Mary Poppins Comes Back mp-2

by P. L. Travers

  But the young Professor only shook his head and loosened his collar and went dejectedly away with the Executioner.

  "Is there more than one thirteen, then?" asked the King nervously.

  The Lord High Chancellor turned away in disgust.

  "I'm sorry," said the King to himself. "I liked his face so much. It's a pity it has to go on the gate."

  And after that he worked very hard at his Arithmetic, hoping that when the next Professor came, he would be able to give the right answers.

  He would sit at the top of the Castle steps, just by the draw-bridge, with a book of Multiplication Tables on his knees, saying them over to himself. And while he was looking at the book everything went well but when he shut his eyes and tried to remember them everything went wrong.

  "Seven ones are seven, seven twos are thirty-three, seven threes are forty-five—" he began one day. And when he found he was wrong he threw the book away in disgust and buried his head in his cloak.

  "It's no good, it's no good! I shall never be wise!" he cried in despair.

  Then, because he could not go on weeping for ever, he wiped his eyes and leant back in his golden chair. And as he did that he gave a little start of surprise. For a stranger had pushed past the sentry at the gate and was walking up the path that led to the Castle.

  "Hullo," said the King, "who are you?" For he had no memory for faces.

  "Well, if it comes to that," replied the Stranger, "Who are you?"

  "I'm the King of the Castle," said the King, picking up the bent sceptre and trying to look important.

  "And I'm the Dirty Rascal," was the reply.

  The King opened his eyes wide with astonishment.

  "Are you really, though? That's interesting! I'm very pleased to meet you. Do you know seven times seven?"

  "No. Why should I?"

  At that the King gave a great cry of delight and, running down the steps, embraced the Stranger.

  "At last, at last!" cried the King, "I have found a friend. You shall live with me! What is mine shall be yours! We shall spend our lives together!"

  "But, Ethelbert," protested the Queen, "this is only a Common Person. You cannot have him here."

  "Your Majesty," said the Lord High Chancellor, sternly, "IT WOULD NOT DO."

  But for once the King defied him.

  "It will do very nicely!" he said royally. "Who is King here — you or I?" "Well, of course, in a manner of speaking, you are, as it were, Your Majesty, but—"

  "Very well. Put this man in cap and bells and he can be my Fool!"

  "Fool!" cried the Queen, wringing her hands. "Do we need any more of these?"

  But the King did not answer. He flung his arm round the Stranger's neck and the two went dancing to the Castle door.

  "You first!" said the King politely.

  "No, you!" said the Stranger.

  "Both together, then!" said the King generously, and they went in side by side.

  And from that day the King made no attempt to learn his lessons. He made a pile of all his books and burnt them in the courtyard while he and his new friend danced round it singing—

  "I'm the King of the Castle,

  And you're the Dirty Rascal!"

  "Is that the only song you can sing?" asked the Fool one day.

  "Yes, I'm afraid it is!" said the King, rather sadly. "Do you know any others?"

  "Oh, dear, yes!" said the Fool. And he sang sweetly.

  "Bright, bright

  Bee in your flight,

  Drop down some Honey

  For Supper tonight!"

  and

  "Sweet and low, over the Snow,

  The lolloping, scalloping Lobsters go.

  Did you know?"

  and

  "Boys and Girls, come out to play

  Over the Hills and Far Away,

  The Sheep's in the Meadow, the Cow's in the Stall,

  And down will come Baby, Cradle and All!"

  "Lovely!" cried the King, clapping his hands. "Now, listen! I've just thought of one myself! It goes like this—

  "All dogs — Tiddle-de-um!

  Hate frogs — Tiddle-di-do!"

  "H'm," said the Fool. "Not bad!"

  "Wait a minute!" said the King. "I've thought of another! And I think it's a better one. Listen, carefully!"

  And he sang—

  "Pluck me a Flower,

  And catch me a Star,

  And braize them in Butter

  And Treacle and Tar.

  Tra-la!

  How delicious they are!"

  "Bravo!" cried the Fool. "Let's sing it together!"

  And he and the King went dancing through the Castle chanting the King's two songs, one after the other, to a very special tune.

  And when they were tired of singing they fell together in a heap in the main corridor and there went to sleep.

  "He gets worse and worse!" said the Queen to the Lord High Chancellor, "What are we to do?"

  "I have just heard," replied the Lord High Chancellor, "that the wisest man in the kingdom, the Chief of all the Professors, is coming to-morrow. Perhaps he will help us!"

  And the next day the Chief Professor arrived, walking smartly up the path to the Castle carrying a little black bag. It was raining slightly but the whole court had gathered at the top of the steps to welcome him.

  "Has he got his wisdom in that little bag, do you think?" whispered the King. But the Fool, who was playing knuckle-bones beside the throne, only smiled and went on tossing.

  "Now, if Your Majesty pleases," said the Chief Professor, in a business-like voice, "let us take Arithmetic first. Can Your Majesty answer this? If two Men and a Boy were wheeling a Barrow over a Clover-field in the middle of February, how many Legs would they have between them?"

  The King gazed at him for a moment, rubbing his sceptre against his cheek.

  The Fool tossed a knuckle-bone and caught it neatly on the back of his wrist.

  "Does it matter?" said the King, smiling pleasantly.

  The Chief Professor started violently and looked at the King in astonishment.

  "As a matter of fact," he said quietly, "it doesn't. But I will ask your Majesty another question. How deep is the sea?"

  "Deep enough to sail a ship on."

  Again the Chief Professor started and his long beard quivered. He was smiling.

  "What is the difference, Majesty, between a star and a stone, a bird and a man?"

  "No difference at all, Professor. A stone is a star that shines not. A man is a bird without wings."

  The Chief Professor drew nearer, and gazed wonderingly at the King.

  "What is the best thing in the world?" he asked quietly.

  "Doing nothing," answered the King, waving his bent sceptre.

  "Oh, dear, oh dear!" wailed the Queen. "THIS IS DREADFUL!"

  "How deep is the sea?"

  "Tch! Tch! Tch!" said the Lord High Chancellor.

  But the Chief Professor ran up the steps and stood by the King's throne.

  "Who taught you these things, Majesty?" he demanded.

  The King pointed with his sceptre to the Fool, who was throwing up his knuckle-bones.

  "Him," said the King, ungrammatically.

  The Chief Professor raised his bushy eyebrows. The Fool looked up at him and smiled. He tossed a knuckle-bone and the Professor, bending forward, caught it on the back of his hand.

  "Ha!" he cried. "I know you! Even in that cap and bells, I know the Dirty Rascal!"

  "Ha, ha!" laughed the Fool.

  "What else did he teach you, Majesty?" The Chief Professor turned again to the King.

  "To sing," answered the King.

  And he stood up and sang—

  "A black and white Cow

  Sat up in a Tree

  And if I were she

  Then I shouldn't be me!"

  "Very true," said the Chief Professor. "What else?"

  The King sang again, in a pleasant, quavering voice—

  "The Ear
th spins round

  Without a tilt

  So that the Sea

  Shall not be spilt."

  "So it does," remarked the Chief Professor. "Any more?"

  "Oh gracious, yes!" said the King, delighted at his success. "There's this one—

  "Oh, I could learn

  Until I'm pink.

  But then I'd have

  No time to think!"

  "Or perhaps, Professor, you'd prefer—

  "We won't go round

  The World for then

  We'd only come

  Back Home again!"

  The Chief Professor clapped his hands. "There's one more," said the King, "if you'd care to hear it."

  "Please sing it, Sire!"

  And the King cocked his head at the Fool and smiled wickedly and sang—

  "Chief Professors

  All should be

  Drowned in early

  Infancee!"

  At the end of the song the Chief Professor gave a loud laugh and fell at the King's feet.

  "Oh, King," he said, "live for ever! You have no need of me!"

  And without another word he ran down the steps and took off his overcoat, coat and waistcoat. Then he flung himself down upon the grass and called for a plate of Strawberries-and-Cream and a large glass of Beer.

  "Tch, tch, tch!" said the horrified Lord High Chancellor. For now all the courtiers were rushing down the steps and taking off their coats and rolling in the rainy grass.

  "Strawberries and Beer! Strawberries and Beer!" they shouted thirstily.

  "Give him the prize!" said the Chief Professor, sucking his beer through a straw, and nodding in the direction of the Fool.

  "Pooh!" said the Fool. "I don't want it. What would I do with it?"

  And he scrambled to his feet, put his knuckle-bones in his pocket and strolled off down the path.

  "Hi, where are you going?" cried the King anxiously.

  "Oh, anywhere, everywhere!" said the Fool airily, sauntering on down the path.

  "Wait for me, wait for me!" called the King stumbling over his train as he hurried down the steps.

  "Ethelbert! What are you doing? You forget yourself!" cried the Queen angrily.

  "I do not, my dear!" The King called back. "On the contrary, I am remembering myself for the first time!"

  He hurried down the path, caught up with the Fool, and embraced him.

  "Ethelbert!" called the Queen again.

  The King took no notice.

  The rain had ceased but there was still a watery brightness in the air. And presently a rainbow streamed out of the sun and curved in a great arc down to the Castle path.

  "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 good-bye, 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!" said 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.

  "Good-bye, 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 any one 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 un-seeingly 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 except herself. But to-day 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 glasshouse, 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 was standing beside it, looking 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 lawnmower. And as he moved there was a faint, jingling sound as though, near at hand, small bells were softly ringing.