She considered this.
“And Mr. Burgess,” I went on, “he’s only a farmer.” I remembered his reception of me before he knew where I came from. “He’s rather rough.”
“Is he?” she said, but not as if she regarded it as a fault. “I don’t know him very well, you see. We sometimes write each other notes—on business matters. And you say you like taking them.”
“Oh yes, I do,” I said enthusiastically.
“Because you like T—Mr. Burgess?”
I knew she wanted me to say I did, and I was ready to accommodate her, the more so that an overwhelming desire to testify came over me, and I saw my chance to voice it.
“Yes. But there’s another reason.”
“What is it?”
I had no idea that when I came to them the words would be so difficult to say; but at last I brought them out:
“Because I like you.”
She gave me an enchanting smile, and said: “That’s very sweet of you.”
She stood still. We had reached a parting of the ways. One path, an ill-kept one, led to the back premises; the other, a broader one, which I seldom took, led to the front of the house.
“Which way were you going?” she asked.
“Well, I was going with you—to the croquet lawn.”
A cloud came over her face. “I don’t think I shall go after all,” she said, almost snappily. “I’m rather tired. Tell them I’ve got a headache. Or tell them that you couldn’t find me.”
The bottom seemed to drop out of my world. “Oh!” I exclaimed. “But Hugh will be so disappointed!”
It wasn’t only that: I should be disappointed at being deprived of my catch, and of the triumph of bringing her in alive or dead.
A gleam of humour returned to Marian’s face. “I get so mixed up with all these Hughs,” she said. “Do you mean that I shall be disappointed, or that Hugh will be?”
“Hugh,” I said, trying to whistle it as she did, though I didn’t quite like doing that—it sounded like mockery.
“Well, then, I suppose I must go,” she said. “What a slave-driver you are! Only I think I’ll go alone, if you don’t mind.”
I did mind, terribly. “But you’ll tell them I sent you, won’t you?” I begged.
She looked back at me teasingly. “Perhaps I will,” she said.
9
BETWEEN the next day, Tuesday, and the cricket match, which was on Saturday, I three times carried messages between Marian and Ted Burgess: three notes from her, one note and two oral messages from him.
“Tell her it’s all right,” he said the first time; then: “Tell her it’s no go.”
It wasn’t difficult to find him, for he was usually working in the harvest fields on the far side of the river; from the sluice platform I could see where he was. The first time I went he was riding on the reaper, a newfangled machine that cut the wheat, but did not bind it; it was called the “spring-balance,” I remember. I walked beside it until the standing wheat was between us and the three or four farm labourers who were binding the sheaves, and then he stopped the horse and I handed him the letter.
Next day the area of uncut wheat had dwindled; and he was standing with his gun watching for the rabbits and other creatures that clung to their shelter till the last moment before bolting out; this was so exciting that for a time I quite forgot the letter and he stood with narrowed eyes, apparently having forgotten it too.
My excitement mounted, for I thought that this last strong-hold would be stuffed with game; but I was wrong: the last stalks fell and nothing came out.
The man on the reaper drove it off towards the gate that led to the next field; turning their backs on us, the labourers plodded to the hedgerow to retrieve their coats and rush baskets. The farmer and I were left alone.
The field that had been cut looked very flat, and he was much the tallest thing in it. I had the fancy that he, standing there, the colour of the wheat, between red and gold, was a sheaf the reaper had forgotten and that it would come back for him.
I gave him the envelope, which he at once tore open; and then I knew he must have killed something before I came, for, to my horror, a long smear of blood appeared on the envelope and again on the letter as he held it in his hands.
I cried out: “Oh, don’t do that!” but he did not answer me, he was so engrossed in reading.
The other time I went in search of him he was not in the field but in the farmyard, and it was then he gave me the letter to take back.
“No blood on this one,” he said humorously, and I laughed, for there was a part of me that accepted the blood and even rejoiced in it as part of a man’s life into which I should one day be initiated. I had a great time sliding down the straw-stack; indeed, I did this on all three occasions when I took him letters; it was the climax of the expedition, and when I got back to the party reassembled at tea, I was able to tell them with perfect truth that that was how I spent my afternoons.
They were golden afternoons in more than one sense, and I did not realize till Thursday came, and Mrs. Maudsley told me, in her after-breakfast orderly-room, as someone called it, that they were going out to lunch at a house where there were children, and I was to go with them, how right Marian had been to say I should be happier at home. There is a lot of ice to be broken between children, they do not make friends easily, their worlds are private, even their games are mysteries; and I could not readily learn the rules when I remembered the much more important business that I was leaving undone. Perhaps their kind of make-believe was a little insipid to me because it shed no blood.
For I took my duties as a Mercury very seriously, all the more because of the secrecy enjoined on me, but most of all because I felt I was doing for Marian something that no one else could. She chattered to her grown-up companions to pass the time; she turned a smiling face to Lord Trimingham, sat next to him at meals, and walked with him on the terrace; but when she handed me the notes, young as I was, I detected an urgency in her manner which she did not show to others—no, not to Lord Trimingham himself. To be of service to her was infinitely sweet to me, nor did I look beyond it. I did, however, impose on my errands to and fro a meaning of my own—several meanings, indeed—for I could not find one that satisfied me. Even in the world of my imagination no hypothesis as to why Marian and Ted Burgess exchanged their messages quite worked. “Business” they both said. “Business” to me was a solemn, almost sacred word; my mother spoke it with awe: it was connected with my father’s office hours, with earning a living. Marian did not need to earn a living, but Ted Burgess did; perhaps she was helping him; perhaps in some mysterious way these notes meant money in his pocket. Perhaps they even contained money—cheques or bank-notes—and that was why he said: “Tell her it’s all right”—meaning he had received it. I was thrilled to think I might be carrying money, like a bank messenger, and be set upon and robbed; what confidence she must have in me, to entrust me with such precious missives!
And yet I only half believed in this, for no bank-note that I could see ever came out of the envelope. Perhaps she was telling him something, something that might be useful to him in farming; I could not imagine what, but, then, I knew nothing about farming. Or perhaps she was comparing notes with him, notes about the temperature, for instance, the daily readings of the thermometer, which she had means of finding out that he had not. The last day’s readings, though they did not reach Monday’s height, had been satisfactory: eighty-three on Tuesday, eighty-five on Wednesday, nearly ninety-two on Thursday and on Friday. (I have since had the curiosity to check my figures by the official records, and found them not far out.) Or if it was not an interest in the temperature, it might be something that corresponded in the adult mind to such an interest, which I should understand if it was explained to me. Betting, perhaps: I knew how important betting was to grown-up people. Perhaps they were having bets on how soon this or that field would be finished.
Suppose he was in some kind of trouble and she was trying
to help him out. Suppose he was wanted by the police and she was trying to save him. Suppose he had committed a murder (the smear of blood made it easier to think he had). Suppose only she knew about it and was keeping him informed of the movements of the police?
This, being the most sensational, was also my preferred solution to the problem. But it did not really satisfy me, and when I was in her presence or in his, receiving the notes or delivering them, it struck me as inadequate like the others. Neither he nor she behaved, it seemed to me, as people would in any of the circumstances that I had imagined.
Behind my instinctive wish to find an imaginatively satisfying explanation there lurked a sneaking curiosity, of which I was half ashamed, to know the real one. But I did not act on it. I had no desire to play the spy; my privilege in being associated with the movements of the heavenly bodies had so inflamed my self-esteem that I did not require minor proofs of my own cleverness. Also I suspected that if I found out the real reason I should be disappointed. And so it proved: I was.
Two things happened on the Friday before the cricket match; and one in a way led to the other. The first was that Marcus, cleared of the imputation of measles, came downstairs. He was not allowed to go out, but it was understood that he would be well enough to watch the cricket match. I knew of course that he was better, but his coming down took me by surprise: his temperature had only been normal that morning for the first time, and my mother would have kept me in bed another day. I supposed all doctors had the same rules. Still, I was very pleased to see him when he appeared at luncheon, for though he was not a great friend, he gave me the sense of familiar companionship, for which there is no substitute. I could say to him whatever was uppermost in my mind in a language that we shared; I did not have to translate what I said, or flounder in grown-up thoughts and ways of expression. Or so I thought. We sat together and chattered at a great pace, oblivious of the others; and then, half-way through the meal, the implication of his being again in circulation suddenly dawned on me.
I should not be able to carry any more messages. It was one thing to engage in this clandestine traffic while I was on my own. I was free to go and come as I pleased; I was asked only the most perfunctory questions about what I did with myself, and to these sliding down the straw-stack provided a sufficient answer. But I could not so easily pull the wool over Marcus’s eyes—those rather expressionless grey eyes that took in so much more than they seemed to. He was less interested in pretending than I was; he did not have so much imaginative life; he would play at being Lord Roberts or Kitchener or Kruger or de Wet with me, but only for a limited time and only on condition that the English won: he was a strong patriot as well as being no supporter of lost causes. I could tell him many things, but not my fantasy of myself as Robin Hood and his sister as Maid Marian.
He would slide down a straw-stack with me once or twice, but he would not want to make a daily habit of it—the way he took my references to it was proof. It was one thing to hoodwink a few farm labourers, who anyhow were not interested in what I did; it was another to give Ted Burgess a letter, or take even an oral message from him, with Marcus looking on. Besides—the difficulties began to crowd into my mind—he wouldn’t want to talk to the farmer at all, except in the most distant way, and would oppose my doing so; in matters of degree he was a realist, though unlike me he did not carry his snobbery into the heavens. He certainly would not want to go into the kitchen and hang about while Ted laboriously composed a letter.
The more I thought about these expeditions in Marcus’s company, the more impracticable did they seem and the less I liked the prospect of them. Nor, though I was practised in deceit and an uncritical upholder of the no-sneaking tradition, did I relish the idea of deceiving Marcus—not on moral grounds, for any system of ethics, as distinct from the school code, I barely recognized—but because I felt it would spoil our relationship.
So for one part of me. Another part was still in love with the adventure and told me how dull the colours of my life would be without it. My counsels of prudence hadn’t reckoned with that; they had not reckoned with the emotional impoverishment (an intimation of which, like the first pangs of a want, was beginning to steal over me) which I should suffer when I could no longer run to do Marian’s bidding. I did not realize how much, in Marcus’s absence, the focus of my life at Brandham Hall had changed. How could I tell her that I didn’t mean to serve her any longer, and that Robin Hood was faithless to his trust?
My exchanges with Marcus, which had been as urgent as those of Dr. Livingstone and Stanley, and much more expansive, grew more desultory; half in hope, half in dread, I awaited the end of the meal. At last it came, and I was again visited by a feeling between hope and fear that I should be excused my afternoon commission. Before, Marian had given me the notes soon after breakfast—soon after, in fact, her mother had given us our orders for the day.
According to our wont I was scampering off with Marcus when I heard her calling me. Supposing he followed.
“Just half a tick, old dunderhead,” I said, “the Lady Marian hath somewhat to communicate to me. I’ll be with you anon.”
While he stood hesitating, I hurried off and found her at a writing-table, in which room I can’t remember, for the house was peppered with writing-tables, but I remember shutting the door after me.
“Marian,” I began, and I was just going to tell her what a difference to our routine Marcus’s arrival on the scene would make, when I heard the latch click. Like lightning she thrust an envelope into my hand; like lightning I transferred it to my pocket. The door opened and Lord Trimingham stood on the threshold.
“Ah, a love-scene,” he remarked. “I heard you call,” he said to Marian, “and thought you were calling me, but it was this lucky fellow. But can I snatch you from him now?”
She rose with a quick smile and went to him, just giving me a backward look.
When they had gone I felt in my pockets to make sure the letter was safely there. My pockets were not very deep and the letters had a way of working up. Sometimes I took this precaution a dozen times during my journey. But today something felt different and in a moment I realized what it was. The letter was unsealed.
I found Marcus and told him where I was going.
“What! the old straw-stack again?” he said languidly.
“And on a day like this! There’ll be nothing left of you, me-thinks, but one spot of train-oil, shiny on the top and thick and smelly underneath.”
We bickered a little about this and then I asked him what he was going to do.
“Oh, I suppose I shall find some way of killing time,” he said. “I may sit at yonder window and watch them spooning.”
We both laughed a good deal about this, for it was the aspect of grown-up behaviour that we found the silliest. Then a thought shocked me into seriousness.
“I’m sure your sister Marian doesn’t spoon,” I said, “she’s got too much sense.”
“Don’t you be too sure,” said Marcus darkly. “And come to that, old turnip-top, Dame Rumour hath it that she spoons with you.”
At this I hit him and we wrestled together until Marcus cried: “Pax! you’ve forgotten I’m an invalid.”
Elated by my victory, I left him, and made tracks for the game larder. It was three o’clock. The thermometer stood at ninety. It might still go up. Passionately I willed it to, and seemed to feel around me the unspoken response of Nature to my plea. From the distance came the sounds of croquet—the sharp smack of the mallet on the ball, the tap of the balls hitting one another, and exclamations of triumph and protest. No other sounds disturbed the stillness.
I was half-way through the belt of trees above the water-meadow when automatically my hand went to my pocket, encountering the sharp edge of the flap of the unsealed envelope. With no further intention in my mind I pulled it out and looked at it. There was no address (or direction, as Mrs. Maudsley called it, why I could not imagine) on the envelope; there never was. But the open flap disclosed
some writing, which at the moment was the wrong side up.
Among the complexities of our school code was a very wholesome respect for the eleventh commandment. But we also had a strong sense of justice, and if we were found out we did not expect to be let off. For most offences the appropriate penalties were known, and though we might grumble at them we did not think them unjust; certainly I did not. They were as inevitable as the law of cause and effect. If you put your hand into the fire, it got burned; if you were caught cribbing, you were punished: there was nothing more to be said.
We had little sense of right and wrong in the abstract, but to be liable to punishment one must have broken some rule; and when a border-line case occurred, and a boy was punished for doing something “wrong” that was not a contravention of any recognized rule, then we were indignant and considered him the victim of injustice.
The rules about reading other people’s letters were fairly well defined. If you left your letters lying about and somebody read them, then it was your fault, and you were not justified in retaliation. If somebody rifled your desk or locker and read them, then it was their fault, and you were justified in taking vengeance. Even if Jenkins and Strode had not bullied me I should still have felt justified in calling down curses on them.
In class and out I had often passed round notes at school. If they were sealed I should not have dreamed of reading them; if they were open I often read them—indeed, it was usually the intention of the sender that one should, for they were meant to raise a laugh. If they were unsealed, one could read them; sealed, one couldn’t: it was as simple as that. The same rule applied to postcards: one read a postcard that was addressed to someone else, but not a letter.
Marian’s letter was unsealed and therefore I could read it. So why hesitate?
I hesitated because I wasn’t sure she had meant me to read the letter. The others had been sealed. She had given me this one in a hurry; she might have meant to seal it.