“If I had a child!” she thought to herself; “if I had him inside me as a child!”—and her limbs turned molten at the thought, and she realised the immense difference between having a child to oneself, and having a child to a man whom one’s bowels yearned towards. The former seemed in a sense ordinary: but to have a child to a man whom one adored in one’s bowels and one’s womb, it made her feel she was very different from her old self, and as if she was sinking deep, deep to the centre of all womanhood and the sleep of creation.
It was not the passion that was new to her, it was the yearning adoration. She knew she had always feared it, for it left her helpless; she feared it still, lest if she adored him too much, then she would lose herself, become effaced, and she did not want to be effaced, a slave, like a savage woman. She must not become a slave. She feared her adoration, yet she would not at once fight against it. She knew she could fight it. She had a devil of self-will in her breast that could have fought the full soft heaving adoration of her womb and crushed it. She could even now do it, or she thought so, and she could then take up her passion with her own will.
Ah yes, to be passionate like a Bacchante, like a Bacchanal fleeing through the woods, to call on Iacchos, the bright phallus that had no independent personality behind it, but was pure god-servant to the woman! The man, the individual, let him not dare intrude. He was but a temple-servant, the bearer and keeper of the bright phallus, her own.
So, in the flux of new awakening, the old hard passion flamed in her for a time, and the man dwindled to a contemptible object, the mere phallus-bearer, to be torn to pieces when his service was performed. She felt the force of the Bacchae in her limbs and her body, the woman gleaming and rapid, beating down the male; but while she felt this, her heart was heavy. She did not want it, it was known and barren, birthless; the adoration was her treasure. It was so fathomless, so soft, so deep and so unknown. No, no, she would give up her hard bright female power; she was weary of it, stiffened with it; she would sink in the new bath of life, in the depths of her womb and her bowels that sang the voiceless song of adoration. It was early yet to begin to fear the man.
“I walked over by Marehay, and I had tea with Mrs. Flint,” she said to Clifford. “I wanted to see the baby. It’s so adorable, with hair like red cobwebs. Such a dear! Mr. Flint had gone to market, so she and I and the baby had tea together. Did you wonder where I was?”
“Well, I wondered, but I guessed you had dropped in somewhere to tea,” said Clifford jealously. With a sort of second sight he sensed something new in her, something to him quite incomprehensible, but he ascribed it to the baby. He thought that all that ailed Connie was that she did not have a baby, automatically bring one forth, so to speak.
“I saw you go across the park to the iron gate, my Lady,” said Mrs. Bolton; “so I thought perhaps you’d called at the Rectory.”
“I nearly did, then I turned towards Marehay instead.”
The eyes of the two women met: Mrs. Bolton’s grey and bright and searching; Connie’s blue and veiled and strangely beautiful. Mrs. Bolton was almost sure she had a lover, yet how could it be, and who could it be? Where was there a man?
“Oh, it’s so good for you, if you go out and see a bit of company sometimes,” said Mrs. Bolton. “I was saying to Sir Clifford, it would do her ladyship a world of good if she’d go out among people more.”
“Yes, I’m glad I went, and such a quaint dear cheeky baby, Clifford,” said Connie. “It’s got hair just like spider webs, and bright orange, and the oddest, cheekiest, pale-blue china eyes. Of course it’s a girl, or it wouldn’t be so bold, bolder than any little Sir Francis Drake.”
“You’re right, my Lady—a regular little Flint. They were always a forward sandy-headed family,” said Mrs. Bolton.
“Wouldn’t you like to see it, Clifford? I’ve asked them to tea for you to see it.”
“Who?” he asked, looking at Connie in great uneasiness.
“Mrs. Flint and the baby, next Monday.”
“You can have them to tea up in your room,” he said.
“Why, don’t you want to see the baby?” she cried.
“Oh, I’ll see it, but I don’t want to sit through a teatime with them.”
“Oh,” said Connie, looking at him with wide veiled eyes.
She did not really see him, he was somebody else.
“You can have a nice cosy tea up in your room, my Lady, and Mrs. Flint will be more comfortable than if Sir Clifford was there,” said Mrs. Bolton.
She was sure Connie had a lover, and something in her soul exulted. But who was he? Who was he? Perhaps Mrs. Flint would provide a clue.
Connie would not take her bath this evening. The sense of his flesh touching her, his very stickiness upon her, was dear to her, and in a sense holy.
Clifford was very uneasy. He would not let her go after dinner, and she had wanted so much to be alone. She looked at him, but was curiously submissive.
“Shall we play a game, or shall I read to you, or what shall it be?” he asked uneasily.
“You read to me,” said Connie.
“What shall I read—verse or prose? Or drama?”
“Read Racine,” she said.
It had been one of his stunts in the past, to read Racine in the real French grand manner, but he was rusty
