He spoke in a quiet voice, almost as if to a child.
Clifford tried her, and Mellors stepped quickly behind and began to push. She was going, the engine doing about half the work, the man the rest.
Clifford glanced round yellow with anger.
“Will you get off there!”
The keeper dropped his hold at once, and Clifford added: “How shall I know what she is doing!”
The man put his gun down and began to pull on his coat. He’d done.
The chair began slowly to run backwards.
“Clifford, your brake!” cried Connie.
She, Mellors, and Clifford moved at once, Connie and the keeper jostling lightly. The chair stood. There was a moment of dead silence.
“It’s obvious I’m at everybody’s mercy!” said Clifford. He was yellow with anger.
No one answered. Mellors was slinging his gun over his shoulder, his face queer and expressionless, save for an abstracted look of patience. The dog Flossie, standing on guard almost between her master’s legs, moved uneasily, eyeing the chair with great suspicion and dislike, and very much perplexed between the three human beings. The tableau vivant remained set among the squashed bluebells, nobody proffering a word.
“I expect she’ll have to be pushed,” said Clifford at last, with an affectation of sang froid.
No answer. Mellors’ abstracted face looked as if he had heard nothing. Connie glanced anxiously at him. Clifford too glanced round.