Mary Poppins Comes Back (13 page)

The Starling gave her a pained and haughty look.

"Well, what is she, then? And where did she come from?" cried the Fledgling shrilly, flapping his short wings and staring down at the cradle.

"
You
tell him, Annabel!" the Starling croaked.

Annabel moved her hands inside the blanket.

"I am earth and air and fire and water," she said softly. "I come from the Dark where all things have their beginning."

"Ah, such dark!" said the Starling softly, bending his head to his breast.

"It was dark in the egg, too," the Fledgling cheeped.

"I come from the sea and its tides," Annabel went on. "I come from the sky and its stars, I come from the sun and its brightness——"

"Ah, so bright!" said the Starling, nodding.

"And I come from the forests of earth."

As if in a dream, Mary Poppins rocked the cradle—to-and-fro, to-and-fro with a steady swinging movement.

"Yes?" whispered the Fledgling.

"Slowly I moved at first," said Annabel, "always sleeping and dreaming. I remembered all I had been and I thought of all I shall be. And when I had dreamed my dream I awoke and came swiftly."

She paused for a moment, her blue eyes full of memories.

"And then?" prompted the Fledgling.

"I heard the stars singing as I came and I felt warm wings about me. I passed the beasts of the jungle and came through the dark, deep waters. It was a long journey."

Annabel was silent.

The Fledgling stared at her with his bright inquisitive eyes.

Mary Poppins' hand lay quietly on the side of the cradle. She had stopped rocking.

"A long journey, indeed!" said the Starling softly, lifting his head from his breast. "And, ah, so soon forgotten!"

Annabel stirred under the quilt.

"No!" she said confidently. "I'll never forget."

"Stuff and Nonsense! Beaks and Claws! Of course you will! By the time the week's out you won't remember a word of it—what you are or where you came from!"

Inside her flannel petticoat Annabel was kicking furiously.

"I will! I will! How could I forget?"

"Because they all do!" jeered the Starling harshly. "Every silly human except—" he nodded his head at Mary Poppins—"her! She's Different, she's the Oddity, she's the Misfit——"

"You Sparrer!" cried Mary Poppins, making a dart at him.

But with a rude laugh he swept his Fledgling off the edge of the cradle and flew with him to the window-sill.

"Tipped you last!" he said cheekily, as he brushed by. "Hullo, what's that?"

There was a chorus of voices outside on the landing and a clatter of feet on the stairs.

"I don't believe you! I won't believe you!" cried Annabel wildly.

And at that moment Jane and Michael and the Twins burst into the room.

"Mrs. Brill says you've got something to show us!" said Jane, flinging off her hat.

"What is it?" demanded Michael, gazing round the room.

"Show me! Me, too!" shrieked the Twins.

Mary Poppins glared at them. "Is this a decent nursery or the Zoological gardens?" she enquired angrily. "Answer me that!"

"The Zoo—er—I mean——" Michael broke off hurriedly for he had caught Mary Poppins' eye. "I mean a Nursery," he said lamely.

"Oh, look, Michael, look!" Jane cried excitedly. "I told you something important was happening! It's a New Baby! Oh, Mary Poppins, can I have it to keep?"

Mary Poppins, with a furious glance at them all, stooped and lifted Annabel out of the cradle and sat down with her in the old arm-chair.

"Gently, please, gently!" she warned, as they crowded about her. "This is a baby, not a battle-ship!"

"A boy-baby?" asked Michael.

"No, a girl—Annabel."

Michael and Annabel stared at each other. He put his finger into her hand and she clutched it tightly.

"My doll!" said John, pushing up against Mary Poppins' knee.

"My rabbit!" said Barbara, tugging at Annabel's shawl.

"Oh!" breathed Jane, touching the hair that the

She sat down in the old arm-chair

wind had curled. "How very small and sweet. Like a star. Where
did
you come from, Annabel?"

Very pleased to be asked, Annabel began her story again.

"I came from the Dark——" she recited softly.

Jane laughed. "Such funny little sounds!" she cried. "I wish she could talk and tell us."

Annabel stared.

"But I
am
telling you," she protested, kicking.

"Ha-ha!" shrieked the Starling rudely from the window. "What did I say? Excuse me laughing!"

The Fledgling giggled behind his wing.

"Perhaps she came from a Toy-Shop," said Michael.

Annabel, with a furious movement, flung his finger from her.

"Don't be silly!" said Jane. "Doctor Simpson must have brought her in his little brown bag!"

"Was I right or was I wrong?" The Starling's old dark eyes gleamed tauntingly at Annabel.

"Tell me that!" he jeered, flapping his wings in triumph.

But for answer Annabel turned her face against Mary Poppins' apron and wept. Her first cries, thin and lonely, rang piercingly through the house.

"There! There!" said the Starling gruffly. "Don't take on! It can't be helped. You're only a human child after all. But next time, perhaps, you'll believe your Betters! Elders and Betters! Elders and Betters!" he screamed, prancing conceitedly up and down.

"Michael, take my feather duster please, and sweep those birds off the sill!" said Mary Poppins ominously.

A squawk of amusement came from the Starling.

"We can sweep ourselves off, Mary Poppins, thank you! We were just going, anyway! Come along, Boy!"

And with a loud clucking chuckle he flicked the Fledgling over the sill and swooped with him through the window....

In a very short time, Annabel settled down comfortably to life in Cherry Tree Lane. She enjoyed being the centre of attraction and was always pleased when somebody leant over her cradle and said how pretty she was, or how good or sweet-tempered.

"Do go on admiring me!" she would say, smiling. "I like it so much!"

And then they would hasten to tell her how curly her hair was and how blue her eyes, and Annabel would smile in such a satisfied way that they would cry, "How intelligent she is! You would almost think she understood!"

But
that
always annoyed her and she would turn away in disgust at their foolishness. Which was silly because when she was disgusted she looked so charming that they became more foolish than ever.

She was a week old before the Starling returned. Mary Poppins, in the dim glow of the night-light, was gently rocking the cradle when he appeared.

"Back again?" snapped Mary Poppins, watching him prance in. "You're as bad as a bad penny!" She gave a long disgusted sniff.

"I've been busy!" said the Starling. "Have to keep my affairs in order. And this isn't the
only
Nursery I have to look after, you know!" His beady black eyes twinkled wickedly.

"Humph!" she said shortly, "I'm sorry for the others!"

He chuckled and shook his head.

"Nobody like her!" he remarked chirpily to the blind-tassel. "Nobody like her! She's got an answer for everything!" He cocked his head towards the cradle. "Well, how are things? Annabel asleep?"

"No thanks to you, if she is!" said Mary Poppins.

The Starling ignored the remark. He hopped to the end of the sill.

"I'll keep watch," he said, in a whisper. "You go down and get a cup of tea!"

Mary Poppins stood up.

"Mind you don't wake her, then!"

The Starling laughed pityingly.

"My dear girl, I have in my time brought up at least twenty broods of fledglings. I don't need to be told how to look after a mere baby."

"Humph!" Mary Poppins walked to the cupboard and very pointedly put the biscuit-tin under her arm before she went out and shut the door.

The Starling marched up and down the window-sill, backwards and forwards, with his wing-tips under his tail-feathers.

There was a small stir in the cradle. Annabel opened her eyes.

"Hullo!" she said. "I was wanting to see you."

"Ha!" said the Starling, swooping across to her.

"There's something I wanted to remember," said Annabel frowning, "and I thought you might remind me."

He started. His dark eye glittered.

"How does it go?" he said softly. "Like this?"

And he began in a husky whisper—"I am earth and air and fire and water——"

"No, no!" said Annabel impatiently. "Of course it doesn't."

"Well," said the Starling anxiously. "Was it about your journey? You came from the sea and its tides, you came from the sky and——"

"Oh, don't be so
silly!
" cried Annabel. "The only journey I ever took was to the Park and back again this morning. No, no—it was something
important.
Something beginning with B."

She crowed suddenly.

"I've got it!" she cried. "It's Biscuit. Half an Arrowroot Biscuit on the mantel-piece. Michael left it there after tea!"

"Is that all?" said the Starling sadly.

"Yes, of course," Annabel said fretfully. "Isn't it enough? I thought you'd be glad of a nice piece of biscuit!"

"So I am, so I am!" said the Starling hastily. "But——"

She turned her head on the pillow and closed her eyes.

"Don't talk any more now, please!" she said. "I want to go to sleep."

The Starling glanced across at the mantel-piece, and down again at Annabel.

"Biscuits!" he said, shaking his head. "Alas, Annabel, alas!"

Mary Poppins came in quietly and closed the door.

"Did she wake?" she said in a whisper.

The Starling nodded.

"Only for a minute," he said sadly. "But it was long enough."

Mary Poppins' eyes questioned him.

"She's forgotten," he said, with a catch in his croak. "She's forgotten it all. I knew she would. But, ah, my dear, what a pity!"

"Humph!"

Mary Poppins moved quietly about the Nursery, putting the toys away. She glanced at the Starling. He was standing on the window-sill with his back to her, and his speckled shoulders were heaving.

"Caught another cold?" she remarked sarcastically.

He wheeled around.

"Certainly not! It's—ahem—the night air. Rather chilly, you know. Makes the eyes water. Well—I must be off!"

He waddled unsteadily to the edge of the sill. "I'm getting old," he croaked sadly. "That's what it is! Not so young as we were. Eh, Mary Poppins?"

"I don't know about
you
——" Mary Poppins drew herself up haughtily. "But I'm
quite
as young as I was, thank you!"

"Ah," said the Starling, shaking his head. "You're a Wonder. An absolute, Marvellous, Wonderful Wonder!" His round eye twinkled wickedly.

"I don't think!" he called back rudely, as he dived out of the window.

"Impudent Sparrer!" she shouted after him and shut the window with a bang....

Step along, please!" said Mary Poppins, pushing the perambulator, with the Twins at one end of it and Annabel at the other, towards her favourite seat in the Park.

It was a green one, quite near the Lake, and she chose it because she could bend sideways, every now and again, and see her own reflection in the water. The sight of her face gleaming between two water-lilies always gave her a pleasant feeling of satisfaction and contentment.

Michael trudged behind.

"We're always stepping along," he grumbled to Jane in a whisper, taking care that Mary Poppins did not hear him, "but we never seem to get anywhere."

Mary Poppins turned round and glared at him.

"Put your hat on straight!"

Michael tilted his hat over his eyes. It had "H.M.S. Trumpeter" printed on the band and he thought it suited him very well.

But Mary Poppins was looking with contempt at them both.

"Humph!" she said. "You two look a picture, I must say! Stravaiging along like a couple of tortoises and no polish on your shoes."

"Well, it's Robertson Ay's Half-day," said Jane. "I suppose he didn't have time to do them before he went out."