Jane and Michael sat up and stared.
"Where did they come from?" demanded Michael. "I've been under my bed simply hundreds of times and I know they weren't there before."
Mary Poppins did not reply. She had begun to undress.
Jane and Michael exchanged glances. They knew it was no good asking, because Mary Poppins never explained anything.
She slipped off her starched white collar and fumbled at the clip of a chain round her neck.
"What's inside that?" enquired Michael, gazing at a small gold locket that hung on the end of the chain.
"A portrait."
"Whose?"
"You'll know when the time comes — not before," she snapped.
"When will the time come?"
"When I go."
They stared at her with startled eyes.
"But, Mary Poppins," cried Jane, "you won't ever leave us again, will you? Oh, say you won't!"
Mary Poppins glared at her.
"A nice life I'd have," she remarked, "if I spent all my days with you!"
"But you will stay?" persisted Jane eagerly.
Mary Poppins tossed the locket up and down on her palm.
"I'll stay till the chain breaks," she said briefly.
And popping a cotton nightgown over her head, she began to undress beneath it.
"That's all right," Michael whispered across to Jane. "I noticed the chain and it's a very strong one!"
He nodded to her reassuringly. They curled up in their beds and lay watching Mary Poppins as she moved mysteriously beneath the tent of her nightgown. And they thought of her first arrival at Cherry Tree Lane and all the strange and astonishing things that happened afterwards; of how she had flown away on her umbrella when the wind changed; of the long weary days without her and her marvellous descent from the sky this afternoon.
Suddenly Michael remembered something.
"My Kite!" he said, sitting up in bed. "I forgot all about it! Where's my Kite?"
Mary Poppins' head came up through the neck of the nightgown.
"Kite?" she said crossly. "Which Kite? What Kite?"
"My green-and-yellow Kite with the tassels. The one you came down on, at the end of the string."
Mary Poppins stared at him. He could not tell if she was more astonished than angry, but she looked as if she was both.
And her voice when she spoke, was more awful than her look.
"Did I understand you to say that—" she repeated the words slowly, between her teeth—"that I came down from somewhere and on the end of a string?"
"But — you did!" faltered Michael. "To-day. Out of a cloud. We saw you."
"On the end of a string? Like a monkey or a spinning-top? Me, Michael Banks?"
Mary Poppins, in her fury, seemed to have grown to twice her usual size. She hovered over him in her nightgown, huge and angry, waiting for him to reply.
He clutched the bed-clothes for support.
"Don't say any more, Michael!" Jane whispered warningly across from her bed. But he had gone too far now to stop.
"Then — where's my Kite?" he said recklessly. "If you didn't come down — er, in the way I said — where's my Kite? It's not on the end of the string."
"O-ho? And I am, I suppose?" she enquired with a scoffing laugh.
He saw then that it was no good going on. He could not explain. He would have to give it up.
"N — no," he said, in a thin, small voice. "No, Mary Poppins."
She turned and snapped out the electric light.
"Your manners," she remarked tartly, "have not improved since I went away! On the end of a string, indeed! I have never been so insulted in my life. Never!"
And with a furious sweep of her arm, she turned down her bed and flounced into it, pulling the blankets tight over her head.
Michael lay very quiet, still holding his bed-clothes tightly.
"She did, though, didn't she? We saw her." He whispered presently to Jane.
But Jane did not answer. Instead, she pointed towards the Night-Nursery door.
Michael lifted his head cautiously.
Behind the door, on a hook, hung Mary Poppins' overcoat, its silver buttons gleaming in the glow of the night-light. And dangling from the pocket were a row of paper tassels, the tassels of a green-and-yellow Kite.
They gazed at it for a long time.
Then they nodded across to each other. They knew there was nothing to be said, for there were things about Mary Poppins they would never understand. But — she was back again. That was all that mattered. The even sound of her breathing came floating across from the camp-bed. They felt peaceful and happy and complete.
"I don't mind, Jane, if it has a purple tail," hissed Michael presently.
"No, Michael!" said Jane. "I really think a red would be better."
After that there was no sound in the nursery but the sound of five people breathing very quietly….
"P-p! P-p!" went Mr. Banks' pipe.
"Click-click!" went Mrs. Banks' knitting needles.
Mr. Banks put his feet up on the study mantle-piece and snored a little.
After a while Mrs. Banks spoke.
"Do you still think of taking a long sea-voyage?" she asked.
"Er — I don't think so. I am rather a bad sailor. And my hat's all right now. I had the whole of it polished by the shoe-black at the corner and it looks as good as new. Even better. Besides, now that Mary Poppins is back, my shaving water will be just the right temperature."
Mrs. Banks smiled to herself and went on knitting.
She felt very glad that Mr. Banks was such a bad sailor and that Mary Poppins had come back.
Down in the Kitchen, Mrs. Brill was putting a fresh bandage round Ellen's ankle.
"I never thought much of her when she was here!" said Mrs. Brill, "but I must say that this has been a different house since this afternoon. As quiet as a Sunday and as neat as ninepence. I'm not sorry she's back."
"Neither am I, indeed!" said Ellen thankfully.
"And neither am I," thought Robertson Ay, listening to the conversation through the wall of the broom-cupboard. "Now I shall have a little peace."
He settled himself comfortably on the upturned coal-scuttle and fell asleep again with his head against a broom.
But what Mary Poppins thought about it nobody ever knew for she kept her thoughts to herself and never told anyone anything….
CHAPTER TWO
Miss Andrew's Lark
It was Saturday afternoon.
In the hall of Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane, Mr. Banks was busy tapping the barometer and telling Mrs. Banks what the weather was going to do.
"Moderate South wind; average temperature; local thunder; sea slight," he said. "Further outlook unsettled. Hullo — what's that?"
He broke off as a bumping, jumping, thumping noise sounded overhead.
Round the bend in the staircase Michael appeared, looking very bad-tempered and sulky as he bumped heavily down. Behind him with a Twin on each arm came Mary Poppins, pushing her knee into his back and sending him with a sharp thud from one stair to the next. Jane followed, carrying the hats.
"Well begun is half done. Down you go, please!" Mary Poppins was saying tartly.
Mr. Banks turned from the barometer and looked up as they appeared.
"Well, what's the matter with you?" he demanded.
"I don't want to go for a walk! I want to play with my new engine," said Michael, gulping as Mary Poppins' knee jerked him one stair lower.
"Nonsense, darling!" said Mrs. Banks. "Of course you do. Walking makes such long, strong legs."
"But I like short legs best," grumbled Michael, stumbling heavily down another stair.