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.
Chapter 3
Connie was aware, however, of a growing restlessness. Out of her
disconnexion, a restlessness was taking possession of her like madness. It
twitched her limbs when she didn't want to twitch them, it jerked her spine
when she didn't want to jerk upright but preferred to rest comfortably. It
thrilled inside her body, in her womb, somewhere, till she felt she must
jump into water and swim to get away from it; a mad restlessness. It made
her heart beat violently for no reason. And she was getting thinner.
It was just restlessness. She would rush off across the park, abandon
Clifford, and lie prone in the bracken. To get away from the house...she
must get away from the house and everybody. The work was her one refuge, her
sanctuary.
But it was not really a refuge, a sanctuary, because she had no
connexion with it. It was only a place where she could get away from the
rest. She never really touched the spirit of the wood itself...if it had any
such nonsensical thing.
Vaguely she knew herself that she was going to pieces in some way.
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