For a moment after
Mr. and Mrs. Darling left the house the
night-lights by the beds of the three children
continued to burn clearly. They were awfully nice
little night-lights, and one cannot help wishing
that they could have kept awake to see Peter; but
Wendy's light blinked and gave such a yawn that
the other two yawned also, and before they could
close their mouths all the three went out.
There was another
light in the room now, a thousand times brighter
than the night-lights, and in the time we have
taken to say this, it had been in all the drawers
in the nursery, looking for Peter's shadow,
rummaged the wardrobe and turned every pocket
inside out. It was not really a light; it made
this light by flashing about so quickly, but when
it came to rest for a second you saw it was a
fairy, no longer than your hand, but still
growing. It was a girl called Tinker Bell
exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf, cut low and
square, through which her figure could be seen to
the best advantage. She was slightly inclined to
EMBONPOINT. [plump hourglass figure]
A moment after the
fairy's entrance the window was blown open by the
breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped
in. He had carried Tinker Bell part of the way,
and his hand was still messy with the fairy dust.
"Tinker
Bell," he called softly, after making sure
that the children were asleep, "Tink, where
are you?" She was in a jug for the moment,
and liking it extremely; she had never been in a
jug before.
"Oh, do come
out of that jug, and tell me, do you know where
they put my shadow?"
The loveliest
tinkle as of golden bells answered him. It is the
fairy language. You ordinary children can never
hear it, but if you were to hear it you would know
that you had heard it once before.
Tink said that the
shadow was in the big box. She meant the chest of
drawers, and Peter jumped at the drawers,
scattering their contents to the floor with both
hands, as kings toss ha'pence to the crowd. In a
moment he had recovered his shadow, and in his
delight he forgot that he had shut Tinker Bell up
in the drawer.
If he thought at
all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was
that he and his shadow, when brought near each
other, would join like drops of water, and when
they did not he was appalled. He tried to stick it
on with soap from the bathroom, but that also
failed. A shudder passed through Peter, and he sat
on the floor and cried.
His sobs woke
Wendy, and she sat up in bed. She was not alarmed
to see a stranger crying on the nursery floor; she
was only pleasantly interested.
"Boy,"
she said courteously, "why are you
crying?"
Peter could be
exceeding polite also, having learned the grand
manner at fairy ceremonies, and he rose and bowed
to her beautifully. She was much pleased, and
bowed beautifully to him from the bed.
"What's your
name?" he asked.
"Wendy Moira
Angela Darling," she replied with some
satisfaction. "What is your name?"
"Peter
Pan."
She was already
sure that he must be Peter, but it did seem a
comparatively short name.
"Is that
all?"
"Yes," he
said rather sharply. He felt for the first time
that it was a shortish name.
"I'm so
sorry," said Wendy Moira Angela.
"It doesn't
matter," Peter gulped.
She asked where he
lived.
"Second to the
right," said Peter, "and then straight
on till morning."
"What a funny
address!"
Peter had a
sinking. For the first time he felt that perhaps
it was a funny address.
"No, it
isn't," he said.
"I mean,"
Wendy said nicely, remembering that she was
hostess, "is that what they put on the
letters?"
He wished she had
not mentioned letters.
"Don't get any
letters," he said contemptuously.
"But your
mother gets letters?"
"Don't have a
mother," he said. Not only had he no mother,
but he had not the slightest desire to have one.
He thought them very over-rated persons. Wendy,
however, felt at once that she was in the presence
of a tragedy.
"O Peter, no
wonder you were crying," she said, and got
out of bed and ran to him.
"I wasn't
crying about mothers," he said rather
indignantly. "I was crying because I can't
get my shadow to stick on. Besides, I wasn't
crying."
"It has come
off?"
"Yes."
Then Wendy saw the
shadow on the floor, looking so draggled, and she
was frightfully sorry for Peter. "How
awful!" she said, but she could not help
smiling when she saw that he had been trying to
stick it on with soap. How exactly like a boy!
Fortunately she
knew at once what to do. "It must be sewn
on," she said, just a little patronisingly.
"What's
sewn?" he asked.
"You're
dreadfully ignorant."
"No, I'm
not."
But she was
exulting in his ignorance. "I shall sew it on
for you, my little man," she said, though he
was tall as herself, and she got out her housewife
[sewing bag], and sewed the shadow on to Peter's
foot.
"I daresay it
will hurt a little," she warned him.
"Oh, I shan't
cry," said Peter, who was already of the
opinion that he had never cried in his life. And
he clenched his teeth and did not cry, and soon
his shadow was behaving properly, though still a
little creased.
"Perhaps I
should have ironed it," Wendy said
thoughtfully, but Peter, boylike, was indifferent
to appearances, and he was now jumping about in
the wildest glee. Alas, he had already forgotten
that he owed his bliss to Wendy. He thought he had
attached the shadow himself. "How clever I
am!" he crowed rapturously, "oh, the
cleverness of me!"
It is humiliating
to have to confess that this conceit of Peter was
one of his most fascinating qualities. To put it
with brutal frankness, there never was a cockier
boy.
But for the moment
Wendy was shocked. "You conceit
[braggart]," she exclaimed, with frightful
sarcasm; "of course I did nothing!"
"You did a
little," Peter said carelessly, and continued
to dance.
"A
little!" she replied with hauteur [pride];
"if I am no use I can at least
withdraw," and she sprang in the most
dignified way into bed and covered her face with
the blankets.
To induce her to
look up he pretended to be going away, and when
this failed he sat on the end of the bed and
tapped her gently with his foot.
"Wendy," he said, "don't withdraw.
I can't help crowing, Wendy, when I'm pleased with
myself." Still she would not look up, though
she was listening eagerly. "Wendy," he
continued, in a voice that no woman has ever yet
been able to resist, "Wendy, one girl is more
use than twenty boys."
Now Wendy was every
inch a woman, though there were not very many
inches, and she peeped out of the bed-clothes.
"Do you really
think so, Peter?"
"Yes, I
do."
"I think it's
perfectly sweet of you," she declared,
"and I'll get up again," and she sat
with him on the side of the bed. She also said she
would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did
not know what she meant, and he held out his hand
expectantly.
"Surely you
know what a kiss is?" she asked, aghast.
"I shall know
when you give it to me," he replied stiffly,
and not to hurt his feeling she gave him a
thimble.
"Now,"
said he, "shall I give you a kiss?" and
she replied with a slight primness, "If you
please." She made herself rather cheap by
inclining her face toward him, but he merely
dropped an acorn button into her hand, so she
slowly returned her face to where it had been
before, and said nicely that she would wear his
kiss on the chain around her neck. It was lucky
that she did put it on that chain, for it was
afterwards to save her life.
When people in our
set are introduced, it is customary for them to
ask each other's age, and so Wendy, who always
liked to do the correct thing, asked Peter how old
he was. It was not really a happy question to ask
him; it was like an examination paper that asks
grammar, when what you want to be asked is Kings
of England.
"I don't
know," he replied uneasily, "but I am
quite young." He really knew nothing about
it, he had merely suspicions, but he said at a
venture, "Wendy, I ran away the day I was
born."
Wendy was quite
surprised, but interested; and she indicated in
the charming drawing-room manner, by a touch on
her night-gown, that he could sit nearer her.
"It was
because I heard father and mother," he
explained in a low voice, "talking about what
I was to be when I became a man." He was
extraordinarily agitated now. "I don't want
ever to be a man," he said with passion.
"I want always to be a little boy and to have
fun. So I ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived
a long long time among the fairies."
She gave him a look
of the most intense admiration, and he thought it
was because he had run away, but it was really
because he knew fairies. Wendy had lived such a
home life that to know fairies struck her as quite
delightful. She poured out questions about them,
to his surprise, for they were rather a nuisance
to him, getting in his way and so on, and indeed
he sometimes had to give them a hiding [spanking].
Still, he liked them on the whole, and he told her
about the beginning of fairies.
"You see,
Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first
time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and
they all went skipping about, and that was the
beginning of fairies."
Tedious talk this,
but being a stay-at-home she liked it.
"And so,"
he went on good-naturedly, "there ought to be
one fairy for every boy and girl."
"Ought to be?
Isn't there?"
"No. You see
children know such a lot now, they soon 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."
Really, he thought
they had now talked enough about fairies, and it
struck him that Tinker Bell was keeping very
quiet. "I can't think where she has gone
to," he said, rising, and he called Tink by
name. Wendy's heart went flutter with a sudden
thrill.
"Peter,"
she cried, clutching him, "you don't mean to
tell me that there is a fairy in this room!"
"She was here
just now," he said a little impatiently.
"You don't hear her, do you?" and they
both listened.
"The only
sound I hear," said Wendy, "is like a
tinkle of bells."
"Well, that's
Tink, that's the fairy language. I think I hear
her too."
The sound come from
the chest of drawers, and Peter made a merry face.
No one could ever look quite so merry as Peter,
and the loveliest of gurgles was his laugh. He had
his first laugh still.
"Wendy,"
he whispered gleefully, "I do believe I shut
her up in the drawer!"
He let poor Tink
out of the drawer, and she flew about the nursery
screaming with fury. "You shouldn't say such
things," Peter retorted. "Of course I'm
very sorry, but how could I know you were in the
drawer?"
Wendy was not
listening to him. "O Peter," she cried,
"if she would only stand still and let me see
her!"
"They hardly
ever stand still," he said, but for one
moment Wendy saw the romantic figure come to rest
on the cuckoo clock. "O the lovely!" she
cried, though Tink's face was still distorted with
passion.
"Tink,"
said Peter amiably, "this lady says she
wishes you were her fairy."
Tinker Bell
answered insolently.
"What does she
say, Peter?"
He had to
translate. "She is not very polite. She says
you are a great [huge] ugly girl, and that she is
my fairy.
He tried to argue
with Tink. "You know you can't be my fairy,
Tink, because I am an gentleman and you are a
lady."
To this Tink
replied in these words, "You silly ass,"
and disappeared into the bathroom. "She is
quite a common fairy," Peter explained
apologetically, "she is called Tinker Bell
because she mends the pots and kettles [tinker =
tin worker]." [Similar to "cinder"
plus "elle" to get Cinderella]
They were together
in the armchair by this time, and Wendy plied him
with more questions.
"If you don't
live in Kensington Gardens now -- "
"Sometimes I
do still."
"But where do
you live mostly now?"
"With the lost
boys."
"Who are
they?"
"They are the
children who fall out of their perambulators when
the nurse is looking the other way. If they are
not claimed in seven days they are sent far away
to the Neverland to defray expenses. I'm
captain."
"What fun it
must be!"
"Yes,"
said cunning Peter, "but we are rather
lonely. You see we have no female
companionship."
"Are none of
the others girls?"
"Oh, no;
girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out
of their prams."
This flattered
Wendy immensely. "I think," she said,
"it is perfectly lovely the way you talk
about girls; John there just despises us."
For reply Peter
rose and kicked John out of bed, blankets and all;
one kick. This seemed to Wendy rather forward for
a first meeting, and she told him with spirit that
he was not captain in her house. However, John
continued to sleep so placidly on the floor that
she allowed him to remain there. "And I know
you meant to be kind," she said, relenting,
"so you may give me a kiss."
For the moment she
had forgotten his ignorance about kisses. "I
thought you would want it back," he said a
little bitterly, and offered to return her the
thimble.
"Oh
dear," said the nice Wendy, "I don't
mean a kiss, I mean a thimble."
"What's
that?"
"It's like
this." She kissed him.
"Funny!"
said Peter gravely. "Now shall I give you a
thimble?"
"If you wish
to," said Wendy, keeping her head erect this
time.
Peter thimbled her,
and almost immediately she screeched. "What
is it, Wendy?"
"It was
exactly as if someone were pulling my hair."
"That must
have been Tink. I never knew her so naughty
before."
And indeed Tink was
darting about again, using offensive language.
"She says she
will do that to you, Wendy, every time I give you
a thimble."
"But
why?"
"Why, Tink?"
Again Tink replied,
"You silly ass." Peter could not
understand why, but Wendy understood, and she was
just slightly disappointed when he admitted that
he came to the nursery window not to see her but
to listen to stories.
"You see, I
don't know any stories. None of the lost boys
knows any stories."
"How perfectly
awful," Wendy said.
"Do you
know," Peter asked "why swallows build
in the eaves of houses? It is to listen to the
stories. O Wendy, your mother was telling you such
a lovely story."
"Which story
was it?"
"About the
prince who couldn't find the lady who wore the
glass slipper."
"Peter,"
said Wendy excitedly, "that was Cinderella,
and he found her, and they lived happily ever
after."
Peter was so glad
that he rose from the floor, where they had been
sitting, and hurried to the window.
"Where are you
going?" she cried with misgiving.
"To tell the
other boys."
"Don't go
Peter," she entreated, "I know such lots
of stories."
Those were her
precise words, so there can be no denying that it
was she who first tempted him.
He came back, and
there was a greedy look in his eyes now which
ought to have alarmed her, but did not.
"Oh, the
stories I could tell to the boys!" she cried,
and then Peter gripped her and began to draw her
toward the window.
"Let me
go!" she ordered him.
"Wendy, do
come with me and tell the other boys."
Of course she was
very pleased to be asked, but she said, "Oh
dear, I can't. Think of mummy! Besides, I can't
fly."
"I'll teach
you."
"Oh, how
lovely to fly."
"I'll teach
you how to jump on the wind's back, and then away
we go."
"Oo!" she
exclaimed rapturously.
"Wendy, Wendy,
when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might
be flying about with me saying funny things to the
stars."
"Oo!"
"And, Wendy,
there are mermaids."
"Mermaids!
With tails?"
"Such long
tails."
"Oh,"
cried Wendy, "to see a mermaid!"
He had become
frightfully cunning. "Wendy," he said,
"how we should all respect you."
She was wriggling
her body in distress. It was quite as if she were
trying to remain on the nursery floor.
But he had no pity
for her.
"Wendy,"
he said, the sly one, "you could tuck us in
at night."
"Oo!"
"None of us
has ever been tucked in at night."
"Oo," and
her arms went out to him.
"And you could
darn our clothes, and make pockets for us. None of
us has any pockets."
How could she
resist. "Of course it's awfully
fascinating!" she cried. "Peter, would
you teach John and Michael to fly too?"
"If you
like," he said indifferently, and she ran to
John and Michael and shook them. "Wake
up," she cried, "Peter Pan has come and
he is to teach us to fly."
John rubbed his
eyes. "Then I shall get up," he said. Of
course he was on the floor already.
"Hallo," he said, "I am up!"
Michael was up by
this time also, looking as sharp as a knife with
six blades and a saw, but Peter suddenly signed
silence. Their faces assumed the awful craftiness
of children listening for sounds from the grown-up
world. All was as still as salt. Then everything
was right. No, stop! Everything was wrong. Nana,
who had been barking distressfully all the
evening, was quiet now. It was her silence they
had heard.
"Out with the
light! Hide! Quick!" cried John, taking
command for the only time throughout the whole
adventure. And thus when Liza entered, holding
Nana, the nursery seemed quite its old self, very
dark, and you would have sworn you heard its three
wicked inmates breathing angelically as they
slept. They were really doing it artfully from
behind the window curtains.
Liza was in a bad
tamper, for she was mixing the Christmas puddings
in the kitchen, and had been drawn from them, with
a raisin still on her cheek, by Nana's absurd
suspicions. She thought the best way of getting a
little quiet was to take Nana to the nursery for a
moment, but in custody of course.
"There, you
suspicious brute," she said, not sorry that
Nana was in disgrace. "They are perfectly
safe, aren't they? Every one of the little angels
sound asleep in bed. Listen to their gentle
breathing."
Here Michael,
encouraged by his success, breathed so loudly that
they were nearly detected. Nana knew that kind of
breathing, and she tried to drag herself out of
Liza's clutches.
But Liza was dense.
"No more of it, Nana," she said sternly,
pulling her out of the room. "I warn you if
bark again I shall go straight for master and
missus and bring them home from the party, and
then, oh, won't master whip you, just."
She tied the
unhappy dog up again, but do you think Nana ceased
to bark? Bring master and missus home from the
party! Why, that was just what she wanted. Do you
think she cared whether she was whipped so long as
her charges were safe? Unfortunately Liza returned
to her puddings, and Nana, seeing that no help
would come from her, strained and strained at the
chain until at last she broke it. In another
moment she had burst into the dining- room of 27
and flung up her paws to heaven, her most
expressive way of making a communication. Mr. and
Mrs. Darling knew at once that something terrible
was happening in their nursery, and without a
good-bye to their hostess they rushed into the
street.
But it was now ten
minutes since three scoundrels had been breathing
behind the curtains, and Peter Pan can do a great
deal in ten minutes.
We now return to
the nursery.
"It's all
right," John announced, emerging from his
hiding- place. "I say, Peter, can you really
fly?"
Instead of
troubling to answer him Peter flew around the
room, taking the mantelpiece on the way.
"How
topping!" said John and Michael.
"How
sweet!" cried Wendy.
"Yes, I'm
sweet, oh, I am sweet!" said Peter,
forgetting his manners again.
It looked
delightfully easy, and they tried it first from
the floor and then from the beds, but they always
went down instead of up.
"I say, how do
you do it?" asked John, rubbing his knee. He
was quite a practical boy.
"You just
think lovely wonderful thoughts," Peter
explained, "and they lift you up in the
air."
He showed them
again.
"You're so
nippy at it," John said, "couldn't you
do it very slowly once?"
Peter did it both
slowly and quickly. "I've got it now,
Wendy!" cried John, but soon he found he had
not. Not one of them could fly an inch, though
even Michael was in words of two syllables, and
Peter did not know A from Z.
Of course Peter had
been trifling with them, for no one can fly unless
the fairy dust has been blown on him. Fortunately,
as we have mentioned, one of his hands was messy
with it, and he blew some on each of them, with
the most superb results.
"Now just
wiggle your shoulders this way," he said,
"and let go."
They were all on
their beds, and gallant Michael let go first. He
did not quite mean to let go, but he did it, and
immediately he was borne across the room.
"I flewed!"
he screamed while still in mid-air.
John let go and met
Wendy near the bathroom.
"Oh,
lovely!"
"Oh,
ripping!"
"Look at
me!"
"Look at
me!"
"Look at
me!"
They were not
nearly so elegant as Peter, they could not help
kicking a little, but their heads were bobbing
against the ceiling, and there is almost nothing
so delicious as that. Peter gave Wendy a hand at
first, but had to desist, Tink was so indignant.
Up and down they
went, and round and round. Heavenly was Wendy's
word.
"I say,"
cried John, "why shouldn't we all go
out?"
Of course it was to
this that Peter had been luring them.
Michael was ready:
he wanted to see how long it took him to do a
billion miles. But Wendy hesitated.
"Mermaids!"
said Peter again.
"Oo!"
"And there are
pirates."
"Pirates,"
cried John, seizing his Sunday hat, "let us
go at once."
It was just at this
moment that Mr. and Mrs. Darling hurried with Nana
out of 27. They ran into the middle of the street
to look up at the nursery window; and, yes, it was
still shut, but the room was ablaze with light,
and most heart-gripping sight of all, they could
see in shadow on the curtain three little figures
in night attire circling round and round, not on
the floor but in the air.
Not three figures,
four!
In a tremble they
opened the street door. Mr. Darling would have
rushed upstairs, but Mrs. Darling signed him to go
softly. She even tried to make her heart go
softly.
Will they reach the
nursery in time? If so, how delightful for them,
and we shall all breathe a sigh of relief, but
there will be no story. On the other hand, if they
are not in time, I solemnly promise that it will
all come right in the end.
They would have
reached the nursery in time had it not been that
the little stars were watching them. Once again
the stars blew the window open, and that smallest
star of all called out:
"Cave,
Peter!"
Then Peter knew
that there was not a moment to lose.
"Come," he cried imperiously, and soared
out at once into the night, followed by John and
Michael and Wendy.
Mr. and Mrs.
Darling and Nana rushed into the nursery too late.
The birds were flown.
