The First Lady Chatterley's Lover

by D. H. Lawrence

  ‘Kiss me!’ she said, holding out her white, soft arms to him. He bent to kiss her, and she pulled his head to her breast, kissing his hair and ears. He put his arms round her, felt the silky weight of her, the hollow yielding of her flexible waist, the weight of her hips. And the desire for her came over him again completely.

  She laughed to herself after a while, feeling his weight motionless upon her. She loved it so. And she thought: ‘And the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail—’ Was it from the Bible? How awful if desire should fail! How gratefully she loved him, that his desire did not fail.

  It was he who lay still now, clasping her, and she who knew she must go.

  ‘I must go,’ she said.

  ‘Ay!’ he said, unheeding. And she left him, as motionless he lay upon her, clasping her.

  ‘I must go!’ she softly admonished.

  And without a word he got up and out of bed, and sat with his back to her, pulling his breeches back again round his waist. He got up looking round at her. She was sitting up in bed, curiously childlike and innocent.

  ‘Do you feel I’m your wife in the wood?’ she asked, pleased.

  ‘My wife onywheer!’ he said. ‘I’ve niver ‘ad no wife, I niver knowed what a woman wor like afore. Did thee?’

  ‘No, I never really had a man either.’

  ‘No?’ he looked at her searchingly.

  ‘No! — Less than you’ve had a woman.’

  ‘Ah well!’ he said. ‘It’s summat!’

  And he opened the door and went downstairs.

  When she came down he was dressed in boots and leggings, and was starting a fire. She had her hat on, was carrying her light waterproof. He rose at once and reached for his coat and gun.

  ‘Don’t bother to come with me!’ she said.

  ‘Yi! Dunna yer want me?’

  ‘I wish I needn’t go! I wish I could stop and have breakfast with you.’

  He looked at her searchingly.

  ‘Shall yer?’ he said.

  ‘No!’ she said, very low. ‘I’d better go.’

  They went through the dewy morning wood. Everything was morning.

  ‘We are lucky to have each other!’ she said, suddenly catching his hand for a moment.

  He hesitated in his walk. Then he went on without looking at her.

  ‘Ay!’ he said, in a blank voice.

  At the gate she said to him hurriedly: ‘Another time! We’ll have another time like this.’

  ‘Ay! We mun!’ he said, closing the gate behind her.

  She hurried away across the park, out of his sight.

  There was a letter from Hilda, saying she would call for Constance in the beginning of June, and they would both go to France for two or three weeks with their father, old Sir Malcolm. The old painter had travelled a good deal with his daughters when they were quite young, and even now he would sometimes go off alone with them for some jaunt, leaving his second wife, the girls’ stepmother, at home. But Constance had not left Wragby since the end of the war — since Clifford came home.

  The trip to France was no new proposition. Hilda had been insisting on it for months. And now it was to come off. Constance had consented to go. She thought she might be pregnant. She wanted to be alone a while. Time went by so quickly. Already it was the last days of May.

  ‘If you want me one little bit to stay at home, Clifford,’ said Constance, ‘I won’t go. I don’t care about going. Really I don’t.’

  And it was true. She didn’t want to go away from the other man, not out of contact. She couldn’t bear to think her contact with him might be broken. And she didn’t want to leave Clifford if Clifford would be unhappy. Yet in spite of these things, she knew she would go. It was her destiny.

  Clifford thought it was a put-up job of Hilda’s, to get Constance away from him and probably entangled with another man.

  ‘Oh, I want you to go!’ he said. ‘But I want you to come back —you know that.’

  ‘I shall come back,’ she said very quietly. ‘But I needn’t go, you know.’

  ‘Yes!’ he said, looking at her searchingly. ‘You must go.’ He too felt it was destiny. If Hilda had got some other man ready for Constance — some old friend probably from Scotland, since the Scotch hang together, and if Constance had a brief affair with the man, and perhaps a child was the result: well, he, Clifford, had no right to interfere. He was no fool, neither was he a conventional die-hard. He knew in his very soul that unless there was some development — such as a child born — his life and Constance’s would not run on together. He was shrewd enough to know that she would not always live as a married nun. She was not that type; And that was why he wanted to keep her. He loved her for her warm, still, physical womanhood. He hated women on a higher plane. It needed Constance’s strange warm vagueness to keep his life warm. The women who didn’t need sex and physical love just got on his nerves.

  Moreover, he was sufficiently educated to know that if he kept Connie a married nun, vague and uncertain, during her youth, there would be some miserable recoil later on, some physical derangement. She was the wrong kind of woman for permanent sisterhood.

  So he schemed and schemed that she should go, but that also she should come back. He needed her! He became irritable and a bit insane when she was not there.

  ‘You must go!’ he said. ‘But shall you come back?’

  ‘Oh, I shall come back!’

  She seemed so sure. How curious she was! What was there in her mind? — Or if not in her mind, in her emotional psyche? What was she after?

  ‘You won’t let Hilda get you away from me altogether?’

  ‘No! Besides, Hilda would never try.’

  ‘I’m afraid she might. She hates me.’

  ‘Hilda hates you!’ exclaimed Constance. And even...

  (Pages 195—196 of the original manuscript missing)

  ‘You won’t mind, will you?’ she said to him. He looked at her quickly, cautiously, again.

  ‘It wouldna be no good me mindin’, would it?’ he said.

  Her heart sank a little. He too was angry. She was beginning to know him — and to understand his changes into dialect. When they were merely two people together, quite pleasant, he spoke more or less good English. When he really loved her, and cooed over her in the strange, throaty cooing voice of a man to his tender young wife, he said ‘thee’ and ‘thou’. And when he was suspicious or angry, he used the dialect defiantly, but said ‘you’ — or rather ‘yer’ — and not ‘thou’.

  ‘Why not?’ she said, looking up at him with the same candour that so baffled Clifford.

  He smiled a little, uglily.

  ‘Yo’d take a lot o’ nose o’ me mindin’, shouldn’t yer?’ he said sarcastically.

  ‘Why!’ she faltered. ‘I wouldn’t go if you really minded.’

  He looked at her suspiciously.

  ‘Yi!’ he said softly. ‘Yi yer would! Dunna tell me.’

  She too was nettled. Her colour rose.

  ‘But I wouldn’t. If you said you minded very much and you’d rather I didn’t go, I wouldn’t go.’

  His eyes, with tiny pupils, watched her keenly and mockingly.

  ‘An’ how shouldn’t I mind?’ he said softly.

  ‘But!’ she faltered. ‘It’s only a little while! And it’s so long since I’ve been away from Wragby. I’ve never been away — since I came —’ She looked at him pathetically.

  He looked at the ground. Both were silent.

  ‘Tell me why you mind!’ she insisted.

  ‘Eh, dunna bother! Yo’ go!’ he said, staring away into the wood.

  ‘But I can’t go, if — if you don’t like me for going.’

  He gave a little laugh.

  ‘Eh nay!’ he said in pure irony. ‘If I don’t like yer! Nay, yer know if I like yer or not. An’ yer know yer’ll please yerself, no matter whether I like yer or whether I don’t. If you want to go yer’ll go. All yer’ve got to do is to say: “Parkin, I’m gain’ awa
y for the month of June. ’Appen I s’ll see you when I get back.”’

  He was getting nasty.

  ‘Yes!’ she said. ‘I hope I shall.’

  ‘What?’

  She looked him full in the face.

  ‘I hope I shall see you when I come back,’ she said.

  He gave the sudden explosive movement she knew in him, flinging back his shoulders and stiffening his neck so that his throat broadened. Then just as suddenly he changed, and became secretive and small.

  ‘An’ ’appen yer won’t,’ he said in a small, hidden voice.

  She looked at him in wonder. He too had something on his mind. She saw him remote and obstinate, small-seeming.

  ‘You mean you might not be here when I come back? Why? Where would you go?’ she asked in wonder.

  He would not answer, but stared away over his shoulder.

  ‘Where would you go?’ she insisted.

  He still looked over his shoulder.

  ‘’Appen ter Canada,’ he said in the same colourless voice.

  She felt something swiftly sinking inside her.

  ‘Canada!’ she repeated. ‘Why Canada?’

  ‘I’ve got a brother there,’ he said with common sturdiness, ‘as runs a saw-mill and makes fourteen pound a week, an’ more —steady!’

  The sinking went deeper in her.

  ‘Yes, but you can’t run a saw-mill,’ she said.

  ‘I can learn pretty soon. There’s not much I didn’t have to do i’ t’ war. My brother ’ud soon show me.’

  Her mind remained a blank. He must have been thinking about it.

  ‘But why?’ she said. ‘Why should you want to go to Canada? You’re all right here.’

  ‘Ay!’ he said. ‘I’m a gamekeeper, at thirty-five bob a week. Ay! I’m all right! I’m Sir Clifford’s servant, an’ I’m Lady Chatterley’s —’ he looked her in the face — ‘What do you call me, in your sort of talk?’

  ‘My lover!’ she stammered.

  ‘Lover!’ he re-echoed. A queer flash went over his face.

  ‘Fucker!’ he said, and his eyes darted a flash at her, as if he shot her.

  The word, she knew from Clifford, was obscene, and she flushed deeply and then went pale. But since the word itself had so little association to her, it made very little impression on her. Only she was amazed at the diabolic hate — or fury — she did not know what it was— that flashed out of him all at once, like a cobra striking.

  ‘But,’ she stammered, ‘even if you are — are you ashamed of it?’

  He had been looking at her curiously, watchfully, like a dog that has bitten somebody. His expression slowly changed to one of perplexed doubt.

  ‘Am I ashamed of it?’ he questioned vaguely.

  ‘Yes! Even if you are my “fucker” as you call it, are you ashamed of it? There’s nothing to be ashamed of in it, is there?’

  His eyes slowly widened with a slow wonder, and a sort of boyishness came on his face again. She was looking at him with wide, candid blue eyes. He pushed his hat a little off his brow and broke into an amused laugh.

  ‘No!’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to be ashamed of right enough. If there isn’t for you there isn’t for me.’ He stood laughing at her oddly, still a little doubtful.

  ‘Why shouldn’t you take me if we both want it?’ she said.

  ‘Why shouldna I fuck thee when we both on us want it?’ he repeated in broad dialect, smiling all over his body with amusement as a dog does.

  ‘Yes, why not!’ she re-echoed.

  He looked full into her eyes, and in his eyes a little flame was dancing with perfect amusement. He pushed his hat off his brow again, then pulled it back.

  ‘It’s a winder!’ he said.

  She only gazed at him.

  ‘It’s a winder!’ he repeated, the smile still flickering and moving all over his face.

  ‘What amuses you so?’ she asked.

  ‘Yo’ do!’ he said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Say it again!’ he said. ‘Say it again! — What does it matter if I —’ he tempted her.

  ‘Yes! What does it matter if you fuck me, as you call it? — when you know I want you to! And you want to yourself, don’t you?’

  He stopped suddenly in his laughter, and his whole bearing changed.

  ‘Ay!’ he said seriously. ‘You’re right! You’re right! That’s what it is to be a proper lady! There’s nawt even to laugh at in it! — And you’re right, you’re right!’

  ‘Then —‘ she said slowly, ‘why were you so cross with me?’

  He took his hat off and looked up at her a little bit like a schoolboy.

  ‘Was I mad with yer?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes!’

  He hung and his head and ruminated. Then he said:

  ‘Let’s go an’ sit down. Then ’appen I can tell yer.’

  They went and sat in the hut. He fetched her a quick, furtive glance. She looked tired and a bit haggard now. He wanted to hold her in his arms and comfort her, but daren’t. He had to explain to her why he had wanted to go to Canada.

  ‘Why!’ he said, staring away at the sky, so that he forgot her, and his old feelings came over him. ‘Why! I felt somehow — you know I like fuckin’ better than anything else — you know that — an’ I know it. Yet, yer know, somehow — when yer not there — when I’m by mysen i’ th’ wood an’ i’ th’ cottage — I sort o’ feel — well, what sort of a man am I, here hangin’ on at the beck an’ call of a paralysed man and carryin’ on wi’ his wife! What sort of a man am I? If I was brought up afore th’ magistrates they’d say I was nothing but a thief and a scoundrel. An’ my brother says I’m no better than a servant and a stick-in-the-mud. What am I? Even you, what do you think of me? I know yer like me, I know yer do. It’s ’appen not for me to say. But I do, I know you like me. Only likin’s likin’, and bein’ able to respect a man is another thing. Yer can’t really respect me — not even as much as you do Sir Clifford. You can’t. An’ I can see it. I’m not blind. What sort of a mate am I for yer? — except just for fuckin’, and there a’most any man ’ud do. I couldn’t keep yer an’ feed yer, because you’ve got your own money and can pay me my wage out of your own pocket. I can’t make a home for you. I can’t go among your sort of people, and don’t want to. An’ you can’t come down to my sort, I wouldn’t have it for the world. — What is it? It’s no good!’

  She laid her hand swiftly on his.

  ‘But why can’t we stay as we are? You know I love you — and I think I shall have a child.’

  He looked at her as if from a long distance.

  ‘An’ Sir Clifford’ll own it as his own?’

  ‘Yes. He’ll be glad to. Think of him and what he has to look forward to!’

  ‘Ay!’ he said. ‘He’s handicapped!’

  ‘Well then — why can’t we go on as we are?’

  The long-distance look did not go out of his eyes.

  ‘An’ me stop here i’ th’ wood. I canna!’ he said.

  ‘Why can’t you?’

  ‘I sort o’ canna. I canna abide.’

  She knitted her brows in despair.

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ she said.

  He lifted his shoulders and shook his head.

  ‘I can’t, I say,’ he repeated firmly. ‘I can’t sort of walk about this wood and take orders from Sir Clifford an’ watch every minute of my life for you comin’ — I can’t! I can’t!’

  ‘But you were all right before I did come,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe! But I was allers thinkin’ about Canada. I was allers thinking I should have to go.’

  ‘But now you’ve got me, do you still want to go?’

  ‘Yes! More!’

  ‘But why? Do you hate me?’

  ‘Don’t yer see —’ he said with a peculiar tense smile on his face — ‘it makes me feel small.’

  ‘But why should it?’ she cried.

  ‘Don’t yer see — what sort of a man am I, as couldn’t p
rovide for the very woman as comes to him an’ couldn’t make a home for her an’ couldn’t be seen with her without lowerin’ her — as can’t even have his own children owned to for hisn? What should you think of yourself if you was me?’

  ‘I should be so happy to have a nice woman in love with me, I shouldn’t think of anything else.’

  ‘Ay, ’appen so! But what if you knowed — you knowed you was only a sort of makeshift! That’s all I am!’

  ‘You’re not! You’re the only man I love, really.’

  ‘Ay, so you say! But you’re Lady Chatterley, an’ I’m one o’ th’ servants on th’ place.’

  ‘But what does it matter — all that social stuff?’

  ‘It matters.’

  ‘And what do you want? Do you want me to leave Clifford and come and live in the cottage with you?’

  ‘No I don’t!’ he shook his head with distaste.

  ‘Or do you think I can turn Clifford out, and you can come and live with me in Wragby?’

  ‘What as, your errand boy?’

  ‘Not at all. As Sir Oliver Parkin.’

  ‘Sir Oliver Shit!’

  There was an angry silence. After a while she turned to him.

  ‘Then what do you want?’ her voice changed. ‘Me to go to Canada with you?’ she asked, rather small.

  He did not answer.

  ‘Is that what you mean?’ she insisted fretfully.

  ‘It’s not for me to say,’ he said at last.

  ‘You mean I ought to want to come with you? — Well, I can’t, because I can’t leave Clifford. I’ve sworn I’d never leave him to live alone. And I won’t.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Well then—’ he said.

  ‘What!’ she blurted angrily.

  ‘I can go to Canada alone.’

  She looked at him almost in hate.

  ‘How mean! But how mean!’ she crooned at last. ‘This man that I’ve loved.’

  He stared away, and she lapsed into silence. She rose, and turned to him:

  ‘Very well!’ she said. ‘You go to Canada. If you want any money I’ll give it to you. How much would you like? A hundred pounds?’

  ‘You know I don’t want such a thing,’ he said sheepishly.

  ‘You seem to think you don’t get your dues.’

  ‘It isna that — you know it isn’t.’