Masters of the Theatre

by Delphi Classics

  WENDY. Poor darling Nana!

  MR. DARLING. You silly little things; to your beds everyone of you; I am ashamed of you.

  (They steal to their beds as MRS. DARLING returns with the chocolate.)

  MRS. DARLING. Well, is it all over?

  MICHAEL. Father didn’t —— (Father glares.)

  MR. DARLING. All over, dear, quite satisfactorily. (NANA comes back.) Nana, good dog, good girl; I have put a little milk into your bowl. (The bowl is by the kennel, and NANA begins to lap, only begins. She retreats into the kennel.)

  MRS. DARLING. What is the matter, Nana?

  MR. DARLING (uneasily). Nothing, nothing.

  MRS. DARLING (smelling the bowl). George, it is your medicine!

  (The children break into lamentation. He gives his wife an imploring look; he is begging for one smile, but does not get it. In consequence he goes from bad to worse.)

  MR. DARLING. It was only a joke. Much good my wearing myself to the bone trying to be funny in this house.

  WENDY (on her knees by the kennel). Father, Nana is crying.

  MR. DARLING. Coddle her; nobody coddles me. Oh dear no. I am only the bread-winner, why should I be coddled? Why, why, why?

  MRS. DARLING. George, not so loud; the servants will hearyou.

  (There is only one maid, absurdly small too, but they have got into the way of calling her the servants.)

  MR. DARLING (defiant). Let them hear me; bring in the whole world. ( The desperate man, who has not been in fresh air for days, has now lost all self-control.) I refuse to allow that dog to lord it in my nursery for one hour longer. (NANA supplicates him.) In vain, in vain, the proper place for you is the yard, and there you go to be tied up this instant.

  (NANA again retreats into the kennel, and the children add their prayers to hers.)

  MRS. DARLING (who knows how contrite he will be for this presently). George, George, remember what I told you about that boy.

  MR. DARLING. Am I master in this house or is she? (To NANA fiercely) Come along. (He thunders at her, but she indicates that she has reasons not worth troubling him with for remaining where she is. He resorts to a false bonhomie.) There, there, did she think he was angry with her, poor Nana? (She wriggles a response in the affirmative.) Good Nana, pretty Nana. (She has seldom been called pretty, and it has the old effect. She plays rub-a-dub with her paws, which is how a dog blushes.) She will come to her kind master, won’t she? won’t she? (She advances, retreats, waggles her head, her tail, and eventually goes to him. He seizes her collar in an iron grip and amid the cries of his progeny drags her from the room. They listen, for her remonstrances are not inaudible.)

  MRS. DARLING. Be brave, my dears.

  WENDY. He is chaining Nana up!

  (This unfortunately is what he is doing, though we cannot see him. Let us hope that he then retires to his study, looks up the word ‘temper’ in his Thesaurus, and under the influence of those benign pages becomes a better man. In the meantime the children have been put to bed in unwonted silence, and MRS. DARLING lights the night-lights over the beds.)

  JOHN (as the barking below goes on). She is awfully unhappy.

  WENDY. That is not Nana’s unhappy bark. That is her bark when she smells danger.

  MRS. DARLING (remembering that boy). Danger! Are you sure, Wendy?

  WENDY (the one of the family, for there is one in every family, who can be trusted to know or not to know). Oh yes.

  (Her mother looks this way and that from the window.)

  JOHN. Is anything there?

  MRS. DARLING. All quite quiet and still. Oh, how I wish I was not going out to dinner to-night.

  MICHAEL. Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?

  MRS. DARLING. Nothing precious. They are the eyes amother leaves behind her to guard her children.

  (Nevertheless we may be sure she means to tell LIZA, the little maid, to look in on them frequently till she comes home. She goes from bed to bed, after her custom, tucking them in and crooning a lullaby.)

  MICHAEL (drowsily). Mother, I ‘m glad of you.

  MRS. DARLING (with a last look round, her hand on the switch). Dear night-lights that protect my sleeping babes, burn clear and steadfast to-night.

  (The nursery darkens and she is gone, intentionally leaving the door ajar. Something uncanny is going to happen, we expect, for a quiver has passed through the room, just sufficient to touch the night-lights. They blink three times one after the other and go out, precisely as children (whom familiarity has made them resemble) fall asleep. There is another light in the room now, no larger than MRS. DARLING’S fist, and in the time we have taken to say this it has been into the drawers and wardrobe and searched pockets, as it darts about looking for a certain shadow. Then the window is blown open, probably by the smallest and therefore most mischievous star, and PETER PAN flies into the room. In so far as he is dressed at all it is in autumn leaves and cobwebs.)

  PETER (in a whisper). Tinker Bell, Tink, are you there? (A jug lights up.) Oh, do come out of that jug. (TINKflashes hither and thither?) Do you know where they put it? (The answer comes as of a tinkle of bells; it is the fairy language. PETER can speak it, but it bores him.) Which big box? This one? But which drawer? Yes, do show me. (TINK pops into the drawer where the shadow is, but beforePETER can reach it, WENDY moves in her sleep. He flies onto the mantelshelf as a hiding-place. Then, as she has not waked, he flutters over the beds as an easy way to observe the occupants, closes the window softly, wafts himself to the drawer and scatters its contents to the floor, as kings on their wedding day toss ha’pence to the crowd. In his joy at finding his shadow he forgets that he has shut up TINK in the drawer. He sits on the floor with the shadow, confident that he and it will join like drops of water. Then he tries to stick it on with soap from the bathroom, and this failing also, he subsides dejectedly on the floor. This wakens WENDY, who sits up, and is pleasantly interested to see a stranger.)

  WENDY (courteously). Boy, why are you crying?

  (He jump up, and crossing to the foot of the bed bows to her in the fairy way. WENDY, impressed, bows to him from the bed.)

  PETER. What is your name?

  WENDY (well satisfied). Wendy Moira Angela Darling.What is yours?

  PETER (finding it lamentably brief). Peter Pan.

  WENDY. Is that all?

  PETER (biting his lip). Yes.

  WENDY (politely). I am so sorry.

  PETER. It doesn’t matter.

  WENDY. Where do you live?

  PETER. Second to the right and then straight on till morning.

  WENDY. What a funny address!

  PETER. No, it isn’t.

  WENDY. I mean, is that what they put on the letters?

  PETER. Don’t get any letters.

  WENDY. But your mother gets letters?

  PETER. Don’t have a mother.

  WENDY. Peter!

  (She leaps out of bed to put her arms round him, but he draws back; he does not know why, but he knows he must draw back.)

  PETER. You mustn’t touch me.

  WENDY. Why?

  PETER. No one must ever touch me.

  WENDY. Why?

  PETER. I don’t know.

  (He is never touched by any one in the play.)

  WENDY. No wonder you were crying.

  PETER. I wasn’t crying. But I can’t get my shadow to stick on.

  WENDY. It has come off! How awful. (Looking at the spot where he had lain.) Peter, you have been trying to stick it on with soap!

  PETER (snappily). Well then?

  WENDY. It must be sewn on.

  PETER. What is ‘sewn’?

  WENDY. You are dreadfully ignorant.

  PETER. No, I ‘m not.

  WENDY. I will sew it on for you, my little man. But we must have more light. (She touches something, and to his astonishment the room is illuminated.) Sit here. I dare say it will hurt a little.

  PETER (a recent remark of hers rankling). I never cry. (She seem
s to attach the shadow. He tests the combination.) It isn’t quite itself yet.

  WENDY. Perhaps I should have ironed it. (It awakes and is as glad to be back with him as he to have it. He and his shadow dance together. He is showing off now. He crows like a cock. He would fly in order to impress WENDY further if he knew that there is anything unusual in that.)

  PETER. Wendy, look, look; oh the cleverness of me!

  WENDY. You conceit, of course I did nothing!

  PETER. You did a little.

  WENDY (wounded). A little! If I am no use I can at least withdraw.

  (With one haughty leap she is again in bed with the sheet over her face. Popping on to the end of the bed the artful one appeals.)

  PETER. Wendy,. don’t withdraw. I can’t help crowing, Wendy, when I’m pleased with myself. Wendy, one girl is worth more than twenty boys.

  WENDY (peeping over the sheet). You really think so, Peter?

  PETER. Yes, I do.

  WENDY. I think it’s perfectly sweet of you, and I shall get up again. (They sit together on the side of the bed.) I shall give you a kiss if you like.

  PETER. Thank you. (He holds out his hand.)

  WENDY (aghast). Don’t you know what a kiss is?

  PETER. I shall know when you give it me. (Not to hurt his feelings she gives him her thimble.) Now shall I give youa kiss?

  WENDY (primly). If you please. (He pulls an acorn button off his person and bestows it on her. She is shocked but considerate.) I will wear it on this chain round my neck. Peter, how old are you?

  PETER (blithely). I don’t know, but quite young, Wendy. I ran away the day I was born.

  WENDY. Ran away, why?

  PETER. Because I heard father and mother talking of what I was to be when I became a man. I want always to be a little boy and to have fun; so I ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived a long time among the fairies.

  WENDY (with great eyes). You know fairies, Peter!

  PETER (surprised that this should be a recommendation). Yes, but they are nearly all dead now. (Baldly) You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. So there ought to be one fairy for every boy or girl,

  WENDY (breathlessly). Ought to be? Isn’t there?

  PETER. Oh no. Children know such a lot now. Soon they don’t believe in fairies, and every time a child says ‘I don’t believe in fairies’ there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead. (He skips about heartlessly.)

  WENDY. Poor things!

  PETER. (to whom this statement recalls a forgotten friend). I can’t think where she has gone. Tinker Bell, Tink, where are you?

  WENDY (thrilling). Peter, you don’t mean to tell me that there is a fairy in this room!

  PETER (flitting about in search). She came with me. You don’t hear anything, do you?

  WENDY. I hear — the only sound I hear is like a tinkle of bells.

  PETER. That is the fairy language. I hear it too.

  WENDY. It seems to come from over there.

  PETER. (with shameless glee.) Wendy, I believe I shut her up in that drawer!

  (He releases TINK, who darts about in a fury using language it is perhaps as well we don’t understand.)

  You needn’t say that; I ‘m very sorry, but how could I know you were in the drawer?

  WENDY (her eyes dancing in pursuit of the delicious creature). Oh, Peter, if only she would stand still and let me see her!

  PETER (indifferently). They hardly ever stand still.

  (To show that she can do even this TINK pauses between two ticks of the cuckoo clock.)

  WENDY. I see her, the lovely! where is she now?

  PETER. She is behind the clock. Tink, this lady wishes you were her fairy. (The answer comes immediately.)

  WENDY. What does she say?

  PETER. She is not very polite. She says you are a great ugly girl, and that she is my fairy. You know, Tink, you can’t be my fairy because I am a gentleman and you are a lady.

  (TINK replies.)

  WENDY. What did she say?

  PETER. She said ‘You silly ass.’ She is quite a common girl, you know. She is called Tinker Bell because she mends the fairy pots and kettles.

  (They have reached a chair, WENDY in the ordinary way and PETER through a hole in the back.)

  WENDY. Where do you live now?

  PETER. With the lost boys.

  WENDY. Who are they?

  PETER. They are the children who fall out of their prams when the nurse is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven days they are sent far away to the Never-Land. I ‘m captain.

  WENDY. What fun it must be.

  PETER (craftily). Yes, but we are rather lonely. You see, Wendy, we have no female companionship.

  WENDY. Are none of the other children girls?

  PETER. Oh no; girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their prams.

  WENDY. Peter, it is perfectly lovely the way you talk about girls. John there just depises us.

  (PETER, for the first time, has a good look at JOHN. He then neatly tumbles him out of bed.)

  You wicked! you are not captain here. (She bends over her brother who is prone on the floor.) After all he hasn’t wakened, and you meant to be kind. (Having now done her duty she forgets JOHN, who blissfully sleep on.) Peter, you may give me a kiss.

  PETER (cynically). I thought you would want it back. (He offers her the thimble.)

  WENDY (artfully). Oh dear, I didn’t mean a kiss, Peter. I meant a thimble.

  PETER (only half placated).What is that?

  WENDY. It is like this. (She leans forward to give a demonstration, but something prevents the meeting of their faces.)

  PETER (satisfied). Now shall I give you a thimble?

  WENDY. If you please. (Before he can even draw near she screams.)

  PETER. What is it?

  WENDY. It was exactly as if some one were pulling my hairl

  PETER. That must have been Tink. I never knew her so naughty before.

  (TINK speaks. She is in the jug again.)

  WENDY. What does she say?

  PETER. She says she will do that every time I give you a thimble.

  WENDY. But why?

  PETER (equally nonplussed). Why, Tink? (He has to translate the answer.) She said ‘You silly ass’ again.

  WENDY. She is very impertinent. (They are sitting on the floor now.) Peter, why did you come to our nursery window?

  PETER. To try to hear stories None of us knows any stories.

  WENDY. How perfectly awful!

  PETER. Do you know why swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories. Wendy, your mother was telling you such a lovely story.

  WENDY. Which story was it?

  PETER. About the prince, and he couldn’t find the lady who wore the glass slipper.

  WENDY. That was Cinderella. Peter, he found her and they were happy ever after.

  PETER. I am glad. (They have worked their way along the floor close to each other, but he now jumps up.)

  WENDY. Where are you going?

  PETER (already on his way to the window). To tell the other boys.

  WENDY. Don’t go, Peter. I know lots of stories. The stories I could tell to the boys!

  PETER (gleaming). Come on! We’ll fly.

  WENDY. Fly? You can fly!

  (How he would like to rip those stories out of her; he is dangerous now.)

  PETER. Wendy, come with me.

  WENDY. Oh dear, I mustn’t. Think of mother. Besides, I can’t fly.

  PETER. I’ll teach you.

  WENDY. How lovely to fly!

  PETER. I’ll teach you how to jump on the wind’s back and then away we go. Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be flying about with me, saying funny things tothe stars. There are mermaids, Wendy, with long tails. (She just succeeds in r
emaining on the nursery floor.) Wendy, how we should all respect you.

  (At this she strikes her colours.)

  WENDY. Of course it’s awfully fascinating! Would you teach John and Michael to fly too?

  PETER (indifferently). If you like.

  WENDY (playing rum-turn on JOHN). John, wake up; there is a boy here who is to teach us to fly.

  JOHN. Is there? Then I shall get up. (He raises his headfrom the floor.) Hullo, I am up!

  WENDY. Michael, open your eyes. This boy is to teach us to fly.

  (The sleepers are at once as awake as their father’s razor;but before a question can be asked NANA’S bark is heard.)

  JOHN. Out with the light, quick, hide!

  (When the maid LIZA, who is so small that when she says she will never see ten again one can scarcely believe her, enters with a firm hand on the troubled NANA’S chain the room is in comparative darkness.)

  LIZA. There, you suspicious brute, they are perfectly safe, aren’t they? Every one of the little angels sound asleep in bed. Listen to their gentle breathing. (NANA’S sense of smell here helps to her undoing instead of hindering it. She knows that they are in the room. MICHAEL, who is behind the window curtain, is so encouraged by LIZA’S last remark that he breathes too loudly. NANA knows that kind of breathing and tries to break from her keeper’s control.) No more of it, Nana. (Wagging a finger at her) I warn you if you bark again I shall go straight for master and missus and bring them home from the party, and then won’t master whip you just! Come along, you naughty dog.

  (The unhappy NANA is led away. The children emerge exulting from their various hiding-places. In their brief absence from the scene strange things have been done to them; but it is not for us to reveal a mysterious secret of the stage. They look just the same.)

  JOHN. I say, can you really fly.

  PETER. Look! (He is now over their heads.)

  WENDY. Oh, how sweet!

  PETER. I ‘m sweet, oh, I am sweet!

  (It looks so easy that they try it first from the floor andthen from their beds, without encouraging results.)

  JOHN (rubbing his knees). How do you do it?