Masters of the Theatre

by Delphi Classics

  WENDY. Never! (Another splash from PETER.)

  HOOK. What say you, bullies?

  SMEE. There is my hand on ‘t.

  STARKEY. And mine.

  HOOK. And there is my hook. Swear. (All swear.) But I had forgot; where is the redskin?

  SMEE (shaken). That is all right, Captain; we let her go.

  HOOK (terrible). Let her go?

  SMEE. ’Twas your own orders, Captain.

  STARKEY (whimpering). You called over the water to us to let her go.

  HOOK. Brimstone and gall, what cozening is here? (Disturbed by their faithful faces) Lads, I gave no such order.

  SMEE ’Tis passing queer.

  HOOK (addressing the immensities). Spirit that haunts thisdark lagoon to-night, dost hear me?

  PETER (in the same voice). Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I hear you.

  HOOK (gripping the stave for support). Who are you, stranger, speak.

  PETER (who is only too ready to speak). I am Jas Hook, Captain of the Jolly Roger.

  HOOK (now white to the gills). No, no, you are not.

  PETER. Brimstone and gall, say that again and I ‘ll cast anchor in you.

  HOOK. If you are Hook, come tell me, who am I?

  PETER. A codfish, only a codfish.

  HOOK (aghast). A codfish?

  SMEE (drawing back from him). Have we been captained all this time by a codfish?

  STARKEY. It’s lowering to our pride.

  HOOK (feeling that his ego is slipping from him). Don’t desert me, bullies.

  PETER (top-heavy). Paw, fish, paw!

  (There is a touch of the feminine in HOOK, as in all the greatest prates, and it prompts him to try the guessing game.)

  HOOK. Have you another name?

  PETER (falling to the lure). Ay, ay.

  HOOK (thirstily). Vegetable?

  PETER. No.

  HOOK. Mineral?

  PETER. No.

  HOOK. Animal?

  PETER (after a hurried consultation with TOOTLES). Yes.

  HOOK. Man?

  PETER (with scorn). No.

  HOOK. Boy?

  PETER, Yes.

  HOOK. Ordinary boy?

  PETER. No!

  HOOK. Wonderful boy?

  PETER (to WENDY’S distress). Yes!

  HOOK. Are you in England?

  PETER. No.

  HOOK. Are you here?

  PETER. Yes.

  HOOK (beaten, though he feels he has very nearly got it). Smee, you ask him some questions.

  SMEE (rummaging his brains). I can’t think of a thing,

  PETER. Can’t guess, can’t guess! (Foundering in his cockiness) Do you give it up?

  HOOK (eagerly). Yes.

  PETER. All of you?

  SMEE and STARKEY. Yes.

  PETER (crowing). Well, then, I am Peter Pan!

  (Now they have him.)

  HOOK. Pan! Into the water, Smee. Starkey, mind the boat. Take him dead or alive!

  PETER (who still has all his baby teeth). Boys, lam into the pirates!

  For a moment the only two we can see are in the dinghy, where JOHN throws himself on STARKEY. STARKEY wriggles into the lagoon and JOHN leaps so quickly after him that he reaches it first. The impression left on STARKEY is that he is being attacked by the TWINS. The water becomes stained. The dinghy drifts away. Here and there a head shows in the water, and once it is the head of the crocodile. In the growing gloom some strike at their friends, SLIGHTLY getting TOOTLES in the fourth rib while he himself is pinked by CURLY. It looks as if the boys were getting the worse of it, which is perhaps just as well at this point, because PETER, who will be the determining factor in the end, has a perplexing way of changing sides if he is winning too easily. HOOK’S iron claw makes a circle of black water round him from which opponents flee like fishes. There is only one prepared to enter that dreadful circle. His name is PAN. Strangely, it is not in the water that they meet. HOOK has risen tothe rock to breathe, and at the same moment PETER scales it on the opposite side. The rock is now wet and as slippery as a ball, and they have to crawl rather than climb. Suddenly they are face to face. PETER gnashes his pretty teeth with joy, and is gathering himself for the spring when he sees he is higher up the rock than his foe. Courteously he waits; HOOK sees his intention, and taking advantage of it claws twice. PETER is untouched, but unfairness is what he never can get used to, and in his bewilderment he rolls off the rock. The crocodile, whose tick has been drowned in the strife, rears its jaws, and HOOK, who has almost stepped into them, is pursued by it to land. All is quiet on the lagoon now, not a sound save little waves nibbling at the rock, which is smaller than when we last looked at it. Two boys appear with the dinghy, and the others despite their wounds climb into it. They send the cry ‘Peter — Wendy’ across the waters, but no answer comes.)

  NIBS. They must be swimming home.

  JOHN. Or flying.

  FIRST TWIN. Yes, that is it. Let us be off and call to them as we go.

  (The dinghy disappears with its load, whose hearts would sink it if they knew of the peril of WENDY and her captain. From near and far away come the cries ‘Peter — Wendy’ till we no longer hear them.

  Two small figures are now on the rock, but they have fainted. A mermaid who has dared to come back in the stillness stretches up her arms and is slowly pullingWENDY into the water to drown her. WENDY starts up just in time.)

  WENDY. Peter! (He rouses himself and looks around him.) Where are we, Peter?

  PETER. We are on the rock, but it is getting smaller. Soon the water will be over it. Listen!

  (They can hear the wash of the relentless little waves.)

  WENDY. We must go.

  PETER. Yes.

  WENDY. Shall we swim or fly?

  PETER. Wendy, do you think you could swim or fly to the island without me?

  WENDY. You know I couldn’t, Peter, I am just a beginner.

  PETER. Hook wounded me twice. (He believes it; he is so good at pretend that he feels the pain, his arms hang limp.) I can neither swim nor fly.

  WENDY. Do you mean we shall both be drowned?

  PETER. Look how the water is rising!

  (They cover their faces with their hands. Something touches WENDY as lightly as a kiss.)

  PETER (with little interest). It must be the tail of the kite we made for Michael; you remember it tore itself outof his hands and floated away. (He looks up and sees the kite sailing overhead.) The kite! Why shouldn’t it carry you? (He grips the tail and pulls, and the kite responds.)

  WENDY. Both of us!

  PETER. It can’t lift two, Michael and Curly tried.

  (She knows very well that if it can lift her it can lift him also, for she has been told by the boys as a deadly secret that one of the queer things about him is that he is no weight at all. But it is a forbidden subject.)

  WENDY. I won’t go without you. Let us draw lots which is to stay behind.

  PETER. And you a lady, never! (The tail is in her hands, and the kite is tugging hard. She holds out her mouth to PETER, but he knows they cannot do that.) Ready, Wendy!

  (The kite draws her out of sight across the lagoon.

  The waters are lapping over the rock now, and PETER knows that it will soon be submerged. Pale rays of light mingle with the moving clouds, and from the coral grottoes is to be heard a sound, at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the Never Land, the mermaids calling to the moon to rise. PETER is afraid at last, and a tremor runs through him, like a shudder passing over the lagoon; but on the lagoon one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and he feels just the one.)

  PETER (with a drum beating in his breast as if he were a real boy at last). To die will be an awfully big adventure.

  (The blind rises again, and the lagoon is now suffused with moonlight. He is on the rock still, but the water is over his feet. The nest is borne nearer, and the bird, after cooing a message to him, leaves it and wings her way upwards. PETER, who knows the bird language
, slips into the nest, first removing the two eggs and placing them in STARKEY’S hat, which has been left on the stave.The hat drifts away from the rock, but he uses the stave as a mast. The wind is driving him toward the open sea. He takes off his shirt, which he had forgotten to remove while bathing, and unfurls it as a sail. His vessel tacks, and he passes from sight, naked and victorious. The bird returns and sits on the hat.)

  ACT IV

  THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND

  We see simultaneously the home under the ground, with the children in it and the wood above ground with the redskins on it. Below, the children are gobbling their evening meal; above, the redskins are squatting in their blankets near the little house guarding the children from the pirates. The only way of communicating between these two parties is by means of the hollow trees.

  The home has an earthen floor, which is handy for digging in if you want to go fishing; and owing to there being so many entrances there is not much wall space. The table at which the lost ones are sitting is a board on top of a live tree trunk, which has been cut flat but has such growing pains that the board rises as they eat, and they have sometimes to pause in their meals to cut a bit more off the trunk. Their seats are pumpkins or the large gay mushrooms of which we have seen an imitation one concealing the chimney. There is an enormous fireplace which is in almost any part of the room where you care to light it, and across this Wendy has stretched strings, made of fibre, from which she hangs her washing. There are also various tomfool things in the room of no use whatever.

  Michaels basket bed is nailed high up on the wall as if to protect him from the cat, but there is no indication at present of where the others sleep. At the back between two of the tree trunks is a grindstone, and near it is a lovely hole, the size of a band-box, with a gay curtain drawn across so that you cannot see what is inside. This is Tink’s withdrawing-room and bed-chamber, and it is just as well that you cannot see inside, for it is so exquisite in its decoration and in the personal apparel spread out on the bed that you could scarcely resist making off with something. Tink is within at present, as one can guess from a glow showing through the chinks. It is her own glow, for though she has a chandelier for the look of the thing, of course she lights her residence herself. She is probably wasting valuable time just now wondering whether to put on the smoky blue or the apple-blossom.

  All the boys except Peter are here, and Wendy has the head of the table, smiling complacently at their captivating ways, but doing her best at the same time to see that they keep the rules about hands-off-the-table, no-two-to-speak-at-once, and so on. She is wearing romantic woodland garments, sewn by herself, with red berries in her hair which go charmingly with her complexion, as she knows; indeed she searched for red berries the morning after she reached the island. The boys are in picturesque attire of her contrivance, and if these don’t always fit well the fault is not hers but the wearers, for they constantly put on each other’s things when they put on anything at all. Michael is in his cradle on the wall. First Twin is apart on a high stool and wears a dunce’s cap, another invention of Wendy’s, but not wholly successful because everybody wants to be dunce.

  It is a pretend meal this evening, with nothing whatever on the table, not a mug, nor a crust, nor a spoon. They often have these suppers and like them on occasions as well as the other kind, which consist chiefly of bread-fruit, tappa rolls, yams, mammee apples and banana splash, washed down with calabashes of poe-poe. The pretend meals are not Wendy’s idea; indeed she was rather startled to find, on arriving, that Peter knew of no other kind, and she is not absolutely certain even now that he does eat the other kind, though no one appears to do it more heartily. He insists that the pretend meals should be partaken of with gusto, and we see his band doing their best to obey orders.

  WENDY (her fingers to her ears, for their chatter and clatter are deafening). Silence! Is your mug empty, Slightly?

  SLIGHTLY (who would not say this if he had a mug). Not quite empty, thank you.

  NIBS. Mummy, he has not even begun to drink his poe-poe.

  SLIGHTLY (seizing his chance, for this is tale-bearing). I complain of Nibs!

  (JOHN holds up his hand.)

  WENDY. Well, John?

  JOHN. May I sit in Peter’s chair as he is not here?

  WENDY. In your father’s chair? Certainly not.

  JOHN. He is not really our father. He did not even know how to be a father till I showed him.

  (This is insurbordination.)

  SECOND TWIN. I complain of John!

  (The gentle TOOTLED raises his hand.)

  TOOTLES (who has the poorest opinion of himself). I don’tsuppose Michael would let me be baby?

  MICHAEL. No, I won’t.

  TOOTLES. May I be dunce?

  FIRST TWIN (from his perch). No. It’s awfully difficultto be dunce.

  TOOTLES. As I can’t be anything important would any of you like to see me do a trick?

  OMNES. No.

  TOOTLES (subsiding). I hadn’t really any hope.

  (The tale-telling breaks out again.)

  NIBS. Slightly is coughing on the table.

  CURLY. The twins began wiih tappa rolls.

  SLIGHTLY. I complain of Nibs!

  NIBS. I complain of Slightly!

  WENDY. Oh dear, I am sure I sometimes think that spinsters are to be envied.

  MICHAEL. Wendy, I am too big for a cradle.

  WENDY. You are the littlest, and a cradle is such a nice homely thing to have about a house. You others can clear away now. (She sits down on a pumpkin near the fire to her usual evening occupation, darning.) Every heel with a hole in it!

  (The boys clear away with dispatch, washing dishes they don’t have in a non-existent sink and stowing them ina cupboard that isn’t there. Instead of sawing the table-leg to-night they crush it into the ground like a concertina, and are now ready for play, in which they indulge hilariously.

  A movement of the Indians draws our attention to the scene above. Hitherto, with the exception of PANTHER, who sits on guard on top of the little house, they have been hunkering in their blankets, mute but picturesque; now all rise and prostrate themselves before the majestic figure of PETER, who approaches through the forest carrying a gun and game bag. It is not exactly a gun. He often wanders away alone with this weapon, and when he comes back you are never absolutely certain whether he has had an adventure or not. He may have forgotten it so completely that he says nothing about it; and then when you go out you find the body. On the other hand he may say a great deal about it, and yet you never find the body. Sometimes he comes home with his face scratched, and tells WENDY, as a thing of no importance, that he got these marks from the little people for cheeking them at a fairy wedding, and she listens politely, but she is never quite sure, you know; indeed theonly one who is sure about anything on the island is PETER.)

  PETER. The Great White Father is glad to see the Piccaninny braves protecting his wigwam from the pirates.

  TIGER LILY. The Great White Father save me from pirates. Me his velly nice friend now; no let pirates hurt him.

  BRAVES. Ugh, ugh, wah!

  TIGER LILY. Tiger Lily has spoken.

  PANTHER. Loola, loola! Great Big Little Panther has spoken.

  PETER. It is well. The Great White Father has spoken.

  (This has a note of finality about it, with the implied ,’And now shut up’ which is never far from the courteous receptions of well-meaning inferiors by born leaders of men. He descends his tree, not unheard by WENDY.)

  WENDY. Children, I hear your father’s step. He likes you to meet him at the door. (PETER scatters pretend nuts among them and watches sharply to see that they crunch with relish.) Peter, you just spoil them, you know!

  JOHN (who would be incredulous if he dare). Any sport, Peter?

  PETER. Two tigers and a pirate.

  JOHN (boldly). Where are their heads?

  PETER (contracting his little brows.) In the bag.

  JOHN. (No, he doesn’t s
ay it. He backs away.)

  WENDY (peeping into the bag). They are beauties’. (She has learned her lesson.)

  FIRST TWIN. Mummy, we all want to dance.

  WENDY. The mother of such an armful dance!

  SLIGHTLY. As it is Saturday night?

  (They have long lost count of the days, but always if they want to do anything special they say this is Saturday night, and then they do it.)

  WENDY. Of course it is Saturday night, Peter? (He shrugs an indifferent assent.) On with your nighties first.

  (They disappear into various recesses, and PETER and WENDY with her darning are left by the fire to dodder parentally. She emphasises it by humming a verse of ‘John Anderson my Jo,’ which has not the desired effect on PETER. She is too loving to be ignorant that he is not loving enough, and she hesitates like one who knows the answer to her question.)

  What is wrong, Peter?

  PETER (scared). It is only pretend, isn’t it, that I am their father?

  WENDY (drooling). Oh yes.

  (His sigh of relief is without consideration for her feelings.)

  But they are ours, Peter, yours and mine.

  PETER (determined to get at facts, the only things that puzzle him). But not really?

  WENDY. Not if you don’t wish it.

  PETER. I don’t.

  WENDY (knowing she ought not to ‘probe but driven to it by something within.) What are your exact feelings for me, Peter?

  PETER (in the class-room). Those of a devoted son,Wendy.

  WENDY (turning away). I thought so.

  PETER. You are so puzzling. Tiger Lily is just the same; there is something or other she wants to be to me, but she says it is not my mother.

  WENDY (with spirit). No, indeed it isn’t.

  PETER. Then what is it?

  WENDY. It isn’t for a lady to tell.

  (The curtain of the fairy chamber opens slightly, and TINK, who has doubtless been eavesdroping, tinkles a laugh of scorn.)

  PETER (badgered). I suppose she means that she wants to be my mother.

  (TINK’S comment is ‘You silly ass.’)

  WENDY (who has picked up some of the fairy words). I almost agree with her!

  (The arrival of the boys in their nightgowns turns WENDY’S mind to practical matters, for the children have to be arranged in line and passed or not passed for cleanliness. SLIGHTLY is the worst. At last we see how they sleep, for in a babel the great bed which stands on end by day against the wall is unloosed from custody and lowered to the floor. Though large, it is a tight fit for so many boys, and WENDY has made a rule that there is to be no turning round until one gives the signal, when all turn at once.