She pressed him to her; he could feel her shaking. Just then, he knew, nothing more must be said.
Many times he tried to tell her. One evening, while the angel was whistling, she tiptoed into his bedroom. Looking up through the darkness he saw her and seized her excitedly about the neck. “They’re there, mummy. Don’t you hear her? She’s whistling now.” He pronounced it ‘wussling.’
“Why her, Peter?”
“I dunno; but listen, listen.”
She opened the cupboard door. “See, there’s nothing.”
“She stopped when you did that.”
“Go to sleep, my precious. You’re dreaming. If there was anything, mother would have heard it as well.”
So he learnt to keep his secret to himself; no one seemed able to share it. Every now and then, he would stop in his playing, with his head on one side and his face intent; those who watched would see him creep upstairs and peep into the big, dark cupboard. Strangely enough, whatever he thought he heard, he did not appear frightened.
When the doctor was called to examine him he said, “A very imaginative child! Oh dear no, he’s quite well. He’ll grow out of that fancy. Won’t you, old chap?”
At the back of his mother’s mind was the terror that she was going to lose him. She kept him always with her. When that dreamy look came into his eyes and he turned his head expectantly, she would snatch him to her breast, as though someone lurked near to take him from her. And Peter lay still in her arms and smiled, for it seemed to him that the angel leant over the banisters and whistled softly, “I’m coming. I’m coming, little Peterkins.”