Mary Poppins Comes Back

by P. L. Travers

  “But where is your house? It isn’t in the Bowl!”

  “Of course it is! But you can’t see it because it’s behind the wood. Come on!”

  They were drawing her now under dark alder boughs. The dead leaves crackled under their feet and every now and then a pigeon swooped from branch to branch with a loud clapping of wings. William showed Jane a robin’s nest in a pile of twigs, and Everard broke off a spray of leaves and twined it round her head. But, in spite of their friendliness, Jane was shy and nervous and felt very glad when they reached the end of the wood.

  “Here it is!” said Valentine, waving his hand.

  And she saw rising before her a huge stone house covered with ivy. It was older than any house she had ever seen and it seemed to lean towards her threateningly. On either side of the steps a stone lion crouched, as if waiting for the moment to spring.

  Jane shivered as the shadow of the house fell upon her.

  “I can’t stay long,” she said uneasily. “It’s getting late.”

  “Just five minutes!” pleaded Valentine, drawing her into the hall.

  Their feet rang hollowly on the stone floor. There was no sign of any human being. Except for herself and the Triplets, the house seemed deserted. A cold wind swept whistling along the corridor.

  “Christina! Christina! “called Valentine, pulling Jane up the stairs. “Here she is!”

  His cry went echoing round the house and every wall seemed to call back frighteningly. “Here she is!”

  There was a sound of running feet and a door burst open. A little girl, slightly taller than the Triplets and dressed in an old-fashioned, flowery dress, rushed out and flung herself upon Jane.

  “At last, at last!” she cried triumphantly. “The boys have been watching you for ages! But they couldn’t catch you before – you were always so happy!”

  “Catch me?” said Jane. “I don’t understand.”

  She was beginning to be frightened and to wish she had never come with Valentine into the Bowl.

  “Great-Grandfather will explain,” said Christina, laughing curiously. She drew Jane across the landing and through the door.

  “Heh! Heh! Heh! What’s this?” demanded a thin, cracked voice.

  Jane stared and drew back against Christina. For at the far end of the room, on a seat by the fire, sat a figure that filled her with terror. The firelight flickered over a very old man, so old that he looked more like a shadow than a human being. From his thin mouth a thin grey beard straggled and, though he wore a smoking-cap, Jane could see that he was as bald as an egg. He was dressed in a long, old-fashioned dressing-gown of faded silk, and a pair of embroidered slippers hung on his thin feet.

  “So!” said the shadowy figure, taking a long curved pipe from his mouth. “Jane has arrived at last.”

  He rose and came towards her smiling frighteningly, his eyes burning in their sockets with a bright steely fire.

  “She came through the alder wood with the boys, Great-Grandfather,” said Christina.

  “Ah? How did they catch her?”

  “She was cross at being the eldest. So she threw her paint-box at the Bowl and cracked Val’s knee.”

  “So!” the horrible old voice whistled. “It was temper, was it? Well, well—” He laughed thinly. “Now you’ll be the youngest, my dear! My youngest Great-Granddaughter. But I shan’t allow any tempers here! Heh! Heh! Heh! Oh, dear, no. Well, come along and sit by the fire. Will you take Tea or Cherry – Wine?”

  “No, no!” Jane burst out. “I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. I must go home now. I live at Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane.”

  “Used to, you mean,” corrected Val triumphantly. “You live here now.”

  “But you don’t understand!” Jane said desperately. “I don’t want to live here. I want to go home.”

  “Nonsense!” croaked the Great-Grandfather. “Number Seventeen is a horrible place, mean and stuffy and modern. Besides, you’re not happy there. Heh! Heh! Heh! I know what it’s like being the eldest – all the work and none of the fun. Heh! Heh! But here –” he waved his pipe – “here you’ll be the Spoilt One, the Darling, the Treasure, and never go back any more!”

  “Never!” echoed William and Everard, dancing round her.

  “Oh, I must. I will!” Jane cried, the tears springing to her eyes.

  The Great-Grandfather smiled his horrible, toothless smile.

  “Do you think we will let you go?” he enquired. “You cracked our bowl. You must take the consequences. Besides, you owe us something. You hurt Valentine’s knee.”

  “I will make up to him. I will give him my paint-box.”

  “He has one.”

  “My hoop.”

  “He has out-grown hoops.”

  “Well—” faltered Jane. “I will marry him when I grow up.”

  The Great-Grandfather cackled with laughter.

  Jane turned imploringly to Valentine. He shook his head.

  “I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” he said sadly. “I grew up long ago.”

  “Then why, then what – oh, I don’t understand. Where am I?” cried Jane, gazing about her in terror.

  “Far from home, my child, far from home,” croaked the Great-Grandfather. “You are back in the Past – back where Christina and the boys were young sixty years ago!”

  Through her tears Jane saw his old eyes burning fiercely.

  “Then – how can I get home?” she whispered.

  “You cannot. You will stay here. There is no other place for you. You are back in the Past, remember! The Twins and Michael, even your Father and Mother, are not yet born; Number Seventeen is not even built. You cannot go home!”

  “No, no!” cried Jane. “It’s not true! It can’t be.” Her heart was thumping inside her. Never to see Michael again, nor the Twins, nor her Father and Mother and Mary Poppins!

  And suddenly she began to shout, lifting her voice so that it echoed wildly through the stone corridors.

  “Mary Poppins! I’m sorry I was cross! Oh, Mary Poppins, help me, help me!”

  “Quick! Hold her close! Surround her!”

  She heard the Great-Grandfather’s sharp command. She felt the four children pressing close about her.

  She shut her eyes tight. “Mary Poppins!” she cried again, “Mary Poppins!”

  A hand caught hers and pulled her away from the circling arms of Christina, Valentine, William and Everard.

  “Heh! Heh! Heh!”

  The Great-Grandfather’s cackling laugh echoed through the room. The grasp on her hand tightened and she felt herself being drawn away. She dared not look for fear of those frightening eyes, but she pulled fiercely against the tugging hand.

  “Heh! Heh! Heh!”

  The laugh sounded again and the hand drew her on, down stone stairs and echoing corridors.

  She had no hope now. Behind her the voices of Christina and the Triplets faded away. No help would come from them.

  She stumbled desperately after the flying footsteps and felt, though her eyes were closed, dark shadows above her head and damp earth under her foot.

  What was happening to her? Where, oh, where was she going? If only she hadn’t been so cross – if only!

  The strong hand pulled her onwards and presently she felt the warmth of sunlight on her cheeks and sharp grass scratched her legs as she was dragged along. Then, suddenly, a pair of arms, like bands of iron, closed about her, lifted her up and swung her through the air.

  “Oh, help, help!” she cried, frantically twisting and turning against those arms. She would not give in without a struggle, she would kick and kick and kick and. . .

  “I’ll thank you to remember,” said a familiar voice in her ear, “that this is my best skirt and it has to last me the Summer!”

  Jane opened her eyes. A pair of fierce blue eyes looked steadily into hers.

  The arms that folded her so closely were Mary Poppins’ arms and the legs she was kicking so furiously were the legs of Mary Poppins.


  “Oh!” she faltered. “It was you! I thought you hadn’t heard me, Mary Poppins! I thought I should be kept there for ever. I thought—”

  “Some people,” remarked Mary Poppins, putting her gently down, “think a great deal too much. Of that I’m sure. Wipe your face, please!”

  She thrust her blue handkerchief into Jane’s and began to get the Nursery ready for the evening.

  Jane watched her, drying her tear-stained face on the large blue handkerchief. She glanced round the well-known room. There were the ragged carpet and the toy cupboard and Mary Poppins’ armchair. At the sight of them she felt safe and warm and comforted. She listened to the familiar sounds as Mary Poppins went about her work, and her terror died away. A tide of happiness swept over her.

  “It couldn’t have been I who was cross,” she said to herself. “It must have been somebody else.”

  And she sat there wondering who the Somebody was. . .

  “But it can’t really have happened!” scoffed Michael a little later when he heard of Jane’s adventure. “You’re much too big for the Bowl.”

  She thought for a moment. Somehow, as she told the story, it did seem rather impossible.

  “I suppose it can’t,” she admitted. “But it seemed quite real at the time.”

  “I expect you just thought it. You’re always thinking things.” He felt rather superior because he never thought at all.

  “You two and your thoughts!” said Mary Poppins crossly, pushing them aside as she dumped the Twins into their cots.

  “And now,” she snapped, when John and Barbara were safely tucked in, “perhaps I shall have a moment to myself.”

  She took the pins out of her hat and thrust it back into its brown-paper bag. She unclipped the locket and put it carefully away in a drawer. Then she slipped off her coat, shook it out, and hung it on the peg behind the door.

  “Why, where’s your new scarf?” said Jane. “Have you lost it?”

  “She couldn’t have!” said Michael. “She had it on when she came home. I saw it.”

  Mary Poppins turned on them.

  “Be good enough to mind your own affairs,” she said snappily, “and let me mind mine!”

  “I only wanted to help—” Jane began.

  “I can help myself, thank you!” said Mary Poppins, sniffing.

  Jane turned to exchange looks with Michael. But this time it was he who took notice. He was staring at the mantelpiece as if he could not believe his eyes.

  “What is it, Michael?”

  “You didn’t just think it, after all!” he whispered, pointing.

  Jane looked up at the mantelpiece. There lay the Royal Doulton Bowl with the crack running right across it. There were the meadow grasses and the wood of alders. And there were the three little boys playing horses, two in front and one running behind with the whip.

  But – around the leg of the driver was knotted a small, white handkerchief and, sprawling across the grass, as though someone had dropped it as they ran, was a red-and-white checked scarf. At one end of it was stitched a large white label bearing the initials: M.P.

  “So that’s where she lost it!” said Michael, nodding his head wisely. “Shall we tell her we’ve found it?”

  Jane glanced round. Mary Poppins was buttoning on her apron and looking as if the whole world had insulted her.

  “Better not,” she said softly. “I expect she knows.”

  For a moment Jane stood there, gazing at the cracked Bowl, the knotted handkerchief and the scarf.

  Then with a wild rush she ran across the room and flung herself upon the starched white figure.

  “Oh,” she cried. “Oh, Mary Poppins! I’ll never be naughty again!”

  A faint, disbelieving smile twinkled at the corners of Mary Poppins’ mouth as she smoothed out the creases from her apron.

  “Humph!” was all she said.

  Chapter Four

  TOPSY TURVY

  “KEEP CLOSE TO me, please!” said Mary Poppins, stepping out of the Bus and putting up her umbrella, for it was raining heavily.

  Jane and Michael scrambled out after her.

  “If I keep close to you the drips from your umbrella run down my neck,” complained Michael.

  “Don’t blame me, then, if you get lost and have to ask a Policeman!” snapped Mary Poppins, as she neatly avoided a puddle.

  She paused outside the Chemist’s shop at the corner so that she could see herself reflected in the three gigantic bottles in the window. She could see a Green Mary Poppins, a Blue Mary Poppins and a Red Mary Poppins all at once. And each one of them was carrying a brand-new leather handbag with brass knobs on it.

  Mary Poppins looked at herself in the three bottles and smiled a pleased and satisfied smile. She spent some minutes changing the handbag from her right hand to her left, trying it in every possible position to see how it looked best. Then she decided that, after all, it was most effective when tucked under her arm. So she left it there.

  Jane and Michael stood beside her, not daring to say anything but glancing across at each other and sighing inside themselves. And from two points of her parrot-handled umbrella the rain trickled uncomfortably down the backs of their necks.

  “Now then – don’t keep me waiting!” said Mary Poppins crossly, turning away from the Green, Blue and Red reflections of herself. Jane and Michael exchanged glances. Jane signalled to Michael to keep quiet. She shook her head and made a face at him. But he burst out:

  “We weren’t. It was you keeping us waiting—!”

  “Silence!”

  Michael did not dare to say any more. He and Jane trudged along, one on either side of Mary Poppins. The rain poured down, dancing from the top of the umbrella on to their hats. Under her arm Jane carried the Royal Doulton Bowl wrapped carefully in two pieces of paper. They were taking it to Mary Poppins’ cousin, Mr Turvy, whose business, she told Mrs Banks, was mending things.

  “Well,” Mrs Banks had said, rather doubtfully, “I hope he will do it satisfactorily, for until it is mended I shall not be able to look my Great-Aunt Caroline in the face.”

  Great-Aunt Caroline had given Mrs Banks the bowl when Mrs Banks was only three, and it was well known that if it were broken Great-Aunt Caroline would make one of her famous scenes.

  “Members of my family, ma’am,” Mary Poppins had retorted with a sniff, “always give satisfaction.”

  And she had looked so fierce that Mrs Banks felt quite uncomfortable and had to sit down and ring for a cup of tea.

  Swish!

  There was Jane, right in the middle of a puddle.

  “Look where you’re going, please!” snapped Mary Poppins, shaking her umbrella and tossing the drips over Jane and Michael. “This rain is enough to break your heart.”

  “If it did, could Mr Turvy mend it?” enquired Michael. He was interested to know if Mr Turvy could mend all broken things or only certain kinds.

  “One more word,” said Mary Poppins,” and Back Home you go!”

  “I only asked,” said Michael sulkily.

  “Then don’t!”

  Mary Poppins, with an angry sniff, turned the corner smartly and, opening an old iron gate, knocked at the door of a small tumble-down building.

  “Tap-tap-tappity-tap!” The sound of the knocker echoed hollowly through the house.

  “Oh, dear,” Jane whispered to Michael,” how awful if he’s out!”

  But at that moment heavy footsteps were heard tramping towards them, and with a loud rattle the door opened.

  A round, red-faced woman, looking more like two apples placed one on top of the other than a human being, stood in the doorway. Her straight hair was scraped into a knob at the top of her head, and her thin mouth had a cross and peevish expression.

  “Well!” she said, staring. “It’s you or I’m a Dutchman!”

  She did not seem particularly pleased to see Mary Poppins. Nor did Mary Poppins seem particularly pleased to see her.

  “Is Mr Turvy in?”
she enquired, without taking any notice of the woman’s remark.

  “Well,” said the round woman in an unfriendly voice, “I wouldn’t be certain. He may be or he may not. It’s all a matter of how you happen to look at it.”

  Mary Poppins stepped through the door and peered about her.

  “That’s his hat, isn’t it,” she demanded, pointing to an old felt hat that hung on a peg in the hall.

  “Well, it is, of course – in a manner of speaking.” The round woman admitted the fact unwillingly.

  “Then he’s in,” said Mary Poppins. “No member of my family ever goes out without a hat. They’re much too respectable.”

  “Well, all I can tell you is what he said to me this morning,” said the round woman. “‘Miss Tartlet,’ he said,’I may be in this afternoon and I may not. It is quite impossible to tell.’ That’s what he said. But you’d better go up and see for yourself. I’m not a Mountaineer.”

  The round woman glanced down at her round body and shook her head. Jane and Michael could easily understand that a person of her size and shape would not want to climb Mr Turvy’s narrow, rickety stairs very often.

  Mary Poppins sniffed.

  “Follow me, please!” She snapped the words at Jane and Michael, and they ran after her up the creaking stairs.

  Miss Tartlet stood in the hall watching them with a superior smile on her face.

  At the top landing Mary Poppins knocked on the door with the head of the umbrella. There was no reply. She knocked again – louder this time. Still there was no answer.

  “Cousin Arthur!” she called through the key-hole. “Cousin Arthur, are you in?”

  “No, I’m out!” came a far-away voice from within.

  “How can he be out? I can hear him!” whispered Michael to Jane.

  “Cousin Arthur!” Mary Poppins rattled the door-handle. “I know you’re in.”

  “No, no, I’m not!” came the far-away voice. “I’m out, I tell you. It’s the Second Monday!”

  “Oh, dear – I’d forgotten!” said Mary Poppins, and with an angry movement she turned the handle and flung open the door.