Wednesday, April 12, 2006

They would

sit there in the empty nursery, recalling fondly
every smallest detail of that dreadful evening. It had begun so
uneventfully, so precisely like a hundred other evenings, with
Nana putting on the water for Michael's bath and carrying him to
it on her back.

"I won't go to bed," he had shouted, like one who still
believed that he had the last word on the subject, "I won't, I
won't. Nana, it isn't six o'clock yet. Oh dear, oh dear, I
shan't love you any more, Nana. I tell you I won't be bathed, I
won't, I won't!"

Then Mrs. Darling had come in, wearing her white evening-gown.
She had dressed early because Wendy so loved to see her in her
evening-gown, with the necklace George had given her. She was
wearing Wendy's bracelet on her arm; she had asked for the loan
of it. Wendy loved to lend her bracelet to her mother.