Mary Poppins Comes Back

by P. L. Travers

  “Oh, a chemist! No, I have seen no chemist. Certainly not a lost one.”

  “And he makes my porridge in the morning.”

  “A cook, then. No, I have not seen a cook.”

  “He comes from the South Seas and I’ve lost him!” Miss Andrew burst anew with sobs.

  The Prime Minister looked astonished. A cook – or a chemist – from the South Seas! Such a one, if lost, would be hard to find.

  “Well, give me your bag and we’ll take a walk along the Lane. Somebody may have seen him. You, perhaps, madam,” he said to Miss Lark, who was hurrying in pursuit of her dogs.

  “No!” said Miss Lark. “Neither have Andrew and Willoughby!” She was not going to have anything to do with the woman whose snoring had disturbed the Lane.

  The two dogs followed her, angrily growling. And the Prime Minister urged Miss Andrew along, letting her keep her grasp on his arm, as they went from gate to gate.

  No, Mrs Nineteen had seen nothing. That was all she would say. And Mr Twenty repeated her words. Neither felt sympathy for Miss Andrew. She had taken their precious Number Eighteen and, moreover, had kept locked up within it, the sunny stranger who, for just one little hour a day, they had come to love and respect. If Luti were indeed lost they hoped that some better fate would find him.

  “No, no, always no! Will nobody help me?” wailed Miss Andrew, grasping the Prime Minister more tightly.

  And behind them, like a soundless shadow, the perambulator swept along, with Mary Poppins and Jane and Michael walking softly on the grass.

  The Prime Minister’s arm was beginning to ache as Miss Andrew, continually lamenting, drew him towards Binnacle’s ship-shaped cottage which stood at the end of the Lane.

  Binnacle was sitting on his front doorstep, playing his concertina and the Admiral, with Mrs Boom beside him, was singing at the top of his voice his favourite sea-shanty.

  “Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main,

  And many a stormy wind shall blow

  Till Jack comes home again.”

  “Stop! Stop!” Miss Andrew shrieked. “Listen to what I have to tell you. Luti is lost. He has gone away.”

  The Admiral broke off in mid-song. The concertina was silent.

  “Blast my gizzard! Lost, you say? I don’t believe it – he’s a sensible lad. He’s probably simply up-anchored and gone to join the navy. That’s what a sensible lad would do. Don’t you think so, Prime Minister?”

  Privately, the Prime Minister did not think so at all. The navy, he felt, had all the cooks and chemists it needed. But he knew from experience that if he disagreed with the Admiral he would be advised to go to sea and he preferred being a landlubber.

  “Well, perhaps,” he said uneasily, “we must enquire further.”

  “But what shall I do?” Miss Andrew broke in. “He’s lost and I’ve nowhere to go!”

  “You’ve Number Eighteen,” Mrs Boom said gently. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Ask Binnacle!” said Admiral Boom. “He has an extra cabin. Plenty of room for her and her chattels.”

  Binnacle glanced at the Admiral. Then he eyed Miss Andrew reflectively. “Well, I could manage the medicines and all pirates know how to cook porridge. But–” his voice now held a note of warning, – “you’ve got to pay the price!”

  Relief dawned on Miss Andrew’s face. “Oh, anything! Ask any price you like. I will gladly pay it.” She loosened her grasp on the Prime Minister’s arm.

  “Nah, nah, it’s not the money. You need someone to cook and measure and I need someone to read to me – not once or twice but whenever I’m free!”

  “Oh, I could think of nothing better.” A smile made its way on to Miss Andrew’s face, which was not used to smiling. “I have many books I could bring with me and teach you what I taught Luti.”

  “Look, lady. I don’t want no ‘eddication’. All a pirate needs to learn is how to be a pirate. But –” and again there was a note of warning –, “I won’t have anyone in my house unless they can be a proper shipmate and dance the Sailor’s Hornpipe!”

  “The Hornpipe!” Miss Andrew was shocked. “I could never think of such a thing. Besides, I don’t even know it!”

  “Of course you could!” said the Admiral. “Everyone on sea or land can do the Sailor’s Hornpipe. All you need is to hear the music. Strike a chord, Binnacle. Up with the anchor!”

  Binnacle grinned at the Admiral, and the concertina, at a touch of his hand, broke into the rocking tune.

  The Admiral’s feet began to twitch, so did Mrs Boom’s. So did the Prime Minister’s. And Mrs Nineteen and Mr Twenty, hearing the sound from their front gardens, began to sway with the music.

  But Miss Andrew stood as if carved in stone, her face fierce and determined. ‘Nothing will move me,’ it seemed to say, ‘not even an earthquake’.

  Mary Poppins regarded her thoughtfully, as the music grew wilder and wilder. Then she plucked the mouth organ from Michael’s pocket and put it to her lips.

  Immediately a tune broke from it keeping time with the concertina. And slowly, slowly, as though against its will, the stone figure thrust from beneath its skirts two large feet that had never danced but were now beginning to shuffle. Heel and toe, away we go, across the bounding main.

  And suddenly they were all sailors, Miss Andrew among them, unwillingly moving her great bulk through the measures of the hornpipe.

  The Twins and Annabel bobbed up and down. Jane and Michael pranced beside them, while the Cherry Trees bent and bowed and the cherries twirled on their stems. Only Mary Poppins stood still, the mouth organ, held against her lips, giving out its lively tune.

  Then it was over, the last chord played, and everyone – except Miss Andrew – was breathless and pleased with themselves.

  “Bravo, messmate!” the Admiral roared, doffing his hat to the stony figure.

  But the stony figure took no notice. It had caught sight suddenly of Mary Poppins, stuffing the mouth organ into Michael’s pocket.

  A long, long look, as of two wolves meeting, passed between the pair.

  “You again!” Miss Andrew’s face was contorted with rage and the realisation that for the second time Mary Poppins had bamboozled her. “It was you who made me perform like that – so shameful, so undignified! And you, you, YOU, who sent Luti away!” She pointed a large, trembling finger at the calm and smiling figure.

  “Nonsense, madam, you are much mistaken,” the Prime Minister broke in. “No one can force another to dance. You owe it to your own two feet, and very apt they were. As for Miss Poppins, a respectable well-behaved young woman, always so busy with her charges, could such a one gallivant about, dispatching cooks – or for that matter, chemists – to somewhere in the South Seas? Certainly not. It’s unthinkable!”

  Jane and Michael looked at each other. The unthinkable, they knew, had been thought. It had, indeed, recently happened. And Luti was on his way to his homeland.

  “Everyone needs his own home,” said Mary Poppins calmly. And she twirled the perambulator round and sent it speeding homewards.

  “And I need mine,” cried Miss Andrew wildly, flinging herself against Binnacle’s front door.

  “Well, you’ve got one here,” said Binnacle. “Unles –” he smiled a terrible pirate smile –”unless you’d prefer Number Eighteen.”

  “Oh, never, never! Not without Luti!” Miss Andrew buried her face in her hands. And before she knew it, Binnacle and the Prime Minister – who was still holding the medicine bag – had hustled her into the house.

  “Well, she’s safely in port,” said Admiral Boom. “They’ll put her on an even keel.”

  And, taking Mrs Boom’s arm, he allowed her to lead him away.

  It was growing dark when Mr Banks, coming along the Lane, glanced at Binnacle’s front window and beheld a curious sight. In a small room, clean and bare as the deck of a ship, sat Miss Andrew in the only chair, looking like somebody who has been shipwrecked. An empty glass stood on a table nearby and besi
de her, squatting on his haunches, was Binnacle, absorbed in something she was reading aloud – an activity that, from the look on her face, filled her with rage and disgust.

  And, in the doorway, intently listening, was no less a person than the Prime Minister. The Head of the State in Cherry Tree Lane concerning himself with the goings-on in the home of an ex-pirate!

  Amazed, Mr Banks took off his hat. “Can I be of service, Prime Minister? Is anything amiss?”

  “Oh, Banks, my dear fellow, such tribulations! The lady whom you see inside has vacated Number Eighteen because her companion – a cook or a chemist, I’m not sure which – has apparently deserted her. And Binnacle, the Admiral’s servant, has taken her to live with him on two important conditions – one, that she dance the Sailor’s Hornpipe and the other, that she read to him. Well, she has danced, though unwillingly, and now she is reading aloud.”

  “I am flabbergasted!” said Mr Banks. “Miss Andrew dancing! Luti gone! I think you should know, Prime Minister, that that companion was neither a cook nor a chemist, but a boy hardly taller than my daughter Jane, who was brought by Miss Andrew from the Southern Seas.”

  “A child! Good Heavens, we must get the police! A lost boy must be searched for.”

  “I wouldn’t advise it, Prime Minister. The police might frighten him. Give him just a little more time. He’s a bright lad. He will find his way.”

  “We-ell, if you think so. You know them better than I.”

  “I do, indeed. Miss Andrew was once my governess. And she’s known as the Holy Terror. The boy has had a lucky escape.”

  “Ha! Well, it’s Binnacle now who’s the Holy Terror. He has given her cold porridge to eat, made her drink various medicines mixed together in a single glass, and he won’t let her read to him anything but copies – new or old – of Fizzo!”

  “Fizzo! But that’s a comic, surely. And Miss Andrew is a learnt woman. Having to read comics aloud will simply horrify her. Perhaps it will even drive her mad.”

  “Well, I happen to like them, Banks. I get so weary of making Laws that I find Fizzo quite restful. We have just had Tiger Tim and the Tortoise and are now in the middle of Sam’s Adventure. So, excuse me, please, my dear fellow. I must hear how he and Gwendolyn manage to deal with the Dragon.”

  “Oh, of course!” said Mr Banks politely.

  And, leaving the Prime Minister craning his head to catch the story, he hurried home full of the evening’s news.

  Number Eighteen, as he passed it, had something of its old friendly look and Miss Lark’s dogs were busily sniffing at something under the hedge. They could smell the old bones they had given Luti and, since he seemed to have gone away, they were anxious to retrieve them. Why leave such treasures for other dogs?

  “I have news for you,” Mr Banks exclaimed, as Mrs Banks met him at the door. “The sensation of the year, my dear! Luti is no longer with us and Miss Andrew has left Next Door and gone to live with Binnacle.”

  Mrs Banks gave an astonished shriek and collapsed upon a chair.

  “Luti lost? Oh, that poor dear child! Shouldn’t we go and look for him? So young and in a strange land.”

  “Oh, Luti has a good head on his shoulders. He’s probably made his way to the docks and stowed away on some trading ship. It’s Miss Andrew I’m thinking about. She kept that boy like a bird in a cage and now she’s a bird in a cage herself, reading stories from Fizzo.”

  “Fizzo? Miss Andrew? I can’t believe it.” It was Mrs Banks’ turn to be flabbergasted.

  Mr Banks was almost dancing with joy. He was thinking that now his astronomer would soon be in his old haunts again, his telescope turned to the sky. He did not yet know that Next Door’s invisible dwellers were already back in their places – the Grandmother, the chess companions, Admiral Boom’s brave sea captain, Mrs Boom’s quiet child, Mrs Banks’ friendly friend, the Sleeping Beauty, Gobbo. Nor did he realise that even the nettles had begun to sprout in the garden again.

  “Think of it!” he cried with delight. “Number Eighteen empty again and with luck we’ll keep it so!”

  “But, George, shouldn’t we think of Miss Andrew? Will she be able to endure such a life?”

  “No, my dear, I’m sure she won’t. It’s my belief that Binnacle will wake up one morning and find himself deserted – no one to read aloud to him. Miss Andrew, as we know, has a mind of her own. She’s a learnt woman and a born teacher. She’ll skip off somewhere, I’ll be bound. Last time it was to the South. Perhaps she’ll make her way Northwards and find an Eskimo, heaven help him! You mark my words, the Lane will have seen the last of her sooner than you think.”

  “Well, I hope so,” murmured Mrs Banks. “We have had enough of that terrible snoring. Michael!” She broke off at the sight of a figure in pyjamas perched on the banisters. “You ought to be in bed!”

  “And what do you think you’re doing?” asked his father. “Trying to climb up the banisters?”

  “I’m being a pirate,” Michael panted, attempting to pull himself higher.

  “Well, no one, not even a pirate, can climb up banisters. It’s against the laws of nature. And by the way – I’m sorry to have to tell you this – Luti has gone away. We won’t be seeing him again, I’m afraid.”

  “I know,” said Michael – knowing too, though he did not say so, that Someone had climbed the banisters. Someone, in fact, who was not far away.

  “Really!” said Mr Banks testily. “I can’t think how it so often happens that my children seem to know what’s afoot before I get a hint of it. Be off with you, on your two feet, like any civilised being.”

  Michael went unwillingly. He did not like being civilised.

  At the top of the stairs Mary Poppins was waiting, a blue-clad statue with an arm outstretched that pointed to his bed.

  “Oh, not again, please, Mary Poppins. I’m tired of going to bed every night.”

  “The night is for sleeping,” she said primly. “So, in with you, spit-spot. And you too, if you please, Jane.”

  For Jane, holding Luti’s coconut, was kneeling on the window-seat watching the full moon sailing the sky low down on the horizon. There was somebody there, though she could not see him, for whom no night was for sleeping.

  “And I’ll take care of that. Thank you!” Mary Poppins took the coconut and glanced at the carved smiling face that seemed to repeat, though wordlessly, Luti’s phrase of, “Peace and blessings!”.

  She placed it on the mantelpiece and as she did so her image looked at her from the mirror and the two exchanged a nod of approval.

  “But I wanted to watch and wake,” grumbled Michael.

  To his surprise Mary Poppins said nothing. She merely placed a chair by his bed and with a wide dramatic gesture invited him to sit down.

  He did so, full of determination. He too would see Luti on his way.

  But soon his eyes began to close. He propped them open with his fingers. But then he yawned, an enormous yawn that seemed to swallow him up.

  “I’d better do it tomorrow,” he said, and rolled sideways into the bed that Mary Poppins, with a look that said more than words, was turning down for him.

  “Tomorrow never comes,” said Jane. “When you wake up it’s always today.” And she too climbed into bed.

  They lay there, watching Mary Poppins making her usual whirlwind round, tucking in Annabel and the Twins, pushing the rocking-horse into his corner, taking things out of pockets, folding up the clothes. As she came to Michael’s sailor blouse, she tossed the mouth organ to him.

  He decided to give it another try, blowing in and blowing out, but again the mouth organ was silent.

  “It still won’t work for me,” he said, “and it wouldn’t for the Man-in-the-Moon. I wonder, Mary Poppins, why it worked for you when you played the Sailor’s Hornpipe?”

  She favoured him with a quick blue glance. “I wonder!” she said mockingly, and went on being a whirlwind.

  Jane too would have liked to watch and wake, but she knew that
she could not do it. So she lay still, thinking of Luti – picturing the singing, leaping figure, wrapped in the scarf of woollen roses, careering across the sky. For Luti too, the night was not for sleeping. And suddenly, she was anxious.

  “Suppose, Mary Poppins,” she burst out. “Suppose there are not enough clouds up there to take him all the way!” She remembered many a clear, bright night when from corner to corner of the world, there was nothing but dark blue sky. “What if he came to an empty space? How could he go further?”

  “There’s always a cloud about somewhere,” said Mary Poppins comfortably. And she set a match to the wick of the night-light where it stood on the mantelpiece, a small and glowing likeness of the big lamp on the table. As usual, it would watch all night. And the two lamps filled the room with shadows that were themselves like clouds.

  Jane felt reassured. “When the morning comes he will be at home, under the coconut palms. And we too will be at home, but under the Cherry Trees. It’s different, but somehow the same.”

  “East. West. Home’s Best,” said Mary Poppins cheerfully, as she hung the parrot-headed umbrella on its accustomed hook.

  “And you, Mary Poppins,” Jane demanded, knowing that it was a daring question. “Where is your home – East or West? Where do you go when you’re not here?”

  “Everyone needs his own home – that’s what you said today, remember?” Michael too was daring.

  Mary Poppins stood by the table, a whirlwind no longer, her day’s work over.

  The glow from the big lamp lit up her face, the pink cheeks, the blue eyes, the turned-up nose.

  She looked at them both reflectively while they waited, hardly breathing. Where did she come from – woodland or field, cottage or castle, mountain or sea? Would she or wouldn’t she tell them?

  Oh, she would! they thought, for her face was so vivid, so brimful of things that remained to be told.

  Then a sparkle leapt to the blue eyes and the old, familiar secret smile greeted their eager faces.

  “I’m at home,” she said, “wherever I am!”

  And with that, she turned out the lamp.