My Darling Love

Chapter 70 – Her Majesty's Secret Service

"In search of my mother's garden, I found my own"

Alice Walker

George was gone "to the best place for a man such as he," Harry commented as Mary watched her daughter, son-in-law and their child moving in with her. But it was to be a different living arrangement than they were used to. "You can have my bedroom, Wendy, your Jane can have my Jane's old room and I will take the nursery." Wendy and James would have sworn Mary would want to stay in her own room, but she was rather insistent. "That is what your father wanted."

So without question and happily sacrificial, Mary moved into the nursery, and purchased all new things for her now-widowed life. The furniture that she had shared with George she bestowed graciously to Wendy, who simply adored anything antique, as well as having belonged to her mother. The only thing Mary would not be parted with was her painting of George. It hung above her new bed in her new room.

The only further question came from James, who asked after her brother-in-law, Harry, "Where will he live? It's unfair that he should live alone. After all, Madam, we are his only family."

Mary heard him as she helped with supper, but did not respond until they were alone in the dining room setting the table. "I told Harry he is more than welcome here whenever he likes. He doesn't have to be alone, he chooses to be." James accepted her answer; trusting her the same as George had. Therefore, not another word was said.

Now, James and Wendy were no way as wealthy as Mr. and Mrs. George Darling, and after dividing up all the money George bequeathed to his entire family, James (now titled "king of the castle") cut expenses wherever possible. He liked George's ideas best, so he maintained them. He released the cook, maids and housekeeper, for Wendy should learn how to feed her family and make a home by her own talents. Wendy gave up her profession as art teacher for a new one, homemaker. James set up his savings accounts for "rainy days" and "unforeseeable expenses," all with the help of Uncle Harry. With the new house rules now established, Wendy and James lived their early marriage just like her parents before her.

There were lovers' spats and quarrels, for James expected the same things from his wife and mother of his children that George did. At home in their modest flat, Mary had cleaned and cooked meals to help out, as Wendy was rather busy teaching, not to mention, quite swollen with child. But in George's home, Mary turned these duties over to her daughter, who was married with a child and another on the way. Mary now spent her time alone in her room, leaving her daughter to care for the home. Therefore, Mrs. James Dunange constantly heard, "You made no supper? I worked a hard day today, Gwendolyn, I expected dinner hot on the table when I arrived." Or, "Gwendolyn, the house is filthy, do you not know how to clean?"

No one -- with the exception of Mary -- had clean clothes, for Wendy did nothing all day but carry Jane around in an imaginary world. "Do you want me to help? I understand it is hard with a baby and another on the way, but still Wendy…" Mary asked when there was not even a tea bag to be found in the cupboards. "No, mother, I am the Queen of the house and soon enough James will get me a maid and cook." Stubborn and foolish, Wendy just danced away to her bedroom.

It all came to a crashing halt when Wendy delivered twin sons who, at only a few weeks old, developed a horrible diaper rash. Mary carried the twins across town to a physician for treatment on Harry's advice, for Wendy could not be bothered.

"It's simply too difficult to look after two babies and Jane! We must hire a nanny! And like I have been telling you all along, James, I need a cook and a maid. As far as laundry, James, just hire a launderer. I am your wife, James, not a servant!" Wendy demanded to her husband that evening, after he arrived home from yet another long, hard day at work without supper on neither the table nor any food found in the cupboards with the newborns in the bassinet crying hysterically.

Wendy could not soothe them, nor could James. The hours he'd worked away from the house to keep her in the manner she had grown accustomed to, being the daughter of a banker, kept him away from his children as well. An argument ensued of the highest, loudest quality that ended when James, enraged by his selfish self-centered wife, slapped her hard in the mouth after she called him, "the heartless devil."

Wendy fell over only to get up, still stubborn and willful and very foolish, informing him, "I want a divorce, James! GO BACK TO NEVERLAND AND ROT!" She stormed out of the room and out of the house leaving him alone with three babies crying for comfort and love, all with soiled diapers.

James loved his Wendy, and he loved his children, but this was not something he bargained for. He threw open the window in his bedroom and screamed out into the night sky, "As I told you before, dearest Lord, THIS IS NO FAIR TRADE!" shaking his fists to the heavens. At that moment he was so tempted to take that step, the step out the window into the night sky ensuring his return to the good ship Jolly Roger. But alas, he remembered, he got just what he'd asked for, and now he was real. There was no Neverland to return to, well, at least not for him. And God himself had told James, it was much more difficult to be alive on earth than in Heaven. "Different rules, different battlefields," James whispered to himself as he made his best attempt to help his children covered in their own filth.

Mary was not home to hear the harsh words of raised voices. She arrived sometime later, dragging Wendy by her arm into the house. "Sit," Mary told her married daughter as she made her way up the stairs to where James had undressed all three children and was trying to his best to clean them with a damp washcloth and only one functioning hand. The babies moved about kicking and wiggling, not understanding his gentle request of, "Please stay still so I can clean you up, my precious little ones."

Mary sighed, seeing her daughter and son-in-law seemed already "in for it," as she muttered walking quickly to the washroom to run a bath. "Go downstairs and sit with Wendy. I will do this," she told James, and he went.

James and Wendy sat across from one another, she looking up at the ceiling with her arms crossed, he sitting with his elbows on his knees, staring at her. He asked about where she had gone, truly concerned, and she retorted, "I went to my brother's home and told him what you did, and you are no longer welcome there!"

Mary was upstairs with three little angels, giving them each a bath in a tub with relaxingly warm water filled with perfumed soap bubbles. She dressed each of her grandchildren in a clean diaper, the last to be found in the house, and clean pajamas that she herself washed early in the day. She hummed them to sleep in the crib, and then slowly proceeded to the parlor to Wendy and James.

Mary took a seat in the middle and said nothing. They sat that way for quite some time before Wendy lost her temper once again, and informed her mother of her intentions. "Mother, like I was trying to tell you at John's, I am going to divorce James." Plain and simple. James lowered his head, a King defeated, still a newlywed.

Mary shook her head and rubbed her face, turning her attention to James. "James, go upstairs, pack yourself a bag and leave this house."

James left up the stairs without a word, did as the Queen instructed him and vacated the Darling house into the night. Wendy watched him go and gave a "good," complete with a smirk of victory. Now it was Wendy's turn, and she did not see it coming for she was still gloating.

"Your father and I have only made this mistake in marriage: we should have given our blessing to your Peter when he asked it of us. He would have been the better choice of husband to you. There would be no modest home of meager income for you to be bothered with, and there would be no children to keep you from your fantasies and games. You would rest in the lap of luxury and be out and about in the world where you think you belong. And there would be no man cast from his home, old, alone and unloved without even his children for company."

Mary rose from her chair and slowly took to the stairs. Wendy faltered in her celebration when her mother called down to her, "I will expect you to pack your bags as well and be out of the house tomorrow. You can sleep in my room tonight, it will be easier for your imaginary friend to come and retrieve you."

Wendy jumped up and raced to the landing to catch her mother rounding about to her daughter's room. "Mother, don't be silly Peter Pan is dead."

"I would not be to sure about that, Wendy. I will look after James' children, that way I can be sure of their protection and that their father will see them, seems he prefers real life to the imaginary world you spend your days in."

Wendy went up the stairs to her room just as fast as she made it to the landing. "Whatever do you mean mother? I don't want to leave here."

Mary was unwavering, even after Wendy lifted one of her sons up out of the crib and cradled him lovingly in her arms. "You've always cared more about yourself, Gwendolyn, than you have cared about others that love you. Tonight proves it beyond any shadow of a doubt in my mind. Yes, I'm sure Lucifer is sending Pan at this very moment to claim his prize. Best leave the window open for him." Mary snatched the baby from its mother, and it did not cry in protest, only grinned contentedly, feeling the mother still present in Mary.

Mary took Wendy by the arm and shoved her from the room latching the door behind her. "Sweet dreams, Wendy, darling," Mary scoffed, just like Captain Hook would have from behind her locked door.

Wendy went to bed but could not sleep, not like she wanted to. In fact, she performed the actions that had been played out several times before in that particular room, blockading the window after locking it and closing the shades. She moved two dressers, her mother's rocking chair, table and chairs, a side drawer, an immense wardrobe with one delicate vase above the whole jumble to secure that if a person were to enter the room, at least through the window, Wendy would know. She tossed and turned in bed, kept awake by the slightest noise in the house. She heard the house settle, the heater kick on and off, the back gate rattle in the wind and the babies up with a wail only a second before Mary calmed them back to slumber.

Wendy closed her eyes, painful to do, for when she did she saw Captain Hook impaled through his back repeatedly with a gold dagger by a boy who refused to grow up. His love for her, and her alone made him do it, to protect her, to save her and now he was gone away from her. Wendy was convinced, as was God, that given a second chance, Captain Hook would have just stood there and mocked her as she lay dying from a stab wound to the heart. Although, in truth, God knew her James would never do that, for he loved Wendy and that reason alone made the once dreaded pirate real in the first place. And now her James was gone away in the night, away forever and Wendy was just lying in bed, in the lap of luxury.

It was cold outside, and so wherever James was, Wendy knew he was freezing. She thought perhaps he went to the church mission or Uncle Harry's. But still, she knew he was cold. Therefore, she pulled the blanket off of the bed and continued to lie. But James was not lying down; he was probably scrunched up in an alley freezing. Therefore, Wendy scrunched herself up in a corner of her room without a blanket. She couldn't open the window; for she was terrified, having no pirate captain to protect her, Pan was eagerly awaiting entrance. She turned off the heater in her room and waited. But still, it was not the same as being outside, now it was raining. So Wendy got up defeated, just like her husband, and went to the kitchen. With nothing else to do to keep her hands busy she did the laundry.

Mary awoke in the morning and carried Jane down, placing her in the wooden playpen James had crafted in the parlor. She climbed the stairs and gathered the two newborns and brought them down as well. Jane was no longer in the playpen. Mary raced into the kitchen to find a fine mess. "There is madness in my method, Mother, but I am trying…" Wendy shouted over her work. She was in the process of cleaning everything in the kitchen, including shining her mother's silverware all at the same time. There were lines of drying laundry hung about everywhere and pots with something cooking on all four burners of the stove. Jane sat in her highchair, the same her father had made for her, and giggled as Wendy literally dropped what she was doing to feed her eldest child.

Mary watched as Wendy threw open her blouse in plain sight and let both her sons attach on, each to its own breast for breakfast. "Now do you want me to help, Wendy?" Mary asked lowering the fires under the food her daughter was cooking.

"Yes mother, help me and teach me." Mary was waiting for the ending only to find there wasn't one, so she inquired further, "Teach you what, Wendy?"

"Everything, mother... Please" Wendy replied breathlessly, taking a seat at the table to rest, but only for moment, with her twins nestled snuggly into her bosom.

Harry dropped by like he did each morning for breakfast, and told Wendy her husband took his old room in the flat. "He went to work this morning, and yes, Mary, he ate a hearty breakfast at the tavern first." Harry couldn't find a place to sit in the kitchen so he grabbed a makeshift muffin Wendy made, hard as a rock, and went off to work himself.

Wendy twirled about in the disorder and fell over with her mother there to catch her and guide her home. "Wendy, first things first. We will clean up this mess together and start over."

They did just that, and Mary taught Wendy everything she knew about being a mother and wife. All the questions Wendy always had about her mother and what she did all day while the children played were answered that day, "You must make a schedule and keep to it." First thing was first where Wendy's mother was concerned, "You awake before everyone else in the house, dress yourself and go to the kitchen and make your family breakfast, never letting your eyes leave the clock. Everyone you care for has a schedule, and it is your job to see that it, as well as your own, is kept. You must make sure everyone gets up, gets dressed, eats and safely gets off to where they need to go."

They took each step together, one at a time, and by nightfall of that first day, Wendy gained several very important titles, "Never think of yourself, Wendy, as just your husband's maid, launderer, nanny and whore. You are a wife, a mother, a friend, a lover, a confidante, and everything else in between, because, Wendy, you are a woman who loves."

By the time night fell and the clock tolled six, Wendy also realized why her mother abandoned the children to spend a few stolen minutes with her father. Working all day as the minutes turned to hours, doing what it was housewives do to care for their family, checking on her babies while making a happy home for them, Wendy had "the need" to see James, as Mary put it. "Oh yes Wendy, did you feel it tug on you all day, getting worse as the hour of his arrival from work neared?" Wendy nodded anxiously. "Yes, Wendy, and when he is not in the door hanging his hat at half past six, it will be unbearable. It will send you to the front stoop looking down the block for him, and out into the streets searching for him. Your soul will flee your body to find him…"

James did not come home at half past six, and just as Mary had warned, Wendy spent an hour outside on the front stoop waiting. "He will not come home tonight, Wendy. But fret not, for he loves you, and will come home when he is called."

Mary's final instruction came after the three children were fed, bathed and in bed. "Now, it is time for you to be the bedtime fairy." Mary walked with Wendy throughout the house, giving it the once over, noting all that was to be done the next day. With Wendy's schedule completed, and her new one for the next day assembled, she too went to bed leaving Mary awake.

Mary called a cab that came and fetched her, dropping her by Harry's tavern. Inside, James sat at the bar holding his head in his hand. A cigar was lit in the ashtray and a bottle of rum rested beside that. Harry sat at a card table, playing cards with a young lady, young enough to be his granddaughter, taking a spot happily on his lap. He nodded to Mary as she entered and she returned a halfhearted smile to him as she strolled up behind James, placing her hand on his back. "Come home," was all Mary said and James accompanied her, unquestioning.

The house was quiet and clean. There was a plate of supper Wendy made for him herself waiting in the icebox, and Mary, playing the part of wife, heated it for him and he ate. Mary sat across from him and folded napkins and towels, the last the maid had washed, placing them neatly in a basket. "You did this?" James asked with his mouth full.

"No, Wendy did it. Our family's former maid, housekeeper, and chef did help her and I along, but, just for today. We felt the best start for Wendy and your family should be a fresh one. The cupboards and icebox are full; the washroom is scrubbed as well as every other room in the house including that attic. All your clothes are clean and hanging in your wardrobe. There is not one thing out of place in this house. There is fresh bedding and blankets on the bed, and even the sofa cushions are fluffed. The maid spent the entire day with Wendy and showed her the correct way to clean house. What she did not teach her, I did. The chef went to the market and then guided Wendy through making her first supper. The Housekeep and I went to the department store and I purchased you new shoes, handkerchiefs, socks, pajamas, a dress suit, warm work clothes, bathrobe and slippers. We also purchased for the children things babies that age need. I am giving you and my daughter the funds for all the expenses, and I do not want it repaid. It is a wise investment I am making in my family. I am always here for you both, and as I told Wendy today, I will always lend a hand to you, all you have to do is ask. Now, Wendy still has a lot to learn, so I ask you to be patient with her. She is trying her best. She understands now, James. Tomorrow I will educate my daughter in the fine art of planning meals and making her grocery list…"

James sat back in his chair with a frown and exhaled deeply shaking his head. "However did you convince her, Madam?"

"I gave her two choices, Captain. I told her she could either feed you to the lion or let you live with the maiden. She chose the maiden, Captain." Mary smiled to him and rose gathering his plate, which he had cleaned. She touched his tired face that quickly turned toward her, embracing her around the waist. "Lucky for Gwendolyn, James, she gets to be the maiden." She pulled away, but not before he kissed her hand.

God in heaven and George sitting beside him resting on a cloud smiled down. "Can I go to her now?" George asked and God shook his head. "Not yet George, but soon."

And so it was, Wendy, with a lot of practice and hard work, became a proficient homemaker. She got up before everyone else in the house and did her chores with a smile that ran ear to ear. She played with her babies, showering them with kisses and hugs, and soon enough, she need only touch her finger to their cheek when they cried to give them comfort. She hummed while she worked, cooked, cleaned and made very merry all day long in her new reality.

Unlike her mother, who never worried after money, Wendy handled all the house accounts. Just like her father taught her, she had accounts for everything and never overspent on the unnecessary. Her favorite ledger to look in on was, "Our night out," as she titled it. Once a week, preferably on a Saturday, James and Wendy went out for a date together alone, just the two of them. Mary loved that time as well; for then and only then did she get to look after the babies.

And each night as the bell tolled six, Wendy's eyes went to the clock, and each second that past until James came in the front door was an eternity. But he came home on time, and unlike George who made his own way to the dinner table, Wendy led James. Wendy's time for him and him alone began the moment his hat reached the hat rack. She hugged him tightly, and kissed his lips before she took his hand, and guided him to his seat at the head of the table. She served him his supper first, and instructed their children, still babies in the playpen, "Listen children, your father is going to tell us about his day. Please James, tell us, and don't leave out one detail."