Cinderella and the Witches vanished. The Sleeping Beauty and the Cat with the Fiddle fled, and were lost in light. And Jane and Michael, looking round for their partners, found that Robinson Crusoe and his Man Friday had dissolved into the air.
The fairy-tale music died away, it was lost in the lordly peal of bells. For now from every tower and steeple the chimes rang out, triumphant. Big Ben, St. Paul's, St. Bride's, Old Bailey, Southwark, St. Martin's, Westminster, Bow.
But one bell sounded above the others, merry and clear and insistent.
Ting-aling-aling-aling! It was different, somehow, from the New Year bells, familiar and friendly and nearer home.
Ting-aling-aling! it cried. And mixed with its echoes was a well-known voice.
"Who wants crumpets?" the voice said loudly, demanding immediate answer.
Jane and Michael opened their eyes. They sat up and stared about them. They were in their beds, under the eiderdowns, and John and Barbara were asleep beside them. The fire glowed gaily in the grate. The morning light streamed through the Nursery window. Ting-aling! From somewhere down below in the Lane came the sound of the tinkling bell.
"I said 'Who wants crumpets?' Didn't you hear me? The Crumpet Man's down in the Lane."
There was no mistaking it. The voice was the voice of Mary Poppins, and it sounded very impatient.
"I do!" said Michael, hurriedly.
"I do!" echoed Jane.
Mary Poppins sniffed. "Then why not say so at once!" she said snappily. She crossed to the window and waved her hand to summon the Crumpet Man.
Downstairs the front gate opened quickly with its usual noisy squeak. The Crumpet Man ran up the path and knocked at the Back Door. He was sure of an order from Number Seventeen for all the Banks family were partial to crumpets.
Mary Poppins turned away from the window and put a log on the fire.
Michael gazed at her sleepily for a moment. Then he rubbed his eyes and, with a start, he woke up completely.
"I say!" he shouted. "I want my Pig! Where is it, Mary Poppins?"
"Yes!" joined in Jane. "And I want Alfred! And where are the Blue Duck and Pinnie?"
"On the top of the cupboard. Where else would they be?" said Mary Poppins crossly.
They glanced up. There were the four toys standing in a row, exactly as she had left them. And in front of them lay Robinson Crusoe, The Green Fairy Book and Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes. But the books were no longer open as they had been last night. They were piled upon one another neatly and all were firmly closed.
"But — how did they get back from the Park?" said Michael, very surprised.
"And where is the Pig's flute?" Jane exclaimed. "And your concertina!"
It was now Mary Poppins' turn to stare.
"My — what?" she enquired, with an ominous look.
"Your concertina, Mary Poppins! You played it last night in the Park!"
Mary Poppins turned from the fire and came towards Jane, glaring.
"I'd like you to repeat that, please!" Her voice was quiet but dreadful. "Did I understand you to say, Jane Banks, that I was in the Park last night, playing a musical instrument? Me?"
"But you were!" protested Michael bravely. "We were all there. You and the Toys and Jane and I. We were dancing with the Fairy-tales inside the Crack!"
Mary Poppins stared at them as though her ears had betrayed her. The look on her face was Simply Frightful.
"Fairy-tales inside the Crack? Humph! You'll have Fairy-tales inside the Bath-room, if I hear One More Word. And the door locked, I promise you! Crack, indeed! Cracked, more likely!"
And turning away disgustedly, she opened the door with an angry fling and hurried down the stairs.
Michael was silent for a minute, thinking and remembering.
"It's funny," he said presently. "I thought it was true. But I must have dreamed it."
Jane did not answer.
She had suddenly darted out of bed and was putting a chair against the toy-cupboard. She climbed up quickly and seized the animals and ran across to Michael.
"Feel their feet!" she whispered excitedly.
He ran his hand over the Pig's trotters; he felt the grey-flannel hooves of Alfred, the Duck's webbed feet and Pinnie's paws.
"They're wet!" he said, with astonishment.
Jane nodded.
"And look!" she cried, snatching their slippers from under the beds and Mary Poppins' shoes from the boot-box.
The slippers were drenched and stained with dew; and on the soles of Mary Poppins' shoes were wet little broken blades of grass, the sort of thing you would expect to find on shoes that have danced at night in the Park.
Michael looked up at Jane and laughed.
"It wasn't a dream, then!" he said happily.
Jane shook her head, smiling.
They sat together on Michael's bed, nodding knowingly at each other, saying in silence the secret things that could not be put into words.
Presently Mary Poppins came in with the crumpets in her hand.
They looked at her over the shoes and slippers.
She looked at them over the plate of crumpets.
A long, long look of understanding passed between the three of them. They knew that she knew that they knew.
"Is today the New Year, Mary Poppins?" asked Michael.
"Yes," she said calmly, as she put the plate down on the table.
Michael looked at her solemnly. He was thinking about the Crack.
"Shall we, too, Mary Poppins?" he asked, blurting out the question.
"Shall you, too, what?" she enquired with a sniff.
"Live happily ever afterwards?" he said eagerly.
A smile, half sad, half tender, played faintly round her mouth.
"Perhaps," she said, thoughtfully. "It all depends."
"What on, Mary Poppins?"
"On you," she said, quietly, as she carried the crumpets to the fire….
CHAPTER 8
THE OTHER DOOR
It was a Round-the-Mulberry-Bush sort of morning, cold and rather frosty. The pale grey daylight crept through the Cherry-Trees and lapped like water over the houses. A little wind moaned through the gardens. It darted across the Park with a whistle and whined along the Lane.
"Brrrrrr!" said Number Seventeen. "What can that wretched wind be doing — howling and fretting around like a ghost! Hi! Stop that, can't you? You're making me shiver!"
"Whe-ew! Whe — ew! What shall I do?" cried the wind, taking no notice.
A raking noise came from inside the house. Robertson Ay was removing the ashes and laying fresh wood in the fireplaces.
"Ah, that's what I need!" said Number Seventeen, as Mary Poppins lit a fire in the Nursery. "Something to warm my chilly old bones. There goes that mournful wind again! I wish it would howl somewhere else!"
"Whe — ee! Whe — ee! When will it be?" sobbed the wind among the Cherry-Trees.
The Nursery fire sprang up with a crackle. Behind their bars the bright flames danced and shone on the window-pane. Robertson Ay slouched down to the broom cupboard to take a rest from his morning labours. Mary Poppins bustled about, as usual, airing the clothes and preparing the breakfast.
Jane had wakened before anyone else, for the howl of the wind had disturbed her. And now she sat on the window-seat, sniffing the delicious scent of toast and watching her reflection in the window. Half of the Nursery shone in the garden, a room made entirely of light. The flames of the fire were warm on her back but another fire leapt and glowed before her. It danced in the air between the houses beneath the reflection of the mantelpiece. Out there another rocking-horse was tossing his dappled head; and from the other side of the window another Jane watched and nodded and smiled. When Jane breathed on the window-pane and drew a face in the misty circle, her reflection did the very same thing. And all the time she was breathing and drawing, she could see right through herself. Behind the face that smiled at her were the bare black boughs of the Cherry-Trees, and right through the middle of her body was the wall of Miss Lark's house.