Mary Poppins in the Park (12 page)

She looked, as she spoke, very angry indeed. Her eyes flashed, her cheeks were scarlet. And for once, the sight delighted him. Now that her chilly smile was gone, he didn't mind what happened. She was her own familiar self and he no longer a stranger.

"And when you sniff—that's when I like you!" he added with stupendous daring.

"Sniff?" she said, sniffing. "What an idea!"

"And when you say 'Humph'—like a camel!"

"Like a what?" She looked quite petrified. Then she bristled wrathfully. She reminded him of the wave of cats as she crossed the nursery like an oncoming storm.

"You dare to stand there," she accused him sternly, taking a step with every word, just as the King had done, "and tell me I'm a dromedary? Four legs and a tail and a hump or two?"

"But, Mary Poppins, I only meant——"

"That is enough from you, Michael, One more piece of impertinence and you'll go to bed, spit-spot."

"I'm in it already, Mary Poppins," he said in a quavering voice. For by now she had backed him through the nursery and into his room.

"First a hyena and then a camel. I suppose I'll be a gorilla next!"

"But——"

"Not another word!" she spluttered, giving her head a proud toss as she stalked out of the room.

He knew he had insulted her, but he couldn't really be sorry. She was so exactly like herself that all he could feel was gladness.

Off went his clothes and in he dived, hugging his pillow to him. Its cheek was warm and friendly now as it pressed against his own.

The shadows crept slowly across his bed as he listened to the familiar sounds—bath-water running, the Twins' chatter and the rattle and clink of nursery supper.

The sounds grew fainter ... the pillow grew softer...

But, suddenly, a delicious something—a scent or a flavour—filled the room, and made him sit up with a start.

A cup of chocolate hovered above him. Its fragrance came sweetly to his nose and mingled with the fresh-toast scent of Mary Poppins' apron. There she stood, like a starched statue, gazing calmly down.

He met her glance contentedly, feeling it plunging into him and seeing what was there. He knew that she knew that he knew she was not a camel. The day was over, his adventure behind him. The Cat Star was far away in the sky. And it seemed to him, as he stirred his chocolate, he had everything he wanted.

"I do believe, Mary Poppins," he said, "that I've nothing left to wish for,"

She smiled a superior, sceptical smile.

"Humph!" she remarked. "That's lucky!"

Rattle! Rattle! Rattle!

Clank! Clank! Clank!

Up and down went the lawn-mower, leaving stripes of newly-cut grass in its wake.

Behind it panted the Park Keeper, pushing with all his might. At the end of each stripe he paused for a moment to glance round the Park and make sure that everybody was observing the rules.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he spied a large net waving backwards and forwards behind the laurels.

"Benjamin!" he called warningly. "Benjamin Winkle, remember the bye-laws!"

The Keeper of the Zoological Gardens thrust his head round a clump of leaves and put his finger to his lips. He was a small, nervous-looking man, with a beard like a ham-frill fringing his face.

"Sh!" he whispered. "I'm after an Admiral!"

"A n'Admiral? Well, you won't find 'im in a laurel bush. 'E's over there, at the end of the Lane. Big 'ouse, with a telescope on the flagpole."

"I mean a
Red
Admiral!" hissed the Keeper of the Zoological Gardens.

"Well,
'e's
red enough for anything. Got a face like a stormy sunset!"

"It's not a man I'm after, Fred." The Keeper of the Zoological Gardens gave the Park Keeper a look of solemn reproach. "I'm catching butterflies for the Insect House and all I've got"—he glanced dejectedly into his net—"is one Cabbage White."

"Cabbage?" cried the Park Keeper, rattling off down the lawn. "If you want a cabbage, I've some in my garden. H'artichokes, too. And turnips! Fine day, Egbert!" he called to the Policeman, who was taking a short-cut through the Park, in the course of his daily duties.

"Might be worse," the Policeman agreed, glancing up at the windows of Number Seventeen, in the hope of catching a glimpse of Ellen.

He sighed. "And might be better!" he added glumly. For Ellen was nowhere to be seen.

Rattle, rattle. Clank, clank.

The sunlight spangled the stripy lawn and spread like a fan over Park and Lane. It even went so far as to shine on the Fair Ground, and the swinging-boats and the merry-go-round and the big blue banner with MUDGE'S FAIR printed on it in gold.

The Park Keeper paused at the end of a stripe and sent a hawk-like glance about him.

A fat man with a face like a poppy was sauntering through the little gate that led from the Fair. He had a bowler hat on the back of his head and a large cigar in his mouth.

"Keep Off the Grass!" the Park Keeper called to him.

"I wasn't on it!" retorted the fat man, with a look of injured innocence.

"Well, I'm just givin' you a Word of Warnin'. All litter to be placed in the baskets—especially, Mr. Mudge, in the Fair Ground!"

"Mr. Smith," said the fat man in a fat confident voice. "If you find so much as a postage stamp when the Fair's over, I'll—well, I'll be surprised. You'll be able to eat your dinner off that Fair Ground or my name's not Willie Mudge."

And he stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his jacket and swaggered off, looking very important.

"Last year," the Park Keeper shouted after him, "I swept up sacks of postage stamps! And I don't eat me dinner there. I go 'ome for it!"

He turned to his work again with a sigh and the lawn-mower went up and down with a steady, sleepy drone. At the last stripe, where the lawn ended in the Rose Garden, he glanced cautiously round. Now was the moment, he felt, if there was nobody about to report him to the Lord Mayor, to take a little rest.

The Rose Garden was a ring of rose-beds enclosing a little green space. In the middle was a pool and in the pool stood a fountain of white marble shaped like an open rose.

The Park Keeper peered through the flowering bushes. There, by the fountain, lay Jane and Michael. And just beyond the Rose Garden, on a marble seat, sat an elderly gentleman. He seemed to have forgotten his hat, for his bald head was sheltered from the sun by a peaked cap made of newspaper. His nose was deep in an enormous book, which he was reading with the aid of a magnifying-glass. He muttered to himself as he turned the pages.

Jane and Michael, too, had a book. And Jane's voice mingled with the sound of the fountain as she read aloud to Michael. It was a peaceful scene.

"Quiet for once," the Park Keeper murmured. "I shall just snatch Forty Winks!" And he lay down cautiously among the bushes hoping that if anyone passed they would mistake him for a rose.

Had he looked in the other direction he might have thought better of behaving so recklessly. For, away under the wistarias, pushing the perambulator backwards and forwards in a rhythmic, soothing movement, was Mary Poppins.

Creak, creak, went the wheels.

Whimper, whimper, went Annabel, who was cutting her first tooth.

"Shoo now! Shoo now!" murmured Mary Poppins, in an absent-minded voice.

She was thinking about her new pink blouse, with the lace-edged handkerchief stuck in the pocket. How nicely it harmonised, she thought, with the tulip in her hat. And she could not help wishing there were more people in the Park to appreciate the spectacle. On every bench and under every tree there should have been an admiring onlooker. "There's that charming Miss Poppins," she imagined them saying, "always so neat and respectable!"

But there were only a few scattered strangers hurrying along the paths and taking no notice of anybody.

She could see the Policeman forlornly gazing up at the windows of Number Seventeen. And the fat man with the large cigar who, in spite of all the Park Keeper's warnings, was walking on the grass. She prinked a little as Bert, the Match Man, biting into a rosy apple, came sauntering through the Gate. Perhaps he was looking for her, she thought, smoothing her neat black gloves.

She could also see Miss Lark, whose two dogs were taking her for an afternoon run. They rushed down the Long Walk laughing and barking, while Miss Lark, with the two leads in her hands, came tumbling behind. Her hat was over one ear and her scarf flapped about like a flag in the breeze. Gloves and spectacles scattered from her, and her necklaces and beads and bracelets were swinging in all directions.

Mary Poppins sniffed. Miss Lark, she thought, was not so tidy as
somebody
she could mention! She smiled a small self-satisfied smile and went on rocking Annabel.

Now that the lawn-mower was silent there was hardly a sound in the Park. Only the music of the fountain and Jane's voice coming to the end of a story.

"So that," she concluded, "was the end of the Witch. And the King and the Maiden were married next day and lived happily ever after."

Michael sighed contentedly and nibbled a leaf of clover.

Away beyond the Rose Garden, the elderly gentleman took off his glasses, spread his handkerchief over his face and dozed on the marble seat.

"Go on, Jane. Don't stop!" urged Michael. "Read another one."

Jane turned the pages of
The Silver Fairy Book.
It was worn and faded, for its life had been long and busy. Once it had belonged to Mrs. Banks, and before that it had been given to her mother by
her
mother. Many of the pictures had disappeared and the drawings had all been coloured with crayons, either by Jane and Michael or by their mother. Perhaps, even, by their Grandmother, too.

"It's so hard to choose," Jane murmured, for she loved every one of the stories.

"Well, read wherever it falls open—the way you always do!"

She closed the book, held it between her hands for a second, and then let it go. With a little thud it fell on the grass and opened right in the middle.

"Hooray!" said Michael. "It's
The Three Princes.
" And he settled himself to listen.

"Once upon a time," read Jane, "there lived a King who had three sons. The eldest was Prince Florimond, the second Prince Veritain, and the third Prince Amor. Now, it so happened that——"

"Let me see the picture!" interrupted Michael.

It was a drawing he particularly liked, for he and Jane had coloured it one rainy afternoon. The Princes were standing at the edge of a forest and the branches that spread above their heads bore fruit and flowers together. A saddled Unicorn stood beside them, with its rein looped round the arm of the eldest.

Prince Florimond was in green crayon with a purple cap. Prince Veritain had an orange jerkin and his cap was scarlet. And little Prince Amor was all in blue, with a golden dagger stuck in his belt. Chrome-coloured ringlets fell about the shoulders of the two elder brothers. And the youngest, who was bareheaded, had a yellow circlet of short curls, rather like a crown.

As for the Unicorn, he was silvery white from mane to tail—except for his eyes, which were the colour of forget-me-nots; and his horn, which was striped with red and black.

Jane and Michael gazed down at the page and smiled at the pictured children. And the three Princes smiled up from the book and seemed to lean forward from the forest.

Michael sighed. "If only I had a dagger like Amor's. It would just be about my size."

A breeze rustled the trees of the Park and the coloured drawing seemed to tremble.

"I never can choose between Florimond and Veritain," Jane murmured. "They are both so beautiful."

The fountain gave a laughing ripple and an echo of laughter seemed to come from the book.