by Carey Corp
Somehow, he knew their situation was hopeless. Although sure she had also been cast into the sea, he was certain she was on the far side of the island. With effort compounded by fatigue and the heavy futility of the situation, he began to swim to her. He would find Wendy or die trying…
Soaking wet and twisted in his bedclothes, Peter awoke from his sleep, shaken. His lips tasted of salt and the cloying scent of seaweed clogged his nose. Muscles shaking, he pulled himself out of bed and dressed with effort in the darkness. It was nearly morning and he still had one thing to do before he left.
Leaving a note for Griffin, he made his way to Wendy’s cobbled street. This was not the first time he had stood outside No. 14, although it might very well be the last. Despite the chill in the air her window was wide open, as if expecting a visitor. As he had many times before, Peter wished he could fly up to her windowsill and watch her sleep. Desperately, he wanted to behold her perfect face one final time before he departed.
Standing in the predawn quiet, Peter wondered if it were feasible to steal across the garden and scale the trellis nearest her window. Still, if Wendy wanted nothing to do with him he would not chance her waking to find him staring in at her. How wonderful, he thought, it would be to have a cloak of invisibility, to be able to see his beloved without the risk of causing her more distress.
“Peter…”
Peter flinched as a faint noise came drifting down to him from Wendy’s window. He could not be certain, but it sounded as if she’d said his name. Did Wendy know he was there? Was she calling to him? Every muscle tensed. He pressed against the high bars of the garden gate straining to listen. He remained that way, motionless and fierce in concentration, until the morning sun began to paint its colors across the Eastern sky.
In the distance, a cock began to crow, the faint chiming of Big Ben joining its morning song. In an hour, he would be on a train to Wales and by nightfall aboard a ship bound for America. He had yet to say his goodbyes to Griffin and Father. It was time to go.
Peter’s body felt too cold and leaden to move. In spite of Wendy’s revelation of a rival at the party, he hadn’t completely surrendered hope of pursuing her. Therefore, the afternoon after the ball he had made his way to the very same spot. Then, not knowing what else to do, he called out to his beloved in a bold and brazen way that caused the curtains of every neighbor to part with curiosity.
“Wendy!”
He only had to shout for a moment before he was admitted into the Darling household. As fate would have it, Wendy’s good aunt had been in residence. In the very drawing room of No. 14, Wendy’s Aunt Mildred had amiably received him and, under the continued guise of a caring Grand Dame, sealed his fate.
“Mr. Neverland,” she upbraided. “Hollering from the street! Surely you are not so vindictive as to bring scandal to my niece. If you truly care for her as you say, you would not injure her such.”
“I would never injure, Miss Darling!” Peter protested. “If only I could speak with her, I am certain we could clear the matter up to your satisfaction.”
The old spinster laid a gnarled hand against her breast. “My satisfaction, my fine young actor? I have no fault with you. Indeed, I think you would be good for my niece.” The woman heaved a martyr’s sigh. “Heaven knows how I have championed your cause. Even the inferiority of your station would not be an obstacle, if I believed she truly loved you. But she does not. With all my heart, I did not wish to impart to you that which I now must.” Slipping a piece of parchment out of her skirt pocket, she explained, “This was written by my niece’s own hand.”
Opening the letter, Peter scanned the few lines intended to repulse him, his face clouding with each word. It was Wendy’s handwriting, for it matched the elegant script of her r.s.v.p. perfectly. (It would do us well at this juncture, to remember by whose hand the reply to Mr. Frohman’s grand ball had been issued.) In accordance with Peter’s very nature, it never occurred to him to doubt the authenticity of either document. He had no experience with persons who, under the guise of respectable advice, forged letters and manipulated others into doing their will. The elders in his own life were forthright, the very pillars of integrity. So we cannot fault him for what he did not yet know. Peter would learn of life’s deceit soon enough.
We will not recount the message other than to say it was most ruthless and unforgiving in its sentiments. Words, after all, are merely scribbles of ink on parchment. Even hurtful words are neither sticks nor stones. What is important to note, is the letter achieved its desired effect.
Rigidly, Peter refolded the paper and handed it back to the sympathetic Grand Dame. “If this is how Miss Darling feels,” he said stiffly. “I shan’t trouble her any further. Please tell your niece I shall never bother her again.”
Poor Peter! He had no way to discern such flagrant lies. In that moment the remaining vestiges of his boyhood conceit were crushed.
Now as the cock heralded the rosy predawn over the London skies, Peter took one last look at the open window and let two great tears escape down his cheeks. His shattered heart had not yet hardened in the wake of life’s cruel lesson. And try as he might, he could not hate she whom just days before he adored with his whole being.
He wanted to shout, “I will always love you! I will never be the same without you!” Instead he clenched his eyes shut and whispered, “Goodbye Wendy.” Full of regret, he hurried through the waking streets with every intention never to return.
Wendy was being tossed to and fro. She had lost track of how much time had elapsed since the storm had ripped her from Peter’s strong arms and flung her into the cruel sea. She had called his name with all her strength. “Peter! Peter!” But he was gone. The rolling waves were growing more violent, filling her mouth and nose in a relentless assault. Her body burned with the effort of trying to keep her head above water but she would not surrender. As long as Peter was coming for her, she would continue to fight-until her last breath.
The next wave crashed over her with violent force and for one disorienting moment the whole world was liquid. As she surfaced, choking on salt water, Wendy thought for the first time that Peter might not be coming to her rescue. Another wave engulfed her, but the sea mattered little in the face of Peter’s abandonment. Drowning in despair, she knew she would not last long alone…
“Wendy, wake up!”
Disoriented, soaking wet, tangled in her bed linens, she was being vigorously shaken from side to side. Having been in bed for three days, ever since she returned from the ball, it took Wendy a moment to realize she was not experiencing another horrifying dream. She opened her eyes relieved she was not being accosted by waves again but by her dear friend, Maimie.
“Wendy, wake up! I have been telephoning for hours. You look terrible! You’re drenched. Are you ill?” Although invited, Maimie, swamped with wedding arrangements, had not been able to attend Mr. Frohman’s Ball. In fact, she had not spoken with Wendy since the day their invitations arrived.
Wendy pulled her bed sheets over her head in self-pity. “I’m dying, Maimie. Just let me be.”
Vexed, Wendy’s dearest friend yanked back the covers. “What is happening? I go to Perrin Hall for a fortnight to make wedding preparations and everything goes to pieces in my absence. Even you! I had anticipated returning to find you in a state of sublime bliss. Instead you are dying and the entire company of The Three Musketeers is headed to America.”
The shock of her friend’s revelation caused Wendy to bolt out of bed. “Peter is leaving?” she cried.
Maimie took her friend gently by the shoulders. “Peter is gone…hadn’t you heard? He leaves for New York tonight on the Mauretania. He is already en route to Wales.”
Poor Wendy! If only she had known how close Peter had been in the last few days—in her parlor, below her very window—perhaps she could have summoned the courage to follow her heart. To speak to him and explain why she panicked.
So what if her Aunt disapproved? Why should Wendy care
if Aunt Mildred’s bank account ruled their household? She should have risked everything for love—for Peter!
Sometime in her past she felt sure she’d been a much braver Wendy. If only she could go back in time to find herself and ask the brave Wendy what to do.
She sank to the edge of her bed shivering uncontrollably. “Maimie, he cannot go! What will I do without him? How will I continue to exist?”
In the end, it was the courage of her dearest friend that lent her strength. “Go to him,” Maimie urged sitting and wrapping her arm around Wendy’s damp shoulders. “Or better yet, go with him!”
Wendy shook her head negatively, “What would I say to him?”
“What is in your heart?”
“Love.”
“Then say that. What else really matters?”
Wendy regarded her dearest friend longingly. “Oh Maimie, if only—”
“If only what? We can catch him in Wales. My parents are away in the country. I have their motorcar and driver downstairs. I have already told your mother and aunt that I require your assistance at Perrin Hall. But if we are to do this thing, we must leave now. This very instant!”
Wendy did not waste time on words. She jumped up from her bed, grabbed her slippers, wrapped a shawl around her nightgown and headed for the waiting motorcar. Maimie could scarcely keep up.
Apart from leaving Wendy, saying goodbye to Griffin was the hardest thing Peter had done in his young life. Although his brother would have accompanied him to Fishguard, Peter insisted they say their farewells at Paddington Station. In return, Griffin had insisted on carrying his brother’s bags the entire way.
When the time came, the brothers, who never lacked for conversation, struggled for words.
“Griffin?”
“Aye, Peter?”
“Take care of Father.”
“Aye, Peter.”
“I am not sure that he really understands…”
“He understands you better than you think. And he loves you.”
“You and Father are the world to me.”
“Aye, Peter.”
The train whistled.
“Griffin?”
“Aye, Peter.”
“Will you promise to do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“Go to the matinee each Saturday. Write to me about her.”
“Aye, Peter.”
The brothers hugged until the train whistled again and began to move. Peter jumped aboard and Griffin handed him his bags. Then each man remained motionless, watching until the other was out of sight.
There was nothing to do on the long drive to Wales but talk, so that is what Wendy and Maimie did. Wendy had insisted her friend go first. So Maimie, sensing her listener’s fragile emotional state, prattled on for hours, breaking the wedding down into the most trivial of details.
It was only after their driver announced that they were nearing Fishguard, that Wendy dared recount to her friend the events of three days past. The entire trip Wendy had been ordering pieces in her mind as if completing a puzzle. The last piece was fitting into place even now, as she spoke. After the disastrous party, Wendy’s family had been all too compliant with her wishes to be left alone. They had asked no questions of her. In fact, they had made no demands of her at all except that she submit to an examination by the family physician. Dr. Trimble had promptly inspected her and diagnosed extreme fatigue. He prescribed a week of bed rest and gave her some pills to help her sleep. Under her aunt’s meticulous ministrations, she’d She been sleeping on and off since.
Maimie was horrified. “Do you think Aunt Mildred conspired with the Doctor to keep you in bed until Peter had gone?”
“Maimie, I am sure of it! She assumed my care with such pity and thoroughness, and all she really wanted was to keep me drugged. I knew when she said nothing of the ball that something was amiss! I thought perhaps she had taken sympathy on my plight. I imagined that she had recognized the truth of my love and that truth had melted her heart. I wrongly assumed that she was on my side when all along she was merely protecting her family interests.”
“Hateful, old cow!”
“A cow is too much a compliment!” Wendy spat. “She is a venomous serpent! I shan’t underestimate her again.”
The automobile began to slow. Maimie opened the front window to address her driver. “Giles, are we there?”
“Close, Miss.”
“Why have we slowed?”
“There is too much traffic, Miss. Everyone is trying to get to the port and the streets are clogged. Look.”
The girls looked in the direction indicated by their driver. In the distance was the sea and on it a great ship with billowing smokestacks. As they watched, its horn bellowed and the crewman began to take up its gangplanks. Maimie groaned. The ground between the ship and their car was a sea of a different kind, an impassable sea of humanity.
The driver looked at Wendy. “If you’re going to catch that ship you are going to have to make a run for it, Miss.”
In unison, Wendy and Maimie bolted from the car. Running as fast as the situation allowed, they wove and pushed their way thru the living sea to get to the ship. All around them, people were stationary and yet moving at the same time. Some cheering, some crying, all were waving toward the massive vessel and shouting “Bon voyage!” The entire ship undulated as those departing waved their last goodbyes back to the crowd.
When they finally reached the gate, a surly crewman stopped their progress. Maimie tried to reason with him while Wendy scanned the decks searching for some sign of Peter. Wendy was a sight! Still in her nightdress and slippers, shawl clutched around her shoulders and her loose hair whipped about by the harsh December wind, she looked like an escaped lunatic.
Perhaps if she had looked more presentable, the girls would have been able to make headway with the apathetic crewman. When it was apparent that he was not going to yield, Wendy hurried down a length of the pier scanning the departing passengers frantically. She saw Mr. Boucicault and recognized the backside of Mr. Frohman as he departed from the upper deck. But where was Peter?
In vain she tried to yell and attract their attention but her cries blended with the voices of those surrounding her. Wendy knew her only hope was to separate herself from this horde of rippling humanity. As the ship began to move Wendy pushed her way back up the pier, through the mass of people, toward the rocky beach. Gingerly she made her way out across the jagged jetty. Arms raised over her head and flailing, wind tugging at her hair and nightgown, she seemed more specter than woman.
Many aboard the ship noticed the desperate girl who was precariously waving from atop the rocks; speculation about who she was and her intent became a regular topic of dining room gossip during the voyage. While most people had differing opinions on her purpose, it was generally agreed that she made a most tragic figure. Like Catherine on the moors, the strange girl seemed to be searching in vain for her Heathcliff.
“The party’s on the other side of the ship, M’boy!” Mr. Frohman snuck up on Peter, who had found himself a deserted piece of deck on the opposite side of the ship from the harbor.
Peter had been reflecting on his latest dream. Maybe it was an omen. Perhaps it meant the ship would founder or be set upon by pirates, if such a thing still existed. Neither scenario bothered him terribly much. As Mr. Frohman approached, Peter had been vividly imagining a siege by a great pirate ship complete with skull and bones and a neurotic, one-handed Captain.
“I am not really in the mood for a party, Sir.” He had been in a bleak mood ever since he had woken up. The cold winter sky and gray churning ocean seemed to echo his feelings.
“Do you want to talk about it, son?”
Peter regarded the older man for a moment then shaking his head walked over to the railing. “Not really, no.”
The American joined him at the rail and for many moments they stared out at the vast expanse of ocean in contemplative silence.
“Is this your fir
st crossing, Peter?”
“Yes, Sir.”
The older man’s eyes twinkled. “I was aboard the Lusitania in October of nineteen-o-seven when she broke the eastbound record and got the Blue Riband. Ah, I shall never forget that fantastic crossing! I have never crossed on the Mauretania before.” He chuckled. “I almost feel unfaithful! I shall have to be on my guard with Old Lusie, lest she try to get even with me for cheating on her with her sister.”
Dion Boucicault joined them then. “There you chaps are! You do know that the party is on the other side of the ship? Look here, I managed to save some champagne for you. And not just any champagne! This is from Prince Radziwell’s private collection. Did you hear we had a couple of princes aboard? They are both quite capital fellows!”
Mr. Boucicault produced an unopened bottle, which he promptly handed off to Mr. Frohman, and three crystal glasses. Charles Frohman popped the cork and poured them each a drink.
“Now then boys,” inquired the American producer as he set the nearly empty bottle on a deck chair. “What shall we toast to?”
“You chaps missed a curious sight in the harbour,” Boucicault interjected. “A young woman, in what looked to be her nightdress, standing alone on the rocks frantically waving at the ship. Her blonde tresses whipping about her most dramatically.”
At the mention of a nightdress, Peter’s heart gave a start. “Was she a lady?”
“From the look of her I’d say not. Still she seemed a most noble and tragic figure. Like Isolde or Juliet. It is to her that I would like to toast. May the fine lady find what she was looking for or may she be able to start anew…To the blessing of new beginnings!”
“To new beginning!”
“To new beginnings!”
Peter toasted, wanting to believe with his whole heart. But something inside of him, tenacious and petulant, as obstinate as a child, dug in its heels and refused to let go.
