The Go-Between (39 page)

  “Oh,” said Marian, “I was teaching him a lesson—”
She got no further, for at that moment, as Denys might have done, I
dropped the letter. Crumpled, untouchable, it lay on the ground
between us.

  “Was that the bone of contention?” Mrs. Maudsley
asked.

  Marian picked up the letter and stuffed it in my
pocket.

  “Well, yes, Mama,” she said. “I wanted him to take
this note to Nannie Robson, to tell her, poor old dear, that I
would go and see her some time this afternoon. And would you
believe it, Leo didn’t want to! He pretended he had something on
with Marcus. Yes, you did!” she insisted, smiling when I began to
protest that I would take it.

  “I shouldn’t let it worry you, Marian,” Mrs.
Maudsley said, giving us each in turn her straightest look. “You
say she often doesn’t remember whether you’ve been or not; and I
thought that Leo and I would take a walk in the garden. It’s too
threatening to go to Beeston now. Come along, Leo; I don’t believe
you’ve seen the garden properly; Marcus isn’t interested in flowers
yet—that will come later. “

  It was true that I hadn’t seen the garden properly.
Frankly, I preferred the rubbish-heap, for there I had a sense of
adventure which was absent from the garden. But my mother had told
me something about flowers, and botany was a subject I respected.
In the abstract, flowers delighted me; my fantasies were incomplete
without banks of them in the distance. I liked to think about them
and know that they were there. I liked to read about them,
especially the more sensational kinds, the carnivores: the sundew,
the pitcher-plant, and the teasel, which could turn insects into
soup. But pure flower-gazing was a habit I had not acquired, and in
Mrs. Maudsley’s company I rather dreaded it. Still breathless from
the struggle, and obscurely feeling I needed some protection from
her, I said:

  “Would you like Marcus to come with us?”

  “Oh no, he has had you all the morning, he must
spare you for an hour. He’s very fond of you, you know, Leo, and so
is Marian. We all are.”

  I could not fail to be delighted at this speech, but
how to answer it? Experience at school gave me no clue; such things
were not said there. I invoked my mother’s image and tried to use
her tongue.

  “You have all been so kind to me,” I ventured.

  “Have we? I was afraid we had neglected you, Marcus
being in bed and so on. And I was laid up, too. I hope that they
looked after you all right?”

  “Oh yes, “I said.

  We walked on past the cedar tree to where the
flower-beds began.

  “Well, now,” said Mrs. Maudsley, “here’s the garden.
It looks a bit lop-sided, doesn’t it—with that L-shaped wall? I’m
not sure I should have made it like that, but they keep the east
wind and the north wind off, and then such lovely roses grow on
them. But are you really interested in flowers?”

  I said I was, especially in poisonous ones.

  She smiled. “I don’t think you’ll find many of those
here.”

  To demonstrate my knowledge I began to tell her
about the deadly nightshade, and then stopped. I found I did not
want to speak about it. But she was only half listening.

  “In one of the outhouses, you say? You mean where
the old garden used to be?”

  “Yes, somewhere there ... but—will you tell me what
this rose is called?”

  “Mermaid: isn’t it a beauty? Do you often go to the
outhouses, as you call them? I should have thought it was rather a
dank place.”

  “Yes, but there might be poachers.”

  “Do you mean real poachers?”

  “Oh no, just pretence ones.”

  We stopped by a magnolia with a pink blush on it,
and Mrs. Maudsley said:

  “This always reminds me of Marian. How sweet of you
to say you’d take her note to Nannie Robson! Does she often send
you with messages?”

  I thought as quickly as I could. “Oh no, just once
or twice.”

  “It rather worries me,” said Mrs. Maudsley, “that I
stopped you going just now. Perhaps you would like to go? You know
the way, of course?”

  Here was an opportunity of escape: the door stood
open. But how was I to answer her question?

  “Well, not quite, but I can ask.”

  “You don’t know the way? But I thought you had taken
messages there before?”

  “Yes, well, yes, I have.”

  “But you still don’t know the way?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Listen,” said Mrs. Maudsley, “I think perhaps the
note should be delivered. You have it in your pocket, haven’t you?
I’ll call one of the gardeners and ask him to take it.”

  An icy chill went through me.

  “Oh no, Mrs. Maudsley,” I said, “it’s not a bit
important, please don’t bother.”

  “It is important in a way, you see,” said Mrs.
Maudsley, “because Nannie Robson will want to get ready for her—old
people don’t like being taken unawares. Stanton,” she called,
“could you come here a minute?”

  The nearest gardener put down his tools and came
towards us with a gardener’s gait, swaying and slow. I began to see
his face: it was like an executioner’s. Instinctively I put my
hands in my pockets.

  The gardener touched his cap.

  “Stanton,” said Mrs. Maudsley, “we have a note here
for Miss Robson, rather urgent. Would you mind taking it?”

  “Yes’m,” said Stanton, holding out his hand.

  I dug my fingers into my pockets. Trying not to let
the paper crackle, and wriggling helplessly, “I haven’t got it!” I
exclaimed. “I am very sorry, but it must have fallen out of my
pocket.”

  “Feel again,” said Mrs. Maudsley. “Feel again.”

  I did, without avail.

  “Oh, very well, Stanton,” Mrs. Maudsley said, “just
tell Miss Robson that Miss Marian will be going there some time
this afternoon.”

  The man saluted and went off. I had an impulse to
follow him, simply to get away, and had actually taken a few steps
when I realized how hopeless such a move was, and came back.

  “Had you changed your mind about the note?” asked
Mrs. Maudsley.

  Hating sarcasm, as most children do, I made no
answer, but gazed sullenly at a point half-way up my hostess’s
ample lilac skirt.

  “Take your hands out of your pockets, please,” said
Mrs. Maudsley. “Has no one ever told you not to stand with your
hands in your pockets?”

  Silently I obeyed.

  “I could ask you to turn your pockets out,” she
said, and at once my hands flew to cover them. “But I won’t do
that,” she went on. “I’ll just ask you one question. You say you
have taken messages for Marian before?”

  “Well, I—”

  “I think you said so. If you don’t take them to
Nannie Robson, to whom do you take them?”

  I could not answer, but an answer came. There was a
sound as if the sky was painfully clearing its throat, then all
around the thunder muttered.

  Rain followed instantly. I can’t remember how our
interview broke up, or whether either of us said anything more, nor
do I remember how we reached the house. But I remember running up
to my room to take refuge there, and my dismay when I found it
already occupied by another person. Not by the person himself, but
by his belongings: his glass, silver, leather, ebony, and ivory,
his hairbrushes and sponge and shaving-tackle. I tiptoed out, not
knowing where to go; so I shut myself in the lavatory, and was
rather relieved than alarmed when impatient fingers rattled the
doorknob.

  All of us except Marian and Mrs. Maudsley assembled
at the tea-table. There were several faces strange to me: house
guests for the ball. It was so dark outside that the lamps were
lit; I couldn’t rid myself of the idea that it was dinnertime, not
tea-time. Lacking our hostess, we stood about, watching the
lightning flashes through the windows, and talking desultorily.
Nobody said much to me; I was like a hero or a victim kept apart
until the ceremonies should begin. My thoughts were in a tumult,
yet everything around me appeared normal; in the middle of the
table was my cake, a white iced cake, surrounded by pink candles
and with my pink name scrawled across it. At last, by a concerted
movement in the room, I knew that Mrs. Maudsley had come in. The
others began to cluster around the tea-table, but I hung back.

  “Sit here, please, Leo dear,” said Mrs. Maudsley,
and unwillingly I crept into the place beside her. But her manner
was all affability; I needn’t have been frightened.

  “I’ve had to move you from your room,” she said, “to
Marcus’s. I’m very sorry, but we had to have yours for another,
older bachelor. Marcus is so pleased to have you back. I hope you
don’t mind?”

  “Not at all, “I said.

  “Do you see what’s in front of you?” she asked.

  Quite a lot was in front of me: crackers, flowers
strewn on the tablecloth, and—suddenly I saw it—another cake, a
facsimile of the one in the centre, but tiny, topped by a single
candle, and with my name written on it.

  “Is it for me?” I asked stupidly.

  “Yes, everything’s for you. But, you see, I don’t
like the number thirteen—isn’t it silly of me? I think it’s
unlucky. So we’ve put twelve candles round the big cake, and then,
when they’re blown out, you shall light this one.”

  “When will that be?” I asked.

  “When Marian cornes. She wants to be the first to
give you a present. Don’t try to guess what it is. The others are
on the sideboard waiting for you.”

  I peered across at the sideboard and saw several
parcels, gaily done up in coloured paper. I tried to make out, from
the shapes, what might be in them.

  “Can you wait?” said Mrs. Maudsley, gently
teasing.

  “How soon will it be?” I asked again.

  “About six o’clock, we think. When Marian comes back
from Nannie Robson’s. She won’t be long now, we were so late
starting. My fault, I’m afraid, I wasn’t ready.”

  She smiled, but I noticed that her hands were
shaking.

  “Did you get wet?” I asked. I felt an irresistible
impulse to make some reference to our talk. I couldn’t believe she
had forgotten it.

  “Only a few spots,” Mrs. Maudsley said. “You didn’t
wait for me, you unchivalrous fellow.”

  “Leo unchivalrous?” asked Lord Trimingham, who was
sitting on Mrs. Maudsley’s other side. “I don’t believe it. He’s a
regular lady’s man. Didn’t you know he was Marian’s cavalier?”

  Mrs. Maudsley didn’t answer. Instead she said:
“Isn’t it time that Leo cut the cake?”

  I couldn’t reach it in the middle of the table, so
the cake was brought to me. I didn’t make a very good job of
cutting it.

  “Leave a piece for Marian,” someone said.

  “She ought to be here now,” said Lord Trimingham,
looking at his watch.

  “It’s still raining,” Mr. Maudsley said. “We’d
better send the brougham down to fetch her. Why didn’t we think of
it before?”

  He rang the bell and gave the order.

  “Was it raining when she started?” somebody asked;
but no one could answer, no one had seen her go.

  The cake was eaten, all but one thick wedge that lay
on its side in the middle of the plate, with the candles burning
round it.

  We heard the carriage drive past the windows.

  “She’ll be with us in ten minutes now,” Lord
Trimingham said.

  “And then she has to change, hasn’t she?” said
Marcus.

  “Sh,” said Denys. “That’s a secret, a most important
secret.”

  “What’s a secret?” Mrs. Maudsley asked. “What’s a
secret, Denys?”

  “That Marian’s going to change.”

  “If it’s a secret, why tell it?”

  Denys subsided, but it was Marcus who had given the
show away, not he.

  “She may not have waited for the carriage,” someone
said, “and be walking up in the rain. She’ll have to change then,
poor darling, she’ll be soaked.”

  “What a kind-hearted daughter you have, Mrs.
Maudsley,” said another guest. “It isn’t every girl who would be so
good to her old nannie.”

  “Marian was always very fond of her,” Mrs. Maudsley
said. “Now, Leo, blow those candles out before they set fire to
anything, and then light yours. And have you still room for a bit
of your own special cake?”

  I rose to do her bidding, and the room was soon
filled with the sound of puffing. Slender as they were, the candles
did not take extinction easily, and I was rather breathless before
I began to blow. But stronger and fresher lungs lent me their
aid.

  “Oh, pinch them, pinch them! Lick your fingers
first!”

  At last the smouldering wicks were extinguished. I
lit my one candle and cut myself a piece of my little cake; but I
couldn’t swallow it.

  “He’d rather have his cake than eat it,” someone
said.

  There was a pause; during the last few minutes, I
noticed, every action and almost every remark had been followed by
a pause.

  “She should be here any minute now,” Lord Trimingham
said. No one questioned this.

  “Let’s have a round of crackers,” suggested Mr.
Maudsley. “Here, Leo, come and pull one with me.”

  Everyone found a partner; some their next-door
neighbours, some their opposite numbers. Several of the ladies
screwed their faces up and held their heads back; one or two brave
spirits seized the cardboard strip.

  “Now all together!”

  The detonations were splendid and prolonged. They
joined with the thunder outside to produce a terrific salvo; and I
think only my ears caught the sound of carriage wheels as they
rolled past the windows.

  Caps were put on, dunces’ caps, forage caps, Roman
helmets, crowns; tin whistles shrilled, languishing voices chanted
sentimental rhymes. “Another round, another round!” Everyone began
to search among the debris for unused crackers; soon we were all
rearmed and confronting each other with flushed, challenging faces.
This time my cracker-partner was Mrs. Maudsley. She bent her head
and compressed her lips.