“I thought we might take this road,” said the Fool, pointing.
“What? The rainbow? Is it solid enough? Will it hold us?”
“Try!”
The King looked at the rainbow and its shimmering stripes of violet, blue and green and yellow and orange and red. Then he looked at the Fool.
“All right, I’m willing!” he said. “Come on!” He stepped up to the coloured path.
“It holds!” cried the King delightedly. And he ran swiftly up the Rainbow, his train gathered in his hand.
“I’m the King of the Castle!” he sang triumphantly.
“And I’m the Dirty Rascal!” called the Fool, running after him.
“But – it’s impossible!” said the Lord High Chancellor, gasping.
The Chief Professor laughed and swallowed another strawberry.
“How can anything that truly happens be impossible?” he enquired.
“But it is! It must be! It’s against all the Laws!” The face of the Lord High Chancellor was purple with anger.
A cry burst from the Queen.
“Oh, Ethelbert, come back!” she implored. “I don’t mind how foolish you are if you’ll only come back!”
The King glanced down over his shoulder and shook his head. The Fool laughed loudly. Up and up they went together, steadily climbing the rainbow.
Something curved and shining fell at the Queen’s feet. It was the bent sceptre. A moment later it was followed by the King’s crown.
She stretched out her arms imploringly.
But the King’s only answer was a song, sung in his high, quavering voice:
“Say goodbye, Love,
Never cry, Love,
You are wise,
And so am I, Love!”
The Fool, with a contemptuous flick of his hand, tossed her down a knuckle-bone. Then he gave the King a little push, and urged him onwards.
The King picked up his train and ran, and the Fool pounded at his heels.
On and on they went up the bright, coloured path, until a cloud passed between them and the earth, and the watching Queen saw them no longer.
“You are wise,
And so am I, Love!”
The echo of the King’s song came floating back. She heard the last thin thread of it after the King himself had disappeared.
“Tch! Tch! Tch!” said the Lord High Chancellor. “Such things are simply not done!”
But the Queen sat down upon the empty throne and wept.
“Aie!” she cried softly, behind the screen of her hands. “My King is gone and I am very desolate, and nothing will ever be the same again.”
Meanwhile, the King and the Fool had reached the top of the rainbow.
“What a climb!” panted the King, sitting down and wrapping his cloak about him. “I think I shall sit here for a bit – perhaps for a long time. You go on!”
“You won’t be lonely?” the Fool enquired.
“Oh, dear, no! Why should I be? It is very quiet and pleasant up here. And I can always think – or, better still, go to sleep.” And as he said that, he stretched himself out upon the rainbow with his cloak under his head.
The Fool bent down and kissed him.
“Goodbye, then, King!” he said softly. “For you no longer have any need of me.”
He left the King quietly sleeping, and went whistling down the other side of the rainbow.
And from there he went wandering the world again, as he had done in the days before he met the King, singing and whistling, and taking no thought for anything but the immediate moment.
Sometimes he took service with other Kings and high people, and sometimes he went among ordinary men living in small streets or lanes. Sometimes he would be wearing gorgeous livery and sometimes clothes as poor as anyone ever stood up in. But no matter where he went he brought good fortune and great luck to the house that roofed him. . .
Mary Poppins ceased speaking. For a moment her hands lay still in her lap and her eyes gazed out unseeingly across the Lake.
Then she sighed and gave her shoulders a little shake and stood up.
“Now then,” she said briskly. “Best Feet Forward! And off home!”
She turned to find Jane’s eyes fixed steadily upon her.
“You’ll know me next time, I hope!” she remarked tartly. “And you, Michael, get down off that seat at once! Do you want to break your neck and give me the trouble of calling a Policeman?”
She strapped the Twins into the perambulator and pushed it in front of her with a quick, impatient movement.
Jane and Michael fell into step behind.
“I wonder where the King of the Castle went when the rainbow disappeared?” said Michael thoughtfully.
“He went with it, I suppose, wherever it goes,” said Jane. “But what I wonder is – what happened to the Rascal?”
Mary Poppins had wheeled the perambulator into the Elm Walk. And, as the children turned the corner, Michael caught Jane’s hand.
“There he is!” he cried excitedly, pointing down the Elm Walk to the Park Gates.
A tall, slim figure, curiously dressed in red and yellow, was swaggering towards the entrance. He stood for a moment, looking up and down Cherry Tree Lane, and whistling. Then he slouched across to the opposite pavement and swung himself lazily over one of the garden fences.
“It’s ours!” said Jane, recognising it by the brick that had always been missing. “He’s gone into our garden. Run, Michael! Let’s catch up with him!”
They ran at a gallop after Mary Poppins and the perambulator.
“Now then, now then! No horse-play, please!” said Mary Poppins, grabbing Michael’s arm firmly as he rushed by.
“But we want—” he began, squirming.
“What did I say?” she demanded, glaring at him so fiercely that he dared not disobey. “Walk beside me, please, like a Christian. And Jane, you can help me push the pram!”
Unwillingly Jane fell into step beside her.
As a rule, Mary Poppins allowed nobody to push the perambulator but herself. But today it seemed to Jane that she was purposely preventing them from running ahead. For here was Mary Poppins, who usually walked so quickly that it was difficult to keep up with her, going at a snail’s pace down the Elm Walk, pausing every few minutes to gaze about her, and standing for at least a minute in front of a basket of litter.
At last, after what seemed to them like hours, they came to the Park Gates. She kept them beside her until they reached the gate of Number Seventeen. Then they broke from her and went flying through the garden.
They darted behind the lilac tree. Not there!
They searched among the rhododendrons and looked in the glass-house, the tool-shed and the water-butt. They even peered into a circle of hose-piping. The Dirty Rascal was nowhere to be seen!
There was only one other person in the garden, and that was Robertson Ay. He was sound asleep in the middle of the lawn, with his cheek against the knives of the lawn-mower.
“We’ve missed him!” said Michael. “He must have taken a short cut and gone out by the back way. Now we’ll never see him again.”
He turned back to the lawn-mower.
Jane, standing beside it, looked down affectionately at Robertson Ay. His old felt hat was pulled over his face, its crown crushed and dented into a curving peak.
“I wonder if he had a good Half-day!” said Michael, whispering so as not to disturb him.
But, small as the whisper was, Robertson Ay must have heard it. For he suddenly stirred in his sleep and settled himself more comfortably against the lawn-mower. And as he moved there was a faint, jingling sound as though, near at hand, small bells were softly ringing.
With a start Jane lifted her head and glanced at Michael.
“Did you hear?” she whispered.
He nodded, staring.
Robertson Ay moved again and muttered in his sleep. They bent to listen.
“Black-and-white Cow,” he murmured indistinctly. “Sat up in a
Tree. . . mumble, mumble, mumble. . . it couldn’t be me! Hum. . .!”
Across his sleeping body Jane and Michael gazed at each other with wondering eyes.
“Humph! Well to be him, I must say!”
Mary Poppins had come up behind them, and she, too, was staring down at Robertson Ay.
“The lazy, idle, Good-for-Nothing!” she said crossly.
But she couldn’t really have been as cross as she sounded, for she took her handkerchief out of her pocket and slipped it between Robertson Ay’s cheek and the lawn-mower.
“He’ll have a clean face, anyway, when he wakes up. That’ll surprise him!” she said tartly.
But Jane and Michael noticed how careful she had been not to waken Robertson Ay, and how soft her eyes were when she turned away.
They tip-toed after her, nodding wisely to one another. Each knew that the other understood.
Mary Poppins trundled the perambulator up the steps and into the hall. The front door shut with a quiet little click.
Outside in the garden Robertson Ay slept on. . .
That night when Jane and Michael went to say Goodnight to him, Mr Banks was in a towering rage. He was dressing to go out to dinner and he couldn’t find his best stud.
“Well, by All that’s Lively, here it is!” he cried suddenly. “In a tin of stove-blacking – of all things, on my dressing-table! That Robertson Ay’s doing. I’ll sack that fellow one of these days. He’s nothing but a dirty rascal!”
And he could not understand why Jane and Michael, when he said that, burst into such joyous peals of laughter. . .
Chapter Seven
THE EVENING OUT
“WHAT, NO PUDDING?” said Michael, as Mary Poppins, her arms full of plates, mugs and knives, began to lay the table for Nursery Tea.
She turned and looked at him fiercely.
“This,” she snapped, “is my Evening Out. So you will eat bread and butter and strawberry jam and be thankful. There’s many a little boy would be glad to have it.”
“I’m not,” grumbled Michael. “I want rice-pudding with honey in it.”
“You want! You want! You’re always wanting. If it’s not this it’s that, and if it’s not that it’s the other. You’ll ask for the Moon next.”
Michael put his hands in his pockets and moved sulkily away to the window-seat. Jane was kneeling there, staring out at the bright, frosty sky. He climbed up beside her, still looking very cross.
“All right, then! I do ask for the Moon. So there!” He flung the words back at Mary Poppins. “But I know I shan’t get it. Nobody ever gives me anything.”
He turned hurriedly away from her angry glare.
“Jane,” he said, “there’s no pudding.”
“Don’t interrupt me, I’m counting!” said Jane, pressing her nose against the window-pane so that it was quite blunt and squashed at the tip.
“Counting what?” he asked, not very interested. His mind was full of rice-pudding and honey.
“Shooting stars. Look, there goes another! That’s seven. And another! Eight. And one over the Park – that’s nine!’
“O-o-h! And there’s one going down Admiral Boom’s chimney!” said Michael, sitting up suddenly, and forgetting all about the pudding.
“And a little one – see! – streaking right across the Lane. Such frosty lights!” cried Jane. “Oh, how I wish we were out there! What makes the stars shoot, Mary Poppins?”
“Do they come out of a gun?” enquired Michael.
Mary Poppins sniffed contemptuously.
“What do you think I am? An Encyclopaedia? Everything from A to Z?” she demanded crossly. “Come and eat your teas, please!” She pushed them towards their chairs and pulled down the blind. “And No Nonsense. I’m in a hurry!”
And she made them eat so quickly that they were both afraid they would choke.
“Mayn’t I have just one more piece?” asked Michael, stretching out his hand to the plate of bread and butter.
“You may not. You have already eaten more than is good for you. Take a Ginger Biscuit and go to bed.”
“But—”
“But me no buts or you’ll be sorry!” she flung at him sternly.
“I shall have indigestion, I know I shall!” he said to Jane, but only in a whisper, for when Mary Poppins looked like that it was wiser not to make any remark at all. Jane took no notice. She was slowly eating her Ginger Biscuit and peering cautiously out at the frosty sky through a chink in the blind.
“Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen—”
“Did I or did I not say bed?” enquired the familiar voice behind them.
“All right! I’m just going, Mary Poppins!”
And they ran squealing to the Night Nursery, with Mary Poppins hurrying after them and looking Simply Awful.
Less than half an hour later she was tucking each one in tightly, pushing the sheets and blankets under the mattress with sharp, furious little stabs.
“There!” she said, snapping the words between her lips. “That’s all for tonight. And if I hear One Word—” She did not finish the sentence but her look said all that was necessary.
“There’ll be Trouble!” said Michael, finishing it for her. But he whispered it under his breath to his blanket, for he knew what would happen if he said it aloud. She whisked out of the room, her starched apron rustling and crackling, and shut the door with an angry click. They heard her light feet hurrying away down the stairs – Tap-tap, Tap-tap – from landing to landing.
“She’s forgotten to light the nightlight,” said Michael, peering round the corner of his pillow. “She must be in a hurry. I wonder where she’s going?”
“And she’s left the blind up!” said Jane, sitting up in bed. “Hooray, now we can watch the shooting stars!”
The pointed roofs of Cherry Tree Lane were shiny with frost, and the moonlight slid down the gleaming slopes and fell soundlessly into the dark gulfs between the houses. Everything glimmered and shone. The earth was as bright as the sky.
“Seventeen-Eighteen-Nineteen-Twenty. . .” said Jane, steadily counting as the stars shot down. As fast as one disappeared another came to take its place, until it seemed that the whole sky was alive and dancing with the dazzle of shooting stars.
“It is like fireworks,” said Michael. “Oh, look at that one! Or the Circus. Do you think they have circuses in Heaven, Jane?”
“I’m not sure!” said Jane doubtfully. “There’s the Great Bear and the Little Bear, of course, and Taurus-the-Bull and Leo-the-Lion. But I don’t know about a Circus.”
“Mary Poppins would know,” said Michael, nodding wisely.
“Yes, but she wouldn’t tell,” said Jane, turning again to the window. “Where was I? Was it Twenty-One? Oh, Michael, such a beauty – do you see?” She bounced excitedly up and down in her bed, pointing to the window.
A very bright star, larger than any they had yet seen, was shooting through the sky towards Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane. It was different from the others for, instead of leaping straight across the dark, it was turning over and over, curving through the air very curiously.
“Duck your head, Michael!” shouted Jane suddenly. “It’s coming in here!” They dived down into the blankets and burrowed their heads under the pillows.
“Do you think it’s gone now?” came Michael’s muffled voice presently. “I’m nearly smothercated.”
“Of course I haven’t gone!” A small, clear voice answered him. “What do you take me for?”
Very surprised, Jane and Michael threw off the bed-clothes and sat up. There, at the end of the window-sill, perched on its shiny tail and gleaming brightly at them, was the shooting star.
“Come on, you two! Be quick!” it said, shining frostily across the room.
Michael stared at it.
“You mean – we’re to come with you?” said Jane.
“Of course. And mind you wrap up. It’s chilly!”
They sprang out of their beds and ran for overcoats.
“Got any money?” the star asked sharply.
“There’s twopence in my coat pocket,” said Jane doubtfully.
“Coppers? They’ll be no good! Here, catch!” And with a little sizzling sound, as though a firework squib was going off, the star sent out a shower of sparks. Two of them shot right across the room and landed, one in Jane’s hand and one in Michael’s.
“Hurry, or we’ll be late!”
The star streaked across the room, through the closed door and down the stairs, with Jane and Michael, tightly clasping their starry money, after it.
“Can I be dreaming, I wonder?” said Jane to herself, as she hurried through the garden.
“Follow!” cried the star as, at the end of the Lane, where the frosty sky seemed to come down to meet the pavement, it leapt into the air and disappeared.
“Follow! Follow!” came the voice. “Just as you are, step on a star!”
Jane seized Michael’s hand and raised her foot uncertainly from the pavement. To her surprise she found that the lowest star in the sky was easily within her reach. She stepped up, balancing carefully. The star seemed quite steady and solid.
“Come on, Michael!”
They hurried up the frosty sky, leaping over the gulfs between the stars.
“Follow!” cried the voice, far ahead of them. Jane paused, and glancing down, caught her breath to see how high they were. Cherry Tree Lane – indeed, the whole world – was as small and sparkling as a toy on a Christmas Tree.
“Are you giddy, Michael?” she said, springing on to a large, flat star.
“N-o-o. Not if you hold my hand.”
They paused. Behind them the great stairway of stars led down to earth, but before them there were no more to be seen, nothing but a thick blue patch of naked sky.
Michael’s hand trembled in Jane’s.
“W-w-what shall we do now?” he said, in a voice that tried not to sound frightened.
“Walk up! Walk up! Walk up and see the sights! Pay your money and take your choice! The two-Tailed Dragon or the Horse with Wings! Magical Marvels! Universal Wonders! Walk up! Walk up!”
A loud voice seemed to be shouting these words in their very ears. They stared about them. There was no sign of anybody.
Mary Poppins--the Complete Collection Page 23
