The Adventures of Mary Darling Excerpt
PROLOGUE
Nosy Boraha, Madagascar
March 8, 1934
Dear Grand-uncle John,
Here’s the book I’ve been working on. I hope this will set the record straight once and for all. I have always thought it shameful that James Barrie’s Peter Pan is the only version of my grandmother’s story available to the world. He got so much wrong! And he left you out altogether! This book tells the true story.
When I was a child, you complimented me on my vivid imagination. I hope you don’t regret those comments after reading this book. I had to use my imagination when writing about what my characters said and thought. Whenever I had to fill in gaps that weren’t covered by what friends and family remembered, I made things up—including some things that you said and did and felt.
I respect your opinion—as a writer, as my beloved grand-uncle, and as someone who was there when all this was going on. I look forward (I think) to any comments or corrections you may choose to share.
Your loving grandniece,
Jane Darling
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
The Events at Number 14
(The Children Are Gone)
I can picture it clearly: A light dusting of snow had settled on the cobblestones of a small London street in a respectable middle-class neighborhood not far from Kensington Gardens. The snow was white, a temporary condition for any snow falling in London. The soot of London’s smokes would soon blacken the snow, but at that moment, it was still pure and clean.
The year was 1900, the sixty-third year of Queen Victoria’s reign. The British Empire ruled over a quarter of the world’s population. That’s the big picture. But right now, I’m thinking about one small street.
There were footprints in the snow. They led away from the front door of number 14, a tall, narrow house much like the tall, narrow house to its left and the tall narrow house to its right. Two people—a woman in overshoes and a man in ankle boots—had picked their way over the snowy cobblestones to number 27, just a short distance down the street.
I imagine that it was a peaceful scene—except for the dog barking frantically behind number 14. Between bouts of frantic barking, a heavy chain rattled and clanked as the beast threw itself against the restraint that held it captive. The animal sounded desperate—raising an alarm that no one heeded.
On the third floor of number 14, the casement windows were open wide, which was odd on such a cold night. A light flickered in the room—a night light perhaps? No, this light moved about the room quickly, darting this way and that.
From behind the house came the crack of a wooden post giving way. A Newfoundland dog, its shaggy coat soaked with sweat and melted snow, bounded into the street. The dog dragged a chain that was looped through its collar. At the end of the chain was a wooden post that had broken off at the base. The top of the post caught on a cobble, a weak link in the chain gave way and the chain slipped off the dog’s collar.
Free at last, the dog ran down the street and hurled itself at the door of number 27, claws rattling against the wood. A servant girl in a mob cap and apron opened the door. The dog bowled her over. Quicker than you’d think an animal that size could move, the dog was inside.
A few moments later, the dog dashed out again. A woman followed, calling after the beast in a voice as wild and desperate as the dog’s barking. “Nana! What is it?”
What is it? By way of an answer, Nana ran toward number 14. The woman—her name was Mary Darling—ran after the dog. She was a slim woman with high cheekbones and dark curly hair. She wore a light evening dress with a full skirt—last year’s style, but she made it look good. She had left her overcoat and overshoes behind.
Her evening slippers were not made for running on snow-slicked cobbles. She slipped in the snow and fell to one knee, but that slowed her only for a moment. She was quickly on her feet again, looking up at the third-floor window of number 14.
A sweet high sound, like the ringing of tiny bells, rang out over Nana’s panting.
“No!” Mary cried out as she ran through the snow. “No!” Mary’s husband, George Darling, followed her, a few minutes behind. He had lingered to apologize to the hosts of the dinner party at number 27 for the dog’s unfortunate interruption. He had taken the time to put on his woolen greatcoat and to collect Mary’s overcoat and overshoes. He stepped carefully to avoid slipping in the snow. As George walked through the snow, he muttered under his breath, “This is what comes of having a dog for a nursemaid.”
Mary tried number 14’s front door. It was locked. She called frantically to George, who plodded through the snow, fumbled in his pocket, found the key, and unlocked the door.
Mary rushed into the house and up the stairs to the third floor, calling all the while to Liza, the young girl who was their only servant. Nana ran ahead of Mary, leaving a trail of wet paw prints on the stairs.
Liza came up from the tiny room off the kitchen that served as her bedroom, blinking as she pulled a shawl over her thin shoulders. “What is it, m’um?”
“The children!” Mary called. “Where are they?” She didn’t pause for an answer, continuing her dash up the stairs to the nursery. “I went to the nursery not an hour since, m’um,” Liza was saying. “The children were sleeping—I heard them breathing softly, the little angels.” Mary stopped in the nursery doorway, frozen. The beds were empty; the bedclothes, thrown back. The windows were wide open. Mary rushed to look out. Below, the snowy street. Above, the dark sky, speckled with stars. She turned away from the window to stare at the empty beds where she had left her children sleeping. Then she sat on the window seat, as if suddenly unable to stand. Her hands clasped in her lap, holding onto each other because there was nothing else to cling to.
The nursery was a cheerful room. The walls were a pale yellow. The curtains at the window were printed with bright yellow daisies. Mary had sewn the curtains herself. Over the mantle, she had hung a watercolor painting by her mother: three smiling fairies sat in the shade of a bottlebrush bush, sharing a pot of tea. On the mantel were framed photos of Mary’s children—a formal portrait taken in a studio and a photo of the children at the beach, taken when they were on holiday.
Mary had been happy in this room. She had thought this nursery was a place where her children would be safe.
George Darling reached the landing and stepped into the nursery. “Liza says the children are fine,” he said. There was an edge in his voice. He had been ready to light a pipe and enjoy a glass of brandy with their hosts when Nana disrupted the party.
“They are gone, George. The children are gone.” Mary’s voice was bleak and filled with pain.
George stared at the open window and then at the empty beds. “What? This is some kind of a joke,” he said, in the tone of a man trying to convince himself. “Wendy! John! Michael! Children, this isn’t funny.” He turned away from the window and looked under the empty beds. He peered inside the wardrobe and swept the curtains aside to look behind them.
Mary wasn’t watching him. Once again, she was looking out the window at the night sky. “I closed the windows before we left,” she said to no one, or perhaps to Nana, who sat at her feet, leaning against her knee and gazing at her face. “I’m sure of that.”
George wasn’t listening. He was asking Liza what had happened while they had been at dinner. “The children are gone,” he said gruffly, as if Liza couldn’t see that for herself.
The girl’s eyes were enormous, terrified. “I was in the kitchen, sir, tidying up. Nana was barking and barking. She wouldn’t stop. I brought her to the nursery so she could see nothing was wrong. Then I put her in the yard again . . .”
A loud knock at the front door interrupted Liza’s recitation. George stomped downstairs to answer and returned a moment later, followed by a police constable. Their neighbors at number 27, alarmed by the Darlings’ sudden departure, had fetched the constable from the corner and told him to go to the Darlings’ house.
“Our children are gone,” George told the policeman. “Vanished.” “Vanished?” The policeman raised his grizzled eyebrows. His gray hair was neatly cut beneath his helmet. Mustache trimmed to a regulation length. Nose red—perhaps fond of a bit of drink, but never on duty. Crystals of melting snow clung to his coat. He had a truncheon on his belt, ready to smack a wrongdoer. But there was no one to smack. “Could the children be playing a joke?” he asked.
“They wouldn’t do that,” George said.
The policeman was looking in all the places that George had looked. There were no children under the beds. No children in the wardrobe. No children behind the curtains.
“Kidnapped,” the policeman said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’ll tell headquarters.”
Mary shook her head in denial, her face wet with tears. George put his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll get your Uncle John,” he said. “He’ll know what to do.”
CHAPTER 2
Uncle John and the Great Detective
Dr. Watson sat by the fire at 221b Baker Street, reviewing his notes on one of the adventures he had shared with his friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Holmes was at the table, working on a monograph about poisons—specifically about deadly potions that could be made with ingredients commonly found in the average household.
Watson gazed out the window. In the snow, Baker Street looked beautiful. So peaceful. Snow hid many things that people would rather not see, covering the soot that darkened the buildings, the horse manure in the gutters, the piles of rubbish in the alleys, and even the beggars that huddled in doorways.
Watson heard the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves and the rumble of wheels on cobblestones below. The sound stopped beneath their window. “We have a visitor,” Watson remarked. “Someone must be in desperate need to seek out your help on such a cold night.”
Holmes put down his pen. “A man, by the sound of it.” He glanced at Watson. “I know it’s a hansom cab by the pace of the horse and the sound of the wheels—lighter than a growler but not so quick as a dogcart. I hear only one passenger alighting—a respectable woman would not be in a hansom cab alone. And any woman would wait for the assistance of the driver to alight. But our visitor is too impatient for that.”
The visitor’s impatience was confirmed by a frantic knocking at the door. Watson moved to stand, but Holmes waved him back into his chair. “Don’t disturb yourself, Watson. Allow me.”
Watson heard a man’s voice, speaking loudly, quickly. Watson could not make out the words, but he recognized the voice. It was George Darling, his niece’s husband. In an instant, Watson was out of his chair, comfort forgotten.
“What’s wrong?” Watson asked, as George entered the room. The man’s hands were shaking—from strong emotion, from the cold, or perhaps from both.
“Mary needs you, John. Mary . . . I . . . we need your help.” Though George addressed his appeal to Watson, Holmes answered. “We will do everything we can.” Holmes’ tone was calm and reassuring. He led George to the chair that Watson had vacated. “But first, you must calm yourself. Watson, get the brandy.”
Watson poured George a glass of brandy and draped a blanket over the man’s shoulders to ward off the chill.
George Darling was a tall, thin man with regular features and dark wavy hair. He was twenty-nine years of age, but he had the air of a much older man. Watson had always thought him rather dull. George took himself very seriously and expected others to do the same. He worked as a senior accountant in a Capel Court brokerage firm and was always talking about stocks and shares in a deadly earnest tone. Years ago, when George had come to Watson to ask for Mary’s hand, Watson had thought him an odd match for Mary, who was a lively, strong-minded young woman. But Watson was glad that his niece had married well and settled down.
“What’s happened?” Watson asked.
George downed the brandy. “The children are gone.” His voice was low and pained. “The policeman says they’ve been kidnapped.” “Tell the story from the beginning,” Holmes said. He pulled a chair near George and seated himself upon it, leaning forward and giving the man his full attention. “Leave nothing out.”
George recounted the events of the evening, ending with the discovery that the children were gone. “Then I came here. I left Mary in the nursery, in case the children returned. Liza is with her. The constable has gone to make a report. Please come back with me, John. Mary needs you.”
“You were quite right to come and get us,” Holmes said. “We must hurry to examine the crime scene before Scotland Yard shows up to obliterate any clues.”
As they rode in the hansom cab to Mary’s house, Watson caught flickering
glimpses of Holmes’ face in the light of street lamps. Clearly Holmes was eager to help Mary in this time of need, but Watson wished he did not look quite so cheerful, delighted to have an intriguing case, even one involving pain to Watson and his family.
Holmes stopped the cab a block away from number 14. “The house is around the corner,” George said.
But Holmes was already out of the cab. He had brought a lantern, which he immediately lit. He began walking slowly toward number 14, leaving Watson and George to follow. As Holmes walked, he studied the street and the houses on either side. When he reached number 14, he continued past the house, frowning down at the marks in the snow. Then he turned and walked back to number 14. “Which window leads to the nursery?” he asked George.
George pointed to the open window on the third floor. “Here now—hold this.” Holmes handed George the lantern, then moved from the doorstep to the ground directly beneath the nursery window. “Come along. I need the light here.”
George followed with the lantern. Having inspected the ground, Holmes lifted his eyes to stare at the wall—a brick wall with no ivy, no drainpipe, nothing to cling to.
As Watson watched, Holmes stepped closer, his nose inches from the bricks.
George gave Watson a beseeching look. “We really must go inside,” he said. “Mary needs us.”
“I’ll go up,” Watson told George. Watson knew Holmes would be at this for a while. “I’ll check on Mary.”
“George, keep that lantern up,” Holmes said. “I need the light.” As Holmes searched for marks too subtle to catch the attention of anyone less discerning, Watson climbed the stairs to the nursery. There he found Mary sitting on the window seat. The casement windows were open wide. Despite the fire, the room was cold.
Mary’s back was straight. She was deathly pale. Her hands were in her lap, her right hand clenched in a fist; her left, wrapped tightly around the fist, as if to restrain it. Her face was streaked with tears. Nana sat at Mary’s feet.
Watson set his doctor’s bag on the floor and sat beside her. “Mary,” Watson said, touching her shoulder. “You will catch your death of cold sitting here.” He started to pull the windows closed.
“No! Please, Uncle, leave them open! They must stay open.” Watson shot a glance at Liza. The servant girl stood by the fire, a shawl over her shoulders, her face a picture of misery.
“She won’t let me close them,” Liza murmured.
“I will leave them open just a bit,” Watson said soothingly. “I won’t latch them. But you must move out of this draft. Liza, fetch a blanket and brandy.”
By the time Watson heard Holmes’ footsteps on the stairs, Mary was seated in the chair by the fire. Watson had covered her with a blanket and forced her to sip some brandy.
At the nursery door, Holmes stopped and surveyed the room. “Is this room just as it was when you arrived home?” he asked George. “Yes,” George said. “When we returned home, the room looked just as you see it. We have changed nothing.”
“The windows were wide open when I arrived,” Watson said. “I pulled them closed.”
“Yes, that’s right,” George said. “Other than that, it was exactly like this.” “Is that the dog’s kennel?” Holmes asked, gesturing to the kennel beside the wardrobe.
“Yes, that’s Nana’s,” George said.
Watson stared at the kennel. “Why didn’t Nana chase the kidnappers away?” he asked. He knew that dog and a more dedicated animal did not live. She would have given her life to protect the children. “She never would have allowed a stranger to take them.”
George put his hand to his forehead, hiding his eyes. “I tied Nana in the yard. She had misbehaved. I was punishing her. It was my fault Nana wasn’t in the nursery. It’s all my fault.”
Oblivious to George’s distress, Holmes crossed to the wardrobe, opened the door, and considered the clothing within. “Is any of the children’s clothing gone?” he asked George.
George frowned, looking flustered. “I’m not sure. Mary? Is any clothing gone?”
“The boys were wearing their nightshirts. Wendy was in her nightgown,” Mary said softly. “All their other clothes are all here.” “They left without jackets,” Holmes said. “Without shoes.” Mary nodded, tears running down her cheeks.
Watson moved to stand behind his niece, putting his hand on her shoulder. He could feel the tension in her muscles. “You have the world’s
best detective working on your behalf,” Watson told his niece. “We’ll find the children.”
Holmes continued his examination of the room. He studied the floor, kneeling to scrutinize the area nearest the wardrobe, lying flat to look under each bed. At the window, he lingered, scrutinizing the window latch, the snow on the sill. There were marks in the snow where some of the loose powder had been pushed to one side.
Holmes pulled tweezers from his jacket pocket. With them, he plucked a leaf from the windowsill, where it had been almost entirely covered by snow. He took an envelope from his pocket, set it on the interior window sill, and carefully laid the damp leaf on the clean paper.
At that moment, there was a knock on the door below. Liza hurried downstairs, then returned with Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. “Holmes!” Lestrade said. “How the devil did you get here so quickly?” “Family connections. And it’s well that I did get here quickly—I had the opportunity to examine the crime scene before the evidence was trampled underfoot.”
“Crime? Have you found evidence of a crime? How do you know the children didn’t just run off?”
“If the children ran off, they left in their nightclothes, without coats or boots,” Holmes said in a severe tone. “Even a child would turn back for a coat on a night like this.”
“Well, then—I suppose it’s a kidnapping,” Lestrade said, his tone rather peevish.
Holmes smiled. “As I have said before, it’s a mistake to theorize before one has data. Just now, the main clue is the lack of clues. I see no children’s footprints in the snow. There were no signs of a vehicle, other than the hansom cab that brought us here. No sign anyone scaled the wall. Only a few scuff marks on the window sill and a dead leaf that may prove to be of interest.”
Lestrade waved a hand, dismissing the leaf as irrelevant. “A leaf. Oh, come now, Holmes. Surely you don’t believe that a leaf that fell on the window sill is important.”
Holmes cocked his head, still smiling. “At this stage of the investigation, it’s difficult to say what might be important.” The inspector looked uncomfortable. “Well, if you choose to waste your time on a fallen leaf, that’s your business. There’s no need for one of your complex theories here, Mr. Holmes. The constable who reported this incident suggested a simple explanation. The children went downstairs because the dog was barking. Then someone snatched them—perhaps a brothel keeper who had his eye on the girl, perhaps a thief looking for children to train as pickpockets, perhaps a ragpicker who wanted their pretty nightclothes to sell. If we’re lucky, we’ll find the children in the morning. If we aren’t lucky. . .” Lestrade shrugged.
Watson glanced down at Mary. She was staring at the dead leaf that Holmes had carefully collected. Her expression was grim and determined, like a soldier ready for battle.
Lestrade, who had not noticed she was there, saw her then. “But of course we will find them,” he said hurriedly.
Mary’s expression did not change.
After Lestrade left, Watson, Holmes, and George Darling walked the streets near number 14, searching for anyone who might have seen the children. Holmes was at his best, hailing men who were heading home, unsteady on their feet after an evening at the pub. He enlisted their sympathy for the children and quizzed them about anything unusual they might have noticed. None of them had any useful information to offer.
“We need more data,” Holmes muttered. “Someone must have seen something.”
