The Go-Between

Twelve-year-old Leo Colston travels to Brandham Hall for a summer stay with his wealthy school friend Marcus Maudsley. He feels out of place among the aristocracy, even as Marian and other Maudsleys shower him with welcome and new clothes.

Marcus contracts measles and must quarantine in his bedroom, shifting the social balance of the house. Leo is kept busy entertaining himself while the illness isolates the family, and Marian's attentions become even more pointed toward him.

While exploring the estate, Leo injures his shoulder in a haystack accident. Ted Burgess, a tenant farmer, tends to his injuries and asks Leo to deliver a letter to Marian in return.

Leo becomes the regular messenger between Marian and Ted, unwittingly enabling their clandestine affair. He believes the notes are harmless messages between friends rather than romantic letters.

Marian is courted by Hugh, Viscount Trimingham, and her engagement becomes public news. Leo feels a wash of relief, hoping his role as go-between might end.

Leo glimpses one of Marian's letters and realizes it is a love note between Marian and Ted. The revelation shatters his innocent assumption about the arrangement and unsettles him deeply.

Despite Marian's engagement to Hugh, she and Ted continue their affair and keep using Leo as a go-between. Leo grows anxious and confused, feeling used and inferior to the adults' intrigue.

As Leo's thirteenth birthday approaches during a record heatwave, Marian asks him to deliver another letter to Ted. He refuses, and Madeleine, Marian's mother, notices their exchange and presses Leo to reveal the truth. Marian lies about the letter's destination.

That evening's birthday dinner is interrupted by a thunderstorm as family members await Marian. Madeleine takes Leo to Ted's farm, where Marian and Ted are found having sex in the barn. The moment shocks Leo and changes how he understands the adults around him.

In the wake of the discovery, Ted Burgess shoots himself in the farmhouse kitchen. The tragedy casts a long shadow over Leo, who has become entangled in a world of secrecy and desire.

Half a century passes and Leo returns to Brandham Hall a jaded, emotionally closed man. The voyage through memory has left him with a diminished imagination and an inability to form close relationships.

Now elderly, Marian is the Dowager Lady Trimingham and lives in her former nanny's cottage. Leo learns that she married Hugh as planned and bore Ted's son; Hugh later acknowledged the boy as his own before dying in 1910.

Marian's grandson remains estranged due to the past scandal, and Marian asks Leo to help repair the relationship. She reveals that she truly loved Ted and wants to make amends with her family.

Leo prepares to carry the final errand for Marian, intending to tell her grandson that she did truly love Ted. He leaves Brandham Hall to complete the last act that binds past and present.