FIRST TWIN is the best dancer and performs mightily on the bed and in it and out of it and over it to an accompaniment of pillow fights by the less agile; and then there is a rush at WENDY.)
NIBS. Now the story you promised to tell us as soon as we were in bed!
WENDY (severely). As far as I can see you are not in bed yet.
(They scramble into the bed, and the effect is as of a boxful of sardines.)
WENDY (drawing up her stool). Well, there was once a gentleman —— —
CURLY. I wish he had been a lady.
NIBS. I wish he had been a white rat.
WENDY. Quiet! There was a lady also. The gentleman’s name was Mr. Darling and the lady’s name was Mrs. Darling —— —
JOHN. I knew them!
MICHAEL (who has been allowed to join the circle). I think I knew them.
WENDY. They were married, you know; and what do you think they had?
NIBS. White rats?
WENDY. No, they had three descendants. White rats are descendants also. Almost everything is a descendant. Now these three children had a faithful nurse called Nana.
MICHAEL (alas). What a funny name!
WENDY. But Mr. Darling — (faltering) or was it Mrs.Darling? — was angry with her and chained her up in the yard; so all the children flew away. They flew away to the Never Land, where the lost boys are.
CURLY. I just thought they did; I don’t know how it is, but I just thought they did.
TOOTLES. Oh, Wendy, was one of the lost boys called Tootles.
WENDY. Yes, he was.
TOOTLES (dazzled). Am I in a story? Nibs, I am in a story!
PETER (who is by the fire making Pan’s pipes with his knife, and is determined that WENDY shall have fair play, however beastly a story he may think it). A little less noise there.
WENDY (melting over the beauty of her present performance, but without any real qualms). Now I want you to consider the feelings of the unhappy parents with all their children flown away. Think, oh think, of the empty beds. (The heartless ones think of them with glee.)
FIRST TWIN (cheerfully). It’s awfully sad.
WENDY. But our heroine knew that her mother would always leave the window open for her progeny to fly back by; so they stayed away for years and had a lovely time.
(PETER is interested at last.)
FIRST TWIN. Did they ever go back?
WENDY (comfortably). Let us now take a peep into the future. Years have rolled by, and who is this elegant lady of uncertain age alighting at London station?
(The tension is unbearable.)
NIBS. Oh, Wendy, who is she?
WENDY (swelling). Can it be — yes — no — yes, it is the fair Wendy!
TOOTLES. I am glad.
WENDY. Who are the two noble portly figures accompanying her? Can they be John and Michael? They are. (Pride of MICHAEL.) ‘See, dear brothers,’ says Wendy, pointing upward, ‘there is the window standing open.’ So up they flew to their loving parents, and pen cannot inscribe the happy scene over which we draw a veil. (Her triumph is spoilt by a groan from PETER and she hurries to him.) Peter, what is it? (Thinking he is ill, and looking lower than his chest.) Where is it?
PETER. It isn’t that kind of pain. Wendy, you are wrong about mothers. I thought like you about the window, so I stayed away for moons and moons, and then I flew back, but the window was barred, for my mother had forgotten all about me and there was another little boy sleeping in my bed.
( This is a general damper.)
JOHN. Wendy, let us go back!
WENDY. Are you sure mothers are like that?
PETER. Yes.
WENDY. John, Michael! (She clasps them to her.)
FIRST TWIN (alarmed). You are not to leave us, Wendy?
WENDY. I must.
NIBS. Not to-night?
WENDY. At once. Perhaps mother is in half-mourning by this time! Peter, will you make the necessary arrangements?
(She asks it in the steely tones women adopt when they are prepared secretly for opposition.)
PETER (coolly). If you wish it.
(He ascends his tree to give the redskins their instructions. The lost boys gather threateningly round WENDY.)
CURLY. We won’t let you go!
WENDY (with one of those inspirations women have, in an emergency, to make use of some male who need otherwise have no hope). Tootles, I appeal to you.
TOOTLES (leaping to his death if necessary). I am just Tootles and nobody minds me, but the first who does not behave to Wendy I will blood him severely. (PETER returns.)
PETER (with awful serenity). Wendy, I told the braves to guide you through the wood as flying tires you so. Then Tinker Bell will take you across the sea. (A shrill tinkle from the boudoir probably means ‘and drop her into it.’)
NIBS (fingering the curtain which he is not allowed to open). Tink, you are to get up and take Wendy on a journey. (Star-eyed) She says she won’t!
PETER (taking a step toward that chamber). If you don’tget up, Tink, and dress at once —— She is getting up!
WENDY (quivering now that the time to depart has come). Dear ones, if you will all come with me I feel almost sure I can get my father and mother to adopt you.
(There is joy at this, not that they want parents, but novelty is their religion.)
NIBS. But won’t they think us rather a handful?
WENDY (a swift reckoner). Oh no, it will only mean having a few beds in the drawing-room; they can be hidden behind screens on first Thursdays.
(Everything depends on PETER.)
OMNES. Peter, may we go?
PETER (carelessly through the pipes to which he is giving a finishing touch). All right.
(They scurry off to dress for the adventure.)
WENDY (insinuatingly). Get your clothes, Peter.
PETER (skipping about and playing fairy music on his pipes, the only music he knows). I am not going with you,Wendy.
WENDY. Yes, Peter!
PETER. No.
(The lost ones run back gaily, each carrying a stick witha bundle on the end of it.)
WENDY. Peter isn’t coming!
(All the faces go blank.)
JOHN (even JOHN). Peter not coming!
TOOTLES (overthrown). Why, Peter?
PETER (his pipes more riotous than ever). I just want always to be a little boy and to have fun.
(There is a general fear that they are perhaps making the mistake of their lives.)
Now then, no fuss, no blubbering. (With dreadful cynicism) I hope you will like your mothers! Are you ready, Tink? Then lead the way.
(TINK darts up any tree, but she is the only one. Theair above is suddenly rent with shrieks and the clash of steel. Though they cannot see, the boys know that HOOKand his crew are upon the Indians. Mouths open andremain open, all in mute appeal to PETER. He is theonly boy on his feet now, a sword in his hand, the samehe slew Barbicue with; and in his eye is the lust of battle.
We can watch the carnage that is invisible to the children. HOOK has basely broken the two laws of Indian warfare, which are that the redskins should attack first, and that it should be at dawn. They have known the pirate whereabouts since, early in the night, one of SMEE’S fingers crackled. The brushwood has closed behind their scouts as silently as the sand on the mole; for hours they have imitated the lonely call of the coyote; no stratagem has been overlooked, but alas, they have trusted to the pale-face’s honour to await an attack at dawn, when his courage is known to be at the lowest ebb. HOOK falls upon them pell-mell, and one cannot withhold a reluctani admiration for the wit that conceived so subtle a scheme and the fell genius with which it is carried out. If the braves would rise quickly they might still have time to scalp, but this they are forbidden to do by the traditions of their race, for it is written that they must never express surprise in the presence of the pale-face. For a brief space they remain recumbent, not a muscle moving, as if the foe were here by invitation. Thus perish the flower of the Piccaninnies, th
ough not unavenged, for with LEAN WOLF fall ALF MASON and CANARY ROBB, while other pirates to bite dust are BLACK GILMOUR and ALAN HERB, that same HERB who is still remembered at Manaos for playing skittles with the mate of the Switch for each other’s heads. CHAY TURLEY, who laughed with the wrong side of his mouth (having no other), is tomahawked by PANTHER, who eventually cuts a way through the shambles with TIGER LILY and a remnant of the tribe.
This onslaught passes and is gone like a fierce wind. The victors wipe their cutlasses, and squint, ferret-eyed, at their leader. He remains, as ever, aloof in spirit and in substance. He signs to them to descend the trees, for he is convinced that PAN is down there, and though he has smoked the bees it is the honey he wants. There is something in PETER that at all times goads this extraordinary man to frenzy; it is the boy’s cockiness, which disturbs HOOK like an insect. If you have seen a lion in a cage futilely pursuing a sparrow you will know what is meant. The pirates try to do their captain’s bidding, but the apertures prove to be not wide enough for them; he cannot even ram them down with a pole. He steals to the mouth of a tree and listens.)
PETER (prematurely). All is over!
WENDY. But who has won?
PETER. Hst! If the Indians have won they will beat the tom-tom; it is always their signal of victory.
(HOOK licks his lips at this and signs to SMEE, who is sitting on it, to hold up the tom-tom. He beats upon it with his claw, and listens for results.)
TOOTLES. The tom-tom!
PETER (sheathing his sword). An Indian victory!
(The cheers from below are music to the black hearts above.)
You are quite safe now, Wendy. Boys, good-bye. (He resumes his pipes.)
WENDY. Peter, you will remember about changing your flannels, won’t you?’
PETER. Oh, all right!
WENDY. And this is your medicine.
(She puts something into a shell and leaves it on a ledge between two of the trees. It is only water, but she measures it out in drops.)
PETER. I won’t forget.
WENDY. Peter, what are you to me?
PETER (through the pipes). Your son, Wendy.
WENDY. Oh, good-bye!
(The travellers start upon their journey, little witting that HOOK has issued his silent orders: a man to the mouth of each tree, and a row of men between the trees and the little house. As the children squeeze up they are plucked from their trees, trussed, thrown like bales of cotton from one pirate to another, and so piled up in the little house. The only one treated differently is WENDY, whom HOOK escorts to the house on his arm with hateful politeness. He signs to his dogs to be gone, and they depart through the wood, carrying the little house with its strange merchandise and singing their ribald song. The chimney of the little house emits a jet of smoke fitfully, as if not sure what it ought to do just now.
HOOK and PETER are now, as it were, alone on the island. Below, PETER is on the bed, asleep, no weapon near him; above, HOOK, armed to the teeth, is searching noiselessly for some tree down which the nastiness of him can descend. Don’t be too much alarmed by this; it is precisely the situation PETER would have chosen; indeed if the whole thing were pretend —— . One of his arms droops over the edge of the bed, a leg is arched, and the mouth is not so tightly closed that we cannot see the little pearls. He is dreaming, and in his dreams he is always in pursuit of a boy who was never here, nor anywhere: the only boy who could beat him.
HOOK finds the tree. It is the one set apart for SLIGHTLY who being addicted when hot to the drinking of water has swelled in consequence and surreptitiously scooped his tree for easier descent and egress. Down this the pirate wriggles a passage. In the aperture below his face emerges and goes green as he glares at the sleeping child. Does no feeling of compassion disturb his sombre breast? The man is not wholly evil: he has a Thesaurus in his cabin, and is no mean performer on the flute. What really warps him is a presentiment that he is about to fail. This is not unconnected with a beatific smile on the face of the sleeper, whom he cannot reach owing to being stuck at the foot of the tree. He, however, sees the medicine shell within easy reach, and to WENDY’S draught he adds from a bottle five drops of poison distilled when he was weeping from the red in his eye. The expression on PETER’S face merely implies that something heavenly is going on. HOOK worms his way upwards, and winding his cloak around him, as if to conceal his person from the night of which he is the blackest part, he stalks moodily toward the lagoon.
A dot of light flashes past him and darts down the nearest tree, looking for PETER, only for PETER, quite indifferent about the others when she finds him safe.)
PETER (stirring). Who is that? (TINK has to tell her tale, in one long ungrammatical sentence.) The redskins were defeated? Wendy and the boys captured by the pirates! I’ll rescue her, I’ll rescue her! (He leap first at his dagger, and then at his grindstone, to sharpen it. TINK alights near the shell, and rings out a warning cry.) Oh, that is just my medicine. Poisoned? Who could have poisoned it? I promised Wendy to take it, and I will as soon as I have sharpened my dagger. (TINK, who sees its red colour and remembers the red in the grate’s eye, nobly swallows the draught as PETER’S hand is reaching for it.) Why, Tink, you have drunk my medicine! (She flutters strangely about the room, answering him now in a very thin tinkle.) It was poisoned and you drank it to save my life! Tink, dear Tink, are you dying? (He has never called her dear TINK before, and for a moment she is gay; she alights on his shoulder, gives his chin a loving bite, whispers ‘You silly ass’ and falls on her tiny bed. The boudoir, which is lit by her, flickers ominously. He is on his knees by the opening.)
Her light is growing faint, and if it goes out, that means she is dead! Her voice is so low I can scarcely tell what she is saying. She says — she says she thinks she could get well again if children believed in fairies! (He rises and throws out his arms he knows not to whom, perhaps to the boys and girls of whom he is not one.) Do you believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe! If you believe, clap your hands! (Many clap, some don’t, a few hiss. Then perhaps there is a rush of Nanas to the nurseries to see what on earth is happening. But TINK is saved.) Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! And now to rescue Wendy!
(TINK is already as merry and impudent as a grig, withnot a thought for those who have saved her. PETER ascends his tree as if he were shot up it. What he is feeling is ‘HOOK or me this time!’ He is frightfully happy. He soon hits the trail, for the smoke from the house has lingered here and there to guide him. He takes wing.)
ACT V. SCENE 1
THE PIRATE SHIP
The stage directions for the opening of this scene are as follows: —
1 Circuit Amber checked to 80. Battens, all Amber checked, 3 ship’s lanterns alight. Arcs: prompt perch 1. Open dark Amber flooding back, O.P. perch open dark Amber flooding upper deck. Arc on tall steps at back of cabin to flood back cloth. Open dark Amber. Warning for slide. Plank ready. Call Hook.
In the strange light thus described we see what is happening on the deck of the Jolly Roger, which is flying the skull and crossbones and lies low in the water. There is no need to call Hook, for he is here already, and indeed there is not a pirate aboard who would dare to call him. Most of them are at present carousing in the bowels of the vessel, but on the poop Mullins is visible, in the only great-coat on the ship, raking with his glass the monstrous rocks within which the lagoon is cooped. Such a look-out is supererogatory, for the pirate craft floats immune in the horror of her name.
From Hook’s cabin at the back Starkey appears and leans over the bulwark, silently surveying the sullen waters. He is bare-headed and is perhaps thinking with bitterness of his hat,which he sometimes sees still drifting past him with the Never bird sitting on it. The black pirate is asleep on deck, yet even in his dreams rolling mechanically out of the way when Hook draws near. The only sound to be heard is made by Smee at his sewing-machine, which lends a touch of domesticity to the night.
Hook is now leaning against the mast, now
prowling the deck, the double cigar in his mouth. With Peter surely at last removed from his path we, who know how vain a tabernacle is man, would not be surprised to find him bellied out by the winds of his success, but it is not so; he is still uneasy, looking long and meaninglessly at familiar objects, such as the ship’s bell or the Long Tom, like one who may shortly be a stranger to them. It is as if Pan’s terrible oath ‘Hook or me this time!’ had already boarded the ship.
HOOK (communing with his ego). How still the night is; nothing sounds alive. Now is the hour when children in their homes are a-bed; their lips bright-browned with the good-night chocolate, and their tongues drowsily searching for belated crumbs housed insecurely on their shining cheeks. Compare with them the children on this boat about to walk the plank. Split my infinitives, but ’tis my hour of triumph! (Clinging to this fair prospect he dances a few jubilant steps, but they fall below his usual form.) And yet some disky spirit compels me now to make my dying speech, lest when dying there may be no time for it. All mortals envy me, yet better perhaps for Hook to have had less ambition! O fame, fame, thou glittering bauble, what if the very&mdsah;— (SMEE, engrossed in his labours at the sewing-machine, tears a piece of calico with a rending sound which makes the Solitary think for amoment that the untoward has happened to his garments.) No little children love me. I am told they play at PeterPan, and that the strongest always chooses to be Peter. They would rather be a Twin than Hook; they force the baby to be Hook. The baby! that is where the canker gnaws. (He contemplates his industrious boatswain.) ’Tis said they find Smee lovable. But an hour agone I found him letting the youngest of them try on his spectacles. Pathetic Smee, the Nonconformist pirate, a happy smile upon his face because he thinks they fear him! How can I break it to him that they think him lovable? No, bi-carbonate of Soda, no, not even —— (Another rending of the calico disturbs him, and he has a private consultation with STARKEY, who turns him round and evidently assures him that all is well. The peroration of his speech is nevertheless for ever lost, as eight bells strikes and his crew pour forth in bacchanalian orgy. From, the poop he watches their dance till it frets him beyond bearing.) Quiet,you dogs, or I’ll cast anchor in you! (He descends to a barrel on which there are playing-cards, and his crew stand waiting, as ever, like whipped curs.) Are all the prisoners chained, sothat they can’t fly away?
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