XI

Mr. Betts drove her in the trap to her house in the village, with the box. And she had to have a few friends in, to show it: the schoolmistress, the chemist’s wife, Mrs. Weedon the under-cashier’s wife. They thought it marvellous. And then started the whisper of Lady Chatterley’s child.

“Wonders’ll never cease!” said Mrs. Weedon.

But Mrs. Bolton was convinced , if it did come, it would be Sir Geoffrey’s child. So there!

Not long after, the rector said gently to Clifford:

“And may we really hope for an heir to Wragby? Ah, that would be the hand of God in mercy, indeed!”

“Well! We may hope ,” said Clifford, with a faint irony, and at the same time, a certain conviction. He had begun to believe it really possible it might even be his child.

Then one afternoon came Leslie Winter, Squire Winter, as everybody called him: lean, immaculate, and seventy: and every inch a gentleman, as Mrs. Bolton said to Mrs. Betts. Every millimetre indeed! And with his old-fashioned, rather haw-haw! manner of speaking, he seemed more out-of-date than bag wigs. Time, in her flight, drops these fine old feathers.

They discussed the collieries. Clifford’s idea was, that his coal, even the poor sort, could be made into hard concentrated fuel that would burn at great heat if fed with certain damp, acidulated air at a fairly strong pressure. It had long been observed that in a particularly strong, wet wind the pit-bank burned very vivid, gave off hardly any fumes, and left a fine powder of ash, instead of the slow pink gravel.

“But where will you find the proper engines for burning your fuel?” asked Winter.