Page 263 - lady-chatterlys-lover

Chapter 13

n Sunday Clifford wanted to go into the wood. It was a
Olovely morning, the pear-blossom and plum had sud-
denly appeared in the world in a wonder of white here and
there.
It was cruel for Clifford, while the world bloomed, to
have to be helped from chair to bath-chair. But he had for-
gotten, and even seemed to have a certain conceit of himself
in his lameness. Connie still suffered, having to lift his inert
legs into place. Mrs Bolton did it now, or Field.
She waited for him at the top of the drive, at the edge of
the screen of beeches. His chair came puffing along with a
sort of valetudinarian slow importance. As he joined his
wife he said:
’Sir Clifford on his roaming steed!’
’Snorting, at least!’ she laughed.
He stopped and looked round at the facade of the long,
low old brown house.
’Wragby doesn’t wink an eyelid!’ he said. ‘But then why
should it! I ride upon the achievements of the mind of man,
and that beats a horse.’
’I suppose it does. And the souls in Plato riding up to
heaven in a two-horse chariot would go in a Ford car now,’
she said.
’Or a Rolls-Royce: Plato was an aristocrat!’

Lady Chatterly’s Lover