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Chapter 22
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Go-Between, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Social Class and Hierarchy
Coming of Age and Trauma
Masculinity
Fate, Myth, and Magic
Love, Sex, and Marriage
Summary
Analysis
That afternoon, Mrs. Maudsley is unsure what the group should do because of the ominous weather. Marian takes Leo outside under the pretense of looking at the weather, but to his surprise hands him another letter.
Hartley employs the pathetic fallacy to indicate a change in mood: the weather reflects the action of the story. Marian continues to be duplicitous in order to continue her secret communications.
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Marian playfights with Leo, telling him to take the letter and making him laugh. The noise brings Mrs. Maudsley outside to ask what the two of them are fighting about. Leo drops the letter, which Marian quickly says is the reason they were messing around. She says it is addressed to Nannie Robson, her grandmother, and announces that Marian will visit that afternoon; she says that she had asked Leo to take it.
Marian has to come up with a lie quickly, hoping that the mention of her grandmother will convince Mrs. Maudsley and make Marian seem like a caring, family-orientated woman. Mrs. Maudsley’s sudden appearance outside implies that she is still suspicious of Marian.
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Mrs. Maudsley tells Marian not to worry about informing Nannie Robson, and insists on taking Leo for a walk around the gardens. He asks if Marcus can come too, which she refuses. As they walk, Mrs. Maudsley talks to Leo about flowers; Leo volunteers his knowledge of the deadly nightshade, instantly feeling that he shouldn’t have.
They stop by a magnolia with a pink blush, which Mrs. Maudsley says reminds her of Marian. She asks if Marian often sends him on errands to Nannie Robson, and says she feels bad that she stopped him just now. Leo lies and says he’s been there once or twice. She says that perhaps he would like to go now: “You know the way, of course?” Leo says that he can ask, which makes Mrs. Maudsley suspicious—Leo has just said that he’s been there before.
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Mrs. Maudsley suggests that she can have one of the gardeners take the note. The nearest gardener comes over and agrees to take the note. Leo panics and pretends to have lost it. She tells the gardener to go to Nannie Robson regardless and tell her to expect Marian in the afternoon.
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Mrs. Maudsley instructs Leo to take his hands out of his pockets. She warns him that she could make him turn his pockets out if she wanted. She asks Leo who he has taken notes to before, if it’s not Nannie Robson. Leo cannot answer and runs up to his room as the thunder and rain strike up.
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Later on, everyone assembles at the tea-table except for Marian and Mrs. Maudsley. Leo’s birthday cake is on the table. Mrs. Maudsley comes in and informs Leo that he will be moving back into Marcus’s room, as there are more guests who’ve come for the ball.
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Mrs. Maudsley has put twelve candles on the cake and kept one aside so that it’s not an unlucky thirteen. Leo can blow the thirteenth out when Marian arrives, she says, which should be around six o’clock. Leo notices that Mrs. Maudsley’s hands are shaking.
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As it’s raining outside, Mr. Maudsley orders a carriage to Nannie Robson’s to pick up Marian. Leo blows out the twelve candles, and the guests pull crackers, producing a “terrific salvo” and “thunder.” Just then, a butler enters the room to inform Mrs. Maudsley that the carriage has returned empty from Nannie Robson’s—Marian hasn’t been there all day. The guests wonder where she could be.
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Mr. Maudsley says they will just have to wait for Marian to arrive, but Mrs. Maudsley says that she is going to look for her. She accuses Leo of knowing where she is and grabs him to go with her. As they exit the room, Mr. Maudsley calls after Mrs. Maudsley.
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Leo and Mrs. Maudsley pass through the hall, where Leo catches a glimpse of the green bicycle. It reminds him of a little “mountain sheep with curly horns, its head lowered in apology or defence.” They run through the rain, Leo hardly able to keep up with Mrs. Maudsley.
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Leo realizes that Mrs. Maudsley is taking them to the outhouse with the deadly nightshade and desperately tries to get her to go another way, but she persists. Suddenly they come across Marian and Ted making love: “together on the ground, the Virgin and the Water-Carrier, two bodies like one.” Mrs. Maudsley screams repeatedly as the lovers’ shadow opens and close on the wall “like an umbrella.”
Here, the main narrative ends abruptly—old Leo says that he remembers little more about Brandham Hall, but that somehow he had learned that Ted Burgess went home and shot himself.
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