(It is as if she had heard him.)
WENDY (without opening her eyes).
I wish I had a woodland house, The littlest ever seen, With funny little red walls And roof of mossy green.
(In the time she sings this and two other verses, such is the urgency of PETER'S silent orders that they have knocked down trees, laid a foundation and put up the walls and roof, so that she is now hidden from view. 'Windows' cries PETER, and CURLY rushes them in, 'Roses' and TOOTLES arrives breathless with a festoon for the door. Thus springs into existence the most delicious little house for beginners.)
FIRST TWIN. I think it is finished.
PETER. There is no knocker on the door. (TOOTLES hangs up the sole of his shoe.) There is no chimney, we must have a chimney. (They await his deliberations anxiously.)
JOHN (unwisely critical). It certainly does need a chimney.
(He is again wearing his hat, which PETER seizes, knocks the top off it and places on the roof. In the friendliestway smoke begins to come out of the hat.)
PETER (with his hand on the knocker). All look your best; the first impression is awfully important. (he knocks, and after a dreadful moment of suspense, in which they cannot help wondering if any one is inside, the door opens and who should come out but WENDY! She has evidently been tidying a little. She is quite surprised to find that she has nine children.)
WENDY (genteelly). Where am I?
SLIGHTLY. Wendy lady, for you we built this house.
NIBS and TOOTLES. Oh, say you are pleased.
WENDY (stroking the pretty thing). Lovely, darling house!
FIRST TWIN. And we are your children.
WENDY (affecting surprise). Oh?
OMNES (kneeling, with outstretched arms). Wendy lady, be our mother! (Now that they know it is pretend they acclaim her greedily.)
WENDY (not to make herself too cheap). Ought I? Of course it is frightfully fascinating; but you see I am only a little girl; I have no real experience.
OMNES. That doesn't matter. What we need is just a nice motherly person.
WENDY. Oh dear, I feel that is just exactly what I am.
OMNES. It is, it is, we saw it at once.
WENDY. Very well then, I will do my best. (In their glee they go dancing obstreperously round the little house, and she sees she must be firm with them as well as kind.) Come inside at once, you naughty children, I am sure your feet are damp. And before I put you to bed I have just time to finish the story of Cinderella.
(They all troop into the enchanting house, whose not least remarkable feature is that it holds them. A vision of LIZA passes, not perhaps because she has any right to be there; but she has so few pleasures and is so young that we just let her have a peep at the little house. By and by PETER comes out and marches up and down with drawn sword, for the pirates can be heard carousing faraway on the lagoon, and the wolves are on the prowl. The little house, its walls so red and its roof so mossy, looks very cosy and safe, with a bright light showing through the blind, the chimney smoking beautifully, and PETER on guard. On our last sight of him it is so dark that we just guess he is the little figure who has fallen asleep by the door. Dots of light come and go. They are inquisitive fairies having a look at the house. Any other child in their way they would mischief, but they just tweak PETER'S nose and pass on. Fairies, you see,can touch him.)
Act III.
The Mermaids' Lagoon
It is the end of a long playful day on the lagoon. The sun's rays have persuaded him to give them another five minutes, for one more race over the waters before he gathers them up and lets in the moon. There are many mermaids here, going plop-plop, and one might attempt to count the tails did they not flash and disappear so quickly. At times a lovely girl leaps in the air seeking to get rid of her excess of scales, which fall in a silver shower as she shakes them off. From the coral grottoes beneath the lagoon, where are the mermaids' bedchambers, comes fitful music.
One of the most bewitching of these blue-eyed creatures is lying lazily on Marooners' Rock, combing her long tresses and noting effects in a transparent shell. Peter and his band are in the water unseen behind the rock, whither they have tracked her as if she were a trout, and at a signal ten pairs of arms come whack upon the mermaid to enclose her. Alas, this is only what was meant to happen, for she hears the signal (which is the crow of a cock) and slips through their arms into the water. It has been such a near thing that there are scales on some of their hands. They climb on to the rock crestfallen.
WENDY (preserving her scales as carefully as if they were rare postage stamps). I did so want to catch a mermaid.
PETER (getting rid of his). It is awfully difficult to catch a mermaid.
(The mermaids at times find it just as difficult to catch him, though he sometimes joins them in their one game,which consists in lazily blowing their bubbles into the air and seeing who can catch them. The number of bubbles PETER has flown away with! When the weather grows cold mermaids migrate 'to the other side of the world, and he once went with a great shoal of them half the way.)
They are such cruel creatures, Wendy, that they try to pull boys and girls like you into the water and drown them.
WENDY (too guarded by this time to ask what he means 'precisely by 'like you,' though she is very desirous of knowing). How hateful!
(She is slightly different in appearance now, rather rounder, while JOHN and MICHAEL are not quite so round. The reason is that when new lost children arrive at his underground home PETER finds new trees for them to go up and down by, and instead of fitting the tree to them he makes them fit the tree. Sometimes it can be done by adding or removing garments, but if you are bumpy, or the tree is an odd shape, he has things done to you with a roller, and after that you fit. The other boys are now playing King of the Castle, throwing each other into the water, taking headers and so on; but these two continue to talk.)
PETER. Wendy, this is a fearfully important rock. It is called Marooners' Rock. Sailors are marooned, you know, when their captain leaves them on a rock and sails away.
WENDY. Leaves them on this little rock to drown?
PETER (lightly). Oh, they don't live long. Their hands are tied, so that they can't swim. When the tide is full this rock is covered with water, and then the sailor drowns.
(WENDY is uneasy as she surveys the rock, which is the only one in the lagoon and no larger than a table. Since she last looked around a threatening change has come over the scene. The sun has gone, but the moon has not come. What has come is a cold shiver across the waters which has sent all the wiser mermaids to their coral recesses. They know that evil is creeping over the lagoon. Of the boys PETER is of course the first to scent it, and he has leapt to his feet before the words strike the rock—
'And if we 're parted by a shot We 're sure to meet below.'
The games on the rock and around it end so abruptly that several divers are checked in the air. There they hang waiting for the word of command from PETER.When they get it they strike the water simultaneously, and the rock is at once as bare as if suddenly they had been blown off it. Thus the pirates find it deserted when their dinghy strikes the rock and is nearly stove in by the concussion.)
SMEE. Luff, you spalpeen, luff! (They are SMEE and STARKEY, with TIGER LILY, their captive, bound hand and foot.) What we have got to do is to hoist the redskin on to the rock and leave her there to drown.
(To one of her race this is an end darker than death by fire or torture, for it is written in the laws of the Piccaninnies that there is no path through water to the happy hunting ground. Yet her face is impassive; she is the daughter of a chief and must die as a chief's daughter; it is enough.)