The Go-Between (24 page)

  “My favourite song,” she said. “How high does it
go?”

  “To A,” I said, proud of my top note, half afraid
she would say she couldn’t play it in that key.

  She said nothing but took a ring off her finger and
rather deliberately laid it on the piano-top. Then she settled
herself with a swish of silk that seemed to radiate outwards like a
perfume, and played the opening bars.

  I suppose I had no reason to be grateful to her for
this second deliverance from what I dreaded almost more than
anything: looking a fool in public. For the first I had: she had
taken a lot of trouble to see that I was properly turned out. For
the second it was not her I had to thank, but her gift for music.
Yet I think I valued the second intervention even more, for it was
not her kindness that had rescued me, but one of her graces. I
would not have gone to war for a kindness, perhaps, but for a grace
I would, and did. For I had no doubt, as my voice floated upwards,
who was going, or why. It was I, and for her. She was my Land of
Song. Never did a soldier devote himself to death more
whole-heartedly than I did; I looked forward to it intensely, I
would not have missed it for the world. As for my harp, I could
hardly wait for the moment when I should tear its chords asunder.
It should never sound in slavery, I proclaimed; and I can honestly
say it never has.

  I knew the song so well that I did not have to think
about singing it; my thoughts were free to wander as they pleased;
and though, unlike the other singers, who kept their eyes on the
music, I turned and faced the audience, I could see Marian’s
fingers at work, catch the gleam of her white arms and whiter neck,
and imagine not one, but a whole series of deaths that I should die
for her. Each was quite painless, of course: a crown without a
cross.

  By the silence of the hall I could tell the song was
going down well, but I wasn’t prepared for the storm of clapping,
which, owing to the confined space, had far greater impact and
head-turning quality than the applause that had greeted my catch. I
didn’t know, what I afterwards learned, that far from thinking me a
fool for going on the platform apparently unprovided with the means
to sing, the company had taken it as a sporting gesture. Forgetting
to bow, I stood, while feet stamped and the demands for an encore
grew louder. Marian didn’t join me; she sat at the piano with her
head a little bowed. Once more at a loss, I went to her side and
with some difficulty attracted her attention. I said,
unnecessarily:

  “They want me to sing again.”

  “What else can you sing?” she asked, without looking
up.

  “Well,” I said, “I can sing a song called ‘Angels
ever bright and fair,’ but it’s a sacred song.”

  For a moment her sombre face relaxed into a smile;
then she said, in her abrupt way: “I’m afraid I’m no good to you. I
don’t know the accompaniment to that one.”

  The bottom dropped out of my world, for I was
longing to repeat my triumph, and my emotional temperature was so
high that I had no stamina left in me to meet disappointment. But
while I was trying to look as if I didn’t mind, a voice from the
audience said, in a strong local accent: “I think I’ve got it
‘ere,” and the next moment the speaker was on the platform with a
tattered, paper-covered volume called, I still remember,
The
Star Folio of Popular Songs
.

  “Shall we skip the first bit?” asked Marian, but I
begged her to let me sing it.

     
Oh worse than death, indeed!
Lead me, ye guards,

     
Lead me on to the rack, or to
the flames;

     
I’ll thank your gracious
mercy.

  So ran the recitative, concluding with Handel’s
habitual pom ... pom. I was proud of being able to sing it, for it
was in the most uncompromising minor and the intervals were very
tricky; also I had enough music in me to know that without it the
dulcet air that followed was much less effective. And I liked
singing it because the idea of something worse than death had a
powerful appeal to my imagination; the Minstrel Boy had gone to his
death, but the heroine of this song was threatened with something
worse than death. What it was, I had no idea, but, with my passion
for extremes, I contemplated it with ecstasy. Besides, it was a
woman’s song, and I could feel that I was undergoing these harsh
experiences not only for Marian, but with her.... Together we
confronted the fate worse than death; together we soared to our
apotheosis:

     
Angels! Ever bright and
fair,

     
Take, oh take me to your
care.

     
Speed to your own courts my
flight

     
Clad in robes of virgin
white

     
Clad in robes of virgin
white.

  My being was incandescent with a vision of angels,
robes, virginity, and whiteness, eternally prolonged; and with the
sensation of soaring that the music’s slow ascent so powerfully
evoked. But none of this, I think, got into my voice, for I
regarded singing as a discipline no less than cricket: nothing of
what one felt must be betrayed.

  Marian stayed at the piano and left me to take the
applause alone. But as it grew more insistent she suddenly got up
and took my hand and bowed to the audience; and then, disengaging
her hand, she turned and dropped me a low curtsy.

  I returned to my seat, but not at once to my
pre-song self; the readjustment was too sudden. I had a feeling
that my success (for I couldn’t doubt it had been one) had set me a
little apart; no one said anything to me until someone asked if I
meant to take up singing professionally. I was slightly dashed by
this, for singing was an accomplishment not much esteemed at
school, and now that I had proved my prowess at it I was inclined
to belittle it. “I would rather be a professional cricketer,” I
said. “That’s the spirit,” somebody observed; “Ted had better look
out.” Ted did not take this up. Regarding me speculatively, he
said: “You took those high notes a treat. A real choirboy couldn’t
have done it better. You could have heard a pin drop. We might have
been in church.”

  That was just it; after my religious contribution no
one seemed disposed to come forward with a secular song. It was
getting late; reaction into the spectator’s security made me
sleepy. I must have dozed, for the next thing I heard was Marian’s
voice singing “Home, Sweet Home.” After the musical hazards of the
evening, the boss shots, the successes snatched from the jaws of
failure, the anxiety for myself and others, it was bliss to listen
to that lovely voice extolling the joys of home. I thought of my
home, and how I should return to it after pleasures and palaces;
and I thought of Marian’s and how inappropriate to it the epithet
“humble” was. She sang with so much feeling: did she really long
for peace of mind in a thatched cottage? It didn’t make sense to
me. But I knew there were much grander places than Brandham Hall;
perhaps that explained it. She was thinking of some of the bigger
houses in the district, where they went visiting. It was only
afterwards that I remembered she was singing the song by
request.

  Alone of those who were asked to, Marian would not
give us an encore. The applause that normally brings singer and
audience together had in her case the opposite effect; the harder
we clapped, the farther away from us she seemed. I did not resent
this or even regret it; nor; I think, did anyone. She was not of
our clay, she was a goddess, and we must not think that by
worshipping her we could lower her to our level. If she had said:
“Keep your distance, worms!” I should have rejoiced, and so, I
think, would most of us. The day, the evening, had been full to
overflowing: nothing had been withheld, and perhaps we were never
more conscious of the sum of our good luck than when Marian denied
this final boon.

  “Frog-spawn,” said Marcus as we walked back
together, “you didn’t do so badly after all.”

  I thought it was decent of him to be pleased with my
success, so I said, magnanimously: “Lor lumme, toadstool, in my
place you might have done as well, or better.”

  He said reflectively: “It is true that on certain
occasions I should have tried not to look like a sick cow.”

  “On what occasions?” I demanded rashly, adding:
“It’s better than looking like a stuck pig, any day.”

  Marcus ignored this. “I was thinking of the time
when somebody not a million miles from here was knocked down by a
cricket ball, and lay on his back with his feet in the air, showing
his posterior to all the gaping villagers of Brandham,
Brandham-under-Brandham, Brandham-over-Brandham, and Brandham
Regis.”

  “I didn’t, you po-faced, pot-bellied—”

  “Yes, you did, and another time was when you were
singing the ‘Minstrel Boy,’ which is a silly song anyhow, and you
rolled your eyes just like a sick cow—you really
did
,
Leo—and you sounded like one, too—a cow that is just going to
be
sick. Oo—er—yar—” he gave a dramatic imitation of what
I knew was a physically impossible feat. “I was sitting with Mama
pretending to be a villager—poor dear, she didn’t want them on both
sides of her—and she was convulsed, and so was I—I shouldn’t like
to tell you what I nearly did.”

  “I can guess, you bed-wetter,” I said. This was an
unkind thrust, but I was really put out. “If you weren’t such an
infernal invalid, with knees like jelly and arms like sparrow’s
elbows, I should—”

  “Yes, yes,” said Marcus, pacifically, “you didn’t
really do so badly. I wasn’t as ashamed of you as I expected to be.
And you got rid of that brute Burgess, though it was the biggest
fluke I ever saw. God, when I saw him at the piano with Marian it
made me go all goosy.”

  “Why? “I asked.

  “Don’t ask me, ask Mother. At least don’t ask her;
she feels like I do about the plebs. Anyhow, we’ve said good-bye to
the village for a year. Did you notice the stink in that hall?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Well, not particularly, “ I said, not wanting to
seem insensitive. “I suppose it was a bit whiffy.”

  “Phew! Three times I nearly had to cat: I had to
hold myself with both hands. You must^have a nose like a
rhinoceros, and come to think of it, you
have
: the same
shape, the same two bumps, and just as scaly. But I suppose you
were too busy mooing and rolling your eyes and sucking up the
applause. Golly, you did look pleased with yourself.”

  I felt I could afford to disregard this.

  “And you looked so
pi
, Leo, really
dreadfully
pi
. So did everybody, while you were singing
that church thing about the angels taking care of you. They all
looked as if they were thinking about their dear dead ones, and
Burgess looked as if he might be going to blub. Of course it’s
difficult to know how Trimingham feels, because of his face, but he
didn’t half crack you up to Mama. He’ll eat out of your hand
now.”

  Having allowed me this dewdrop, Marcus paused. We
were approaching the house—the S.W. prospect, I suppose, since the
village lay that side; but I still can’t remember what it looked
like though I remember how bright the moonlight was. I could hear
voices in front of us, but none behind; we had been the last of the
party to leave, largely because I lingered to receive further
congratulations on my performance, which was partly, no doubt, why
Marcus was sore about it, or pretended to be. He peered
dramatically into the bushes and waited till we were demonstrably
out of earshot.

  “Can you keep a secret?” he said, dropping our
schoolboy language.

  “You know I can,” I answered.

  “Yes, but this is very important.”

  I gave extreme pledges of secrecy; that I should
fall down dead if I betrayed his confidence was one of the least
binding.

  “Very well, I’ll tell you, though Mama made me
promise not to tell anyone. But can’t you guess?” Marcus was
evidently afraid that his revelation might fall flat.

  I couldn’t.

  “Marian’s engaged to marry Trimingham—it’ll be
announced after the ball. Are you glad?”

  “Yes,” I said, “I am. I’m sure I am.”

  14

  I REMEMBER Sunday morning as a whitish blur,
soundless, featureless, and motionless. All my wishes had come
true, and I had nothing left to live for. This is usually taken to
mean a state of despair; with me it was bliss. Never, even after
the downfall of Jenkins and Strode, had I had such a supreme sense
of personal triumph. I realized that it was due to extraordinary
luck; the cricket ball might have been a few inches higher, no one
might have been able to play my songs. But that didn’t detract from
my achievement; luck was in love with me, like everyone else. I
stood so high in my own regard that I was beyond the need for
self-assertion, for putting myself across. I was I. It was thanks
to me that we had won the cricket match; thanks to me that the
concert had been the success it was. These were facts that could
not be gain-said.

  A more partial triumph might have made me cocky, as
Marcus thought I should be; but mine was too undeniable, too
absolute. It moved me to awe and wonder, almost to worship. At last
I was free from all my imperfections and limitations; I belonged to
another world, the celestial world. I was one with my dream life.
Of this I needed no confirmation from anyone; and when at breakfast
I was again congratulated on my achievements, it had no more effect
than more fuel under a kettle already boiling.

  But it was not only for myself that I was
triumphant. Marcus’s disclosure had crowned my happiness anew. Of
outside influences, Marian’s favour had been the Jacob’s ladder of
my ascent; had the balance of my feelings for her been disturbed by
a harsh look, I should have fallen, like Icarus. And now she was
just where I wanted her: united to Lord Trimingham, my other idol.
Though I was not worldly, I got some extra satisfaction from the
suitability of the match.