without making a sound to disturb Sir Clifford.
The daylight began to rustle into the world, and the dark figure seemed
to go smaller and more defined. She made out the gun and gaiters and baggy
jacket---it would be Oliver Mellors, the keeper. `Yes, for there was the dog
nosing around like a shadow, and waiting for him'!
And what did the man want? Did he want to rouse the house? What was he
standing there for, transfixed, looking up at the house like a love-sick
male dog outside the house where the bitch is?
Goodness! The knowledge went through Mrs Bolton like a shot. He was
Lady Chatterley's lover! He! He!
To think of it! Why, she, Ivy Bolton, had once been a tiny bit in love
with him herself. When he was a lad of sixteen and she a woman of
twenty-six. It was when she was studying, and he had helped her a lot with
the anatomy and things she had had to learn. He'd been a clever boy, had a
scholarship for Sheffield Grammar School, and learned French and things: and
then after all had become an overhead blacksmith shoeing horses, because he
was fond of horses, he said: but really because he was frightened to go out
and face the world, only he'd never admit it.
But he'd been a nice lad, a nice lad, had helped her a lot, so clever
at making things clear to you. He was quite as clever as Sir Clifford: and
always one for the women. More with women than men, they said.
Till he'd gone and married that Bertha Coutts, as if to spite himself.
Some people do marry to spite themselves, because they're disappointed of
something. And no wonder it had been a failure.---For years he was gone, all
the time of the war: and a lieutenant and all: quite the gentleman, really
quite the gentleman!---Then to come back to Tevershall and go as a
game-keeper! Really, some people can't take their chances when they've got
them! And talking broad Derbyshire again like the worst, when she, Ivy
Bolton, knew he spoke like any gentleman, really.
Well, well! So her ladyship had fallen for him! Well her ladyship
wasn't the first: there was something about him. But fancy! A Tevershall lad
born and bred, and she her ladyship in Wragby Hall! My word, that was a slap
back at the high-and-mighty Chatterleys!
But he, the keeper, as the day grew, had realized: it's no good! It's
no good trying to get rid of your own aloneness. You've got to stick to it
all your life. Only at times, at times, the gap will be filled in. At times!
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