by Carey Corp
Maimie thought for a moment while wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “Wendy, the babes in your dream, were none of them girls?” she asked in earnest.
“Oh no,” Wendy answered gravely. “Girls, you know, are far too clever to fall out of their prams.”
CHAPTER 4
The Girl in the Theatre
It seemed to Wendy that there were no words to describe the complexity of her life. How did one explain an existence overcome with inertia and at the same time hurtling forward toward the inevitable with momentum as unstoppable as a runaway train? On all sides, external forces were pressuring her to make a choice about something in which she had no choice.
So often, she had heard her elders speaking enviously about her youth and the promise of a wonderful future yet to come. Despite their words, she did not feel like she had her whole future ahead of her. On the contrary, Wendy felt that her life was on the verge of ending. She could clearly picture each phase as if she had already lived it. In the blink of an eye she would be a colorless, old woman—the end product of a predictable and safe life. Wendy knew with heartfelt certainty that the person she was, whom she was just beginning to understand, would start to disappear as soon as she became a wife.
Just last week, Maimie had reluctantly announced her engagement to an ageing Viscount. It was a sensible match, giving the Sharpe family a title and replenishing the Viscount’s dwindling wealth. When pressed, Wendy had said to her dearest friend that Viscount Withington of Perrin Hall was agreeable, but secretly she was of the opinion that the aging count seemed more interested in his brandy and hunting dogs than his young bride-to-be. In truth, he was the type of husband that made a strong argument for the necessity of a lover.
Wendy sat up in bed pushing her bed tray aside. Poor Maimie—to wed such an insipid man! Yet, the whole world seemed to smile on the match as respectable and sensible. And proper.
Where was the fire of Romeo and Juliet? Surely, the England of Shakespeare had awe-inspiring passion. Where had that romance gone? When had Britain grown so tepid and gray? Try as she might, Wendy could not recall to mind one marriage she had personally observed that exemplified all-encompassing love. Was she, like Maimie, doomed to be an agreeable wife to a passionless husband?
Putting on her slippers and robe, Wendy sat at her dressing table. She was certain James was close to proposing. For nearly a year, she’d succeeded in putting him off. Artfully, she had extolled the virtues of young men who were establishing themselves in business before taking a bride. Often she had praised James for being among them. So far, not wanting to drop in her esteem, James had simply nodded along. Lately however, he took great pains to impress upon her his occupational accomplishments. Being of the same world, Wendy knew that James experienced the same pressures as she. Caught in the same web, it was just a matter of time until they both did exactly what was expected of them.
Wendy brushed her hair absently—at least she had the theatre. The Duke of York’s Theatre had been her saving grace. It was passion in a world of propriety; bursting color in the sepia landscape of her life. It was her sanity. The theatre was the only place where Wendy truly felt alive.
Since her most recent birthday, Wendy had been allowed to attend the Saturday matinee performance with Maimie, unchaperoned. Yet the theatre, like everything in her life, had come at a price. It was no secret that Wendy’s family was at the mercy of her Aunt’s purse strings. Even her ability to go to the weekly matinee relied on the spinster’s generosity and good will. In return, all Wendy needed to do was to receive James.
At the start, it had seemed like a small price to pay…to live.
Poor Wendy could not see that the true danger in compromise lies not in the act, itself, but in the precedent. Had she known the extent of her indebtedness and the price her heart would eventually pay, she would not have settled on the bargain so easily.
Every Saturday, Wendy Darling and Mamie Sharpe sat in the first row of the Royal Circle at the Duke of York’s Theatre. No matter what the production, they assembled for their weekly dose of passion-infused freedom. As a result, the faithful friends would often see the same production more than once.
Wendy delighted in being able to discern the slightest difference in movement or lines. On their way home, she would share her observations with Maimie. “Irene outdid herself with the speech in act two today” or “Gerald seemed a bit off this afternoon, don’t you think?” or “Nina was positively radiant!” Wendy regarded each performance with novelty regardless of how many times she had seen it. For Maimie, who was of an easily distracted nature, the novelty lay in being unchaperoned for the entire afternoon.
“What thrills you so about the theatre?” Maimie had once asked her friend as they were strolling through Kensington Gardens after their Saturday matinee.
Wendy hardly knew where to begin. “The stories, the action, the swordplay – all of it! Oh Maimie, I wish I could have such adventures!’
“Wendy, such adventures are just stories. They do not exist in real life.”
“But, dear Maimie, those same stories are created in the imaginations of playwrights, who are real people. Actors, who are real people, act them. One cannot write nor act what one does not know. So those stories must be based in some truth.”
“Imagination is not truth, Wendy; it is the opposite of truth. It is escapism from the ordinary and dullness of our lives.”
“Can a blind man understand what blue is? Or red?” countered Wendy vehemently. “That which springs forth from our imagination must have existed at some time in the past. Even if not evident here and now, our instinct tells us what we create is true. Imagination is where truth and instinct meet to form a world that has been, could be, and perhaps shall be again in the future. When you are watching a play can you not feel it?”
“No,” replied her friend smiling devilishly. “Sometimes I feel sleepy, sometimes I feel hungry, and sometimes, if the actor is handsome, I feel…well, I shall just let you imagine the rest!”
Blushing at the memory, Wendy regarded herself in the mirror. She noticed a small scratch on her left cheek. The crimson welt had the appearance of a new wound. Thoughtfully, she ran her finger over it. Strange, she could not recall where it had come from. Perhaps she had scratched herself in the night. Looking over at her bed—disheveled as if she had been thrashing about—she frowned. Her sleep seemed to be growing more and more agitated.
Wendy gazed out the window trying to recall the dream that had elicited such nocturnal movement. Had she been in a play? She remembered vivid colors more akin to stage scenery than real life. She had been on a great billowy cloud, staring down at a beautiful, mysterious island. Then she was falling…but not from the cloud. No, she was falling from something dark and sinister. Skull and crossbones flashed through her mind.
A pirate ship!
Like Mabel in Pirates of Penzance, she’d been captured by villainous pirates. They had forced her to walk the plank. She remembered standing on the coarse wood in her nightdress, shivering as a cold, stormy wind tugged cruelly at her hair. The plank began to retract forcing her to edge backwards toward the dark, tumultuous sea…a final step—then nothing. She was falling to her death. As she fell, her left cheek grazed the edge of the plank. Then—blackness.
Try as she might, she could not recall the rest of the dream. She felt sure, somehow, that there had been no splash. Wendy looked closer at the fresh scratch on her cheek. What did it mean?
The downstairs clock struck the hour shaking her from her reverie. Today she and Maimie were to see a new production of The Three Musketeers. It was already ten o’clock and Wendy had much to do before her friend’s arrival. Daydreaming could wait; now was the time for action.
Clutching his abdomen, Peter sat up in bed drenched in sweat. As far back as he could remember—that is to say ever since the morning of his arrival at Smythe and Sons—his nights were troubled with mysterious and disturbing dreams. He’d been flying through a storm
y sky over a dark and churning sea. A dark, menacing ship bobbed in the distance. As he flew toward the ship, its cannon opened fire with a thunderous crack. The cannonball hit him squarely in the stomach and he lost his air. Then he plunged into blackness.
No matter how hard he tried, he could not remember the rest of the dream…but somehow he knew there had not been a splash. Gingerly, he touched his tender stomach. What did it mean?
Peter heard movement in the next room. Griffin was stirring. Today being Saturday, the brothers would soon be making their pilgrimage to Trafalgar Square for what Griffin called Peter’s “weekly communion.”
More than a year ago, the brothers had observed a group of men in high boots and swords making their way through Kensington Gardens. Greatly intrigued, Peter had insisted they follow the men to their destination, wherever it may be. And so the boys followed the strangers down streets and alleys, toward the Thames, and right thru the stage entrance of the Duke of York’s Theatre. The men, as it turned out, were actors in the company and scheduled to rehearse the swordfight from Romeo and Juliet. Instantly, Peter was hooked!
For Peter, the theatre opened up a world of adventure that had previously existed only in his imagination. Before his eyes, the creations of Shakespeare, Wilde, Chekhov, Ibsen, and Shaw came to life full of wit and passion. Peter worshipped these actors; these men and women who could make him laugh or cry at their whim. Their characters touched his soul. Whether Shylock, Earnest, Treplev, or John Tanner; they spoke to him in truths and he was richer for knowing them.
At first, the stage manager shooed the boys away but, at Peter’s insistence, they returned week after week. However, since the theatre always had need of free labor, and since the crew quickly tired of tripping over them, they were promptly put to work backstage. For Peter there was nothing better than being a part of the theatre. It became his first great love. Over the past year, he had done nearly every task from painting scenery to pulling the curtain. Ironically, it was in executing the latter task, that Peter’s great love was displaced by one even greater.
On the eve of Peter’s birthday—or more accurately his anniversary of waking up on Sir William Smythe’s doorstep—the assistant stage manager, known simply as Poole, let Peter pull the curtain for the matinee as a present. On Poole’s command, Peter, in position in the left wing of the stage, began to pull the rope to open the curtain. As the veil between the stage and the audience parted, Peter had a clear view of the patrons in the first row of the Royal Circle.
It was her expression that instantly caught his attention. The look of expectancy and pure rapture on her face would have put the angels to shame! The play began and she smiled releasing such undisguised joy that Peter, too, grinned from ear to ear.
She was the loveliest creature that Peter had ever seen. Not fashionably pale like so many young ladies her age, this girl seemed to glow with ruddy color. Her cheeks naturally blushed a rosy pink. Her full, rose-petal mouth conveyed volumes with even the slightest movement; a small smirk registered amusement; the tiniest pout hinted concern. Whether smiling in pleasure or biting her lower lip in distress, the effect was overwhelming.
She had large, perceptive blue eyes that overflowed with emotion and captured his being. When some action on stage caused her to look his way, she would stare down with eyes so bright that they seemed to bore two holes to the earth, and Peter lost sense of everything but her. Laughing or crying, the girl regarded the stage with such fierce passion that it caused Peter’s heart to rise to his mouth.
Every Saturday Peter stood transfixed in the stage shadows mastering the expressions of her beautiful face. It was apt—as Peter had learned through inquiry—that her name was Wendy Darling because nothing would ever be more darling to him than she.
Even now, alone in his room, the mere thought of her caused his heart to heave. Sighing, he closed his eyes wondering what her hair would smell like, whether she would feel hot or cold to his touch, what her voice would sound like murmuring softly against his chest?
Griffin, having never seen his brother so overcome or so helpless, had taken it upon himself to make inquiries as to the young lady’s circumstances. Being the practical older brother, he tried to make Peter face reality of their different stations. But no matter what he argued he could not sway Peter from the object of his affections.
“Peter,” he reasoned. “She is your senior.”
“True love cares nothing of age, Griffin.”
“Wendy Darling is of good family. She will be a gentleman’s wife.”
“Don’t you think that is for her to decide?”
“Peter, you know girls do not make such decisions, their families choose for them. Besides she does not even know you exist!”
“She may not know of me yet, Griffin, but she can feel me.” Peter smiled his most dazzling and cocky smile. “Relax, dear brother, I have a plan.”
“What plan? You can barely function in her presence!”
“Griffin, what does my Wendy love above all else?”
“How should I know? I—we—you barely know her!”
“She loves theatre above all else.”
“So?”
“So—I shall just have to become a part of what she loves best.”
“Peter,” exclaimed his brother. “You already have accomplished every job possible at the theatre and she remains completely ignorant of your existence. What else is to be done?”
“Every job, save one,” Peter replied. “Griffin, I mean to become an actor!”
Since his discovery of Wendy, Peter had waited patiently for an opportunity to take center stage at the theatre and in his beloved’s heart. Little did he suspect, as he and Griffin hurried through the early morning streets to the Duke of York’s Theatre, that fate was about to give him his chance.
CHAPTER 5
D'Artagnon Takes Center Stage
For those unfamiliar with the nature of the stage, the theatre is always a mass of energy prior to performances, and on the morning of a new production its frantic pace seems to accelerate to a maddening speed. The Duke of York’s Theatre was no exception. Therefore, Peter and Griffin were greatly surprised to be greeted backstage with frustrated inactivity. From the condition of the stage, sets and costumes asunder, it seemed that preparations had come to a screeching halt. Rather than making ready, cast and crew gathered in tight knots as if awaiting inspiration or guidance.
“Poole,” Griffin inquired in a hushed tone. “Why is everyone standing about? Has something happened?”
“Oh tragedy! Ruin!” replied the assistant, with all the dramatic emphasis befitting his occupation. “The play cannot open! It is a sad day for the Duke of York’s Theatre.” As if to emphasize the point, Poole blew his nose loudly.
“But what prevents The Three Musketeers from opening today? Yesterday everything seemed in perfect readiness.”
“It is our D’Artagnon. Granville injured his arm practicing the great swordfight in Act Five. See, he cannot even hold his weapon! We cannot present The Three Musketeers without a D’Artagnon!”
The boys looked at Granville, who made a stoic, although unsuccessful, effort to raise his sword. The director, Dion Boucicault (pronounced Boo-see-kO), thundered about, pausing now and then to scowl at the injured actor. “What good is it if you can hold the thing? If you cannot wield D’Artagnon’s sword, then we shall be forced to cut all the great fight scenes! Why don’t we cut off the Musketeers’ testicles while we are at it?! No, the play will not go on!”
Peter stepped forward, speaking for the first time, “Mr. Boucicault, I can do it.”
“What?” He looked Peter up and down skeptically. “Aren’t you one half of the pair of little stage mice that are always lurking about? No, I’m afraid we will have to cancel.”
“Give me a chance, Sir. I can do it. I know every word by heart!”
“It is not merely a matter of words, boy. It is a matter of passion, and feeling—and—and fencing.”
Poo
le cut in. “The boy can fence.”
“It is not just a matter of fencing,” the director continued. “It is a matter of feeling and passion—and-”
As Mr. Boucicault delivered his speech, Peter walked over to Granville and asked for his sword. Brandishing the sword, he turned to the Fight Captain, Monsieur Girrold.
“Engarde!”
Monsieur Girrold drew his sword in answer and a wonderful freeform swordfight began. At first, the captain was easy on the boy, but as Peter exhibited his apparent skill, the man began to respond without reluctance. As M. Girrold thrust, Peter parried each move without hesitation. Soon the boy gained the advantage relegating his opponent to a somewhat frantic defense. Like a whirling dervish possessed, Peter cut, parried, and twirled across the stage in a most impressive display. Only when he had bested the Fight Captain, separating him from his weapon, did he look at Mr. Boucicault, who in turn was staring at Monsieur Girrold. The entire company, who had been watching, broke out in enthusiastic applause.
“The boy is D’Artagnon incarnate!” exclaimed the breathless Captain as he retrieved his sword. “Peter, surely you were a swashbuckler in another life! Where did you learn to do that?”
Peter shrugged.
“He has always been able to do that,” Griffin replied proudly.
Shaking his head, Mr. Boucicault bellowed to the company, “What are you waiting for? Get the boy in costume, practice the fight sequences, and run the lines to all D’Artagnon’s scenes. After all, the show must go on!”
His dream finally within his grasp, Peter rushed to get ready, so overjoyed he thought he might crow.