Work Text:
By the time they reached the nursery, they were too late. A chill that was not entirely from the thrown-open window filled the room, and Mrs. Darling felt the coldness fill her heart as she sank onto Wendy's bed, gathering her daughter's stuffed bear up in her arms and cradling it like a child.
Mr. Darling ran to the window and shook his head, then turned round and scanned the room as if he expected the children to burst out of their beds, cheering and laughing at having surprised him.
It was not to be, however.
Nana gave a low, mournful howl, and Mr. Darling, in a sudden show of affection, knelt next to her. "It's all right, old girl," he said. "They'll be back soon enough. They've just stepped out." But his eyes were wet, and his lip, usually so straight and firm, wobbled ever so slightly.
"They're gone," Mrs. Darling breathed, and that was enough to set Mr. Darling to action. He stood, nudging Nana none too discreetly toward Mrs. Darling, and strode to the window.
"They'll be back," he said, shutting the window emphatically. Then, more kindly, he said, "They'll be back, dear. It will be all right." And he led her to bed, bidding Nana to stay in the nursery and sleep in her kennel, which was, as it ever was, in the nursery near the fire so that she might be able to keep a watchful eye on her charges as they slept.
When morning came the children were not yet returned, and Mr. Darling was no longer able to deny his concerns. He sat at the breakfast table, his teacup at hand, and rattled his newspaper impressively. Mrs. Darling looked at him every time, and then wisely said nothing, waiting, as she always did, for her husband--her wonderful, proud, silly husband--to work through the contents of his own mind.
Rattle, rattle. His teacup clinked against the saucer, and the pages of the paper were turned with rather more force than necessary. Finally, he set the paper aside and looked at her. "What," he asked, "will the neighbors think?"
She shook her head at him. "I'm sure they shan't think anything, darling," she said.
He would have none of it, though. Tossing the newspaper onto one of the vacant chairs, he stood and marched across the kitchen, his brow furrowed. "They've left us!" he said, his voice full of anger and fear. "I drove them to it. It was me! I, George Darling, have caused this. I left poor Nana outside; I ignored her superior instincts regarding the children. If only I had been more thoughtful! More considerate. If only I had listened to Nana."
And here, Mrs. Darling shook her head, her hand pressed to her chest, and tried to interrupt him. "George, no, it couldn't have been--"
But he continued, disregarding her. "I must be punished. From this day forth, I shall go to work, and upon my arrival home, I shall report straight to Nana's kennel, and there I shall stay until my beloved children have returned home!"
Knowing that it wouldn't do to argue with him, Mrs. Darling only shook her head, sadly. "Very well," she said kindly, "I'll have your meals brought up to you."
Looking satisfied, Mr. Darling resumed his breakfast, and, upon finishing, excused himself that he might go to work.
Upon returning home that evening, George went up to the nursery, dropped to all fours, and crawled solemnly into the kennel.
"Do you really think this necessary, dear?" Mrs. Darling asked. Nana gazed sadly at the two of them, wondering, one might suppose, where she was to sleep that evening.
George turned about in the kennel, twisting himself, finally, so that his head was at the opening and his rear at the rear. "I do," he said sternly, and the set of his mouth told her quite clearly that on this point, he would not budge.
Mrs. Darling went to the window and gazed out into the winter twilight, appearing almost wistful. Several moments passed, and finally George could stand it no longer.
"What's for supper, then?" he asked gruffly, looking away. And the spell was broken, and the curtains drawn--though the window, of course, was not fully closed, even against the winter chill--and Liza brought up supper, which was taken that night and for many nights thereafter in the nursery, Mrs. Darling in her rocking chair by the fire and Mr. Darling sitting hunched in the kennel near her side.
The days took on an odd, quiet rhythm. No children raced through the halls at bathtime; no longer did Nana shuffle them off to school in the morning, the children following her with their schoolbags over their shoulders. The house filled, instead, with the silence that one finds after a loud noise--a silence that is rather more oppressive and less comfortable than one might have expected.
In the morning, the hired men would come and take Mr. Darling, still in his kennel, to the bank. At this point, he would, reluctantly, leave the kennel, take his seat, and set about his actuarial duties, his pen scratching at the paper, his foot occasionally twitching nervously, and Mr. Darling himself feeling rather exposed and uncomfortable.
When the clocks chimed six, he would set his pen in its holder, cap his inkwell, and spend a few quite moments organizing his desk for the next day. Then he would settle back into the kennel, arranging himself neatly within its confines, and nod his head, and the hired men would carry him home.
He found that he rather liked this arrangement, though he would never admit it, even to himself. When he was asked--as he often was--why he was being carried about in a kennel, he told them quite honestly that his children had disappeared, and, as penance for his failings as a father, he would remain in the kennel until they had returned.
And it was penance, in a way. George Darling was a proud man, a precise man. His fondest wish in life was to be like everyone else, fitting in perfectly, like a lady's hand fits perfectly into a finely knit glove. His superiors knew him to be a likable, dependable fellow; his inferiors knew him to be a kind man, generous when he could be. For such a man to be kenneled like a dog must have been a trial indeed.
In other ways, though, the kennel was a sanctuary. That the children were gone--had disappeared!--was nearly unthinkable. He knew what would happen if there weren't something to distract people. At first they'd enquire, politely, worriedly, after the children. "Are they home yet?" they'd ask, their faces full of concern. Slowly, though, their expressions would change from concern to pity. Oh, there he goes, the man who lost his children! What a poor father he must have been, the sorry fellow. George knew it would happen, and he knew he could not withstand it. Their scorn, yes, but their pity, never. By remaining in the kennel, he thought, the worst of it might be avoided. Surely he's being too hard on himself, they'd think. What courage he has, going on as he is! And then they'd have to admire him, not pity him. George did so like to be admired.
Despite its cramped quarters, he soon felt quite at home in the kennel, and by the time he received his first supper party invitation--he was, he felt, to be equal parts guest and entertainment--it seemed that in remaining in the kennel, he had taken the only reasonable course of action available to him.
It was somewhat more difficult for Mrs. Darling. From the moment she had entered the empty nursery, something in her heart had clenched, for she knew two things: not all children go to Neverland, and not all who go return.
That night, she sat on Wendy's bed, looking out the window at the distant stars and sending her thoughts after her children, hoping that they were safe and warm and dry somewhere. Mrs. Darling knew that "Second star to the right, and straight on until morning!" was as much a warning as it was a direction. Never is a very long time, and Neverland a long ways away from the cosy beds and warm porridge of their own dear home.
Memory is a curious thing. When she first encountered Peter, she was rummaging through Wendy's mind, setting things to rights at the end of the day. He seemed a frightfully cocky little thing, all bluster and swagger, his teeth gleaming and his eyes sparking. Mrs. Darling had filed him neatly away, as mothers must, tucking him into the bottom drawers of Wendy's mind and hoping, deep in her secret heart, that it would be the last she saw of Peter.
It was not, though. Night after night, he reappeared, crowing gleefully, wooden sword in hand, and night after night, she filed him again, tidily, in the bottom left-hand drawer, though it sometimes seemed that he had very familiar eyes, and was not wholly unlike someone Mrs. Darling herself had once known.
"Don't you know, Mother? That's Peter Pan!" Wendy had exclaimed indignantly one night. And indeed, just like that, Mrs. Darling had known. Peter Pan--of course it was. She remembered the rest, as well--second star and adventure, fairies and fighting--and she was afraid.
When they disappeared, she knew where they had gone. Where else would they go? They were, after all, children, gay and innocent and heartless. When presented with the fairy-tale magic land of flying and pirates and fairies, who could turn away?
And so she sat in her chair by the fire, thinking after her children as her knitting needles clicked and Mr. Darling snored softly in the kennel beside her. Winter became spring, and her projects moved up a size, still keeping pace with the fading hope that the children would come home--and soon--as hale and hearty as they'd been when they left.
It seemed to her that the children were everywhere. When she walked past the oddly quiet, empty nursery, she saw their forms in their beds and would rush in to coddle them, only to find the beds cold and empty. At supper some nights, she would turn and think she'd seen John slipping up late to the table, his hair still uncombed, but no one was ever there. And, occasionally, when George asked her to play him to sleep in the kennel, she'd confuse the tinkling of the piano keys with the rise and fall of young voices, only to find that when she stopped playing, the voices disappeared.
After time, even these things stopped. She never stopped seeing them, mind, but no longer did she rush to the nursery to shower them with kisses; no longer did she spin on her piano stool, hoping to catch one of the children in mid-step, dancing to the ghost of the music.
So we will forgive her if upon the children's return, she did not dance and celebrate, but signed wearily and settled into her chair, no longer trusting that her tired eyes could see what lay before them.
"Mother!" Wendy cried.
"That's Wendy," Mrs. Darling said, but she was still sure it was a dream.
"Mother!"
"That's John," she said.
"Mother!" cried Michael. He knew her now.
"That's Michael," she said, and she stretched out her arms as she had many times before, searching for the children she knew were not there.
The children rushed into her arms. "George, George!" she cried. Mr. Darling woke and crawled out from the kennel, shocked and overjoyed to see the children returned.
With a resounding bark, Nana burst through the door, forgetting herself just this once and jumping onto each child in turn, licking their faces and allowing them to twine their fingers through her thick, silky fur.
"Why are you crying, Mother?" Wendy asked, pausing in the merry revel.
Mrs. Darling looked at her daughter. She then looked again, quite closely, for there, at the corner of Wendy's mouth, was something that had never been there before--a small, maddening kiss, plain as day, that Mrs. Darling already knew she herself would never be able to reach, for it was not the kiss of a child, but that of a young woman.
“Look at you,” Mrs. Darling said. “You’re practically grown.” And she shook her head and smiled through her tears, and stretched out her arms. Her children were home.