Mary Poppins in the Park (16 page)

"You did it yourself," said Jane, laughing.

"Don't you remember?" Michael reminded him. "You gave them to Florimond."

"What? Me pick a rose? I wouldn't dare! And yet——" The Park Keeper frowned in perplexity. "It's funny. I'm feeling quite brave tonight. If the Lord Mayor himself were to come along I wouldn't so much as tremble. And why shouldn't Florrie Wat's-a-name 'ave them, instead of them dyin' on the bush? Well, I must be gettin' 'ome to me mother. Tch! Tch! Tch! Remember the bye-laws!" The Park Keeper pounced on two dark objects.

"All litter to be placed in the baskets!" he cried, as he bore away the Professor's book and magnifying-glass and dumped them into a litter-basket.

Jane sighed. "They've forgotten already, all of them. Miss Lark, the Professor and now the Park Keeper."

"Yes," agreed Michael, shaking his head.

"And what have
you
forgotten, pray?" Mary Poppins' eyes were bright in the sunset and she seemed to come back to the Rose Garden from very far away.

"Oh, nothing, Mary Poppins, nothing!" With the happy assurance they ran to her side. As if they could ever forget the Princes and the strange and wonderful visit!

"Then what is that book doing there?" She pointed her black-gloved finger at
The Silver Fairy Book.

"Oh, that!" Michael darted to get it.

"Wait for me, Mary Poppins!" he cried, pushing his way through the watching crowd that was still staring up at the sky.

The Match Man took the perambulator and sent it creaking out of the garden. Mary Poppins stood still in the entrance with her parrot umbrella under her arm and her handbag hanging from her wrist.

"I remember
everything,
" said Michael, as he hurried back to her side. "And so does Jane—don't you, Jane? And you do, too, Mary Poppins!" The three of us, he thought to himself, we all remember together.

Mary Poppins quickened her steps and they caught up with the perambulator.

"I remember that I want my tea, if that's what you mean!" she said.

"I wonder if Amor drinks tea!" mused Michael, running beside her.

"Tea!" cried the Match Man, thirstily. "Hot and strong, that's how I like it. And at least three lumps of sugar!"

"Do you think they're nearly home, Mary Poppins? How long is it from here to there?" Michael was thinking about the Princes. He could not get them out of his head.

"
I'm
nearly home, that's all I know," she replied conceitedly.

"They'll come again, they said they would!" He skipped with joy at the thought. Then he remembered something else and stood stock-still with dismay.

"But you won't go back to them, Mary Poppins?" He seized her arm and shook it. "We need you more than the Princes do. They've got the Unicorn—that's enough. Oh, p-p-please, Mary P-pop-pins——" He was now so anxious he could hardly speak. "P-p-promise me you won't go back with a t-t-tulip in your hat!"

She stared at him in angry astonishment.

"Princes with tulips in their hats? Me on the back of a Unicorn? If you're so good at remembering, I'll thank you to remember
me!
Am I the kind of person that would gallop around on a——"

"No, no! You're mixing it all up. You don't understand, Mary Poppins!"

"I understand that you're behaving like a Hottentot. Me on a Unicorn, indeed! Let me go, Michael, if you please. I hope I can walk without assistance. And you can do the same!"

"Oh! Oh! She's forgotten already!" he wailed, turning to Jane for comfort.

"But the Match Man remembers, don't you, Bert?" Impulsively Jane ran to him and looked for his reassuring smile.

The Match Man took no notice. He was pushing the perambulator on a zigzag course and gazing at Mary Poppins. You would have thought she was the only person in the world, the way he looked at her.

"You see! He's forgotten, too," said Michael. "But it must have happened, mustn't it, Jane? After all, I've got the dagger!"

He felt for the dagger in his belt, but his hand closed on nothing.

"It's gone!" He stared at her mournfully. "He must have taken it when he hugged me goodbye. Or else it wasn't true at all. Do you think we only dreamed it?"

"Perhaps," she answered uncertainly, glancing from the empty belt to the calm and unexcited faces of the Match Man and Mary Poppins. "But, oh"—she thought of Florimond's smiling eyes—"I was so sure they were real!"

They took each other's hands for comfort and leaning their heads on each other's shoulders they walked along together, thinking of the three bright figures and the gentle fairy steed.

Dusk fell about them as they went. The trees like shadows bent above them. And as they came to the big gate they stepped into a pool of light from the newly-lit lamp in the Lane.

"Let's look at them once again," said Jane. Sad it would be, but also sweet, to see their pictured faces. She took the book from Michael's hand and opened it at the well-known page.

"Yes! The dagger's in his belt," she murmured. "Just as it always was." Then her eyes roved over the rest of the picture and she gave a quick, glad cry.

"Oh, Michael, look! It was not a dream. I knew, I
knew
it was true!"

"Where? Where? Show me quickly!" He followed her pointing finger.

"Oh!" he cried, drawing in his breath. And "Oh!" he said. And again "Oh!" There was nothing else to say.

For the picture was not as it had been. The fruits and flowers still shone on the tree and there on the grass the Princes stood with the Unicorn beside them.

But now in the crook of Florimond's arm there lay a bunch of roses; a little circlet of coloured stones gleamed on Veritain's wrist; Amor was wearing a paper hat perched on the back of his head and from the pocket of his jerkin there peeped a lace-edged handkerchief.

Jane and Michael smiled down on the page. And the three Princes smiled up from the book and their eyes seemed to twinkle in the lamplight.

"They remember us!" declared Jane in triumph.

"And we remember them!" crowed Michael. "Even if Mary Poppins doesn't."

"Oh, indeed?" her voice enquired behind them.

They glanced up quickly and there she stood, a pink-cheeked Dutch Doll figure, as neat as a new pin.

"And what have I forgotten, pray?"

She smiled as she spoke, but not at them. Her eyes were fixed on the three Princes. She nodded complacently at the picture and then at the Match Man who nodded back.

And suddenly Michael understood. He knew that she remembered. How could he and Jane have dared to imagine that she would ever forget!

He turned and hid his face in her skirt.

"You've forgotten nothing, Mary Poppins. It was just my little mistake."

"Little!" She gave an outraged sniff.

"But tell me, Mary Poppins," begged Jane, as she looked from the coloured picture-book to the confident face above her. "Which are the children in the story—the Princes, or Jane and Michael?"

Mary Poppins was silent for a moment. She glanced at the children on the printed page and back to the living children before her. Her eyes were as blue as the Unicorn's, as she took Jane's hand in hers.

They waited breathlessly for her answer.

It seemed to tremble on her lips. The words were on the tip of her tongue. And then—she changed her mind. Perhaps she remembered that Mary Poppins never told anyone anything.

She smiled a tantalising smile.

"I wonder!" she said.

Another sandwich, please!" said Michael, sprawling across Mary Poppins' legs as he reached for the picnic basket.

It was Ellen's Day Out and Mrs. Brill had gone to see her cousin's niece's new baby. So the children were having tea in the Park, away by the Wild Corner.

This was the only place in the Park that was never mown or weeded. Clover, daisies, buttercups, bluebells, grew as high as the children's waists. Nettles and dandelions flaunted their blossoms, for they knew very well that the Park Keeper would never have time to root them out. None of them observed the rules. They scattered their seeds across the lawns, jostled each other for the best places, and crowded together so closely that their stems were always in shadowy darkness.

Mary Poppins, in a sprigged cotton dress, sat bolt upright in a clump of bluebells.

She was thinking, as she darned the socks, that pretty though the Wild Corner was, she knew of something prettier. If it came to a choice between, say, a bunch of clover and herself, it would not be the clover she would choose.

The four children were scattered about her.

Annabel bounced in the perambulator.

And not far off, among the nettles, the Park Keeper was making a daisy-chain.

Birds were piping on every bough, and the Ice Cream Man sang cheerfully as he trundled his barrow along.

The notice on the front said:

THE DAY IS HOT
BUT ICE CREAM'S NOT

"I wonder if he's coming here," Jane murmured to herself.

She was lying face downwards in the grass, making little plasticine figures.

"Where
have
those sandwiches gone?" cried Michael, scrabbling in the basket.

"Be so kind, Michael, as to get off my legs. I am not a Turkey carpet! The sandwiches have all been eaten. You had the last yourself."

Mary Poppins heaved him on to the grass and took up her darning needle. Beside her, a mug of warm tea, sprinkled with grass seed and nettle flowers, sent up a delicious fragrance.

"But, Mary Poppins, I've only had six!"

"That's three too many," she retorted. "You've eaten your share and Barbara's."

"Takin the food from 'is sister's mouth—what next?" said the Park Keeper.

He sniffed the air and licked his lips, just like a thirsty dog.

"Nothin' to beat a 'ot cup o' tea!" he remarked to Mary Poppins.

With dignified calm she took up the mug. "Nothing," she answered, sipping.

"Exactly what a person needs at the 'eight of the h'afternoon!" He gave the teapot a wistful glance.

"Exactly," she agreed serenely, as she poured herself another cup.

The Park Keeper sighed and plucked a daisy. The pot, he knew, was now empty.

"Well—another sponge cake, then, Mary Poppins!"

"The cakes are finished, too, Michael. What are you, pray—a boy or a crocodile?"

He would have liked to say he was a crocodile, but a glance at her face was enough to forbid it.

"John!" he coaxed, with a crocodile smile. "Would you like me to eat your crusts?"

"No!" said John, as he gobbled them up.

"Shall I help you with your biscuit, Barbara?"

"No!" she protested through the crumbs.

Michael shook his head in reproach and turned to Annabel.

There she sat, like a queen in her carriage, clutching her little mug. The perambulator groaned loudly as she bounced up and down. It was looking more battered than ever today. For Robertson Ay, after doing nothing all the morning, had leaned against it to take a rest and broken the wooden handle.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" Mrs. Banks had cried. "Why couldn't he lean on something stronger? Mary Poppins, what shall we do? We can't afford a new one!"

"I'll take it to my cousin, ma'am. He'll make it as good as new."

"Well—if you think he really can——" Mrs. Banks cast a doubtful eye on the bar of splintered wood.

Mary Poppins drew herself up.

"A member of
my
family, ma'am——" Her voice seemed to come from the North Pole.

"Oh, yes! Indeed! Quite so! Exactly!" Mrs. Banks nervously backed away.

"But why," she silently asked herself, "is her family so superior? She is far too vain and self-satisfied. I shall tell her so some day."

But, looking at that stern face and listening to those reproving sniffs, she knew she would never dare.

Michael rolled over among the daisies, hungrily-chewing a blade of grass.

"When are you going to take the perambulator to your cousin, Mary Poppins?"

"Everything comes to him who waits. All in my own good time!"

"Oh! Well, Annabel isn't taking her milk. Would you like me to drink it for her?"

But at that moment Annabel lifted her mug and drained the last drop.

"Mary Poppins!" he wailed. "I'll starve to death—just like Robinson Crusoe."

"He didn't starve to death," said Jane. She was busily clearing a space in the weeds.

"Well, the Swiss Family Robinson, then," said Michael.

"The Swiss Family always had plenty to eat. But I'm not hungry, Michael. You can have my cake if you like."

"Dear, kind, sensible Jane!" he thought, as he took the cake.

"What are you making?" he enquired, flinging himself on the grass beside her.

"A Park for Poor People," she replied. "Everyone is happy there. And nobody ever quarrels."

She tossed aside a handful of leaves and he saw, amid the wildweed, a tidy square of green. It was threaded with little pebbled paths as wide as a fingernail. And beside them were tiny flower-beds made of petals massed together. A summer-house of nettle twigs nestled on the lawn; flowers were stuck in the earth for trees; and in their shade stood twig benches, very neat and inviting.