Mary Poppins Comes Back

by P. L. Travers

  “She can’t be,” Michael protested. “There’s no wall of thorns around it.”

  “There’s nettles. They are just as good. Mary Poppins!” Jane turned to the motionless figure. “Who do you think lives in Number Eighteen?”

  Mary Poppins sniffed. “Five, nice, quiet, well-behaved children – not like some people I could mention.”

  Her blue eyes were sternly blue but in their depths was the glint of a twinkle.

  “Well, if they’re so perfect they don’t need a Mary Poppins. It’s we who need you,” Michael teased her. “Perhaps you’ll make us perfect.”

  “Humph,” she retorted. “That’s not very likely.”

  “Everyone needs her.” Jane patted her hand, hoping to tease her into a smile.

  “Humph,” said Mary Poppins again. But the smile appeared as she met her reflection in the glass. Of course, each seemed to be telling the other, everyone needed Mary Poppins. How could it be otherwise?

  Then the two mirrored faces resumed their sternness.

  “Now, no more argle-bargling. Spit-spot and into bed with you!”

  And, for once, without argle-bargling, they did as they were told.

  Much had happened. They needed to think it over, and were glad when their cheeks met the softness of their pillows, glad of the comforting warmth of the blankets.

  Michael was thinking of Gobbo, Jane of the Sleeping Beauty. Their shadowy shapes would disappear from Number Eighteen and the solid figure of Miss Andrew would haunt the house instead.

  “I wonder,” said Jane thoughtfully, “exactly what a Luti is?” She had never heard the word before.

  “Perhaps it’s an animal,” said Michael. “Maybe a kangaroo.”

  “Or a monkey – a Luti monkey. I would like that,” said Jane.

  And they fell asleep dreaming of a kangaroo, or perhaps a monkey, gambolling happily about the Lane among the Cherry Trees.

  But it was neither a kangaroo, nor a monkey, as they were to learn next day.

  It was Saturday. Number Eighteen looked naked and a little lonely without its surrounding hedge of nettles. A workman had come in the early hours, cut them down and carted them off.

  The Banks family spent a nervous morning, and as the afternoon drew on, Mr Banks, like an anxious general, marshalled his troops at the front gate.

  “We must be there to greet her,” he said. “One has to be polite.”

  “Don’t keep fussing, dear,” said Mrs Banks. “Perhaps she won’t stay long.”

  Jane and Michael looked at each other remembering how, on her last visit, Miss Andrew had come and gone so quickly, and the curious part Mary Poppins had played in that curious departure.

  They glanced at her as she stood beside them, rocking the Twins and Annabel in the perambulator, her face rosy and serene. What was she thinking? They would never know.

  “There she is!” cried Mr Banks, as a hansom cab, hung about with Gladstone bags, turned from the main road into the Lane. “She always travels with mountains of luggage. Goodness knows what is in it.”

  They all watched, holding their breaths, as the cabhorse wearily clopped along, dragging its heavy load – past Miss Lark’s house, past the little group anxiously waiting outside Number Seventeen.

  “Whoa, there,” said the cabman, tugging at the reins, and the curious conveyance came to a stop at the gate of the empty house. He clambered down from his high seat and removed several Gladstone bags that hung from the roof of the cab. Then he opened the door and hauled out a large black leather trunk.

  “Carefully, please, there are breakables in it,” cried a haughty, familiar voice from within. A black-booted foot appeared on the step, then slowly, the rest of Miss Andrew, a large, ungainly, cumbersome figure, lumbered out on to the pavement.

  She glanced around, and spied the family group.

  “Well, George, I am glad you have not forgotten your manners. I expected you to meet me.”

  “Welcome, Miss Andrew!” Mr and Mrs Banks were rigidly polite.

  “And the children seem clean and tidy enough. I hope their behaviour matches their appearance.”

  Miss Andrew craned her head and at the sight of the neat blue-coated figure standing in the background, she shrank back nervously.

  “I see,” he said, her voice trembling on the words, “that you still have the same young person taking charge of your household. Well, all I can say is, I hope she gives satisfaction.”

  “She does indeed,” said Mr Banks, with a bow towards the blue coat.

  “Welcome, Miss Andrew,” said Mary Poppins, in a voice Jane and Michael had never heard – sweet, shy and unassuming. Miss Andrew turned her head away and her glance swept over the garden.

  “Really, George, you live in a wilderness. Everything needs pruning. And what is that heap of garments doing in the middle of the lawn.”

  “That,” Mr Banks said, “is Robertson Ay. He is taking a little rest.”

  “In the afternoon? Ridiculous! I hope you will take very good care that he never rests in my garden. Here,” she turned, fumbling in her bag, to the heavily breathing cabman, “take the key and carry my luggage into the house.”

  “Well, I’ve just got to lever this here trunk.” The man edged a chest through the door of the cab. “And then we can let out the little feller.”

  Jane and Michael looked at each other. Little feller! Did he mean a monkey or a kangaroo?

  The chest fell with a thump to the pavement. It was followed by neither kangaroo, nor monkey, but by a small, strangely dressed boy, a little taller, perhaps, than Jane, with a large black bag in his hand. As he bent under the weight of it, they could see a round honey-coloured face with black hair falling loosely about it above a stiff white collar.

  “Good Heavens!” said Mr Banks, in a whisper. “He’s wearing my old clothes! She must have kept them all these years!”

  The small figure, in knickerbockers, jacket and large brown boots stepped delicately down the step and stood there, hanging his head.

  “This is Luti,” pronounced Miss Andrew. “His name means Son of the Sun. He has come with me from the South Sea islands to get a good solid education and also to take care of me. Put down the medicine bag, Luti, and greet our next-door neighbours.”

  The bag was put down, the bent head lifted. And as he beheld the group at the gate a smile lit up the sunburnt face as the boy took a step towards it.

  “Peace and blessings,” he said shyly, spreading out his arms.

  “That will do,” said Miss Andrew sharply. “We don’t use the island language here. Good afternoon is enough.”

  “And peace and blessings to you, Luti,” Mr Banks cried heartily. “We are very glad to welcome you. There’s a hole in the fence, just there,” he pointed. “You can come through it any time. My children will be delighted to see you – won’t you, Jane and Michael?”

  “Oh, yes!” said Jane and Michael raptly. This was better than a kangaroo or monkey. It was a new friend to play with.

  “George! “Miss Andrew’s voice was like the snap of a whip. “Pray do not meddle in my affairs. Luti is here to work, not play. He will be busy with his lessons and making the porridge – we shall live on porridge, it is very nourishing – and getting my medicines ready. I intend him to be a credit to me so that when he eventually returns to the island he will go as something useful – a doctor or perhaps a teacher. In the meantime, we will continue our studies. And for relaxation, once a month, he and I together, George, will pay you a little visit. So go and waken your man, please, and tell him to repair the hole in the fence. We will have no to-ings and fro-ings between us. Is all the luggage safely in?”

  She turned to the breathless cabman and gave him a coin as he nodded.

  “Then pick up the medicine bag, Luti. We will go and inspect our new home.”

  She strode towards Number Eighteen and Luti, after a glance at Jane and Michael – they could not tell if it were sad or happy – shouldered his burden and followed her, an
d the front door closed behind them.

  The children looked at Mary Poppins. Her face was the only cheerful one among them. But now her smile was mysterious as though she was sharing a secret with herself.

  “We will go in to tea,” she said briskly, giving the perambulator a push, “and then perhaps a game of Ludo.”

  Jane and Michael enjoyed playing Ludo. But today it had no interest for them. They had something else on their minds. They followed slowly, dragging their feet, thinking of the golden boy who had appeared for a brief moment and then had been taken away.

  “That poor child!” murmured Mrs Banks, looking tearfully at her husband.

  “Well I said she was a Holy Terror.” Mr Banks sighed deeply as he turned to the jumbled heap on the lawn to waken the sleeping figure.

  And all the inhabitants of the Lane who had been leaning over their gates watching, went quietly into their houses. Number Eighteen was no longer theirs. There was nothing more to be said.

  The Lane was silent except for the voice of the Park Keeper, “Observe the Rules. Remember the Bye-laws.” And nearer at hand, the sleepy yawns of Robertson Ay as he put a nail to the loose paling and gave it a blow with his hammer. That done, he slid down on to the grass and went to sleep again.

  Presently, the nail fell out, the paling gave a sideways lurch, and the hole in the fence between the houses was as it had always been.

  Early next morning, when the sun rose over the trees of the Park, the Lane was peacefully asleep, not even a bird stirred.

  Even so, something stirred. Jane and Michael, one carrying a banana and the other an apple, were tiptoeing cautiously through the Nursery of Number Seventeen, past the camp-bed where Mary Poppins lay sleeping, as neat and uncrumpled as though she and the bed were objects in a shop window. They smiled triumphantly at each other – Mary Poppins would not notice them! But at that moment, she opened her eyes and her blue gaze fell upon them.

  “And what do you two think you’re doing?” She glanced at the fruit in their hands.

  They jumped. She had woken, after all.

  “Well, Mary Poppins,” Michael spluttered. “How would you like to eat nothing but porridge?” He eyed her anxiously.

  “We thought, Mary Poppins,” Jane tried to explain. “We thought if we put some food down by the fence, Luti –” she nodded towards Number Eighteen, – “might perhaps come and find it.” She was as anxious as Michael.

  Mary Poppins said nothing. She merely rose from her bed like a statue, leaving not a crease behind. Her hair hung in a plait down her back and her nightgown fell in neat folds around her as she stretched out her arm towards the door.

  “Fetch me my handbag. It’s hanging on the handle.”

  They ran eagerly to obey her and presently, sifting through the pockets, she took out of it a bar of chocolate and silently held it out. Michael made a rush at her and hugged her round the waist. He could feel her bony shape in his arms and her plait swung round his ears.

  “Don’t huggle and squeeze me like that, Michael Banks. I am not a Teddy Bear!”

  “No, you’re not,” he cried delightedly. “You’re better than a Teddy Bear.”

  “Anyone can have a Teddy Bear. But we have you, Mary Poppins,” said Jane.

  “Oh, indeed?” she said with an uppish sniff, as she loosened Michael’s hold. “Well, there’s having and having, I assure you! Now go downstairs quietly, please, you don’t want to disturb the household.” And she pushed them before her to the door and closed it softly behind them.

  Sleep was all about them as they crept through the house, slid down the banisters and tiptoed out into the garden.

  No sound came from Number Eighteen as they placed the fruit and the bar of chocolate on the crossbar of the fence.

  And no sound came from it all the morning as they played among the trees and flowers until Mary Poppins called them to lunch. Even when they raced down again, the banana, the apple and the chocolate were still in the same position.

  But then, as they turned away from the hole in the fence, a strange noise came from the house next door – a deep and rhythmic rumble that went on and on and on. Everyone in the Lane could hear it and the house seemed to tremble with it.

  The lady in Number Nineteen, who was of a nervous disposition, was afraid it might be the beginning of a volcano. Mr Twenty gave it as his opinion that it was a lion snoring.

  Jane and Michael, watching from the branches of the pear-tree in their back garden, felt that whatever it was, it must surely mean that something was going to happen.

  And it did.

  The front door of Number Eighteen opened and through it came a small figure, cautiously glancing from side to side. Slowly, he made his way round the house till he came to the hole in the fence, and then, seeing the fruit and the chocolate, he touched them with a delicate finger.

  “They’re for you!” shouted Jane, hurriedly scrambling down from her branch with Michael at her heels.

  Luti looked up, a broad smile making his face like the sun, and he spread out his arms towards them.

  “Peace and blessings!” he shyly whispered, cocking his head to one side, as he listened to the rumble.

  “Missanda sleeps in the afternoon from two of the clock till three. So I came to see what these objects were.”

  It was not a volcano after all, not even a lion. The rumbling noise was Miss Andrew snoring.

  “The fruit is from Jane and me,” Michael told him, “and the chocolate from Mary Poppins.”

  “Mary Poppins?” Luti murmured the name to himself as though he were remembering something that he had long forgotten.

  “There she is.” Michael nodded to where Mary Poppins stood by the pear-tree, rocking Annabel in the perambulator.

  “Peace and blessings to her,” said Luti, waving his hand at the upright figure with the large pink rose in its hat. “I will hide these gifts within my pockets and eat them at night when I go to bed. Missanda eats only porridge.”

  “Is it a nice bed?” Jane enquired. She wanted to hear about everything that happened in Number Eighteen.

  “Well, perhaps it is a little soft. On my island we do not sleep in beds but on mats that my mother weaves for us from the leaves of the coconut palm.”

  “You could lie on the floor,” said Michael. “That would be almost as good.”

  “No, I must do as Missanda wishes. I am here to be of comfort to her, measure her many medicines, cook the porridge when the fire is hot and study my seven-times-seven. That my parents promised her, for they think she is a learnt person and will send me some day back to the island with knowledge of many things.”

  “But aren’t you lonely?” Jane asked him. “And aren’t they lonely for you?”

  She was thinking how she herself would feel if Miss Andrew took her far away and of how her parents would grieve. No, no such thing could ever happen, not for all the knowledge in the world.

  Luti’s face crumpled. The smile faded.

  “I am lonely for ever,” his voice was husky. “But a promise has been made to her. If they have need of me, they will send—”

  “A telegram!” exclaimed Michael. “In a yellow envelope.” A telegram was always exciting.

  “On the island we have no such things. But my Grandmother, Keria, said for my comfort, ‘When we have need of you, it will be known.’ She is a Wise Woman. She reads the stars and understands what the sea is saying. But, harken! I hear the bells singing!”

  Luti put his hand to his ear as the church clock beyond the Park rang out. “One, Two, Three!” it said. And at the same moment the rumbling from Number Eighteen stopped, as though switched off.

  “Missanda has woken from her sleep.” Luti hurriedly gathered up fruit and chocolate and stuffed them into his pockets.

  “Peace and blessings!” He raised his hand, his bright glance taking in Mary Poppins as well as Jane and Michael.

  Then he turned and ran across the lawn, his feet in Mr Banks’ big boots crushing the grass
as he went.

  A door opened and closed behind him and Number Eighteen, suddenly, was as soundless as it had always been.

  But the next day, and all the days after it, promptly at two o’clock, the rumbling began again.

  “Preposterous! Not to be borne! We must complain to the Prime Minister!” said the people in the Lane. But they knew that even the Prime Minister could no more stop somebody snoring than he could say “Halt!” to a snowstorm. They would just have to grin and bear it.

  So that was what they did. And the grinning and bearing made them realise that Miss Andrew’s snoring had its fortunate side. For now, between two and three o’clock, they could meet the smiling brown-faced stranger she had brought from the other side of the world. Otherwise, they would never have seen him, cooped up as he was, like a bird in a cage.

  So, as well as the fruit that Jane and Michael put on the fence every afternoon – Mary Poppins always in the background – Luti soon found himself showered with gifts.

  Mrs Nineteen gave him a paper fan, such as she would like to have made for the Grandmother she had never known.

  Mr Twenty, a gruff, shy man, presented him with the King and Queen of an old chess set from his attic.

  Admiral Boom, in a voice that would have roused from sleep anyone but Miss Andrew, hailed him with “Ahoy there, shipmate!” and pressed upon him a six-inch-long carved canoe, faded and shiny from spending years in the dark of a trouser pocket. “It’s my mascot!” he explained. “Brought me luck all my life, ever since I was a midshipman sailing the South Seas.”

  Binnacle, the retired pirate, gave him a dagger with a broken point. “It’s me second-best,” he apologised, “but it’ll slit a throat or two if you’re minded to become a pirate.”

  Luti had no desire to become a pirate, far less to slit anyone’s throat, but he took the dagger with gratitude and hid it carefully inside his jacket in case Miss Andrew should see it.

  The Park Keeper too had a present for him – a page out of an exercise book on which he had printed in large letters, “Observe the Rules. Remember the Bye-laws”.