"Back again?" snapped Mary Poppins, watching him prance in. "You're as bad as a bad penny!" She gave a long disgusted sniff.
"I've been busy!" said the Starling. "Have to keep my affairs in order. And this isn't the only Nursery I have to look after, you know!" His beady black eyes twinkled wickedly.
"Humph!" she said shortly, "I'm sorry for the others!"
He chuckled and shook his head.
"Nobody like her!" he remarked chirpily to the blind-tassel. "Nobody like her! She's got an answer for everything!" He cocked his head towards the cradle. "Well, how are things? Annabel asleep?"
"No thanks to you, if she is!" said Mary Poppins.
The Starling ignored the remark. He hopped to the end of the sill.
"I'll keep watch," he said, in a whisper. "You go down and get a cup of tea!"
Mary Poppins stood up.
"Mind you don't wake her, then!"
The Starling laughed pityingly.
"My dear girl, I have in my time brought up at least twenty broods of fledglings. I don't need to be told how to look after a mere baby."
"Humph!" Mary Poppins walked to the cupboard and very pointedly put the biscuit-tin under her arm before she went out and shut the door.
The Starling marched up and down the window-sill, backwards and forwards, with his wing-tips under his tail-feathers.
There was a small stir in the cradle. Annabel opened her eyes.
"Hullo!" she said. "I was wanting to see you."
"Ha!" said the Starling, swooping across to her.
"There's something I wanted to remember," said Annabel frowning, "and I thought you might remind me."
He started. His dark eye glittered.
"How does it go?" he said softly. "Like this?"
And he began in a husky whisper—"I am earth and air and fire and water—"
"No, no!" said Annabel impatiently. "Of course it doesn't."
"Well," said the Starling anxiously. "Was it about your journey? You came from the sea and its tides, you came from the sky and—"
"Oh, don't be so silly!" cried Annabel. "The only journey I ever took was to the Park and back again this morning. No, no — it was something important. Something beginning with B."
She crowed suddenly.
"I've got it!" she cried. "It's Biscuit. Half an Arrowroot Biscuit on the mantel-piece. Michael left it there after tea!"
"Is that all?" said the Starling sadly.
"Yes, of course," Annabel said fretfully. "Isn't it enough? I thought you'd be glad of a nice piece of biscuit!"
"So I am, so I am!" said the Starling hastily. "But—"
She turned her head on the pillow and closed her eyes.
"Don't talk any more now, please!" she said. "I want to go to sleep."
The Starling glanced across at the mantel-piece, and down again at Annabel.
"Biscuits!" he said, shaking his head. "Alas, Annabel, alas!"
Mary Poppins came in quietly and closed the door.
"Did she wake?" she said in a whisper.
The Starling nodded.
"Only for a minute," he said sadly. "But it was long enough."
Mary Poppins' eyes questioned him.
"She's forgotten," he said, with a catch in his croak. "She's forgotten it all. I knew she would. But, ah, my dear, what a pity!"
"Humph!"
Mary Poppins moved quietly about the Nursery, putting the toys away. She glanced at the Starling. He was standing on the window-sill with his back to her, and his speckled shoulders were heaving.
"Caught another cold?" she remarked sarcastically.
He wheeled around.
"Certainly not! It's — ahem — the night air. Rather chilly, you know. Makes the eyes water. Well — I must be off!"
He waddled unsteadily to the edge of the sill. "I'm getting old," he croaked sadly. "That's what it is! Not so young as we were. Eh, Mary Poppins?"
"I don't know about you—" Mary Poppins drew herself up haughtily. "But I'm quite as young as I was, thank you!"
"Ah," said the Starling, shaking his head. "You're a Wonder. An absolute, Marvellous, Wonderful Wonder!" His round eye twinkled wickedly.
"I don't think!" he called back rudely, as he dived out of the window.
"Impudent Sparrer!" she shouted after him and shut the window with a bang….
CHAPTER SIX
Robertson Ay's Story
Step along, please!" said Mary Poppins, pushing the perambulator, with the Twins at one end of it and Annabel at the other, towards her favourite seat in the Park.
It was a green one, quite near the Lake, and she chose it because she could bend sideways, every now and again, and see her own reflection in the water. The sight of her face gleaming between two water-lilies always gave her a pleasant feeling of satisfaction and contentment.
Michael trudged behind.
"We're always stepping along," he grumbled to Jane in a whisper, taking care that Mary Poppins did not hear him, "but we never seem to get anywhere."
Mary Poppins turned round and glared at him.
"Put your hat on straight!"
Michael tilted his hat over his eyes. It had "H.M.S. Trumpeter" printed on the band and he thought it suited him very well.
But Mary Poppins was looking with contempt at them both.
"Humph!" she said. "You two look a picture, I must say! Stravaiging along like a couple of tortoises and no polish on your shoes."
"Well, it's Robertson Ay's Half-day," said Jane. "I suppose he didn't have time to do them before he went out."
"Tch, tch! Lazy, idle, Good-for-nothing — that's what he is. Always was and always will be!" Mary Poppins said, savagely pushing the perambulator up against her own green seat.
She lifted out the Twins, and tucked the shawl tightly around Annabel. She glanced at her sunlit reflection in the Lake and smiled in a superior way, straightening the new bow of ribbon at her neck. Then she took her bag of knitting from the perambulator.
"How do you know he's always been idle?" asked Jane. "Did you know Robertson Ay before you came here?"
"Ask no questions and you'll be told no lies!" said Mary Poppins priggishly, as she began to cast on stitches for a woollen vest for John.
"She never tells us anything!" Michael grumbled.
"I know!" sighed Jane.
But very soon they forgot about Robertson Ay and began to play Mr.-and-Mrs.-Banks-and-Their-Two-Children. Then they became Red Indians with John and Barbara for Squaws. And after that they changed into Tight-Rope-Walkers with the back of the green seat for a rope.
"Mind my hat—if you please!" said Mary Poppins. It was a brown one with a pigeon's feather stuck into the ribbon.
Michael went carefully, foot over foot, along the back of the seat. When he got to the end he took off his hat and waved it.
"Jane," he cried, "I'm the King of the Castle and you're the—"
"Stop, Michael!" she interrupted and pointed across the Lake. "Look over there!"
Along the path at the edge of the Lake came a tall, slim figure, curiously dressed. He wore stockings of red striped with yellow, a red-and-yellow tunic scalloped at the edges, and on his head was a large-brimmed red-and-yellow hat with a high peaked crown.
Jane and Michael watched with interest as he came towards them, moving with a lazy swaggering step, his hands in his pockets and his hat pulled down over his eyes.
He was whistling loudly and as he drew nearer they saw that the peaks of his tunic, and the brim of his hat, were edged with little bells that jingled musically as he moved. He was the strangest person they had ever seen and yet — there was something about him that seemed familiar.