Page 292 - lady-chatterlys-lover

He had taken off his leggings and was unlacing his heavy
boots. Connie had turned from the fire. How bare the little
room was! Yet over his head on the wall hung a hideous en-
larged photograph of a young married couple, apparently
him and a bold-faced young woman, no doubt his wife.
’Is that you?’ Connie asked him.
He twisted and looked at the enlargement above his
head.
’Ay! Taken just afore we was married, when I was twenty-
one.’ He looked at it impassively.
’Do you like it?’ Connie asked him.
’Like it? No! I never liked the thing. But she fixed it all up
to have it done, like.’
He returned to pulling off his boots.
’If you don’t like it, why do you keep it hanging there?
Perhaps your wife would like to have it,’ she said.
He looked up at her with a sudden grin.
’She carted off iverything as was worth taking from th’
‘ouse,’ he said. ‘But she left THAT!’
’Then why do you keep it? for sentimental reasons?’
’Nay, I niver look at it. I hardly knowed it wor theer. It’s
bin theer sin’ we come to this place.’
’Why don’t you burn it?’ she said.
He twisted round again and looked at the enlarged pho-
tograph. It was framed in a brown-and-gilt frame, hideous.
It showed a clean-shaven, alert, very young-looking man
in a rather high collar, and a somewhat plump, bold young
woman with hair fluffed out and crimped, and wearing a
dark satin blouse.

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