The cuckoo clock strikes six, and Nana springs into life.This first moment in the play is tremendously important, for if the actor playing Nana does not spring properly we are undone. She will probably be played by a boy, if one clever enough can be found, and must never be on two legs except on those rare occasions when an ordinary nurse would be on four. This Nana must go about all her duties in a most ordinary manner, so that you know in your bones that she performs them just so every evening at six; naturalness must be her passion; indeed, it should be the aim of every one in the play, for which she is now setting the pace. All the characters, whether grown-ups or babes, must wear a child's outlook on life as their only important adornment. If they cannot help being funny they are begged to go away. A good motto for all would be 'The little less, and how much it is.'
Nana, making much use of her mouth, 'turns down' the beds, and carries the various articles on the fire-guard across to them. Then pushing the bathroom door open, she is seen at work on the taps preparing Michael's bath; after which she enters from the day nursery with the youngest of the family on her back.
MICHAEL (obstreperous). I won't go to bed, I won't, I won't. Nana, it isn't six o'clock yet. Two minutes more, please, one minute more? Nana, I won't be bathed, I tell you I will not be bathed.
(Here the bathroom door closes on them, and MRS. DARLING, who has perhaps heard his cry, enters the nursery. She is the loveliest lady in Bloomsbury, with a sweet mocking mouth, and as she is going out to dinner tonight she is already wearing her evening gown because she knows her children like to see her in it. It is a delicious confection made by herself out of nothing and other people's mistakes. She does not often go out to dinner, preferring when the children are in bed to sit beside them tidying up their minds, just as if they were drawers. If WENDY and the boys could keep awake they might see her repacking into their proper places the many articles of the mind that have strayed during the day, lingering humorously over some of their contents, wondering where on earth they picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When they wake in the morning the naughtinesses with which they went to bed are not, alas, blown away, but they are placed at the bottom of the drawer; and on the top, beautifully aired, are their prettier thoughts ready forthe new day.
As she enters the room she is startled to see a strange little face outside the window and a hand groping as if it wanted to come in.)
MRS. DARLlNG. Who are you? (The unknown disappears; she hurries to the window.) No one there. And yet I feel sure I saw a face. My children! (She throws open the bathroom door and MICHAEL'S head appears gaily over the bath. He splashes; she throws kisses to him and closes the door.'Wendy, John,' she cries, and gets reassuring answers from the day nursery. She sits down, relieved, on WENDY'S bed; and WENDY and JOHN come in, looking their smallest size, as children tend to do to a mother suddenly in fear for them.)
JOHN (histrionically). We are doing an act; we are playing at being you and father. (He imitates the only father who has come under his special notice.) A little less noise there.
WENDY. Now let us pretend we have a baby.
JOHN (good-naturedly). I am happy to inform you, Mrs.Darling, that you are now a mother. (WENDY gives way to ecstasy.) You have missed the chief thing; you haven't asked, 'boy or girl?'
WENDY. I am so glad to have one at all, I don't care which it is.
JOHN (crushingly). That is just the difference between gentlemen and ladies. Now you tell me.
WENDY. I am happy to acquaint you, Mr. Darling, you are now a father.
JOHN. Boy or girl?
WENDY (presenting herself). Girl.
JOHN. Tuts.
WENDY. You horrid.
JOHN. Go on.
WENDY. I am happy to acquaint you, Mr. Darling, you are again a father.
JOHN. Boy or girl?
WENDY. Boy. (JOHN beams.) Mummy, it's hateful of him.
(MICHAEL emerges from the bathroom in JOHN'S old pyjamas and giving his face a last wipe with the towel.)
MICHAEL (expanding). Now, John, have me.
JOHN. We don't want any more.
MICHAEL (contracting). Am I not to be born at all?
JOHN. Two is enough.
MICHAEL (wheedling). Come, John; boy, John. (Appalled) Nobody wants me!
MRS. DARLING. I do.
MICHAEL (with a glimmer of hope). Boy or girl?
MRS. DARLING (with one of those happy thoughts of hers). Boy.
(Triumph of MICHAEL; discomfiture of JOHN. MR.DARLING arrives, in no mood unfortunately to gloat over this domestic scene. He is really a good man as breadwinners go, and it is hard luck for him to be propelled into the room now, when if we had brought him in a few minutes earlier or later he might have made a fairer impression. In the city where he sits on a stool all day, as fixed as a postage stamp, he is so like all the others on stools that you recognise him not by his face but by his stool, but at home the way to gratify him is to say that he has a distinct personality. He is very conscientious, and in the days when MRS. DARLING gave up keeping the house books correctly and drew pictures instead (which he called her guesses), he did all the totting up for her, holding her hand while he calculated whether they could have Wendy or not, and coming down on the right side. It is with regret, therefore, that we introduce him as a tornado, rushing into the nursery in evening dress, but without his coat, and brandishing in his hand a recalcitrant white tie.)
MR. DARLING (implying that he has searched for her everywhere and that the nursery is a strange place in which to find her). Oh, here you are, Mary.
MRS. DARLING (knowing at once what is the matter). What is the matter, George dear?
MR. DARLING (as if the word were monstrous). Matter! This tie, it will not tie. (He waxes sarcastic.) Not round my neck. Round the bed-post, oh yes; twenty times have I made it up round the bed-post, but round my neck, oh dear no; begs to be excused.
MICHAEL (in a joyous transport). Say it again, father, say it again!
MR. DARLING (witheringly). Thank you. (Goaded by asuspiciously crooked smile on MRS. DARLING'S face) I warn you, Mary, that unless this tie is round my neck we don't goout to dinner to-night, and if I don't go out to dinner to-night I never go to the office again, and if I don't go to the office again you and I starve, and our children will be thrown into the streets.
(The children blanch as they grasp the gravity of the situation.)
MRS. DARLING. Let me try, dear.
(In a terrible silence their progeny cluster round them. Will she succeed? Their fate depends on it. She fails—no, she succeeds. In another moment they are wildly gay, romping round the room on each other's shoulders. Father is even a better horse than mother. MICHAEL is dropped upon his bed, WENDY retires to prepare for hers, JOHN runs from NANA, who has reappeared with the bath towel.)
JOHN (rebellious). I won't be bathed. You needn't think it.
MR. DARLING (in the grand manner). Go and be bathed at once, sir.
(With bent head JOHN follows NANA into the bathroom. MR. DARLING swells.)
MICHAEL (as he is put between the sheets). Mother, how did you get to know me?
MR. DARLING. A little less noise there.
MICHAEL (growing solemn). At what time was I born, mother?
MRS. DARLING. At two o'clock in the night-time, dearest.
MICHAEL. Oh, mother, I hope I didn't wake