The Greatest Works of J. M. Barrie: 90+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition)
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
Novels
Better Dead
Chapter I
When Andrew Riach went to London, his intention was to become private secretary to a member of the Cabinet. If time permitted, he proposed writing for the Press.
"It might be better if you and Clarrie understood each other," the minister said.
It was their last night together. They faced each other in the manse-parlour at Wheens, whose low, peeled ceiling had threatened Mr. Eassie at his desk every time he looked up with his pen in his mouth until his wife died, when he ceased to notice things. The one picture on the walls, an engraving of a boy in velveteen, astride a tree, entitled "Boyhood of Bunyan," had started life with him. The horsehair chairs were not torn, and you did not require to know the sofa before you sat down on it, that day thirty years before, when a chubby minister and his lady walked to the manse between two cart-loads of furniture, trying not to look elated.
Clarrie rose to go, when she heard her name. The love-light was in her eyes, but Andrew did not open the door for her, for he was a Scotch graduate. Besides, she might one day be his wife.
The minister's toddy-ladle clinked against his tumbler, but Andrew did not speak. Clarrie was the girl he generally adored.
"As for Clarrie," he said at last, "she puts me in an awkward position. How do I know that I love her?"
"You have known each other a long time," said the minister.
His guest was cleaning his pipe with a hair-pin, that his quick eye had detected on the carpet.
"And she is devoted to you," continued Mr. Eassie.
The young man nodded.
"What I fear," he said, "is that we have known each other too long. Perhaps my feeling for Clarrie is only brotherly—"
"Hers for you, Andrew, is more than sisterly."
"Admitted. But consider, Mr. Eassie, she has only seen the world in soirées. Every girl has her day-dreams, and Clarrie has perhaps made a dream of me. She is impulsive, given to idealisation, and hopelessly illogical."
The minister moved uneasily in his chair.
"I have reasoned out her present relation to me," the young man went on, "and, the more you reduce it to the usual formulae, the more illogical it becomes. Clarrie could possibly describe me, but define me—never. What is our prospect