Shades of Neverland (9 page)

“Aye, Peter.”

The brothers hugged until the train whistled again and began to move. Peter jumped aboard and Griffin handed him his bags. Then each man remained motionless, watching until the other was out of sight.

 
There was nothing to do on the long drive to Wales but talk, so that is what Wendy and Maimie did. Wendy had insisted her friend go first. So Maimie, sensing her listener’s fragile emotional state, prattled on for hours, breaking the wedding down into the most trivial of details.

It was only after their driver announced that they were nearing
Fishguard
, that Wendy dared recount to her friend the events of three days past. The entire trip Wendy had been ordering pieces in her mind as if completing a puzzle. The last piece was fitting into place even now, as she spoke. After the disastrous party, Wendy’s family had been all too compliant with her wishes to be left alone. They had asked no questions of her. In fact, they had made no demands of her at all except that she submit to an examination by the family physician. Dr. Trimble had promptly inspected her and diagnosed extreme fatigue. He prescribed a week of bed rest and gave her some pills to help her sleep. Under her aunt’s meticulous ministrations, she’d She been sleeping on and off since.

Maimie was horrified. “Do you think Aunt Mildred conspired with the Doctor to keep you in bed until Peter had gone?”

“Maimie, I am sure of it! She assumed my care with such pity and thoroughness, and all she really wanted was to keep me drugged. I knew when she said nothing of the ball that something was amiss! I thought perhaps she had taken sympathy on my plight. I imagined that she had recognized the truth of my love and that truth had melted her heart. I wrongly assumed that she was on my side when all along she was merely protecting her family interests.”

“Hateful, old cow!”

“A cow is too much a compliment!” Wendy spat. “She is a venomous serpent! I shan’t underestimate her again.”

The automobile began to slow. Maimie opened the front window to address her driver. “Giles, are we there?”

“Close, Miss.”

“Why have we slowed?”

“There is too much traffic, Miss. Everyone is trying to get to the port and the streets are clogged. Look.”

The girls looked in the direction indicated by their driver. In the distance was the sea and on it a great ship with billowing smokestacks. As they watched, its horn bellowed and the crewman began to take up its gangplanks. Maimie groaned. The ground between the ship and their car was a sea of a different kind, an impassable sea of humanity.

The driver looked at Wendy. “If you’re going to catch that ship you are going to have to make a run for it, Miss.”

In unison, Wendy and Maimie bolted from the car. Running as fast as the situation allowed, they wove and pushed their way thru the living sea to get to the ship. All around them, people were stationary and yet moving at the same time. Some cheering, some crying, all were waving toward the massive vessel and shouting “Bon voyage!” The entire ship undulated as those departing waved their last goodbyes back to the crowd.

When they finally reached the gate, a surly crewman stopped their progress. Maimie tried to reason with him while Wendy scanned the decks searching for some sign of Peter. Wendy was a sight! Still in her nightdress and slippers, shawl clutched around her shoulders and her loose hair whipped about by the harsh December wind, she looked like an escaped lunatic.

Perhaps if she had looked more presentable, the girls would have been able to make headway with the apathetic crewman. When it was apparent that he was not going to yield, Wendy hurried down a length of the pier scanning the departing passengers frantically.
 
She saw Mr. Boucicault and recognized the backside of Mr. Frohman as he departed from the upper deck. But where was Peter?

In vain she tried to yell and attract their attention but her cries blended with the voices of those surrounding her. Wendy knew her only hope was to separate herself from this horde of rippling humanity. As the ship began to move Wendy pushed her way back up the pier, through the mass of people, toward the rocky beach. Gingerly she made her way out across the jagged jetty. Arms raised over her head and flailing, wind tugging at her hair and nightgown, she seemed more specter than woman.

Many aboard the ship noticed the desperate girl who was precariously waving from atop the rocks; speculation about who she was and her intent became a regular topic of dining room gossip during the voyage. While most people had differing opinions on her purpose, it was generally agreed that she made a most tragic figure. Like Catherine on the moors, the strange girl seemed to be searching in vain for her Heathcliff.

 
“The party’s on the other side of the ship,
M’boy
!” Mr. Frohman snuck up on Peter, who had found himself a deserted piece of deck on the opposite side of the ship from the harbor.

Peter had been reflecting on his latest dream. Maybe it was an omen. Perhaps it meant the ship would founder or be set upon by pirates, if such a thing still existed. Neither scenario bothered him terribly much.
 
As Mr. Frohman approached, Peter had been vividly imagining a siege by a great pirate ship complete with skull and bones and a neurotic, one-handed Captain.

“I am not really in the mood for a party, Sir.” He had been in a bleak mood ever since he had woken up. The cold winter sky and gray churning ocean seemed to echo his feelings.

“Do you want to talk about it, son?”

Peter regarded the older man for a moment then shaking his head walked over to the railing. “Not really, no.”

The American joined him at the rail and for many moments they stared out at the vast expanse of ocean in contemplative silence.

“Is this your first crossing, Peter?”

“Yes, Sir.”

The older man’s eyes twinkled. “I was aboard the Lusitania in October of nineteen-o-seven when she broke the eastbound record and got the Blue
Riband
. Ah, I shall never forget that fantastic crossing! I have never crossed on the Mauretania before.” He chuckled. “I almost feel unfaithful! I shall have to be on my guard with Old
Lusie
, lest she try to get even with me for cheating on her with her sister.”

Dion Boucicault joined them then.
 
“There you chaps are! You do know that the party is on the other side of the ship? Look here, I managed to save some champagne for you. And not just any champagne! This is from Prince
Radziwell’s
private collection. Did you hear we had a couple of princes aboard? They are both quite capital fellows!”

Mr. Boucicault produced an unopened bottle, which he promptly handed off to Mr. Frohman, and three crystal glasses. Charles Frohman popped the cork and poured them each a drink.

“Now then boys,” inquired the American producer as he set the nearly empty bottle on a deck chair. “What shall we toast to?”

“You chaps missed a curious sight in the
harbour
,” Boucicault interjected. “A young woman, in what looked to be her nightdress, standing alone on the rocks frantically waving at the ship. Her blonde tresses whipping about her most dramatically.”

At the mention of a nightdress, Peter’s heart gave a start. “Was she a lady?”

“From the look of her I’d say not. Still she seemed a most noble and tragic figure. Like Isolde or Juliet. It is to her that I would like to toast. May the fine lady find what she was looking for or may she be able to start anew…To the blessing of new beginnings!”

“To new beginning!”

“To new beginnings!”

Peter toasted, wanting to believe with his whole heart. But something inside of him, tenacious and petulant, as obstinate as a child, dug in its heels and refused to let go.

CHAPTER 10

An Ocean Away

Peter dreamed of a dense forest. Something was falling from the sky. It was a beautiful white bird. He began to run, straining to get to the spot where the bird would land. He could hear it crashing through the brush in front of him.

Up ahead was a small clearing and he glimpsed the pitiful creature lying prostrate on the ground, unmoving. As he came closer, he saw the bird had long blonde tresses, delicate hands, and little feet. It was not a white bird at all but a girl in a nightgown. Sticking out of her breast was the shaft of an arrow.

She appeared to be dead.
 
Her head was facing away from him so it was not until he circled round the girl that he realized she was familiar to him. Heart hitching painfully in his chest, he realized the motionless girl was a younger version of his Wendy.

A groan escaped from Peters lips. Frenzied he looked about him for the archer who had delivered Wendy’s fatal blow. In his shock, he was barely conscious of grasping something in his hands; he looked down as if in slow motion and saw he held a bow. With horror he realized that his own hands were responsible for Wendy’s fate. Peter had shot the Wendy bird.

 
Traversing the Atlantic was not the cathartic experience that Peter had hoped it would be. New York, particularly Broadway, was an exciting, exotic place and Peter did his best to immerse himself in the hustle and bustle.
 
Everything, however, seemed to remind him of she whom he was trying to forget.
 
Each time something would delight him his immediate thought would be of Wendy and her imagined reaction.

Every night Peter still dreamt of her. Often there were strange islands surrounded by rough seas, frequently there were murderous pirates, sometimes there were strange boys, occasionally he encountered Indians or Mermaids, sporadically his dream guide still appeared, and always there was the separation. Sometimes he would wake up with her name on his lips, exhausted from spending the whole night searching for Wendy in a strange netherworld. No matter what he tried, he could not control the dreams nor stop them from coming.

So, Peter threw himself into his work; and being a young, handsome actor, the American public in return, threw itself at him. Within six months of his arrival, there was an endless amount of ladies wanting to make Peter
Neverland’s
acquaintance, among other things. These women were everywhere. They stalked the alley behind the stage door, bribed their way into his dressing and hotel rooms, even staked out his favorite restaurants. The better-connected and moneyed ones, under the guise of patronage, hosted dinners and organized parties. Peter, of course, was always the esteemed guest of honor.

Despite being offered every manor of lavish gift including physical charms, Peter delicately refused them all. He still wanted that which was an ocean away. Without being able to help himself, he compared each woman he met to Wendy and found them all wanting…

Still heavy with melancholy from his latest dream, Peter walked through the newly renamed Belasco Theatre. He moved reverently, pausing to admire the beautiful George
Keister
architecture, the opulent Tiffany glasswork, and the lively murals by Everett Shinn. This theatre had been his closest thing to an actual home for the last six months and he adored it.

In the approaching evening, the building was uncharacteristically still. Peter’s company had packed earlier in the day—they would be leaving for Chicago in the morning—thus the theatre was dark. As Peter moved through the stillness, he wondered why he had been summoned to the Bishop’s residence above.

The designer and namesake of the theatre, David Belasco, was considered an innovative eccentric among the American Theatre world. His insistence on clerical garb, a black suit with white rounded collar, had earned him the nickname “the Bishop of Broadway”.
 
Peter, whose very nature was to be charitable in spirit and mind, supposed all-encompassing passion for the theatre was a religious calling of sorts and respected the man for his devotion.

Mr. Belasco, perhaps recognizing a fellow devotee, had been trying to entice Peter away from his company with a series of appealing offers, but the actor had made it clear that he had committed to the run of Musketeers in Chicago. Afterwards, Peter thought, was quite a different story. Although he hadn’t informed them, Peter never intended to return with his fellow thespians to London. It was too near his pain, too near his heart and her.

Eventually Peter made his way to the Bishop’s apartment high atop the east side of the building. The formidable man was waiting for him at the door. In anticipation of yet another flattering offer, Peter stepped into the Bishop’s chambers clearing his throat.

“Mr. Belasco,” he began.

“David,” corrected the Bishop.

“David, your offers flatter me, but…”

“Sit down, son.” The Bishop gestured to a chair.

Peter seated himself. Something in the faux cleric’s face divulged that this meeting had nothing to do with any previous offers.

“Peter, this arrived for you, care of the theatre, this morning.” He handed him a slip of paper. “I’ll give you a few minutes.” Then the Bishop was gone.

Peter turned the telegram over and over in his hands, afraid to open it.
 
His first thought, however improbable, was that it was from Wendy; then he worried that it was about her.
 
Deciding it was probably no cause for alarm, he reluctantly opened it. It was from Griffin.

DEAR PETER.
 
I AM SORRY TO INFORM YOU THAT FATHER HAS PASSED AWAY.
 
AT HIS REQUEST THERE WILL NOT BE A FUNERAL.
 
PLEASE DO NOT COME HOME.
 
CONTINUE WITH YOUR PERFORMANCES. LETTER TO FOLLOW WILL EXPLAIN ALL.
 
GRIFFIN.

Peter was not sure how long he sat, but he was in complete darkness when the Bishop returned with a drink for each of them. Later, stunned and slightly drunk, he returned to his hotel room where a grinning bellhop informed him that a certain well-known actress was waiting in his private rooms. For the first time since his arrival in America, Peter did not turn a female admirer away; in fact, she did not leave until morning.

At this point, we must take caution not be hasty to judge Peter by virtue of a closed door and a sunrise. Appearances, after all, are seldom as they seem. Peter was a gentleman of the highest moral caliber. This, above all else, is to be remembered.

If only the loose-tongued bellhop would have given Peter the same benefit of the doubt instead of jumping to scandal-sized conclusions…

 
An ocean away, Wendy was tired of her dreams; waiting for Peter, wanting Peter, searching for Peter, screaming for Peter, hating Peter for leaving her.
 
Every night the darkness pressed in around her. Terrible, evil forces divided her from her love and threatened them harm. She thought she was going mad!

Seven months had passed since the handsome, young actor had left for America. At first Wendy didn’t want to go on living. She shut herself in her room and barely got out of bed. At Aunt Mildred’s insistence and for fear of driving Wendy into the actor’s arms, her family indulged her.

Successfully she cut herself off from nearly everyone and everything. Despite her best efforts she had only two faithful visitors: Maimie, whom she admitted; and James, whom she did not.

Like clockwork Maimie arrived on Saturday afternoon. For Wendy’s benefit, she brought the daily and weekly papers already scoured for any mention of Peter or his company.
 
This particular Saturday she entered Wendy’s room with less sympathy and more purpose. In her hands she held a beautiful summer hat, which she proceed to thrust at Wendy.

“Wendy, get dressed!” she ordered. “I am taking you to tea.”

Wendy set the hat on the edge of the bed and tightened her robe around her thin frame. “Oh Maimie, I am not inclined to leave the house today. I already arranged to have tea brought up.”

“Nonsense!” Her companion crossed to the window, parted the curtains, and opened it. “You haven’t left the house in months. It is a beautiful day! Today we are going out.”

Indignantly, Wendy opened her mouth in offence. “I get out! I went to your wedding,” Wendy snapped. Fancy Wendy snapping! But she had been much tried, and she little knew what loyal service her dearest friend would perform on behalf of her broken heart. If she had known she would not have snapped.

Maimie’s gaze cut her short and Wendy’s eyes dropped to a spot on the rug. Her best friend and confidant came closer. Reproachfully, Maimie picked up the hat and held it out to her. “That was one time. One time in seven months and you didn’t even dance.”

“I didn’t
feel
like it,” she mumbled accepting the beautiful millinery.

“I do not think you
feel
at all. Whatever you are doing, you are certainly not alive. Now get dressed. Today you rejoin the living.”

Wendy looked skeptically at her boon companion and sank to the edge of her bed. The latter picked her back up and tenderly smoothed a wisp of hair away from her face.

“It is just tea, dearest. I’m not asking you to throw a party!”

Sensing that her dear friend was not about to yield, Wendy began to dress. The ritual of dressing seemed strange after so many months of apathy. It occurred to Wendy that the whole point of clothes—from hair combs, to corset, to boots—was to transform a woman into something contradictory to her natural state. At the same time there was something cathartic and calming in those same ministrations. For the better part of an hour Maimie helped her dress.
 
By the time she was finished, Wendy was surprised to realize that she was actually looking forward to leaving her house.

Seated at the best table in the most fashionable tea
shoppe
in all of London, Wendy felt lighter than she had in a long time. She smiled at her faithful friend. “Oh, I didn’t realize how much I missed this.”

“And I missed you! Nothing is the same without you.”

“Have you been to the theatre recently?”

Maimie frowned, shaking her head, “No, the Opera.”

Wendy mirrored the expression. “Oh, dear.”

“Oh dear, indeed!”

The friends began to laugh like old times. When a dour grand-dame and her unfortunate looking daughter passed by casting the pair reproachful glances, Maimie responded with a snort. Then they giggled like schoolgirls, until their cheeks ached and tears were streaming from their eyes. In those precious moments all Wendy’s pent up emotions were released.

After a bit, when things had calmed down, Wendy glanced expectantly at a small stack of newspapers folded under Maimie’s handbag.

“What news of Peter?”

“Well,” Maimie hesitated, “the company has moved on to Chicago, last week in fact.”

Wendy sensed her friend’s reluctance. “What else?”

Maimie placed her hand over her companion’s. “Are you sure you want to know?” Wendy’s somber nod prompted her to continue in careful words. “It seems Peter has been linked to a well-known actress.”

Wendy pulled back her hand as if stung. “Who?” She demanded.

Maimie exhaled and pulled out the small stack of papers. “Edith Wynne
Matthison
.”

“And what do you mean by ‘linked’?”

“It seems she spent the night in his hotel room.”

Wendy snatched the papers from her friend’s hand and read the accounts for herself. (This was still a couple of years before the scandal between Edith and the pretty Vassar coed that would have dispelled any gossip about her and a member of the opposite sex.) After reading, Wendy was silent for a long time. When she finally looked at Maimie, her face was deliberately blank.

“Well, he’s found someone, at long last.” She smiled a pitiful smile. “Good for him.”