Inspirations Read online

  She was nearly at the wide riding when he came up and flung his naked arm round her soft, naked-wet middle. She gave a shriek and straightened herself, and the heap of her soft, chill flesh came up against his body. He pressed it all up against him, madly, the heap of soft chilled female flesh that became quickly warm as flame, in contact. The rain streamed on them till they smoked. He gathered her lovely, heavy posteriors one in each hand and pressed them in towards him in a frenzy, quivering motionless in the rain. Then suddenly he tipped her up and fell with her on the path, in the roaring silence of the rain, and short and sharp, he took her, short and sharp and finished, like an animal.

  He got up in an instant, wiping the rain from his eyes.

  ‘Come in,’ he said, and they started running back to the hut. He ran straight and swift: he didn’t like the rain. But she came slower, gathering forget-me-nots and campion and bluebells, running a few steps, and watching him fleeting away from her.

  When she came with her flowers, panting to the hut, he had already started a fire, and the twigs were crackling. Her sharp breasts rose and fell, her hair was plastered down with rain, her face was flushed ruddy and her body glistened and trickled. Wide-eyed and breathless, with a small wet head and full, trickling, naïve haunches, she looked another creature.

  He took the old sheet and rubbed her down, she standing like a child. Then he rubbed himself, having shut the door of the hut. The fire was blazing up. She ducked her head in the other end of the sheet, and rubbed her wet hair.

  ‘We’re drying ourselves together on the same towel, we shall quarrel!’ he said.

  She looked up for a moment, her hair all odds and ends.

  ‘No!’ she said, her eyes wide. ‘It’s not a towel, it’s a sheet.’

  And she went on busily rubbing her head, while he busily rubbed his.

  Still panting with their exertions, each wrapped in an army blanket, but the front of the body open to the fire, they sat on a log side by side before the blaze, to get quiet. Connie hated the feel of the blanket against her skin. But now the sheet was all wet.

  She dropped her blanket and kneeled on the clay hearth, holding her head to the fire, and shaking her hair, to dry it. He watched the beautiful, curving drop of her haunches. That fascinated him today. How it sloped with a rich down-slope, to the heavy roundness of her buttocks! And in between, folded in the secret warmth, the secret entrances!

  He stroked her tail with his hand, long and subtly taking in the curves and the globe-fulness.

  ‘Tha’s got such a nice tail on thee,’ he said, in the throaty, caressive dialect. ‘Tha’s got the nicest arse of anybody. It’s the nicest, nicest woman’s arse as is! An’ ivry bit of it is woman, woman sure as nuts. Tha’rt not one o’ them button-arsed lasses as should be lads, are ter! Tha’s got a real soft sloping bottom on thee, as a man loves in ’is guts. It’s a bottom as could hold the world up, it is.’

  All the while he spoke he exquisitely stroked the rounded tail, till it seemed as if a slippery sort of fire came from it into his hand. And his finger-tips touched the two secret openings to her body, time after time, with a soft little brush of fire.

  ‘An’ if tha shits an’ if tha pisses, I’m glad. I don’t want a woman as couldna shit nor piss.’ Connie could not help a sudden snort of astonished laughter, but he went on unmoved. ‘Tha’rt real, tha art! Tha’rt real, even a bit of a bitch. Here tha shits an’ here tha pisses: an’ I lay my hand on ’em both, an’ I like thee for it. I like thee for it. Tha’s got a proper, woman’s arse, proud of itself. It’s none ashamed of itself, this isna.’

  He laid his hand close and firm over her secret places, in a kind of close greeting.

  ‘I like it,’ he said. ‘I like it! An’ if I only lived ten minutes, an’ stroked thy arse an’ got to know it, I should reckon I’d lived one life, sees ter! Industrial system or not! Here’s one o’ my lifetimes.’

  She turned round and climbed into his lap, clinging to him.

  ‘Kiss me!’ she whispered.

  And she knew the thought of their separation was latent in both their minds, and at last she was sad.

  She sat on his thighs, her head against his breast, and her ivory-gleaming legs loosely apart, the fire glowing unequally upon them. Sitting with his head dropped, he looked at the folds of her body in the fire-glow, and at the fleece of soft brown hair that hung down to a point between her open thighs. He reached to the table behind, and took up her bunch of flowers, still so wet that drops of rain fell on to her.

  ‘Flowers stops out of doors all weathers,’ he said. ‘They have no houses.’

  ‘Not even a hut!’ she murmured.

  With quiet fingers he threaded a few forget-me-not flowers in the fine brown fleece of the mount of Venus.

  ‘There!’ he said. ‘There’s forget-me-nots in the right place!’

  She looked down at the milky, odd little flowers among the brown maidenhair at the lower tip of her body.

  ‘Doesn’t it look pretty!’ she said.

  ‘Pretty as life,’ he replied.

  And he stuck a pink campion-bud among the hair.

  ‘There! That’s me where you won’t forget me! That’s Moses in the bull-rushes.’

  ‘You don’t mind, do you, that I’m going away?’ she asked wistfully, looking up into his face.

  But his face was inscrutable, under the heavy brows. He kept it quite blank.

  ‘You do as you wish,’ he said.

  And he spoke in good English.

  ‘But I won’t go if you don’t wish it,’ she said, clinging to him.

  There was silence. He leaned and put another piece of wood on the fire. The flame glowed on his silent, abstracted face. She waited, but he said nothing.

  ‘Only I thought it would be a good way to begin a break with Clifford. I do want a child. And it would give me a chance to – to—’ she resumed.

  ‘To let them think a few lies,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, that among other things. Do you want them to think the truth?’

  ‘I don’t care what they think.’

  ‘I do! I don’t want them handling me with their unpleasant cold minds: not while I’m still at Wragby. They can think what they like when I’m finally gone.’

  He was silent.

  ‘But Sir Clifford expects you to come back to him?’

  ‘Oh, I must come back,’ she said: and there was silence.

  ‘And would you have a child in Wragby?’ he asked.

  She closed her arm round his neck.

  ‘If you wouldn’t take me away, I should have to,’ she said.

  ‘Take you where to?’

  ‘Anywhere! – away! But right away from Wragby.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Why – when I come back—’

  ‘But what’s the good of coming back – doing the thing twice – if you’re once gone?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I must come back. I’ve promised! I’ve promised so faithfully! Besides, I come back to you, really.’

  ‘To your husband’s gamekeeper?’

  ‘I don’t see that that matters,’ she said.

  ‘No?’ he mused awhile. ‘And when would you think of going away again, then, finally? when exactly?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’d come back from Venice – and then we’d prepare everything.’

  ‘How prepare?’

  ‘Oh – I’d tell Clifford. I’d have to tell him.’

  ‘Would you!’

  He remained silent. She put her arms fast round his neck.

  ‘Don’t make it difficult for me,’ she pleaded.

  ‘Make what difficult?’

  ‘For me to go to Venice – and arrange things.’

  A little smile, half a grin, flickered on his face.

  ‘I don’t make it difficult,’ he said. ‘I only want to find out just what you’re after. But you don’t really know yourself. You want to take time: get away and look at it. I don’t blame you. I think you’re wise. You may pref
er to stay mistress of Wragby. I don’t blame you. I’ve no Wragbys to offer. In fact, you know what you’ll get out of me. No no, I think you’re right! I really do! And I’m not keen on coming to live on you, being kept by you. There’s that too.’

  She felt, somehow, as if he were giving her tit for tat.

  ‘But you want me, don’t you?’ she asked.

  ‘Do you want me?’

  ‘You know I do. That’s evident.’

  ‘Quite! And when do you want me?’

  ‘You know we can arrange it all when I come back. Now I’m out of breath with you. I must get calm and clear.’

  ‘Quite! Get calm and clear!’

  She was a little offended.

  ‘But you trust me, don’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, absolutely!’

  She heard the mockery in his tone.

  ‘Tell me then,’ she said flatly; ‘do you think it would be better if I don’t go to Venice?’

  ‘I’m sure it’s better if you do go to Venice,’ he replied, in the cool, slightly mocking voice.

  ‘You know it’s next Thursday?’ she said.

  ‘Yes!’

  She now began to muse. At last she said:

  ‘And we shall know better where we are when I come back, shan’t we?’

  ‘Oh surely!’

  The curious gulf of silence between them!

  ‘I’ve been to the lawyer about my divorce,’ he said, a little constrainedly.

  She gave a slight shudder.

  ‘Have you!’ she said. ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He said I ought to have done it before – that may be a difficulty. But since I was in the army – he thinks it’ll go through all right. – If only it doesn’t bring her down on my head!’

  ‘Will she have to know?’

  ‘Yes! She is served with a notice: so is the man she lives with, the co-respondent—’

  ‘Isn’t it hateful, all the performances! I suppose I’d have to go through it with Clifford—’

  There was a silence.

  ‘And of course,’ he said, ‘I have to live an exemplary life for the next six or eight months. So if you go to Venice, there’s temptation removed for a week or two, at least.’

  ‘Am I temptation!’ she said, stroking his face. ‘I’m so glad I’m temptation to you! – Don’t let’s think about it! You frighten me when you start thinking: you roll me out flat. Don’t let’s think about it. We can think so much when we’re apart. That’s the whole point! – I’ve been thinking, I must come to you for another night before I go. I must come once more to the cottage. Shall I come on Thursday night?’

  ‘Isn’t that when your sister will be there?’

  ‘Yes! But she said we’d start at tea-time. So we could start at tea-time. But she could sleep somewhere else, and I could sleep with you.’

  ‘But then she’d have to know.’

  ‘Oh, I shall tell her. I’ve more or less told her already. I must talk it all over with Hilda: she’s a great help, so sensible.’

  He was thinking of her plan.

  ‘So you’d start off from Wragby at tea-time, as if you were going to London? Which way were you going?’

  ‘By Nottingham and Grantham.’

  ‘And then your sister would drop you somewhere, and you’d walk or drive back here? Sounds very risky, to me.’

  ‘Does it? – Well then – well then, Hilda could bring me back. She could sleep at Mansfield, and bring me back here in the evening, and fetch me again in the morning. It’s quite easy.’

  ‘And the people who see you?’

  ‘I’ll wear goggles and a veil.’

  He pondered for some time.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you please yourself, as usual.’

  ‘But wouldn’t it please you?’

  ‘Oh yes! It’d please me all right,’ he said, a little grimly. ‘I might as well smite while the iron’s hot.’

  ‘Do you know what I thought?’ she said suddenly. ‘It suddenly came to me. You are the “Knight of the Burning Pestle”.’

  ‘Ay! And you? Are you the Lady of the Red-hot Mortar?’

  ‘Yes!’ she said. ‘Yes! You’re Sir Pestle and I’m Lady Mortar.’

  ‘All right – then I’m knighted. John Thomas is Sir John, to your Lady Jane.’

  ‘Yes! John Thomas is knighted! I’m my-lady-maidenhair, and you must have flowers too. Yes!’

  She threaded two pink campions in the bush of red-gold hair above his penis.

  ‘There!’ she said. ‘Charming! Charming! Sir John!’

  And she pushed a bit of forget-me-not in the dark hair of his breast.

  ‘And you won’t forget me there, will you?’ She kissed him on the breast, and made two bits of forget-me-not lodge one over each nipple, kissing him again.

  ‘Make a calendar of me!’ he said. He laughed, and the flowers shook from his breast.

  ‘Wait a bit!’ he said.

  He rose, and opened the door of the hut. Flossie, lying on the porch, got up and looked at him.

  ‘Ay, it’s me!’ he said.

  The rain had ceased. There was a wet, heavy, perfumed stillness. Evening was approaching.

  He went out and down the little path in the opposite direction from the riding. Connie watched his thin, white figure, and it looked to her like a ghost, an apparition moving away from her. When she could see it no more, her heart sank. She stood in the door of the hut, with a blanket round her, looking into the drenched, motionless silence.

  But he was coming back, trotting strangely, and carrying flowers. She was a little afraid of him, as if he were not quite human. And when he came near, his eyes looked into hers, but she could not understand the meaning.

  He had brought columbines and campions, and new-mownhay, and oak-tufts and honeysuckle in small bud. He fastened fluffy young oak-sprays round her head, and honeysuckle withes round her breasts, sticking in tufts of bluebells and campion: and in her navel he poised a pink campion flower, and in her maidenhair were forget-me-nots and wood-ruff.

  ‘That’s you in all your glory!’ he said. ‘Lady Jane, at her wedding with John Thomas.’

  And he stuck flowers in the hair of his own body, and wound a bit of creeping-jenny round his penis, and stuck a single bell of a hyacinth in his navel. She watched him with amusement, his odd intentness. And she pushed a campion flower in his moustache, where it stuck, dangling under his nose.

  ‘This is John Thomas marryin’ Lady Jane,’ he said. ‘An’ we mun let Constance an’ Oliver go their ways. Maybe—’ He spread out his hand with a gesture, and then he sneezed, sneezing away the flowers from his nose and his navel. He sneezed again.

  ‘Maybe what?’ she said, waiting for him to go on.

  He looked at her a little bewildered.

  ‘Eh?’ he said.

  ‘Maybe what? Go on with what you were going to say,’ she insisted.

  ‘Ay, what was I going to say?—’

  He had forgotten. And it was one of the disappointments of her life, that he never finished.

  A yellow ray of sun shone over the trees.

  ‘Sun!’ he said. ‘And time you went. Time, my lady, time! What’s that as flies without wings, your ladyship? Time! Time!’

  He reached for his shirt.

  ‘Say goodnight! to John Thomas,’ he said, looking down at his penis. ‘He’s safe in the arms of creeping-jenny! Not much burning pestle about him just now.’

  And he put his thin flannel shirt over his head.

  ‘A man’s most dangerous moment,’ he said, when his head had emerged, ‘is when he’s getting into his shirt. Then he puts his head in a bag. That’s why I prefer those American shirts, that you put on like a jacket.’ She still stood watching him. He stepped into his short drawers, and buttoned them round the waist.

  ‘Look at Jane!’ he said. ‘In all her blossoms! Who’ll put blossoms on you next year, Jinny? Me, or somebody else? “Good-bye my bluebell, farewell to you—!” I hate that song, it’
s early war days.’ He had sat down, and was pulling on his stockings. She still stood unmoving. He laid his hand on the slope of her buttocks. ‘Pretty little lady Jane!’ he said. ‘Perhaps in Venice you’ll find a man who’ll put jasmine in your maidenhair, and a pomegranate flower in your navel. Poor little lady Jane!’

  ‘Don’t say those things!’ she said. ‘You only say them to hurt me.’

  He dropped his head. Then he said, in dialect:

  ‘Ay, maybe I do, maybe I do! Well then, I’ll say nowt, an’ ha’ done wi’ it. But tha mun dress thysen, an’ go back to thy stately homes of England, how beautiful they stand. Time’s up! Time’s up for Sir John, an’ for little lady Jane! Put thy shimmy on, Lady Chatterley! Tha might be anybody, standin’ there be-out even a shimmy, an’ a few rags o’ flowers. There then, there then, I’ll undress thee, tha bob-tailed young throstle—’ And he took the leaves from her hair, kissing her damp hair, and the flowers from her breasts, and kissed her breasts, and kissed her navel, and kissed her maidenhair, where he left the flowers threaded. ‘They mun stop while they will,’ he said. ‘So! There tha ’rt bare again, nowt but a bare-arsed lass an’ a bit of a lady Jane! Now put thy shimmy on, for tha mun go, or else Lady Chatterley’s goin’ to be late for dinner, an’ where ’ave yer been to my pretty maid!’

  She never knew how to answer him when he was in this condition of the vernacular. So she dressed herself and prepared to go a little ignominiously home to Wragby. Or so she felt it: a little ignominiously home.

  He would accompany her to the broad riding. His young pheasants were all right under the shelter.

  When he and she came out on to the riding, there was Mrs Bolton faltering palely towards them.

  ‘Oh, my Lady, we wondered if anything had happened!’

  ‘No! Nothing has happened.’

  Mrs Bolton looked into the man’s face, that was smooth and new-looking with love. She met his half-laughing, half-mocking eyes. He always laughed at mischance. But he looked at her kindly.