LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 2

Description

• Author: D·H·Lawrence

Connie and Clifford came home to Wragby in the autumn of 1920. Miss
  Chatterley, still disgusted at her brother's defection, had departed
  and was living in a little flat in London.

  Wragby was a long low old house in brown stone, begun about the middle
  of the eighteenth century, and added on to, till it was a warren of
  a place without much distinction. It stood on an eminence in a rather
  line old park of oak trees, but alas, one could see in the near distance
  the chimney of Tevershall pit, with its clouds of steam and smoke, and
  on the damp, hazy distance of the hill the raw straggle of Tevershall
  village, a village which began almost at the park gates, and trailed
  in utter hopeless ugliness for a long and gruesome mile: houses, rows
  of wretched, small, begrimed, brick houses, with black slate roofs for
  lids, sharp angles and wilful, blank dreariness.

Connie was accustomed to Kensington or the Scotch hills or the Sussex
  downs: that was her England. With the stoicism of the young she took
  in the utter, soulless ugliness of the coal-and-iron Midlands at a glance,
  and left it at what it was: unbelievable and not to be thought about.
  From the rather dismal rooms at Wragby she heard the rattle-rattle of
  the screens at the pit, the puff of the winding-engine, the clink-clink
  of shunting trucks, and the hoarse little whistle of the colliery locomotives.
  Tevershall pit-bank was burning, had been burning for years, and it
  would cost thousands to put it out. So it had to burn. And when the
  wind was that way, which was often, the house was full of the stench
  of this sulphurous combustion of the earth's excrement. But even on
  windless days the air always smelt of something under-earth: sulphur,
  iron, coal, or acid. And even on the Christmas roses the smuts settled
  persistently, incredible, like black manna from the skies of doom.

Well, there it was: fated like the rest of things! It was rather awful,
  but why kick? You couldn't kick it away. It just went on. Life, like
  all the rest! On the low dark ceiling of cloud at night red blotches
  burned and quavered, dappling and swelling and contracting, like burns
  that give pain. It was the furnaces. At first they fascinated Connie
  with a sort of horror; she felt she was living underground. Then she
  got used to them. And in the morning it rained.

Clifford professed to like Wragby better than London. This country
  had a grim will of its own, and the people had guts. Connie wondered
  what else they had: certainly neither eyes nor minds. The people were
  as haggard, shapeless, and dreary as the countryside, and as unfriendly.
  Only there was something in their deep-mouthed slurring of the dialect,
  and the thresh-thresh of their hob-nailed pit-boots as they trailed
  home in gangs on the asphalt from work, that was terrible and a bit
  mysterious.

There had been no welcome home for the young squire, no festivities,
  no deputation, not even a single flower. Only a dank ride in a motor-car
  up a dark, damp drive, burrowing through gloomy trees, out to the slope
  of the park where grey damp sheep were feeding, to the knoll where the
  house spread its dark brown facade, and the housekeeper and her husband
  were hovering, like unsure tenants on the face of the earth, ready to
  stammer a welcome.

There was no communication between Wragby Hall and Tevershall village,
  none. No caps were touched, no curtseys bobbed. The colliers merely
  stared; the tradesmen lifted their caps to Connie as to an acquaintance,
  and nodded awkwardly to Clifford; that was all. Gulf impassable, and
  a quiet sort of resentment on either side. At first Connie suffered
  from the steady drizzle of resentment that came from the village. Then
  she hardened herself to it, and it became a sort of tonic, something
  to live up to. It was not that she and Clifford were unpopular, they
  merely belonged to another species altogether from the colliers. Gulf
  impassable, breach indescribable, such as is perhaps nonexistent south
  of the Trent. But in the Midlands and the industrial North gulf impassable,
  across which no communication could take place. You stick to your side,
  I'll stick to mine! A strange denial of the common pulse of humanity.

Yet the village sympathized with Clifford and Connie in the abstract.
  In the flesh it was---You leave me alone!---on either side.

The rector was a nice man of about sixty, full of his duty, and reduced,
  personally, almost to a nonentity by the silent---You leave me alone!---of
  the village. The miners' wives were nearly all Methodists. The miners
  were nothing. But even so much official uniform as the clergyman wore
  was enough to obscure entirely the fact that he was a man like any other
  man. No, he was Mester Ashby, a sort of automatic preaching and praying
  concern.

This stubborn, instinctive---We think ourselves as good as you, if
  you are Lady Chatterley!---puzzled and baffled Connie at first extremely.
  The curious, suspicious, false amiability with which the miners' wives
  met her overtures; the curiously offensive tinge of---Oh dear me! I
  am somebody now, with Lady Chatterley talking to me! But she needn't
  think I'm not as good as her for all that!---which she always heard
  twanging in the women's half-fawning voices, was impossible. There was
  no getting past it. It was hopelessly and offensively nonconformist.

Clifford left them alone, and she learnt to do the same: she just went
  by without looking at them, and they stared as if she were a walking
  wax figure. When he had to deal with them, Clifford was rather haughty
  and contemptuous; one could no longer afford to be friendly. In fact
  he was altogether rather supercilious and contemptuous of anyone not
  in his own class. He stood his ground, without any attempt at conciliation.
  And he was neither liked nor disliked by the people: he was just part
  of things, like the pit-bank and Wragby itself.

But Clifford was really extremely shy and self-conscious now he was
  lamed. He hated seeing anyone except just the personal servants. For
  he had to sit in a wheeled chair or a sort of bath-chair. Nevertheless
  he was just as carefully dressed as ever, by his expensive tailors,
  and he wore the careful Bond Street neckties just as before, and from
  the top he looked just as smart and impressive as ever. He had never
  been one of the modern ladylike young men: rather bucolic even, with
  his ruddy face and broad shoulders. But his very quiet, hesitating voice,
  and his eyes, at the same time bold and frightened, assured and uncertain,
  revealed his nature. His manner was often offensively supercilious,
  and then again modest and self-effacing, almost tremulous.

Connie and he were attached to one another, in the aloof modern way.
  He was much too hurt in himself, the great shock of his maiming, to
  be easy and flippant. He was a hurt thing. And as such Connie stuck
  to him passionately.

But she could not help feeling how little connexion he really had with
  people. The miners were, in a sense, his own men; but he saw them as
  objects rather than men, parts of the pit rather than parts of life,
  crude raw phenomena rather than human beings along with him. He was
  in some way afraid of them, he could not bear to have them look at him
  now he was lame. And their queer, crude life seemed as unnatural as
  that of hedgehogs.

He was remotely interested; but like a man looking down a microscope,
  or up a telescope. He was not in touch. He was not in actual touch with
  anybody, save, traditionally, with Wragby, and, through the close bond
  of family defence, with Emma. Beyond this nothing really touched him.
  Connie felt that she herself didn't really, not really touch him; perhaps
  there was nothing to get at ultimately; just a negation of human contact.

Yet he was absolutely dependent on her, he needed her every moment.
  Big and strong as he was, he was helpless. He could wheel himself about
  in a wheeled chair, and he had a sort of bath-chair with a motor attachment,
  in which he could puff slowly round the park. But alone he was like
  a lost thing. He needed Connie to be there, to assure him he existed
  at all.

Still he was ambitious. He had taken to writing stories; curious, very
  personal stories about people he had known. Clever, rather spiteful,
  and yet, in some mysterious way, meaningless. The observation was extraordinary
  and peculiar. But there was no touch, no actual contact. It was as if
  the whole thing took place in a vacuum. And since the field of life
  is largely an artificially-lighted stage today, the stories were curiously
  true to modern life, to the modern psychology, that is.

Clifford was almost morbidly sensitive about these stories. He wanted
  everyone to think them good, of the best, ne plus ultra. They appeared
  in the most modern magazines, and were praised and blamed as usual.
  But to Clifford the blame was torture, like knives goading him. It was
  as if the whole of his being were in his stories.

Connie helped him as much as she could. At first she was thrilled.
  He talked everything over with her monotonously, insistently, persistently,
  and she had to respond with all her might. It was as if her whole soul
  and body and sex had to rouse up and pass into theme stories of his.
  This thrilled her and absorbed her.

Of physical life they lived very little. She had to superintend the
  house. But the housekeeper had served Sir Geoffrey for many years, arid
  the dried-up, elderly, superlatively correct female you could hardly
  call her a parlour-maid, or even a woman...who waited at table, had
  been in the house for forty years. Even the very housemaids were no
  longer young. It was awful! What could you do with such a place, but
  leave it alone! All these endless rooms that nobody used, all the Midlands
  routine, the mechanical cleanliness and the mechanical order! Clifford
  had insisted on a new cook, an experienced woman who had served him
  in his rooms in London. For the rest the place seemed run by mechanical
  anarchy. Everything went on in pretty good order, strict cleanliness,
  and strict punctuality; even pretty strict honesty. And yet, to Connie,
  it was a methodical anarchy. No warmth of feeling united it organically.
  The house seemed as dreary as a disused street.

What could she do but leave it alone? So she left it alone. Miss Chatterley
  came sometimes, with her aristocratic thin face, and triumphed, finding
  nothing altered. She would never forgive Connie for ousting her from
  her union in consciousness with her brother. It was she, Emma, who should
  be bringing forth the stories, these books, with him; the Chatterley
  stories, something new in the world, that they, the Chatterleys, had
  put there. There was no other standard. There was no organic connexion
  with the thought and expression that had gone before. Only something
  new in the world: the Chatterley books, entirely personal.

Connie's father, where he paid a flying visit to Wragby, and in private
  to his daughter: As for Clifford's writing, it's smart, but there's
  nothing in it. It won't last! Connie looked at the burly Scottish knight
  who had done himself well all his life, and her eyes, her big, still-wondering
  blue eyes became vague. Nothing in it! What did he mean by nothing in
  it? If the critics praised it, and Clifford's name was almost famous,
  and it even brought in money...what did her father mean by saying there
  was nothing in Clifford's writing? What else could there be?

For Connie had adopted the standard of the young: what there was in
  the moment was everything. And moments followed one another without
  necessarily belonging to one another.

It was in her second winter at Wragby her father said to her: `I hope,
  Connie, you won't let circumstances force you into being a demi-vierge.'

`A demi-vierge!' replied Connie vaguely. `Why? Why not?'

`Unless you like it, of course!' said her father hastily. To Clifford
  he said the same, when the two men were alone: `I'm afraid it doesn't
  quite suit Connie to be a demi-vierge.'

`A half-virgin!' replied Clifford, translating the phrase to be sure
  of it.

He thought for a moment, then flushed very red. He was angry and offended.

`In what way doesn't it suit her?' he asked stiffly.

`She's getting thin...angular. It's not her style. She's not the pilchard
  sort of little slip of a girl, she's a bonny Scotch trout.'

`Without the spots, of course!' said Clifford.

He wanted to say something later to Connie about the demi-vierge business...the
  half-virgin state of her affairs. But he could not bring himself to
  do it. He was at once too intimate with her and not intimate enough.
  He was so very much at one with her, in his mind and hers, but bodily
  they were non-existent to one another, and neither could bear to drag
  in the corpus delicti. They were so intimate, and utterly out of touch.

Connie guessed, however, that her father had said something, and that
  something was in Clifford's mind. She knew that he didn't mind whether
  she were demi-vierge or demi-monde, so long as he didn't absolutely
  know, and wasn't made to see. What the eye doesn't see and the mind
  doesn't know, doesn't exist.

Connie and Clifford had now been nearly two years at Wragby, living
  their vague life of absorption in Clifford and his work. Their interests
  had never ceased to flow together over his work. They talked and wrestled
  in the throes of composition, and felt as if something were happening,
  really happening, really in the void.

And thus far it was a life: in the void. For the rest it was non-existence.
  Wragby was there, the servants...but spectral, not really existing.
  Connie went for walks in the park, and in the woods that joined the
  park, and enjoyed the solitude and the mystery, kicking the brown leaves
  of autumn, and picking the primroses of spring. But it was all a dream;
  or rather it was like the simulacrum of reality. The oak-leaves were
  to her like oak-leaves seen ruffling in a mirror, she herself was a
  figure somebody had read about, picking primroses that were only shadows
  or memories, or words. No substance to her or anything...no touch, no
  contact! Only this life with Clifford, this endless spinning of webs
  of yarn, of the minutiae of consciousness, these stories Sir Malcolm
  said there was nothing in, and they wouldn't last. Why should there
  be anything in them, why should they last? Sufficient unto the day is
  the evil thereof. Sufficient unto the moment is the appearance of reality.

Clifford had quite a number of friends, acquaintances really, and he
  invited them to Wragby. He invited all sorts of people, critics and
  writers, people who would help to praise his books. And they were flattered
  at being asked to Wragby, and they praised. Connie understood it all
  perfectly. But why not? This was one of the fleeting patterns in the
  mirror. What was wrong with it?

She was hostess to these people...mostly men. She was hostess also
  to Clifford's occasional aristocratic relations. Being a soft, ruddy,
  country-looking girl, inclined to freckles, with big blue eyes, and
  curling, brown hair, and a soft voice, and rather strong, female loins
  she was considered a little old-fashioned and `womanly'. She was not
  a `little pilchard sort of fish', like a boy, with a boy's flat breast
  and little buttocks. She was too feminine to be quite smart.

So the men, especially those no longer young, were very nice to her
  indeed. But, knowing what torture poor Clifford would feel at the slightest
  sign of flirting on her part, she gave them no encouragement at all.
  She was quiet and vague, she had no contact with them and intended to
  have none. Clifford was extraordinarily proud of himself.

His relatives treated her quite kindly. She knew that the kindliness
  indicated a lack of fear, and that these people had no respect for you
  unless you could frighten them a little. But again she had no contact.
  She let them be kindly and disdainful, she let them feel they had no
  need to draw their steel in readiness. She had no real connexion with
  them.

Time went on. Whatever happened, nothing happened, because she was
  so beautifully out of contact. She and Clifford lived in their ideas
  and his books. She entertained...there were always people in the house.
  Time went on as the clock does, half past eight instead of half past
  seven.

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1. Ebooks list page : 86
2. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 10
3. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 17
4. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 14
5. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 6
6. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 1
7. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 11
8. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 9
9. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 3
10. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 8
11. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 7
12. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 5
13. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 4
14. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 13
15. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 16
16. LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER: CHAPTER 19