But here too she was thinner, and going unripe, astringent.
But the front of her body made her miserable. It was already beginning
to slacken, with a slack sort of thinness, almost withered, going old before
it had ever really lived. She thought of the child she might somehow bear.
Was she fit, anyhow?
She slipped into her nightdress, and went to bed, where she sobbed
bitterly. And in her bitterness burned a cold indignation against Clifford,
and his writings and his talk: against all the men of his sort who defrauded
a woman even of her own body.
Unjust! Unjust! The sense of deep physical injustice burned to her very
soul.
But in the morning, all the same, she was up at seven, and going
downstairs to Clifford. She had to help him in all the intimate things, for
he had no man, and refused a woman-servant. The housekeeper's husband, who
had known him as a boy, helped him, and did any heavy lifting; but Connie
did the personal things, and she did them willingly. It was a demand on her,
but she had wanted to do what she could.
So she hardly ever went away from Wragby, and never for more than a day
or two; when Mrs Betts, the housekeeper, attended to Clifford. He, as was
inevitable in the course of time, took all the service for granted. It was
natural he should.
And yet, deep inside herself, a sense of injustice, of being defrauded,
had begun to burn in Connie. The physical sense of injustice is a dangerous
feeling, once it is awakened. It must have outlet, or it eats away the one
in whom it is aroused. Poor Clifford, he was not to blame. His was the
greater misfortune. It was all part of the general catastrophe.
And yet was he not in a way to blame? This lack of warmth, this lack of
the simple, warm, physical contact, was he not to blame for that? He was
never really warm, nor even kind, only thoughtful, considerate, in a
well-bred, cold sort of way! But never warm as a man can be warm to a woman,
as even Connie's father could be warm to her, with the warmth of a man who
did himself well, and intended to, but who still could comfort it woman with
a bit of his masculine glow.
But Clifford was not like that. His whole race was not like that. They
were all inwardly hard and separate, and warmth to them was just bad taste.
You had to get on without it, and hold your own; which was all very well if
you were of the same class and race. Then you could keep yourself cold and
be very estimable, and hold your own, and enjoy the satisfaction of holding
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