Mary Poppins Comes Back mp-2

by P. L. Travers

  "I have no room to move! I can hardly breathe!" she cried.

  "Neither could he!" said Mary Poppins quietly.

  Miss Andrew rattled at the bars of the cage.

  "Open the door! Open the door! Let me out, I say! Let me out!"

  "Humph! Not likely," said Mary Poppins in a low, scoffing voice.

  On and on went the Lark, climbing higher and higher and singing as he went. And the heavy cage, with Miss Andrew inside it, lurched after him, swaying dangerously as it swung from his claw.

  Above the clear song of the Lark they heard Miss Andrew hammering at the bars and crying:

  "I who was Well-Brought-Up! I who was Always Right! I who was Never Mistaken. That I should come to this!"

  Mary Poppins gave a curious, quiet little laugh.

  The Lark looked very small now, but still he circled upwards, singing loudly and triumphantly. And still Miss Andrew and her cage circled heavily after him, rocking from side to side, like a ship in a storm.

  "Let me out, I say! Let me out!" Her voice came screaming down.

  Suddenly the Lark changed his direction. His song ceased for a moment as he darted sideways. Then it began again, wild and clear, as shaking the ring of the cage from his foot, he flew towards the South.

  "He's off!" said Mary Poppins.

  "Where?" cried Jane and Michael.

  "Let me out, I say! Let me out!"

  "Home — to his meadows," she replied, gazing upwards.

  "But he's dropped the cage!" said Michael, staring.

  And well he might stare, for the cage was now hurtling downwards, lurching and tumbling, end over end. They could clearly see Miss Andrew, now standing on her head and now on her feet as the cage turned through the air. Down, down, it came, heavy as a stone, and landed with a plop on the top step.

  With a fierce movement, Miss Andrew tore open the door. And it seemed to Jane and Michael as she came out that she was as large as ever and even more frightful.

  For a moment she stood there, panting, unable to speak, her face purplier than before.

  "How dare you!" she said in a throaty whisper, pointing a trembling finger at Mary Poppins. And Jane and Michael saw that her eyes were no longer angry and scornful, but full of terror.

  "You — you—" stammered Miss Andrew huskily, "you cruel, disrespectful, unkind, wicked, wilful girl — how could you, how could you?"

  Mary Poppins fixed her with a look. From half-closed eyes, she gazed revengefully at Miss Andrew for a long moment.

  "You said I didn't know how to bring up children," she said, speaking slowly and distinctly.

  Miss Andrew shrank back, trembling with fear.

  "I–I apologise," she said, gulping.

  "That I was impudent, incapable, and totally unreliable," said the quiet, implacable voice.

  Miss Andrew cowered beneath the steady gaze.

  "It was a mistake. I–I'm sorry," she stammered.

  "That I was a Young Person!" continued Mary Poppins, remorselessly.

  "I take it back," panted Miss Andrew. "All of it. Only let me go. I ask nothing more." She clasped her hands and gazed at Mary Poppins, imploringly.

  "I can't stay here," she whispered. "No, no! Not here! I beg you to let me go!"

  Mary Poppins gazed at her, long and thoughtfully. Then with a little outward movement of her hand, "Go!" she said.

  Miss Andrew gave a gasp of relief. "Oh, thank you! Thank you!" Still keeping her eyes fixed on Mary Poppins she staggered backwards down the steps, then she turned and went stumbling unevenly down the garden path.

  The Taxi-man, who all this time had been unloading the luggage, was starting up his engine and preparing to depart.

  Miss Andrew held up a trembling hand.

  "Wait!" she cried brokenly. "Wait for me. You shall have a ten shilling note for yourself if you will drive me away at once."

  The man stared at her.

  "I mean it!" she said urgently. "See," she fumbled feverishly in her pocket, "here it is. Take it — and drive on!"

  Miss Andrew tottered into the cab and collapsed upon the seat.

  The Taxi-man, still gaping, closed the door upon her.

  Then he began hurriedly re-loading the luggage. Robertson Ay had fallen asleep across a pile of trunks, but the Taxi-man did not stop to wake him. He swept him off on to the path and finished the work himself.

  "Looks as though the 'ol' girl 'ad 'ad a shock! I never saw anybody take on so. Never!" he murmured to himself as he drove off.

  But what kind of a shock it was the Taxi-man did not know and, if he lived to be a hundred, could not possibly guess….

  "Where is Miss Andrew?" said Mrs. Banks, hurrying to the front door in search of the visitor.

  "Gone," said Michael.

  "What do you mean — gone?" Mrs. Banks looked very surprised.

  "She didn't seem to want to stay," said Jane.

  Mrs. Banks frowned.

  "What does this mean, Mary Poppins?" she demanded.

  "I couldn't say, m'm, I'm sure," said Mary Poppins, calmly, as though the matter did not interest her. She glanced down at her new blouse and smoothed out a crease.

  Mrs. Banks looked from one to the other and shook her head.

  "How very extraordinary! I can't understand it."

  Just then the garden gate opened and shut with a quiet little click. Mr. Banks came tip-toeing up the path. He hesitated and waited nervously on one foot as they all turned towards him.

  "Well? Has she come?" he said anxiously, in a loud whisper.

  "She has come and gone," said Mrs. Banks.

  Mr. Banks stared.

  "Gone? Do you mean — really gone? Miss Andrew?"

  Mrs. Banks nodded.

  "Oh, joy, joy!" cried Mr. Banks, and seizing the skirts of his waterproof in both hands he proceeded to dance the Highland Fling in the middle of the path. He stopped suddenly.

  "But how? When? Why?" he asked.

  "Just now — in a taxi. Because the children were rude to her, I suppose. She complained to me about them. I simply can't think of any other reason. Can you, Mary Poppins?"

  "No, m'm, I can't," said Mary Poppins, brushing a speck of dust off her blouse with great care.

  Mr. Banks turned to Jane and Michael with a sorrowful look on his face.

  "You were rude to Miss Andrew? My Governess? That dear old soul? I'm ashamed of you both — thoroughly ashamed." He spoke sternly, but there was a laughing twinkle in his eyes.

  "I'm a most unfortunate man," he went on, putting his hands into his pockets. "Here am I slaving day in and day out to bring you up properly, and how do you repay me? By being rude to Miss Andrew! It's shameful! It's outrageous. I don't know that I shall ever be able to forgive you. But—" he continued, taking two sixpences out of his pocket and solemnly offering one to each of them, "I shall do my best to forget!"

  He turned away smiling.

  "Hullo!" he remarked, stumbling against the bird-cage. "Where did this come from? Whose is it?"

  Jane and Michael and Mary Poppins were silent.

  "Well, never mind," said Mr. Banks. "It's mine now. I shall keep it in the garden and train my sweet-peas over it."

  And he went off, carrying the bird-cage and whistling very happily….

  "Well," said Mary Poppins, sternly, as she followed them into the Nursery. "This is nice goings on, I must say. You behaving so rudely to your Father's guest."

  "But we weren't rude," Michael protested. "I only said she was a Holy Terror and he called her that himself."

  "Sending her away like that when she'd only just come — don't you call that rude?" demanded Mary Poppins.

  "But we didn't," said Jane. "It was you—"

  "I was rude to your Father's guest?" Mary Poppins, with her hands on her hips, eyed Jane furiously. "Do you dare to stand there and tell me that?"

  "No, no! You weren't rude, but—"

  "I should think not, indeed," retorted Mary Poppins, taking off her hat and unfolding her apron.
"I was properly brought up!" she added sniffing, as she began to undress the Twins.

  Michael sighed. He knew it was no use arguing with Mary Poppins.

  He glanced at Jane. She was turning her sixpence over and over in her hand.

  "Michael!" she said. "I've been thinking."

  "What?"

  "Daddy gave us these because he thought we sent Miss Andrew away."

  "I know."

  "And we didn't. It was Mary Poppins!"

  Michael shuffled his feet.

  "Then you think—" he began uneasily, hoping she didn't mean what he thought she meant.

  "Yes, I do," said Jane nodding.

  "But — but I wanted to spend mine."

  "So did I. But it wouldn't be fair. They're hers really."

  Michael thought about it for a long time. Then he sighed.

  "All right," he said regretfully and took his sixpence out of his pocket.

  They went together to Mary Poppins.

  Jane held out the coins.

  "Here you are!" she said, breathlessly, "we think you should have them."

  Mary Poppins took the sixpences and turned them over and over on her palm — heads first and then tails. Then her eye caught theirs and it seemed to them that her look plunged right down inside them and saw what they were thinking. For a long time she stood there, staring down into their thoughts.

  "Humph!" she said at last, slipping the sixpences into her apron pocket. "Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves."

  "I expect you'll find them very useful," said Michael, gazing sadly at the pocket.

  "I expect I shall," she retorted tartly, as she went to turn on the bath….

  CHAPTER THREE

  Bad Wednesday

  Tick-tack! Tick-tock!

  The pendulum of the Nursery clock swung backwards and forwards like an old lady nodding her head.

  Tick-tack! Tick-tock!

  Then the clock stopped ticking and began to whir and growl, quietly at first and then more loudly, as though it were in pain. And as it whirred it shook so violently that the whole mantel-piece trembled. The empty marmalade jar hopped and shook and shivered; John's hair-brush, left there over-night, danced in its bristles; the Royal Doulton Bowl that Mrs. Banks' Great-Aunt Caroline had given her as a Christening Present slipped sideways, so that the three little boys who were playing horses inside it stood on their painted heads.

  And after all that, just when it seemed as if the clock must burst, it began to strike.

  One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven!

  On the last stroke Jane woke up.

  The sun was streaming in through a gap in the curtains and falling in gold stripes upon her quilt. Jane sat up and looked round the Nursery. No sound came from Michael's bed. The Twins in their cots were sucking their thumbs and breathing deeply.

  "I'm the only one awake," she said, feeling very pleased. "Everybody in the world is asleep except me. I can lie here all by myself and think and think and think."

  And she drew her knees up to her chin and curled into the bed as though she were settling down into a nest.

  "Now I am a bird!" she said to herself. "I have just laid seven lovely white eggs and I am sitting with my wings over them, brooding. Cluck-cluck! Cluck-cluck!"

  She made a small broody noise in her throat.

  "And after a long time, say half an hour, there will be a little cheep, and a little tap and the shells will crack. Then, out will pop seven little chicks, three yellow, two brown and two—"

  "Time to get up!"

  Mary Poppins, appearing suddenly from nowhere, tweaked the bed-clothes from Jane's shoulders.

  "Oh, no, NO!" grumbled Jane, pulling them up again.

  She felt very cross with Mary Poppins for rushing in and spoiling everything.

  "I don't want to get up!" she said, turning her face into the pillow.

  "Oh, indeed?" Mary Poppins said calmly, as though the remark had no interest for her. She pulled the bed-clothes right off the bed and Jane found herself standing on the floor.

  "Oh, dear," she grumbled, "why do I always have to get up first?"

  "You're the eldest — that's why." Mary Poppins pushed her towards the bath-room.

  "But I don't want to be the eldest. Why can't Michael be the eldest sometimes?"

  "Because you were born first — see?"

  "Well, I didn't ask to be. I'm tired of being born first. I wanted to think."

  "You can think when you're brushing your teeth."

  "Not the same thoughts."

  "Well, nobody wants to think the same thoughts all the time!"

  "I do."

  Mary Poppins gave her a quick, black look.

  "That's enough, thank you!" And from the tone in her voice Jane knew she meant what she said.

  Mary Poppins hurried away to wake Michael.

  Jane put down her toothbrush and sat on the edge of the bath.

  "It's not fair," she grumbled, kicking the linoleum with her toes. "Making me do all the horrid things just because I'm the eldest! I won't brush my teeth!"

  Immediately she felt surprised at herself. She was usually quite glad to be older than Michael and the Twins. It made her feel rather superior and much more important. But to-day — what was the matter with to-day that she felt so cross and peevish?

  "If Michael had been born first I'd have had time to hatch out my eggs!" She grumbled to herself, feeling that the day had begun badly.

  Unfortunately, instead of getting better, it grew worse.

  At breakfast Mary Poppins discovered there was only enough Puffed Rice for three.

  "Well, Jane must have Porridge," she said, setting out the plates and sniffing angrily for she did not like making Porridge. There were always too many lumps in it.

  "But why?" complained Jane. "I want Puffed Rice."

  Mary Poppins darted a fierce look at her.

  "Because you're the eldest!"

  There it was again! That hateful word. She kicked the leg of her chair under the table, hoping she was scratching off the varnish, and ate her porridge as slowly as she dared. She turned it round and round in her mouth swallowing as little as possible. It would serve everybody right if she starved to death. Then they'd be sorry!

  "What is to-day?" enquired Michael cheerfully, scraping up the last of his Puffed Rice.

  "Wednesday," said Mary Poppins. "Leave the pattern on the plate, please!"

  "Then it's to-day we're going to tea with Miss Lark!"

  "If you're good," said Mary Poppins darkly, as though she did not believe such a thing was possible.

  But Michael was in a cheerful mood and took no notice.

  "Wednesday!" he shouted, banging his spoon on the table. "That's the day Jane was born. Wednesday's child is full of woe. That's why she has to have porridge instead of rice," he said naughtily.

  Jane frowned and kicked at him under the table. But he swung his legs aside and laughed.

  "Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace!" He chanted. "That's true, too. The Twins are full of grace and they were born on a Tuesday. And I'm Monday — fair of face."

  Jane laughed scornfully.

  "I am," he insisted. "I heard Mrs. Brill say so. She told Ellen I was as handsome as half-a-crown."

  "Well, that's not very handsome," said Jane. "Besides, your nose turns up."

  Michael looked at her reproachfully. And again Jane felt surprised at herself. At any other time she would have agreed with him, for she thought Michael a very good-looking little boy. But now she said cruelly,

  "Yes, and your toes turn in. Bandy-legs! Bandy-legs!"

  Michael rushed at her.

  "That will be enough from you!" said Mary Poppins, looking angrily at Jane. "And if any body in this house is a beauty it's—" She paused and glanced with a satisfied smile at her own reflection in the mirror.

  "Who?" demanded Michael and Jane together.

  "Nobody of the name of Banks!" retor
ted Mary Poppins. "So there!"

  Michael looked across at Jane as he always did when Mary Poppins made one of her curious remarks. But though she felt his look she pretended not to notice. She turned away and took her paint-box from the toy-cupboard.

  "Won't you play trains?" asked Michael, trying to be friendly.

  "No, I won't. I want to be by myself."

  "Well, darlings, and how are you all this morning?"

  Mrs. Banks came running into the room and kissed them hurriedly. She was always so busy that she never had time to walk.

  "Michael," she said, "you must have some new slippers — your toes are coming out at the top. Mary Poppins, John's curls will have to come off, I'm afraid. Barbara, my pet, don't suck your thumb! Jane, run downstairs and ask Mrs. Brill not to ice the plum cake, I want a plain one."

  There they were again, breaking into her day! As soon as she began to do anything they made her stop and do something else.

  "Oh, Mother, must I? Why can't Michael?"

  Mrs. Banks looked surprised.

  "But I thought you liked helping! And Michael always forgets the message. Besides, you're the eldest. Run along."

  She went downstairs as slowly as she could. She hoped she would be so late with the message that Mrs. Brill would have already iced the cake.

  And all the time she felt astonished at the way she was behaving. It was as if there was another person inside her — somebody with a very bad temper and an ugly face — who was making her feel cross.

  She gave the message to Mrs. Brill and was disappointed to find that she was in plenty of time.

  "Well, that'll save a penn'orth of trouble anyway." Mrs. Brill remarked.

  "And, Dearie," she went on, "you might just slip out into the garden and tell that Robertson he hasn't done the knives. My legs are bad and they're my only pair."

  "I can't. I'm busy."

  It was Mrs. Brill's turn to look surprised.

  "Ah, be a kind girl, then — it's all I can do to stand, let alone walk!"

  Jane sighed. Why couldn't they leave her alone? She kicked the kitchen door shut and dawdled out into the garden.

  Robertson Ay was asleep on the path with his head on the watering-can. His lank hair rose and fell as he snored. It was Robertson Ay's special gift that he could sleep anywhere and at any time. In fact, he preferred sleeping to waking. And, usually, whenever they could, Jane and Michael prevented him from being found out. But to-day was different. The bad-tempered person inside her didn't care a bit what happened to Robertson Ay.