PETER Do you like her?
WENDY Yes! (Desperate) Peter, don't you see whose child she is?
PETER Of course I do. She's your mother's child. I say, I like her too!
WENDY (crying) Why?
PETER 'Cos now your mother can let you stay longer with me for Spring Cleaning. (Agony of Wendy)
WENDY Peter. I – I have something to tell you.
PETER (running to her gaily) Is it a secret?
WENDY Oh! Peter, when Captain Hook carried us away –
PETER Who's Captain Hook? Is it a story? Tell it me.
WENDY (aghast) Do you mean to say you've even forgotten Captain Hook, and how you killed him and saved all our lives?
PETER (fidgeting) I forget them after I kill them.
WENDY Oh, Peter, your forget everything!
PETER Everything except mother Wendy. (hugs her)
WENDY Oh!
PETER Come on Wendy.
WENDY (miserably) Where to?
PETER To the Little House. (A little strong) Have you forgotten it is Spring Cleaning time – it's you that forgets.
WENDY Peter, Peter! by this time the little house must have rotted all away.
PETER So it has, but there are new ones, even littler.
WENDY Did you build them yourself?
PETER Oh no, I just found them. You see the little house was a Mother and it has young ones.
WENDY You sweet.
PETER So come on. ('Pulling her) I'm Captain.
WENDY I can't come, Peter – I have forgotten how to fly.
PETER I'll soon teach you again. (Blows fairy dust on her)
WENDY Peter, Peter, you are wasting the fairy dust.
PETER (At last alarmed) What is it, Wendy? Is something wrong? Don't cheat me mother Wendy, – I'm only a little boy.
WENDY I can't come with you, Peter – because I'm no longer young and innocent.
PETER (with a cry) Yes you are.
WENDY I'm going to turn up the light, and then you will see for yourself.
PETER (frightened – hastily) Wendy, don't turn up the light.
WENDY Yes. But first I want to say to you for the last time something I said often and often in the dear Never Never Land. Peter, what are your exact feelings for me?
PETER Those of a devoted son, Wendy. (Silently she lets her hand play with his hair – she caresses his face, smiling through her tears – then she turns lamp up near the fire and faces him – a bewildered understanding comes to him – she puts out her arms – but he shrinks back) What is it? What is it?
WENDY Peter, I'm grown up – I couldn't help it! (He backs again) I'm a married woman Peter – and that little girl is my baby.
PETER (after pause – fiercely) What does she call you?
WENDY (softly, after pause) Mother.
PETER Mother! (He takes step toward the child with a little dagger in his hand upraised, then is about to fly away, then flings self on floor and sobs)
WENDY Peter, Peter! Oh! (Knows not what to do, rushes in agony from the room – long pause in which nothing is heard but Peter's sobs. Nana is restless. Peter is on the same spot as when crying about his Shadow in Act I. Presently his sobbing wakes Jane. She sits up.)
JANE Boy, why are you crying?
(Peter rises – they bow as in Act I.)
JANE What's your name?
PETER Peter Pan.
JANE I just thought it would be you.
PETER I came for my mother to take her to the Never Never Land to do my Spring Cleaning.
JANE Yes I know, I've been waiting for you.
PETER Will you be my mother?
JANE Oh, yes. (Simply)
(She gets out of bed and stands beside him, arms round him in a child's conception of a mother – Peter very happy. The lamp flickers and goes out as night-light did)
PETER I hear Wendy coming – Hide!
(They hide. Then Peter is seen teaching Jane to fly. They are very gay. Wendy enters and stands right, taking in situation and much more. They don't see her.)
PETER Hooray! Hooray!
JANE (flying) Oh! Lucky me!
PETER And you'll come with me?
JANE If Mummy says I may.
WENDY Oh!
JANE May I, Mummy?
WENDY May I come too?
PETER You can't fly.
JANE It's just for a week.
PETER And I do so need a mother.
WENDY (nobly yielding) Yes my love, you may go. (Kisses and squeals of rapture, Wendy puts slippers and cloak on Jane and suddenly Peter and Jane fly out hand in hand right in to the night, Wendy waving to them – Nana wakens, rises, is weak on legs, barks feebly – Wendy comes and gets on her knees beside Nana.)
WENDY Don't be anxious Nana. This is how I planned it if he ever came back. Every Spring Cleaning, except when he forgets, I'll let Jane fly away with him to the darling Never Never Land, and when she grows up I hope she will have a little daughter, who will fly away with him in turn – and in this way may I go on for ever and ever, dear Nana, so long as children are young and innocent.
(Gradual darkness – then two little lights seen moving slowly through the heavens)
CURTAIN
Other Books
The Little White Bird
I. David and I Set Forth Upon a Journey
II. The Little Nursery Governess
III. Her Marriage, Her Clothes, Her Appetite, and an Inventory of Her Furniture
VIII. The Inconsiderate Waiter