Mary Poppins in the Park (24 page)

"We're here, daddy!" cried Jane and Michael. But Mr. Banks took no notice.

"I've got my bag and the morning paper—and yet there's something missing——"

"Take him home, someone!" the shadows cried. "He's walking in his sleep!"

And one of them—in a shadowy coat and bowler hat—sprang to Mr. Banks' side.

"There, old chap! I'll do the counting. Come along back to bed."

Mr. Banks turned obediently and his sleeping face lit up.

"I thought there was something missing," he murmured. "But it seems I was mistaken!" He took his shadow by the arm and sauntered away with it.

"Seeking's finding—eh, ducky?" The Bird Woman nudged her shadow. "Oh, beg pardon, Your Worship." She bobbed a curtsey. "I wasn't addressin'
you!
"

For the Lord Mayor and two Aldermen were advancing along the Walk. Their big cloaks billowed out behind them and their chains of office jingled.

"I 'ope I find Your Honour well?" the Bird Woman murmured politely.

"You do not, Mrs. Smith," the Lord Mayor grumbled. "I am feeling very upset."

"Upset, my boy?" shrieked Mrs. Corry, dancing past with the Cow. "Well, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, as I used to remind my great-great-grandson who was thrice Lord Mayor of London. Whittington, his name was. Perhaps you've heard of him?"

"Your great-great-grandfather you mean——" The Lord Mayor looked at her haughtily.

"Fiddlesticks! Indeed, I don't. Well, what's upsetting you?"

"A terrible misfortune, ma'am. I've lost——" He glanced around the Park and his eyes bulged in his head.

"That!" he cried, flinging out his hand. For there, indeed, was his portly shadow, doing its best to conceal itself behind Fannie and Annie.

"Oh, bother!" it wailed. "What a nuisance you are! Couldn't you let me have one night off? If you knew how weary I am of processions! And as for going to see the King——"

"Certainly not!" said the Lord Mayor, "I could never agree to appear in public without a suitable shadow. Such a suggestion is most improper and, what is more, undignified."

"Well, you needn't be so high and mighty. You're only a Lord Mayor, you know—not the Shah of Baghdad!"

"Hic-Hic!" The Park Keeper stifled a snigger and the Lord Mayor turned to him sternly.

"Smith," he declared, "this is your fault. You know the rules and you break them all. Giving a party in the Park! What next, I wonder? I'm afraid there's nothing for it, Smith, but to speak to the Lord High Chancellor!"

"It's not
my
party, Yer Worship—please! Give me another chance, Yer Honour. Think of me pore old——"

"Don't you worry about me, Fred!" The Bird Woman snapped her fingers sharply.

And at once the doves clapped their wings and swooped towards the Lord Mayor. They sat on his head, they sat on his nose, they tucked their tail-feathers down his neck and fluttered inside his cloak.

"Oh, don't! I'm a ticklish man! Hee, hee!" The Lord Mayor, quite against his will, burst into helpless laughter.

"Remove these birds at once, Smith! I won't be tickled—oh, ha, ha!"

He laughed, he crowed, he guffawed, he tittered, ducking and whirling among the dancers as he tried to escape the doves.

"Not under my chin!—Oh, oh!—Have mercy! Oof! There's one inside my sleeve. Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, hee! Dear me! Is that you, Miss Mary Poppins? Well, that makes all the—tee-hee!—difference. You're so re—ho, ho!—spectable." The Lord Mayor writhed as the soft feathers rustled behind his ears.

"What a wonderful party you're having!" he shrieked. "Ha, ha! Ho, ho! I should have come sooner. Listen! I hear my favourite tune—'Over the hills and far away!' Hee, hee! Ha, ha! And far away!"

"Is there anything the matter, your honour?" The Policeman, with Ellen on his arm, strode towards the revels.

"There is!" The Lord Mayor giggled wildly. "I'm ticklish and I can't stop laughing. Everything seems so terribly funny—and you in particular. Do you realise you've lost your shadow? It's over there on a swing—hee, hee!—playing a concertina!"

"No shadow, sir? A concertina?" The Policeman gaped at the Lord Mayor as though he had lost his wits. "Nobody's got a shadow, your honour. And shadows don't play on concertinas—at least, not to my knowledge."

"Don't be so—tee-hee!—silly, man. Everyone's got a shadow!"

"Not at this moment they haven't, your worship! There's a cloud coming over the moon!"

"Alas! A cloud! It came too soon! When shall we meet again?"

A shadowy wailing filled the air. For even as the Policeman spoke, the bright moon veiled her face.

Darkness dropped like a cloak on the scene and before the eyes of the watching children every shadow vanished. The merry music died away. And as silence fell upon the Park the steeples above the sleeping city rang their midnight chime.

"Our time is up!" cried the plaintive voices. "Hallowe'en's over! Away, away!"

Light as a breeze, past Jane and Michael, the invisible shadows swept.

"Farewell!" said one.

"Adieu!" another.

And a third at the edge of Jane's ear piped a note on his flute.

"Feed the birds, tuppence a bag!" The Bird Woman whistled softly. And the doves crept out of the Lord Mayor's sleeve and from under the brim of his hat.

Nine! Ten! Eleven! Twelve! The bells of midnight ceased.

"Farewell! Farewell!" called the fading voices.

"Over the hills and far away!" came the far-off fluting echo.

"Oh, Tom, the Piper's son," cried Jane. "When shall we see you again?"

Then something softer than air touched them, enfolded them and drew them away.

"Who are you?" they cried in the falling night. They seemed to be floating on wings of darkness, over the Park and home.

And the answer came from without and within them.

"Your other selves—your shadows..."

"Hrrrrrumph!" The Lord Mayor gave himself a shake as though he were coming out of a dream.

"Farewell!" he murmured, waving his hand. "Though who—or what—I'm saying it to, I really do not know. I seemed to be part of a beautiful party. All so merry! But where have they gone?"

"I expect you're over-tired, your worship!" The Policeman, closely followed by Ellen, drew him away to the Long Walk and the gate that led to the City.

Behind them marched the Aldermen, solemn and disapproving.

"I expect I am," the Lord Mayor said. "But it didn't
feel
like that..."

The Park Keeper glanced around the Park and took his mother's arm. Darkness filled the sky like a tide. In all the world, as far as his watchful eyes could see, there were only two points of light.

"That there star," he said, pointing, "and the night-light in Number Seventeen—if you look at 'em long enough, mum, you can 'ardly tell which is which!"

The Bird Woman drew her doves about her and smiled at him comfortably.

"Well, one's the shadder of the other! Let's be goin', lad..."

Michael came slowly in to breakfast, looking back over his shoulder. And slowly, slowly, a dark shape followed him over the floor.

"My shadow's here—is yours, Jane?"

"Yes," she said, sipping her milk. She had been awake a long time, smiling at her shadow. And it seemed to her, as the sun shone in, that her shadow was smiling back.

"And where else would they be, pray? Take your porridge, please."

Mary Poppins, in a fresh white apron, crackled into the room. She was carrying her best blue coat and the hat with the crimson tulip.

"Well—sometimes they're in the Park," said Jane. She gave the white apron a cautious glance. What would it say to
that?
she wondered.

The coat went on to its hook with a jerk and the hat seemed to leap to its paper bag.

"In the Park—or the garden—or up a tree! A shadow goes wherever you go. Don't be silly, Jane."

"But sometimes they escape, Mary Poppins." Michael reached for the sugar. "Like ours, last night, at the Hallowe'en Party!"

"Hallowe'en Party?" she said, staring. And you would have thought, to look at her, she had never heard those words before.

"Yes," he said rashly, taking no notice. "But your shadow never runs away—does it, Mary Poppins?"

She glanced across at the nursery mirror and met her own reflection. The blue eyes glowed, the pink cheeks shone and the mouth wore a small complacent smile.

"Why should it want to?" she said, sniffing. Run away? The idea!

"Not for a thousand pounds!" cried Michael. And the memory of the night's adventure bubbled up inside him. "Oh, how I laughed at the Lord Mayor!" He spluttered at the very thought. "And Mrs. Corry! And Goosey Gander!"

"And you, Mary Poppins," giggled Jane. "Hopping about all over the Park—and the butterfly on your shadow's shoulder!"

Michael and Jane looked at each other and roared with mirth. They flung back their heads and held their sides and rolled around in their chairs.

"Oh, dear! I'm choking! How funny it was!"

"Indeed?"

A voice as sharp as an icicle brought them up with a jerk.

They stopped in the middle of a laugh and tried to compose their faces. For the bright blue eyes of Mary Poppins were wide with shocked surprise.

"Hopping about? With a butterfly? At night? In a public place? Do you sit there, Jane and Michael Banks, and call me a kangaroo?"

This, they could see, was the last straw. The camel's back was broken.

"Sitting on Goosey Gander's shoulder? Hopping and flying all over the Park—is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"Well, not like a kangaroo, Mary Poppins. But you
were
hopping, I
think
——" Michael plunged for the right word as she glared at him over the teapot. But the sight of her face was too much for him. Out of the corner of his eye he looked across at Jane.

"Help me!" he cried to her silently. "Surely we did not dream it?"

But Jane, from the corner
of her
eye, was looking back at him. "No, it was true!" she seemed to say. For she gave her head a little shake and pointed towards the floor.

Michael looked down.

There lay Mary Poppins' shadow, neatly spread out upon the carpet. Jane's shadow and his own were leaning up against it, and upon its shoulder, black in the sun, was a shadowy butterfly.

"Oh!" cried Michael joyfully, dropping his spoon with a clatter.

"Oh, what?" said Mary Poppins tartly, glancing down at the floor.

She looked from the butterfly to Michael and then from Michael to Jane. And the porridge grew cold on their three plates as they all gazed at each other. Nothing was said—there was nothing to say. There were things, they knew, that could not be told. And, anyway, what did it matter? The three linked shadows on the floor understood it all.

"It's your birthday, isn't it, Mary Poppins?" said Michael at last, with a grin.

"Many happy returns, Mary Poppins!" Jane gave her hand a pat.

A pleased smile crept about her mouth, but she pursed her lips to prevent it.

"Who told you that?" she enquired, sniffing. As if she didn't know!

But Michael was full of joy and courage. If Mary Poppins never explained, why, indeed, should he? He only shook his head and smiled.

"I wonder!" he said, in a priggish voice exactly like her own.

"Impudence!" She sprang at him. But he darted, laughing, away from the table, out of the nursery and down the stairs, with Jane close at his heels.

Along the garden path they ran, through the gate and over the Lane and into the waiting Park.

The morning air was bright and clear, the birds were singing their autumn songs, and the Park Keeper was coming towards them with a late rose stuck in his cap....