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’But why not? I see other men carried in litter-chairs,
who have been wounded in the war. Besides, we’d motor
all the way.’
’We should need to take two men.’
’Oh no! We’d manage with Field. There would always be
another man there.’
But Clifford shook his head.
’Not this year, dear! Not this year! Next year probably
I’ll try.’
She went away gloomily. Next year! What would next
year bring? She herself did not really want to go to Venice:
not now, now there was the other man. But she was going as
a sort of discipline: and also because, if she had a child, Clif-
ford could think she had a lover in Venice.
It was already May, and in June they were supposed to
start. Always these arrangements! Always one’s life ar-
ranged for one! Wheels that worked one and drove one, and
over which one had no real control!
It was May, but cold and wet again. A cold wet May, good
for corn and hay! Much the corn and hay matter nowadays!
Connie had to go into Uthwaite, which was their little town,
where the Chatterleys were still THEChatterleys. She went
alone, Field driving her.
In spite of May and a new greenness, the country was
dismal. It was rather chilly, and there was smoke on the
rain, and a certain sense of exhaust vapour in the air. One
just had to live from one’s resistance. No wonder these peo-
ple were ugly and tough.
The car ploughed uphill through the long squalid straggle

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