Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens Read online

  Lock-out Time

  It is frightfully difficult to know much about the fairies, and almostthe only thing known for certain is that there are fairies whereverthere are children. Long ago children were forbidden the Gardens, andat that time there was not a fairy in the place; then the children wereadmitted, and the fairies came trooping in that very evening. They can'tresist following the children, but you seldom see them, partly becausethey live in the daytime behind the railings, where you are not allowedto go, and also partly because they are so cunning. They are not a bitcunning after Lock-out, but until Lock-out, my word!

  When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty well, and you remembera good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is a great pity youcan't write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard of childrenwho declared that they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if theysaid this in the Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at afairy all the time. The reason they were cheated was that she pretendedto be something else. This is one of their best tricks. They usuallypretend to be flowers, because the court sits in the Fairies' Basin,and there are so many flowers there, and all along the Baby Walk, thata flower is the thing least likely to attract attention. They dressexactly like flowers, and change with the seasons, putting on white whenlilies are in and blue for blue-bells, and so on. They like crocus andhyacinth time best of all, as they are partial to a bit of colour, buttulips (except white ones, which are the fairy-cradles) they considergarish, and they sometimes put off dressing like tulips for days, sothat the beginning of the tulip weeks is almost the best time to catchthem.

  When they think you are not looking they skip along pretty lively, butif you look and they fear there is no time to hide, they stand quitestill, pretending to be flowers. Then, after you have passed withoutknowing that they were fairies, they rush home and tell their mothersthey have had such an adventure. The Fairy Basin, you remember, is allcovered with ground-ivy (from which they make their castor-oil), withflowers growing in it here and there. Most of them really are flowers,but some of them are fairies. You never can be sure of them, but a goodplan is to walk by looking the other way, and then turn round sharply.Another good plan, which David and I sometimes follow, is to stare themdown. After a long time they can't help winking, and then you know forcertain that they are fairies.

  There are also numbers of them along the Baby Walk, which is afamous gentle place, as spots frequented by fairies are called. Oncetwenty-four of them had an extraordinary adventure. They were a girls'school out for a walk with the governess, and all wearing hyacinthgowns, when she suddenly put her finger to her mouth, and then theyall stood still on an empty bed and pretended to be hyacinths.Unfortunately, what the governess had heard was two gardeners coming toplant new flowers in that very bed. They were wheeling a handcart withflowers in it, and were quite surprised to find the bed occupied. "Pityto lift them hyacinths," said the one man. "Duke's orders," replied theother, and, having emptied the cart, they dug up the boarding-school andput the poor, terrified things in it in five rows. Of course, neitherthe governess nor the girls dare let on that they were fairies, so theywere carted far away to a potting-shed, out of which they escaped in thenight without their shoes, but there was a great row about it among theparents, and the school was ruined.

  As for their houses, it is no use looking for them, because they arethe exact opposite of our houses. You can see our houses by day but youcan't see them by dark. Well, you can see their houses by dark, but youcan't see them by day, for they are the colour of night, and I neverheard of anyone yet who could see night in the daytime. This does notmean that they are black, for night has its colours just as day has,but ever so much brighter. Their blues and reds and greens are like ourswith a light behind them. The palace is entirely built of many-colouredglasses, and is quite the loveliest of all royal residences, but thequeen sometimes complains because the common people will peep in to seewhat she is doing. They are very inquisitive folk, and press quite hardagainst the glass, and that is why their noses are mostly snubby. Thestreets are miles long and very twisty, and have paths on each side madeof bright worsted. The birds used to steal the worsted for their nests,but a policeman has been appointed to hold on at the other end.

  One of the great differences between the fairies and us is that theynever do anything useful. When the first baby laughed for the firsttime, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went skippingabout. That was the beginning of fairies. They look tremendously busy,you know, as if they had not a moment to spare, but if you were to askthem what they are doing, they could not tell you in the least. They arefrightfully ignorant, and everything they do is make-believe. They havea postman, but he never calls except at Christmas with his little box,and though they have beautiful schools, nothing is taught in them; theyoungest child being chief person is always elected mistress, and whenshe has called the roll, they all go out for a walk and never come back.It is a very noticeable thing that, in fairy families, the youngestis always chief person, and usually becomes a prince or princess, andchildren remember this, and think it must be so among humans also, andthat is why they are often made uneasy when they come upon their motherfurtively putting new frills on the basinette.

  You have probably observed that your baby-sister wants to do all sortsof things that your mother and her nurse want her not to do: to stand upat sitting-down time, and to sit down at standing-up time, for instance,or to wake up when she should fall asleep, or to crawl on the floor whenshe is wearing her best frock, and so on, and perhaps you put this downto naughtiness. But it is not; it simply means that she is doing asshe has seen the fairies do; she begins by following their ways, andit takes about two years to get her into the human ways. Her fits ofpassion, which are awful to behold, and are usually called teething,are no such thing; they are her natural exasperation, because we don'tunderstand her, though she is talking an intelligible language. She istalking fairy. The reason mothers and nurses know what her remarks mean,before other people know, as that "Guch" means "Give it to me at once,"while "Wa" is "Why do you wear such a funny hat?" is because, mixing somuch with babies, they have picked up a little of the fairy language.

  Of late David has been thinking back hard about the fairy tongue, withhis hands clutching his temples, and he has remembered a number of theirphrases which I shall tell you some day if I don't forget. He had heardthem in the days when he was a thrush, and though I suggested to himthat perhaps it is really bird language he is remembering, he says not,for these phrases are about fun and adventures, and the birds talked ofnothing but nest-building. He distinctly remembers that the birds usedto go from spot to spot like ladies at shop-windows, looking at thedifferent nests and saying, "Not my colour, my dear," and "How wouldthat do with a soft lining?" and "But will it wear?" and "What hideoustrimming!" and so on.

  The fairies are exquisite dancers, and that is why one of the firstthings the baby does is to sign to you to dance to him and then to crywhen you do it. They hold their great balls in the open air, in whatis called a fairy-ring. For weeks afterward you can see the ring on thegrass. It is not there when they begin, but they make it by waltzinground and round. Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the ring, andthese are fairy chairs that the servants have forgotten to clear away.The chairs and the rings are the only tell-tale marks these littlepeople leave behind them, and they would remove even these were they notso fond of dancing that they toe it till the very moment of the openingof the gates. David and I once found a fairy-ring quite warm.

  But there is also a way of finding out about the ball before it takesplace. You know the boards which tell at what time the Gardens are toclose to-day. Well, these tricky fairies sometimes slyly change theboard on a ball night, so that it says the Gardens are to close atsix-thirty for instance, instead of at seven. This enables them to getbegun half an hour earlier.

  If on such a night we could remain behind in the Gardens, as the famousMaimie Mannering did, we might see delicious sights
, hundreds oflovely fairies hastening to the ball, the married ones wearing theirwedding-rings round their waists, the gentlemen, all in uniform, holdingup the ladies' trains, and linkmen running in front carrying wintercherries, which are the fairy-lanterns, the cloakroom where they puton their silver slippers and get a ticket for their wraps, the flowersstreaming up from the Baby Walk to look on, and always welcome becausethey can lend a pin, the supper-table, with Queen Mab at the head of it,and behind her chair the Lord Chamberlain, who carries a dandelion onwhich he blows when Her Majesty wants to know the time.

  The table-cloth varies according to the seasons, and in May it is madeof chestnut-blossom. The way the fairy-servants do is this: The men,scores of them, climb up the trees and shake the branches, and theblossom falls like snow. Then the lady servants sweep it together bywhisking their skirts until it is exactly like a table-cloth, and thatis how they get their table-cloth.

  They have real glasses and real wine of three kinds, namely, blackthornwine, berberris wine, and cowslip wine, and the Queen pours out, but thebottles are so heavy that she just pretends to pour out. There is breadand butter to begin with, of the size of a threepenny bit; and cakes toend with, and they are so small that they have no crumbs. The fairiessit round on mushrooms, and at first they are very well-behaved andalways cough off the table, and so on, but after a bit they are not sowell-behaved and stick their fingers into the butter, which is gotfrom the roots of old trees, and the really horrid ones crawl over thetable-cloth chasing sugar or other delicacies with their tongues. Whenthe Queen sees them doing this she signs to the servants to wash up andput away, and then everybody adjourns to the dance, the Queen walking infront while the Lord Chamberlain walks behind her, carrying two littlepots, one of which contains the juice of wall-flower and the other thejuice of Solomon's Seals. Wall-flower juice is good for reviving dancerswho fall to the ground in a fit, and Solomon's Seals juice is forbruises. They bruise very easily and when Peter plays faster and fasterthey foot it till they fall down in fits. For, as you know without mytelling you, Peter Pan is the fairies' orchestra. He sits in the middleof the ring, and they would never dream of having a smart dance nowadayswithout him. "P. P." is written on the corner of the invitation-cardssent out by all really good families. They are grateful little people,too, and at the princess's coming-of-age ball (they come of age on theirsecond birthday and have a birthday every month) they gave him the wishof his heart.

  The way it was done was this. The Queen ordered him to kneel, and thensaid that for playing so beautifully she would give him the wish of hisheart. Then they all gathered round Peter to hear what was the wish ofhis heart, but for a long time he hesitated, not being certain what itwas himself.

  "If I chose to go back to mother," he asked at last, "could you give methat wish?"

  Now this question vexed them, for were he to return to his mother theyshould lose his music, so the Queen tilted her nose contemptuously andsaid, "Pooh, ask for a much bigger wish than that."

  "Is that quite a little wish?" he inquired.

  "As little as this," the Queen answered, putting her hands near eachother.

  "What size is a big wish?" he asked.

  She measured it off on her skirt and it was a very handsome length.

  Then Peter reflected and said, "Well, then, I think I shall have twolittle wishes instead of one big one."

  Of course, the fairies had to agree, though his cleverness rathershocked them, and he said that his first wish was to go to hismother, but with the right to return to the Gardens if he found herdisappointing. His second wish he would hold in reserve.

  They tried to dissuade him, and even put obstacles in the way.

  "I can give you the power to fly to her house," the Queen said, "but Ican't open the door for you."

  "The window I flew out at will be open," Peter said confidently. "Motheralways keeps it open in the hope that I may fly back.

  "How do you know?" they asked, quite surprised, and, really, Peter couldnot explain how he knew.

  "I just do know," he said.

  So as he persisted in his wish, they had to grant it. The way they gavehim power to fly was this: They all tickled him on the shoulder, andsoon he felt a funny itching in that part and then up he rose higher andhigher and flew away out of the Gardens and over the house-tops.

  It was so delicious that instead of flying straight to his old home heskimmed away over St. Paul's to the Crystal Palace and back by the riverand Regent's Park, and by the time he reached his mother's window he hadquite made up his mind that his second wish should be to become a bird.

  The window was wide open, just as he knew it would be, and in hefluttered, and there was his mother lying asleep.

  Peter alighted softly on the wooden rail at the foot of the bed and hada good look at her. She lay with her head on her hand, and the hollowin the pillow was like a nest lined with her brown wavy hair. Heremembered, though he had long forgotten it, that she always gave herhair a holiday at night.

  How sweet the frills of her night-gown were. He was very glad she wassuch a pretty mother.

  But she looked sad, and he knew why she looked sad. One of her armsmoved as if it wanted to go round something, and he knew what it wantedto go round.

  "Oh, mother," said Peter to himself, "if you just knew who is sitting onthe rail at the foot of the bed."

  Very gently he patted the little mound that her feet made, and he couldsee by her face that she liked it. He knew he had but to say "Mother"ever so softly, and she would wake up. They always wake up at once if itis you that says their name. Then she would give such a joyous cryand squeeze him tight. How nice that would be to him, but oh, howexquisitely delicious it would be to her. That I am afraid is how Peterregarded it. In returning to his mother he never doubted that he wasgiving her the greatest treat a woman can have. Nothing can be moresplendid, he thought, than to have a little boy of your own. How proudof him they are; and very right and proper, too.

  But why does Peter sit so long on the rail, why does he not tell hismother that he has come back?

  I quite shrink from the truth, which is that he sat there in two minds.Sometimes he looked longingly at his mother, and sometimes he lookedlongingly at the window. Certainly it would be pleasant to be her boyagain, but, on the other hand, what times those had been in the Gardens!Was he so sure that he would enjoy wearing clothes again? He popped offthe bed and opened some drawers to have a look at his old garments. Theywere still there, but he could not remember how you put them on. Thesocks, for instance, were they worn on the hands or on the feet? He wasabout to try one of them on his hand, when he had a great adventure.Perhaps the drawer had creaked; at any rate, his mother woke up, forhe heard her say "Peter," as if it was the most lovely word in thelanguage. He remained sitting on the floor and held his breath,wondering how she knew that he had come back. If she said "Peter" again,he meant to cry "Mother" and run to her. But she spoke no more, shemade little moans only, and when next he peeped at her she was once moreasleep, with tears on her face.

  It made Peter very miserable, and what do you think was the firstthing he did? Sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed, he played abeautiful lullaby to his mother on his pipe. He had made it up himselfout of the way she said "Peter," and he never stopped playing until shelooked happy.

  He thought this so clever of him that he could scarcely resist wakeningher to hear her say, "Oh, Peter, how exquisitely you play." However, asshe now seemed comfortable, he again cast looks at the window. You mustnot think that he meditated flying away and never coming back. He hadquite decided to be his mother's boy, but hesitated about beginningto-night. It was the second wish which troubled him. He no longer meantto make it a wish to be a bird, but not to ask for a second wish seemedwasteful, and, of course, he could not ask for it without returning tothe fairies. Also, if he put off asking for his wish too long it mightgo bad. He asked himself if he had not been hard-hearted to fly awaywithout saying good-bye to Solomon. "I should like awfully t
o sail in myboat just once more," he said wistfully to his sleeping mother. He quiteargued with her as if she could hear him. "It would be so splendid totell the birds of this adventure," he said coaxingly. "I promise to comeback," he said solemnly and meant it, too.

  And in the end, you know, he flew away. Twice he came back from thewindow, wanting to kiss his mother, but he feared the delight of itmight waken her, so at last he played her a lovely kiss on his pipe, andthen he flew back to the Gardens.

  Many nights and even months passed before he asked the fairies for hissecond wish; and I am not sure that I quite know why he delayed so long.One reason was that he had so many good-byes to say, not only to hisparticular friends, but to a hundred favourite spots. Then he had hislast sail, and his very last sail, and his last sail of all, and so on.Again, a number of farewell feasts were given in his honour; and anothercomfortable reason was that, after all, there was no hurry, for hismother would never weary of waiting for him. This last reason displeasedold Solomon, for it was an encouragement to the birds to procrastinate.Solomon had several excellent mottoes for keeping them at their work,such as "Never put off laying to-day, because you can lay to-morrow,"and "In this world there are no second chances," and yet here was Petergaily putting off and none the worse for it. The birds pointed this outto each other, and fell into lazy habits.

  But, mind you, though Peter was so slow in going back to his mother,he was quite decided to go back. The best proof of this was his cautionwith the fairies. They were most anxious that he should remain in theGardens to play to them, and to bring this to pass they tried to trickhim into making such a remark as "I wish the grass was not so wet," andsome of them danced out of time in the hope that he might cry, "I dowish you would keep time!" Then they would have said that this was hissecond wish. But he smoked their design, and though on occasions hebegan, "I wish--" he always stopped in time. So when at last he saidto them bravely, "I wish now to go back to mother for ever and always,"they had to tickle his shoulder and let him go.

  He went in a hurry in the end because he had dreamt that his mother wascrying, and he knew what was the great thing she cried for, and that ahug from her splendid Peter would quickly make her to smile. Oh, he feltsure of it, and so eager was he to be nestling in her arms that thistime he flew straight to the window, which was always to be open forhim.

  But the window was closed, and there were iron bars on it, and peeringinside he saw his mother sleeping peacefully with her arm round anotherlittle boy.

  Peter called, "Mother! mother!" but she heard him not; in vain he beathis little limbs against the iron bars. He had to fly back, sobbing, tothe Gardens, and he never saw his dear again. What a glorious boy he hadmeant to be to her. Ah, Peter, we who have made the great mistake, howdifferently we should all act at the second chance. But Solomon wasright; there is no second chance, not for most of us. When we reach thewindow it is Lock-out Time. The iron bars are up for life.