by Unknown
CARRY. No.
STEPHEN. That night you — said you came down for a book for your mother?
CARRY. That once — only that once.
STEPHEN. Your headaches — was that what they meant?
CARRY. No.
STEPHEN (STROKING HER HAIR). My little Carry, you used to come into my room, didn’t you — while I was asleep — and get that key?
CARRY. Don’t — don’t!
STEPHEN. No dear, I won’t. Your mother — if she were to know!
CARRY (SIMPLY). Mother knows.
STEPHEN. WHAT?
CARRY. That is why I sleep in her room. Father, I didn’t mean to come tonight. But all at once — it — it came over me.
STEPHEN (LISTENING TO HIS OWN PHRASES). Came over you!
CARRY. I held my breath till she was asleep, and then — then — I don’t know how I can be your daughter.
(He shudders.)
Here is mother.
(mrs brand in a wrapper appears with a candle, which lights the room a little more.)
STEPHEN. Agnes, Agnes!
MRS. BRAND (QUIETLY). So you know now, Stephen.
STEPHEN. I know now.
(She puts down the candle.)
Why did you keep it from me?
CARRY. Mother said it would be so awful to you to know.
STEPHEN. Not more awful than to you, Agnes.
CARRY. She said you have always been so good all your life.
STEPHEN. You said that, Agnes?
MRS. BRAND. YES.
STEPHEN (OVERCOME). To have kept it from me — and to have given her such a reason — the love of woman)
MRS. BRAND (STILL QUIETLY). ‘The love of woman!’ You think it was my love for you that made me spare you?
STEPHEN. What else?
MRS. BRAND. When after I married you I found out what you were, I — yes, the love of woman still made me forgive you, pity you, try to help you. But from the day when I discovered what legacy you had given my child — the love of woman changed into something harsher.
CARRY (bewildered). LEGACY?
MRS. BRAND. She doesn’t know what I mean. The only reason I haven’t told her is that I believed she might be able to fight it better if she thought the blame was hers.
STEPHEN. She must know now. Carry, what your mother means — and it is all true — is that for many years I was as you are, but a hundred times worse.
CARRY (UNABLE TO GRASP IT). You, father — not you — oh no.
STEPHEN. Yes. And what your mother means is that you get it from me; can that be possible!
MRS. BRAND. That is the only way I can reason it out.
CARRY (CLINGING TO MRS. BRAND). Mother!
MRS. BRAND. You are not to blame, my own; he never gave you a chance. I have no pity left for you, Stephen; it has all gone to her.
STEPHEN. Let her have every drop of it.
CARRY. Father, do you think there is any hope?
STEPHEN (CHEERED). Hope? Of course there is. Carry, I fought it long ago, and beat it.
CARRY (WONDERING). Are you sure?
STEPHEN. Your mother knows. Many times I foiled, but at last I won. And listen to this, in the end I found it almost easy.
CARRY (wondering still more). EASY?
MRS. BRAND. So easy that you were sometimes puzzled, Stephen, just as you see it puzzles Carry now.
STEPHEN. Yes; I suppose it was my doggedness.
MRS. BRAND. Oh, Stephen!
CARRY. I don’t see how it can have been easy.
MRS. BRAND. It was easy, Carry, because he didn’t do it.
STEPHEN. AGNES!
MRS. BRAND. He thinks he did.
STEPHEN. Haven’t I given it up?
MRS. BRAND. Not as I have thought the thing out, Stephen. I don’t think you gave it up — I think it gave up you. I was looking on; I saw. It wearied of you, and left you. But it has come back now — for her. Easy enough to find a way back to the house — for such an old friend of yours. I may be wrong, but that is what I make of it.
CARRY. There is Dick — there is Dick.
STEPHEN. Dick, yes. Isn’t it a shame, Agnes, to keep this from him?
MRS. BRAND. A shame? Of course it is a shame. But it is her best chance, and I won’t let it go.
CARRY. Mother, I want Dick to know.
MRS. BRAND. If all isn’t well, dear, in a year’s time he shall be told. That is why I said that the engagement must last a year. As for hope, my own, of course there is hope. It is just an ailment you have caught.
CARRY. Please always watch ME. But do you think it will be any use? I feel I shall be watching you, and sometimes you will tire, but will I ever tire?
MRS. BRAND. You will tire before I do. Stephen, you will help us, won’t you?
STEPHEN. I’ll try.
CARRY (STROKING HIS ARM). Poor Carry, but poor father too.
WHEN WENDY GREW UP – AN AFTERTHOUGHT
An Epilogue to the Peter Pan Play
This epilogue was written by Barrie in response to the many questions he received about what happened to Wendy when she grew up. First performed on February 22, 1908, the closing night of the play’s 1907–1908 run, Barrie chose that performance because Charles Frohman, the play’s original producer, was going to be present. Frohman had missed the enthusiastic ovation following the original performance and Barrie wished to make up for it. After the final curtain that night, the actress that played one of the mermaids came out on stage to introduce the epilogue, explaining the setting while the hands arranged the stage.
The epilogue takes place in the Darling family nursery, but the family is not the Darlings, for Wendy is now married. She is putting her daughter Jane to bed, when Peter returns, unaware of how much time has passed since his last visit. He tries to convince Wendy to come with him, but she explains that she cannot, because she has become old and forgotten how to fly. Peter sees Jane and realises the truth of what Wendy has told him, and so begins to cry. Jane wakes up, and echoing her mother’s words, asks “Boy, why are you crying?” Peter recovers his composure and invites Jane to come with him, and, with Wendy’s blessing, they fly away.
The 2003 film that includes the events narrated in this epilogue
The 1991 film ‘sequel’ that also includes events portrayed in this epilogue
WHEN WENDY GREW UP
The Scene is the same nursery, with this slight change – Michael’s bed is now where Wendy’s was and vice versa, and in front of John’s bed, hiding the upper part of it from the audience, is a clothes horse on which depend (covering it), a little girl’s garments to air at the fire. Time early evening. Lights in.
Wendy emerges from bathroom. She is now a grownup woman, wearing a pretty dress with train, and she sails forward to fire in an excessively matrony manner. She comes straight to audience, points out to them with pride her long skirt and that her hair is up. Then takes a child’s nightgown off fireguard and after pointing it out with rapture to audience exit into bathroom. She comes out with her little daughter Jane, who is in the nightgown. Wendy is drying Jane’s hair.
Jane (naughty) Won’t go to bed, Mummy, won’t go to bed!
Wendy (excessively prim) Jane! When I was a little girl I went to bed the moment I was told. Come at once! (Jane dodges her and after pursuit is caught.) Naughtikins! (sits by fire with Jane on her knee warming toes) to run your poor old Mother out of breath! When she’s not so young as she used to be!
Jane How young used you to be, Mummy?
Wendy Quite young. How time flies!
Jane Does it fly the way you flew when you were a little girl?
Wendy The way I flew. Do you know Darling it is all so long ago. I sometimes wonder whether I ever did really fly.
Jane Yes you did.
Wendy Those dear old days.
Jane Why can’t you fly now, Mother?
Wendy Because I’m grown up, sweetheart; when people grow up they forget the way.
Jane Why do they forget the way?
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Wendy Because they are no longer young and innocent. It is only the young and innocent that can fly.
Jane What is young and innocent? I do wish I were young and innocent! (Wendy suddenly hugs her)
Wendy Come to bed, dearest. (Takes her to bed right, down stage)
Jane Tell me a story. Tell me about Peter Pan.
Wendy (standing at foot of bed) I’ve told it you so often that I believe you could tell it to me now better than I could tell it to you.
Jane (putting bed clothes round them to suggest a tent) Go on Mother. This is the Little House. What do you see?
Wendy I see – just this nursery.
Jane But what do you see long ago in it?
Wendy I see – little Wendy in her bed.
Jane Yes, and Uncle Michael here and Uncle John over there.
Wendy Heigh ho! and to think that John has a beard now, and that Michael is an engine driver. Lie down, Petty.
Jane But do tell me. Tell me that bit – about how you grew up and Peter didn’t. Begin where he promised to come for you every year, and take you to the Tree Tops to do his Spring Cleaning. Lucky you!
Wendy Well then! (now on bed behind Jane) On the conclusion of the adventures described in our last chapter which left our heroine Wendy, in her Mummy’s arms, she was very quickly packed off to school again – a day school.
Jane And so were the boys.
Wendy Yes – Mummy adopted them. They were fearfully anxious because John had said to them that, if they didn’t fit in, they would all have to be sent to the Dogs’ Home. However they all fitted in, and they went to school in a bus every day, but sometimes they were very naughty, for when the conductor clambered up to collect the fares they flew off, so as not to have to pay their pennies. You should have seen Nana taking them to church. It was like a Collie herding sheep.
Jane Did they ever wish they were back in the Never Never Land?
Wendy (hesitating) I – I don’t know.
Jane (with conviction) I know.
Wendy Of course they missed the fun. Even Wendy sometimes couldn’t help flying, the littlest thing lifted her up in the air. The sight of a hat blown off a gentleman’s head for instance. If it flew off, so did she! So a year passed, and the first Spring Cleaning time came round, when Peter was to come and take her to the Tree Tops.
Jane OO! OO!
Wendy How she prepared for him! How she sat at that window in her going-away frock – and he came – and away they flew to his Spring Cleaning – and he was exactly the same, and he never noticed that she was any different.
Jane How was she different?
Wendy She had to let the frock down two inches! She was so terrified that he might notice it, for she had promised him never to have growing pains. However, he never noticed, he was so full of lovely talk about himself.
Jane (gleefully) He was always awful cocky.
Wendy I think ladies rather love cocky gentlemen.
Jane So do I love them.
Wendy There was one sad thing I noticed. He had forgotten a lot. He had even forgotten Tinker Bell. I think she was no more.
Jane Oh dear!
Wendy You see Darling, a fairy only lives as long a time as a feather is blown about the air on a windy day. But fairies are so little that a short time seems a good while to them. As the feather flutters they have quite an enjoyable life, with time to be born respectably and have a look round, and to dance once and to cry once and to bring up their children – just as one can go a long way quickly in a motor car. And so motor cars help us to understand fairies.
Jane Everybody grows up and dies except Peter, doesn’t they?
Wendy Yes, you see he had no sense of time. He thought all the past was just yesterday. He spoke as if it was just yesterday that he and I had parted – and it was a whole year.
Jane Oh dearie Dear!
Wendy We had a lovely time, but soon I had to go back home, and another year passed, and Spring Cleaning time came again. And oh the terror of me sitting waiting for him – for I was another two niches round the waist! But he never came. How I cried! Another year passed, and still I got into my little frock somehow, and that year he came – and the strangest thing was that he never knew that he had missed a year. I didn’t tell him. I meant to, but I saod to him ‘What am I to you Peter?’ and he said ‘You are my mother’ – so of course after that I couldn’t tell him. But that was the last. Many Spring Cleaning times came round, but never Peter any more. ‘Just always be waiting for me’ he said, ‘and then some time you will hear me crow’, but I never heard him crow again. It’s just as well Sweetie for you see he would think all the past was yesterday, and he would expect to find me a little girl still – and that would be too tragic. And now you must sleep. (Rises)
Jane I am fearfully awake. Tell me about Nana.
Wendy (at foot of bed) Of course I see now that Nana wasn’t a perfect nurse. She was rather old-fashioned in her ideas – she had too much faith in your stocking round your throat, and so on – and two or three times she became just an ordinary dog, and stayed out so late at night with bad companions that father had to get up at two in the morning in his pyjamas to let her in. But she was so fond of children that her favourite way of spending her afternoons off was to go to Kensington Gardens, and follow careless nurses to their homes and report them to their mistresses. As she’s old now I have to coddle her a good deal and that’s why we give her John’s bed to sleep in. (Looking left) Dear Nana! (Flings kiss to the hidden bed)
Jane Now tell me about being married in white with a pink sash.
Wendy Most of the boys married their favourite heroines in fiction and Slightly married a lady of title and so he became a lord.
Jane And one of them married Wendy and so he became my Papa!
Wendy Yes and we bought this house at 3 per cents from GrandPapa because he felt the stairs. And Papa is very clever, and knows all about Stocks and Shares. Of course he doesn’t really know about them, nobody really knows, but in the mornings when he wakes up fresh he says ‘Stocks are up and Shares are down’ in a way that makes Mummy very, very proud of him.
Jane Now tell me about me.
Wendy At last there came to our heroine a little daughter. I don’t know how it is but I just always thought that some day Wendy would have a little daughter.
Jane So did I, mother, so did I! Tell me what she’s like.
Wendy Pen cannot describe her, she would have to be written with a golden splash! (Hugs her) That’s the end. You must sleep.
Jane I am not a bit sleepy.
Wendy (leaving her) Hsh!
Jane Mother, I think – (pause)
Wendy Well dear, what do you think? (Pause again – Wendy goes and looks and sees that Jane has suddenly fallen asleep) Asleep! (Tucks her in bed, removes the clothes on screen, leisurely, folds and puts them away and then Nana is revealed lying asleep in John’s bed beneath the coverlet. She puts down light and sits by fire to sew. Pause – then the night-light over Jane’s bed quivers and goes out. Then Peter’s crow is heard – Wendy starts up breatheless – then the window opens and Peter flies into the room. He is not a day altered. He is gay. Wendy gasps, sinks back in chair. He sees Nana in bed and is startled. Nana moans, he comes forward avoiding Nana’s bed, sees Wendy’s dress, thinks she’s playing a trick on him)
Peter (gaily jumping in front of her) Hulloh Wendy! (She turns lamplight away from her) Thimbles! (He leaps on to her knee and kisses her)
Wendy (not knowing what to do) Peter! Peter, do you know how long it is since you were here before?
Peter It was yesterday.
Wendy Oh! (He feels her cheek)
Peter Why is there wet on your face? (She can’t answer) I know! It’s ‘cos you are so glad I’ve come for you. (Suddenly remembers Nana – jumps up) Why is Nana in John’s bed?
Wendy (quivering) John – doesn’t sleep here now.
Peter Oh the cheek! (Looking carelessly at Jane’s bed) Is Michael asleep?
Peter (going) Hullo, it’s a new one!
Wendy Yes.
Peter Boy or girl?