Peter Pan
“Those of a devoted son, Wendy.”
“I thought so,” she said, and went and sat by herself at the extreme
end of the room.
“You are so queer,” he said, frankly puzzled, “and Tiger Lily is just
the same. There is something she wants to be to me, but she says it is
not my mother.”
“No, indeed, it is not,” Wendy replied with frightful emphasis. Now we
know why she was prejudiced against the redskins.
“Then what is it?”
“It isn’t for a lady to tell.”
“Oh, very well,” Peter said, a little nettled. “Perhaps Tinker Bell
will tell me.”
“Oh yes, Tinker Bell will tell you,” Wendy retorted scornfully. “She is
an abandoned little creature.”
Here Tink, who was in her bedroom, eavesdropping, squeaked out
something impudent.
“She says she glories in being abandoned,” Peter interpreted.
He had a sudden idea. “Perhaps Tink wants to be my mother?”
“You silly ass!” cried Tinker Bell in a passion.
She had said it so often that Wendy needed no translation.
“I almost agree with her,” Wendy snapped. Fancy Wendy snapping! But she
had been much tried, and she little knew what was to happen before the
night was out. If she had known she would not have snapped.
None of them knew. Perhaps it was best not to know. Their ignorance
gave them one more glad hour; and as it was to be their last hour on
the island, let us rejoice that there were sixty glad minutes in it.
They sang and danced in their night-gowns. Such a deliciously creepy
song it was, in which they pretended to be frightened at their own
shadows, little witting that so soon shadows would close in upon them,
from whom they would shrink in real fear. So uproariously gay was the
dance, and how they buffeted each other on the bed and out of it! It
was a pillow fight rather than a dance, and when it was finished, the
pillows insisted on one bout more, like partners who know that they may
never meet again. The stories they told, before it was time for Wendy’s
good-night story! Even Slightly tried to tell a story that night, but
the beginning was so fearfully dull that it appalled not only the
others but himself, and he said gloomily:
“Yes, it is a dull beginning. I say, let us pretend that it is the
end.”
And then at last they all got into bed for Wendy’s story, the story
they loved best, the story Peter hated. Usually when she began to tell
this story he left the room or put his hands over his ears; and
possibly if he had done either of those things this time they might all
still be on the island. But to-night he remained on his stool; and we
shall see what happened.
Chapter XI.
WENDY’S STORY
“Listen, then,” said Wendy, settling down to her story, with Michael at
her feet and seven boys in the bed. “There was once a gentleman—”
“I had rather he had been a lady,” Curly said.
“I wish he had been a white rat,” said Nibs.
“Quiet,” their mother admonished them. “There was a lady also, and—”
“Oh, mummy,” cried the first twin, “you mean that there is a lady also,
don’t you? She is not dead, is she?”
“Oh, no.”
“I am awfully glad she isn’t dead,” said Tootles. “Are you glad, John?”
“Of course I am.”
“Are you glad, Nibs?”
“Rather.”
“Are you glad, Twins?”
“We are glad.”
“Oh dear,” sighed Wendy.
“Little less noise there,” Peter called out, determined that she should
have fair play, however beastly a story it might be in his opinion.
“The gentleman’s name,” Wendy continued, “was Mr. Darling, and her name
was Mrs. Darling.”
“I knew them,” John said, to annoy the others.
“I think I knew them,” said Michael rather doubtfully.
“They were married, you know,” explained Wendy, “and what do you think
they had?”
“White rats,” cried Nibs, inspired.
“No.”
“It’s awfully puzzling,” said Tootles, who knew the story by heart.
“Quiet, Tootles. They had three descendants.”
“What is descendants?”
“Well, you are one, Twin.”
“Did you hear that, John? I am a descendant.”
“Descendants are only children,” said John.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” sighed Wendy. “Now these three children had a
faithful nurse called Nana; but Mr. Darling was angry with her and
chained her up in the yard, and so all the children flew away.”
“It’s an awfully good story,” said Nibs.
“They flew away,” Wendy continued, “to the Neverland, where the lost
children are.”
“I just thought they did,” Curly broke in excitedly. “I don’t know how
it is, but I just thought they did!”
“O Wendy,” cried Tootles, “was one of the lost children called
Tootles?”
“Yes, he was.”
“I am in a story. Hurrah, I am in a story, Nibs.”
“Hush. Now I want you to consider the feelings of the unhappy parents
with all their children flown away.”
“Oo!” they all moaned, though they were not really considering the
feelings of the unhappy parents one jot.
“Think of the empty beds!”
“Oo!”
“It’s awfully sad,” the first twin said cheerfully.
“I don’t see how it can have a happy ending,” said the second twin. “Do
you, Nibs?”
“I’m frightfully anxious.”
“If you knew how great is a mother’s love,” Wendy told them
triumphantly, “you would have no fear.” She had now come to the part
that Peter hated.
“I do like a mother’s love,” said Tootles, hitting Nibs with a pillow.
“Do you like a mother’s love, Nibs?”
“I do just,” said Nibs, hitting back.
“You see,” Wendy said complacently, “our heroine knew that the mother
would always leave the window open for her children to fly back by; so
they stayed away for years and had a lovely time.”
“Did they ever go back?”
“Let us now,” said Wendy, bracing herself up for her finest effort,
“take a peep into the future;” and they all gave themselves the twist
that makes peeps into the future easier. “Years have rolled by, and who
is this elegant lady of uncertain age alighting at London Station?”
“O Wendy, who is she?” cried Nibs, every bit as excited as if he didn’t
know.
“Can it be—yes—no—it is—the fair Wendy!”
“Oh!”
“And who are the two noble portly figures accompanying her, now grown
to man’s estate? Can they be John and Michael? They are!”
“Oh!”
“‘See, dear brothers,’ says Wendy pointing upwards, ‘there is the
window still standing open. Ah, now we are rewarded for our sublime
faith in a mother’s love.’ So up they flew to their mummy and daddy,
and pen cannot describe the happy scene, over which we draw a veil.”
That was the story, and they were as pleased with it as the fair
narrator herself. Everything just as it should be, you see. Off we skip
like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children
are, but so attractive; and we have an entirely selfish time, and then
when we have need of special attention we nobly return for it,
confident that we shall be rewarded instead of smacked.
So great indeed was their faith in a mother’s love that they felt they
could afford to be callous for a bit longer.
But there was one there who knew better, and when Wendy finished he
uttered a hollow groan.
“What is it, Peter?” she cried, running to him, thinking he was ill.
She felt him solicitously, lower down than his chest. “Where is it,
Peter?”
“It isn’t that kind of pain,” Peter replied darkly.
“Then what kind is it?”
“Wendy, you are wrong about mothers.”
They all gathered round him in affright, so alarming was his agitation;
and with a fine candour he told them what he had hitherto concealed.
“Long ago,” he said, “I thought like you that my mother would always
keep the window open for me, so I stayed away for moons and moons and
moons, and then flew back; but the window was barred, for mother had
forgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my
bed.”
I am not sure that this was true, but Peter thought it was true; and it
scared them.
“Are you sure mothers are like that?”
“Yes.”
So this was the truth about mothers. The toads!
Still it is best to be careful; and no one knows so quickly as a child
when he should give in. “Wendy, let us go home,” cried John and Michael
together.
“Yes,” she said, clutching them.
“Not to-night?” asked the lost boys bewildered. They knew in what they
called their hearts that one can get on quite well without a mother,
and that it is only the mothers who think you can’t.
“At once,” Wendy replied resolutely, for the horrible thought had come
to her: “Perhaps mother is in half mourning by this time.”
This dread made her forgetful of what must be Peter’s feelings, and she
said to him rather sharply, “Peter, will you make the necessary
arrangements?”
“If you wish it,” he replied, as coolly as if she had asked him to pass
the nuts.
Not so much as a sorry-to-lose-you between them! If she did not mind
the parting, he was going to show her, was Peter, that neither did he.
But of course he cared very much; and he was so full of wrath against
grown-ups, who, as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he
got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at
the rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a
saying in the Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grown-up dies;
and Peter was killing them off vindictively as fast as possible.
Then having given the necessary instructions to the redskins he
returned to the home, where an unworthy scene had been enacted in his
absence. Panic-stricken at the thought of losing Wendy the lost boys
had advanced upon her threateningly.
“It will be worse than before she came,” they cried.
“We shan’t let her go.”
“Let’s keep her prisoner.”
“Ay, chain her up.”
In her extremity an instinct told her to which of them to turn.
“Tootles,” she cried, “I appeal to you.”
Was it not strange? She appealed to Tootles, quite the silliest one.
Grandly, however, did Tootles respond. For that one moment he dropped
his silliness and spoke with dignity.
“I am just Tootles,” he said, “and nobody minds me. But the first who
does not behave to Wendy like an English gentleman I will blood him
severely.”
He drew back his hanger; and for that instant his sun was at noon. The
others held back uneasily. Then Peter returned, and they saw at once
that they would get no support from him. He would keep no girl in the
Neverland against her will.
“Wendy,” he said, striding up and down, “I have asked the redskins to
guide you through the wood, as flying tires you so.”
“Thank you, Peter.”
“Then,” he continued, in the short sharp voice of one accustomed to be
obeyed, “Tinker Bell will take you across the sea. Wake her, Nibs.”
Nibs had to knock twice before he got an answer, though Tink had really
been sitting up in bed listening for some time.
“Who are you? How dare you? Go away,” she cried.
“You are to get up, Tink,” Nibs called, “and take Wendy on a journey.”
Of course Tink had been delighted to hear that Wendy was going; but she
was jolly well determined not to be her courier, and she said so in
still more offensive language. Then she pretended to be asleep again.
“She says she won’t!” Nibs exclaimed, aghast at such insubordination,
whereupon Peter went sternly toward the young lady’s chamber.
“Tink,” he rapped out, “if you don’t get up and dress at once I will
open the curtains, and then we shall all see you in your _negligée_.”
This made her leap to the floor. “Who said I wasn’t getting up?” she
cried.
In the meantime the boys were gazing very forlornly at Wendy, now
equipped with John and Michael for the journey. By this time they were
dejected, not merely because they were about to lose her, but also
because they felt that she was going off to something nice to which
they had not been invited. Novelty was beckoning to them as usual.
Crediting them with a nobler feeling Wendy melted.
“Dear ones,” she said, “if you will all come with me I feel almost sure