about as if there was nothing
to  be done. Anyhow,  nobody knows  what should be done in  spite of all the
talk, the young ones get  mad because they've no money to spend. Their whole
life depends on spending money,  and now  they've got none  to spend. That's
our civilization and  our education: bring up the masses  to depend entirely
on spending  money, and then the money gives out. The pits  are  working two
days, two and a half days a week, and there's no sign of betterment even for
the winter. It means a man bringing  up a  family on twenty-five and  thirty
shillings. The women  are  the maddest of  all. But then they're the maddest
for spending, nowadays.
     If  you  could only tell them  that living and spending isn't  the same
thing! But it's no good. If only they were educated to live instead  of earn
and spend,  they could manage very  happily on twenty-five shillings. If the
men wore scarlet trousers as I  said, they wouldn't think so  much of money:
if they could  dance and hop and skip, and sing and swagger and be handsome,
they  could do with very little cash. And amuse the women themselves, and be
amused  by the women. They  ought  to learn to be naked and handsome, and to
sing in a mass and dance the old group dances, and carve the stools they sit
on,  and embroider  their own emblems. Then  they wouldn't need  money.  And
that's the only way to solve the industrial problem:  train the people to be
able to live  and live in handsomeness,  without  needing  to spend. But you
can't do it.  They're all one-track  minds nowadays.  Whereas  the  mass  of
people  oughtn't even to try to  think,  because they can't.  They should be
alive  and frisky, and acknowledge the great god Pan. He's the only  god for
the  masses, forever. The few can  go in for higher cults if  they like. But
let the mass be forever pagan.
     But  the  colliers  aren't  pagan, far from  it. They're a sad  lot,  a
deadened lot of men: dead to their women, dead to life. The young ones scoot
about  on motor-bikes  with  girls,  and jazz when they  get a  chance,  But
they're very dead. And it needs money. Money poisons you when you've got it,
and starves you when you haven't.
     I'm sure you're sick of all this. But  I  don't want to harp on myself,
and I've  nothing happening to me. I don't like to think too much about you,
in my head, that only  makes a mess of  us both. But, of course, what I live
for now is for you and me to live  together. I'm frightened, really.  I feel
the devil in the air, and  he'll try to get us. Or  not  the devil,  Mammon:
which I think, after all, is only the mass-will of people, wanting money and
hating life. Anyhow, I feel great grasping white hands in  the  air, wanting
to get  hold  of the throat  of anybody who tries  to  live, to  live beyond
money, and  squeeze the life out. There's a  bad time coming. There's  a bad
time coming, boys, there's  a bad time coming! If  things go on as they are,
there's nothing  lies  in the  future but  death and destruction,  for these
industrial masses. I feel my inside turn to water sometimes,  and there  you
are,  going  to have a child by me.  But never mind. All  the bad times that
ever have  been, haven't been able to blow the crocus out: not even the love
of women. So they won't  be able to blow  out my wanting you, nor the little
glow there is between you and  me. We'll be  together  next year. And though
I'm  frightened, I  believe in  your being  with me. A man has to  fend  and
fettle for the best, and then trust in something beyond  himself.  You can't
insure  against the  future,  except by really believing in the  best bit of
you, and  in the power  beyond it.  So I believe in the little flame between
us. For  me now, it's the only thing in the world. I've got  no friends, not
inward friends. Only you. And now the little flame is all I care about in my
life. There's the baby,  but that is  a side issue. It's my  Pentecost,  the
forked flame between me and you. The old Pentecost isn't quite right. Me and
God  is a bit uppish, somehow.  But the little  forked flame between me  and
you: there you are! That's what I abide by, and will abide by, Cliffords and
Berthas, colliery companies and governments and the money-mass of people all
notwithstanding.
     That's why I don't like to start thinking  about  you actually. It only
tortures me, and does you no good. I  don't want you to be away from me. But
if I start fretting it wastes something. Patience, always  patience. This is
my fortieth  winter. And I  can't help  all  the winters that have been. But
this winter I'll  stick to my little Pentecost flame,  and  have some peace.
And  I  won't  let the breath of  people blow it  out. I believe in a higher
mystery, that doesn't let even  the  crocus be blown out.  And if you're  in
Scotland  and I'm in  the Midlands, and  I can't put my arms round you,  and
wrap my legs round  you, yet I've got something  of you. My soul softly Naps
in the little Pentecost flame with you, like the peace of fucking. We fucked
a flame  into being.  Even the flowers are fucked into being between the sun
and  the earth.  But it's a delicate thing, and takes patience and the  long
pause.
     So I love chastity now,  because it is the peace that comes of fucking.
I love being chaste now. I  love it as  snowdrops love the snow. I love this
chastity, which is the pause  of peace of our fucking, between us now like a
snowdrop of  forked  white fire.  And when  the real spring comes,  when the
drawing together comes, then we  can fuck  the little  flame  brilliant  and
yellow, brilliant. But not now, not yet! Now is the time to be chaste, it is
so good to be  chaste, like a river of cool water  in my  soul.  I  love the
chastity now that it flows  between us. It is like fresh water and rain. How
can  men want wearisomely to  philander.  What a misery to be like Don Juan,
and impotent ever to fuck oneself into  peace, and the  little flame alight,
impotent and unable to be chaste in the cool between-whiles, as by a river.
     Well, so many words, because I can't  touch  you. If I could sleep with
my  arms round you, the ink could  stay in  the bottle.  We could  be chaste
together just as  we can fuck  together. But we have to  be  separate for  a
while, and I suppose it is really the wiser way. If only one were sure.
     Never mind, never mind,  we won't get worked up. We really trust in the
little flame,  and in the unnamed god that  shields it from being blown out.
There's so much of you here with me, really, that it's a pity you aren't all
here.
     Never mind about Sir Clifford.  If  you don't hear  anything from  him,
never  mind. He can't  really do anything to you. Wait, he  will want to get
rid of you at last, to cast you out. And if he doesn't, we'll manage to keep
clear  of him. But he  will. In the  end he will want to spew you out as the
abominable thing.
     Now I can't even leave off writing to you.
     But a great  deal of us is together, and  we  can but abide  by it, and
steer  our courses to meet soon. John Thomas says good-night to Lady Jane, a
little droopingly, but with a hopeful heart.