The Complete Works of J. M. Barrie (With Illustrations). James Matthew Barrie
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hat first as up comes the house so softly that it knocks some gossips off their perch. When it has settled comfortably it lights up, and out come Peter and Wendy.
Wendy looks a little older, but Peter is just the same. She is cloaked for a journey, and a sad confession must be made about her; she flies so badly now that she has to use a broomstick.
WENDY (who knows better this time than to be demonstrative at partings). Well, good-bye, Peter; and remember not to bite your nails.
PETER. Good-bye, Wendy.
WENDY. I'll tell mother all about the spring cleaning and the house.
PETER (who sometimes forgets that she has been here before). You do like the house?
WENDY. Of course it is small. But most people of our size wouldn't have a house at all. (She should not have mentioned size, for he has already expressed displeasure at her growth. Another thing, one he has scarcely noticed, though it disturbs her, is that she does not see him quite so clearly now as she used to do.) When you come for me next year, Peter—you will come, won't you?
PETER. Yes. (Gloating) To hear stories about me!
WENDY. It is so queer that the stories you like best should be the ones about yourself.
PETER (touchy). Well, then?
WENDY. Fancy your forgetting the lost boys, and even Captain Hook!
PETER. Well, then?
WENDY. I haven't seen Tink this time.
PETER. Who?
WENDY. Oh dear! I suppose it is because you have so many adventures.
PETER (relieved). 'Course it is.
WENDY. If another little girl—if one younger than I am—(She can't go on.) Oh, Peter, how I wish I could take you up and squdge you! (He draws back.) Yes, I know. (She gets astride her broomstick.) Home! (It carries her from him over the tree-tops.
In a sort of way he understands what she means by 'Yes,I know,' but in most sorts of ways he doesn't. It has something to do with the riddle of his being. If hecould get the hang of the thing his cry might become 'To live would be an awfully big adventure!' but he can never quite get the hang of it, and so no one is as gay as he. With rapturous face he produces his pipes, and the Never birds and the fairies gather closer, till the roof of the little house is so thick with his admirers that some of them fall down the chimney. He plays on and on till we wake up.)
When Wendy Grew Up
The Scene is the same nursery, with this slight change – Michael's bed is now where Wendy's was and vice versa, and in front of John's bed, hiding the upper part of it from the audience, is a clothes horse on which depend (covering it), a little girl's garments to air at the fire. Time early evening. Lights in.
Wendy emerges from bathroom. She is now a grown-up woman, wearing a pretty dress with train, and she sails forward to fire in an excessively matrony manner. She comes straight to audience, points out to them with pride her long skirt and that her hair is up. Then takes a child's nightgown off fireguard and after pointing it out with rapture to audience exit into bathroom. She comes out with her little daughter Jane, who is in the nightgown. Wendy is drying Jane's hair.
JANE (naughty) Won't go to bed, Mummy, won't go to bed!
WENDY (excessively prim) Jane! When I was a little girl I went to bed the moment I was told. Come at once! (Jane dodges her and after pursuit is caught.) Naughtikins! (sits by fire with Jane on her knee warming toes) to run your poor old Mother out of breath! When she's not so young as she used to be!
JANE How young used you to be, Mummy?
WENDY Quite young. How time flies!
JANE Does it fly the way you flew when you were a little girl?
WENDY The way I flew. Do you know Darling it is all so long ago. I sometimes wonder whether I ever did really fly.
JANE Yes you did.
WENDY Those dear old days.
JANE Why can't you fly now, Mother?
WENDY Because I'm grown up, sweetheart; when people grow up they forget the way.
JANE Why do they forget the way?
WENDY Because they are no longer young and innocent. It is only the young and innocent that can fly.
JANE What is young and innocent? I do wish I were young and innocent! (Wendy suddenly hugs her)
WENDY Come to bed, dearest. (Takes her to bed right, down stage)
JANE Tell me a story. Tell me about Peter Pan.
WENDY (standing at foot of bed) I've told it you so often that I believe you could tell it to me now better than I could tell it to you.
JANE (putting bed clothes round them to suggest a tent) Go on Mother. This is the Little House. What do you see?
WENDY I see – just this nursery.
JANE But what do you see long ago in it?
WENDY I see – little Wendy in her bed.
JANE Yes, and Uncle Michael here and Uncle John over there.
WENDY Heigh ho! and to think that John has a beard now, and that Michael is an engine driver. Lie down, Petty.
JANE But do tell me. Tell me that bit – about how you grew up and Peter didn't. Begin where he promised to come for you every year, and take you to the Tree Tops to do his Spring Cleaning. Lucky you!
WENDY Well then! (now on bed behind Jane) On the conclusion of the adventures described in our last chapter which left our heroine Wendy, in her Mummy's arms, she was very quickly packed off to school again – a day school.
JANE And so were the boys.
WENDY Yes – Mummy adopted them. They were fearfully anxious because John had said to them that, if they didn't fit in, they would all have to be sent to the Dogs' Home. However they all fitted in, and they went to school in a bus every day, but sometimes they were very naughty, for when the conductor clambered up to collect the fares they flew off, so as not to have to pay their pennies. You should have seen Nana taking them to church. It was like a Collie herding sheep.
JANE Did they ever wish they were back in the Never Never Land?
WENDY (hesitating) I – I don't know.
JANE (with conviction) I know.
WENDY Of course they missed the fun. Even Wendy sometimes couldn't help flying, the littlest thing lifted her up in the air. The sight of a hat blown off a gentleman's head for instance. If it flew off, so did she! So a year passed, and the first Spring Cleaning time came round, when Peter was to come and take her to the Tree Tops.
JANE OO! OO!
WENDY How she prepared for him! How she sat at that window in her going-away frock – and he came – and away they flew to his Spring Cleaning – and he was exactly the same, and he never noticed that she was any different.
JANE How was she different?
WENDY She had to let the frock down two inches! She was so terrified that he might notice it, for she had promised him never to have growing pains. However, he never noticed, he was so full of lovely talk about himself.
JANE (gleefully) He was always awful cocky.
WENDY I think ladies rather love cocky gentlemen.
JANE So do I love them.
WENDY There was one sad thing I noticed. He had forgotten a lot. He had even forgotten Tinker Bell. I think she was no more.
JANE Oh dear!
WENDY