Barrie, J M - Peter Pan 01 - The Little White Bird

by The Little White Bird

  Well, they were looking very undancey indeed, when sudden laughter broke out among the onlookers, caused by Brownie, who had just arrived and was insisting on her right to be presented to the Duke.

  Maimie craned forward eagerly to see how her friend fared, though she had really no hope; no one seemed to have the least hope except Brownie herself, who, however, was absolutely confident. She was led before his grace, and the doctor putting a finger carelessly on the ducal heart, which for convenience sake was reached by a little trapdoor in his diamond shirt, had begun to say mechanically, "Cold, qui--," when he stopped abruptly.

  "What's this?" he cried, and first he shook the heart like a watch, and then put his ear to it.

  "Bless my soul!" cried the doctor, and by this time of course the excitement among the spectators was tremendous, fairies fainting right and left.

  Everybody stared breathlessly at the Duke, who was very much startled and looked as if he would like to run away. "Good gracious me!" the doctor was heard muttering, and now the heart was evidently on fire, for he had to jerk his fingers away from it and put them in his mouth.

  The suspense was awful!

  Then in a loud voice, and bowing low, "My Lord Duke," said the physician elatedly, "I have the honour to inform your excellency that your grace is in love."

  You can't conceive the effect of it. Brownie held out her arms to the Duke and he flung himself into them, the Queen leapt into the arms of the Lord Chamberlain, and the ladies of the court leapt into the arms of her gentlemen, for it is etiquette to follow her example in everything. Thus in a single moment about fifty marriages took place, for if you leap into each other's arms it is a fairy wedding. Of course a clergyman has to be present.

  How the crowd cheered and leapt! Trumpets brayed, the moon came out, and immediately a thousand couples seized hold of its rays as if they were ribbons in a May dance and waltzed in wild abandon round the fairy ring. Most gladsome sight of all, the Cupids plucked the hated fools' caps from their heads and cast them high in the air. And then Maimie went and spoiled everything. She couldn't help it. She was crazy with delight over her little friend's good fortune, so she took several steps forward and cried in an ecstasy, "Oh, Brownie, how splendid!"

  Everybody stood still, the music ceased, the lights went out, and all in the time you may take to say "Oh dear!" An awful sense of her peril came upon Maimie, too late she remembered that she was a lost child in a place where no human must be between the locking and the opening of the gates, she heard the murmur of an angry multitude, she saw a thousand swords flashing for her blood, and she uttered a cry of terror and fled.

  How she ran! and all the time her eyes were starting out of her head. Many times she lay down, and then quickly jumped up and ran on again. Her little mind was so entangled in terrors that she no longer knew she was in the Gardens. The one thing she was sure of was that she must never cease to run, and she thought she was still running long after she had dropped in the Figs and gone to sleep. She thought the snowflakes falling on her face were her mother kissing her good-night. She thought her coverlet of snow was a warm blanket, and tried to pull it over her head. And when she heard talking through her dreams she thought it was mother bringing father to the nursery door to look at her as she slept. But it was the fairies.

  I am very glad to be able to say that they no longer desired to mischief her. When she rushed away they had rent the air with such cries as "Slay her!" "Turn her into something extremely unpleasant!" and so on, but the pursuit was delayed while they discussed who should march in front, and this gave Duchess Brownie time to cast herself before the Queen and demand a boon.

  Every bride has a right to a boon, and what she asked for was Maimie's life. "Anything except that," replied Queen Mab sternly, and all the fairies chanted "Anything except that." But when they learned how Maimie had befriended Brownie and so enabled her to attend the ball to their great glory and renown, they gave three huzzas for the little human, and set off, like an army, to thank her, the court advancing in front and the canopy keeping step with it. They traced Maimie easily by her footprints in the snow.

  But though they found her deep in snow in the Figs, it seemed impossible to thank Maimie, for they could not waken her. They went through the form of thanking her, that is to say, the new King stood on her body and read her a long address of welcome, but she heard not a word of it. They also cleared the snow off her, but soon she was covered again, and they saw she was in danger of perishing of cold.

  "Turn her into something that does not mind the cold," seemed a good suggestion of the doctor's, but the only thing they could think of that does not mind cold was a snowflake. "And it might melt," the Queen pointed out, so that idea had to be given up.

  A magnificent attempt was made to carry her to a sheltered spot, but though there were so many of them she was too heavy. By this time all the ladies were crying in their handkerchiefs, but presently the Cupids had a lovely idea. "Build a house round her," they cried, and at once everybody perceived that this was the thing to do; in a moment a hundred fairy sawyers were among the branches, architects were running round Maimie, measuring her; a bricklayer's yard sprang up at her feet, seventy-five masons rushed up with the foundation stone and the Queen laid it, overseers were appointed to keep the boys off, scaffoldings were run up, the whole place rang with hammers and chisels and turning lathes, and by this time the roof was on and the glaziers were putting in the windows.

  The house was exactly the size of Maimie and perfectly lovely. One of her arms was extended and this had bothered them for a second, but they built a verandah round it, leading to the front door. The windows were the size of a coloured picture-book and the door rather smaller, but it would be easy for her to get out by taking off the roof. The fairies, as is their custom, clapped their hands with delight over their cleverness, and they were all so madly in love with the little house that they could not bear to think they had finished it. So they gave it ever so many little extra touches, and even then they added more extra touches.

  For instance, two of them ran up a ladder and put on a chimney.

  "Now we fear it is quite finished," they sighed. But no, for another two ran up the ladder, and tied some smoke to the chimney.

  "That certainly finishes it," they cried reluctantly.

  "Not at all," cried a glow-worm, "if she were to wake without seeing a night-light she might be frightened, so I shall be her night-light."

  "Wait one moment," said a china merchant, "and I shall make you a saucer."

  Now alas, it was absolutely finished.

  Oh, dear no!

  "Gracious me," cried a brass manufacturer, "there's no handle on the door," and he put one on.

  An ironmonger added a scraper and an old lady ran up with a door- mat. Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the painters insisted on painting it.

  Finished at last!

  "Finished! how can it be finished," the plumber demanded scornfully, "before hot and cold are put in?" and he put in hot and cold. Then an army of gardeners arrived with fairy carts and spades and seeds and bulbs and forcing-houses, and soon they had a flower garden to the right of the verandah and a vegetable garden to the left, and roses and clematis on the walls of the house, and in less time than five minutes all these dear things were in full bloom.

  Oh, how beautiful the little house was now! But it was at last finished true as true, and they had to leave it and return to the dance. They all kissed their hands to it as they went away, and the last to go was Brownie. She stayed a moment behind the others to drop a pleasant dream down the chimney.

  All through the night the exquisite little house stood there in the Figs taking care of Maimie, and she never knew. She slept until the dream was quite finished and woke feeling deliciously cosy just as morning was breaking from its egg, and then she almost fell asleep again, and then she called out, "Tony," for she thought she was at home in the nursery. As Tony made no answer, she sat up, whereupon her head hit
the roof, and it opened like the lid of a box, and to her bewilderment she saw all around her the Kensington Gardens lying deep in snow. As she was not in the nursery she wondered whether this was really herself, so she pinched her cheeks, and then she knew it was herself, and this reminded her that she was in the middle of a great adventure. She remembered now everything that had happened to her from the closing of the gates up to her running away from the fairies, but however, she asked herself, had she got into this funny place? She stepped out by the roof, right over the garden, and then she saw the dear house in which she had passed the night. It so entranced her that she could think of nothing else.

  "Oh, you darling, oh, you sweet, oh, you love!" she cried.

  Perhaps a human voice frightened the little house, or maybe it now knew that its work was done, for no sooner had Maimie spoken than it began to grow smaller; it shrank so slowly that she could scarce believe it was shrinking, yet she soon knew that it could not contain her now. It always remained as complete as ever, but it became smaller and smaller, and the garden dwindled at the same time, and the snow crept closer, lapping house and garden up. Now the house was the size of a little dog's kennel, and now of a Noah's Ark, but still you could see the smoke and the door-handle and the roses on the wall, every one complete. The glow-worm light was waning too, but it was still there. "Darling, loveliest, don't go!" Maimie cried, falling on her knees, for the little house was now the size of a reel of thread, but still quite complete. But as she stretched out her arms imploringly the snow crept up on all sides until it met itself, and where the little house had been was now one unbroken expanse of snow.

  Maimie stamped her foot naughtily, and was putting her fingers to her eyes, when she heard a kind voice say, "Don't cry, pretty human, don't cry," and then she turned round and saw a beautiful little naked boy regarding her wistfully. She knew at once that he must be Peter Pan.

  XVIII

  Peter's Goat

  Maimie felt quite shy, but Peter knew not what shy was.

  "I hope you have had a good night," he said earnestly.

  "Thank you," she replied, "I was so cosy and warm. But you"--and she looked at his nakedness awkwardly--"don't you feel the least bit cold?"

  Now cold was another word Peter had forgotten, so he answered, "I think not, but I may be wrong: you see I am rather ignorant. I am not exactly a boy, Solomon says I am a Betwixt-and-Between."

  "So that is what it is called," said Maimie thoughtfully.

  "That's not my name," he explained, "my name is Peter Pan."

  "Yes, of course," she said, "I know, everybody knows."

  You can't think how pleased Peter was to learn that all the people outside the gates knew about him. He begged Maimie to tell him what they knew and what they said, and she did so. They were sitting by this time on a fallen tree; Peter had cleared off the snow for Maimie, but he sat on a snowy bit himself.

  "Squeeze closer," Maimie said.

  "What is that?" he asked, and she showed him, and then he did it. They talked together and he found that people knew a great deal about him, but not everything, not that he had gone back to his mother and been barred out, for instance, and he said nothing of this to Maimie, for it still humiliated him.

  "Do they know that I play games exactly like real boys?" he asked very proudly. "Oh, Maimie, please tell them!" But when he revealed how he played, by sailing his hoop on the Round Pond, and so on, she was simply horrified.

  "All your ways of playing," she said with her big eyes on him, "are quite, quite wrong, and not in the least like how boys play!"

  Poor Peter uttered a little moan at this, and he cried for the first time for I know not how long. Maimie was extremely sorry for him, and lent him her handkerchief, but he didn't know in the least what to do with it, so she showed him, that is to say, she wiped her eyes, and then gave it back to him, saying "Now you do it," but instead of wiping his own eyes he wiped hers, and she thought it best to pretend that this was what she had meant.

  She said, out of pity for him, "I shall give you a kiss if you like," but though he once knew he had long forgotten what kisses are, and he replied, "Thank you," and held out his hand, thinking she had offered to put something into it. This was a great shock to her, but she felt she could not explain without shaming him, so with charming delicacy she gave Peter a thimble which happened to be in her pocket, and pretended that it was a kiss. Poor little boy! he quite believed her, and to this day he wears it on his finger, though there can be scarcely anyone who needs a thimble so little. You see, though still a tiny child, it was really years and years since he had seen his mother, and I daresay the baby who had supplanted him was now a man with whiskers.

  But you must not think that Peter Pan was a boy to pity rather than to admire; if Maimie began by thinking this, she soon found she was very much mistaken. Her eyes glistened with admiration when he told her of his adventures, especially of how he went to and fro between the island and the Gardens in the Thrush's Nest.

  "How romantic," Maimie exclaimed, but it was another unknown word, and he hung his head thinking she was despising him.

  "I suppose Tony would not have done that?" he said very humbly.

  "Never, never!" she answered with conviction, "he would have been afraid."

  "What is afraid?" asked Peter longingly. He thought it must be some splendid thing. "I do wish you would teach me how to be afraid, Maimie," he said.

  "I believe no one could teach that to you," she answered adoringly, but Peter thought she meant that he was stupid. She had told him about Tony and of the wicked thing she did in the dark to frighten him (she knew quite well that it was wicked), but Peter misunderstood her meani ng and said, "Oh, how I wish I was as brave as Tony."

  It quite irritated her. "You are twenty thousand times braver than Tony," she said, "you are ever so much the bravest boy I ever knew!"

  He could scarcely believe she meant it, but when he did believe he screamed with joy.

  "And if you want very much to give me a kiss," Maimie said, "you can do it."

  Very reluctantly Peter began to take the thimble off his finger. He thought she wanted it back.

  "I don't mean a kiss," she said hurriedly, "I mean a thimble."

  "What's that?" Peter asked.

  "It's like this," she said, and kissed him.

  "I should love to give you a thimble," Peter said gravely, so he gave her one. He gave her quite a number of thimbles, and then a delightful idea came into his head! "Maimie," he said, "will you marry me?"

  Now, strange to tell, the same idea had come at exactly the same time into Maimie's head. "I should like to," she answered, "but will there be room in your boat for two?"

  "If you squeeze close," he said eagerly.

  "Perhaps the birds would be angry?"

  He assured her that the birds would love to have her, though I am not so certain of it myself. Also that there were very few birds in winter. "Of course they might want your clothes," he had to admit rather falteringly.

  She was somewhat indignant at this.

  "They are always thinking of their nests," he said apologetically, "and there are some bits of you"--he stroked the fur on her pelisse--"that would excite them very much."

  "They sha'n't have my fur," she said sharply.

  "No," he said, still fondling it, however, "no! Oh, Maimie," he said rapturously, "do you know why I love you? It is because you are like a beautiful nest."

  Somehow this made her uneasy. "I think you are speaking more like a bird than a boy now," she said, holding back, and indeed he was even looking rather like a bird. "After all," she said, "you are only a Betwixt-and-Between." But it hurt him so much that she immediately added, "It must be a delicious thing to be."

  "Come and be one then, dear Maimie," he implored her, and they set off for the boat, for it was now very near Open-Gate time. "And you are not a bit like a nest," he whispered to please her.

  "But I think it is rather nice to be like one," she said in a w
oman's contradictory way. "And, Peter, dear, though I can't give them my fur, I wouldn't mind their building in it. Fancy a nest in my neck with little spotty eggs in it! Oh, Peter, how perfectly lovely!"

  But as they drew near the Serpentine, she shivered a little, and said, "Of course I shall go and see mother often, quite often. It is not as if I was saying good-bye for ever to mother, it is not in the least like that."

  "Oh, no," answered Peter, but in his heart he knew it was very like that, and he would have told her so had he not been in a quaking fear of losing her. He was so fond of her, he felt he could not live without her. "She will forget her mother in time, and be happy with me," he kept saying to himself, and he hurried her on, giving her thimbles by the way.

  But even when she had seen the boat and exclaimed ecstatically over its loveliness, she still talked tremblingly about her mother. "You know quite well, Peter, don't you," she said, "that I wouldn't come unless I knew for certain I could go back to mother whenever I want to? Peter, say it!"

  He said it, but he could no longer look her in the face.

  "If you are sure your mother will always want you," he added rather sourly.

  "The idea of mother's not always wanting me!" Maimie cried, and her face glistened.

  "If she doesn't bar you out," said Peter huskily.

  "The door," replied Maimie, "will always, always be open, and mother will always be waiting at it for me."

  "Then," said Peter, not without grimness, "step in, if you feel so sure of her," and he helped Maimie into the Thrush's Nest.

  "But why don't you look at me?" she asked, taking him by the arm.

  Peter tried hard not to look, he tried to push off, then he gave a great gulp and jumped ashore and sat down miserably in the snow.

  She went to him. "What is it, dear, dear Peter?" she said, wondering.

  "Oh, Maimie," he cried, "it isn't fair to take you with me if you think you can go back. Your mother"--he gulped again--"you don't know them as well as I do."