“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 nightlight 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 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. . .
Chelsea, London
March 1952
G.I.E.D.
To KLT and CJT
IT WAS Midsummer’s Eve. This is the most magical night of the year. Many curious things can happen in it before it gives way to the dawn. But it was not night yet by any means. The sun, still bright, was dawdling to the west, lazily taking his time about it, as though reluctant to leave the world.
He felt that he had done it proud, putting upon it a shine and a polish that would not quickly fade. His own reflection shone back at him from fountains, lakes and window-panes, even from the ripened fruit that hung in the trees of Cherry Tree Lane, a place well known to him.
“Nothing like sunshine,” he flattered himself, as he noted the glitter of the ship’s lanterns on either side of the Admiral’s gate; the sparkle of the brass knocker on the door of Miss Lark’s mansion; the gleam that came from an old tin toy, abandoned, apparently, by its owners, in the garden of the smallest house. This too, was a place well known to him.
“Not a soul in sight,” he thought to himself, as he sent his long light over the Lane and then across the open space, large and green and blossoming, that spread beside and beyond it. And this too, he knew well. After all, he had had a hand in its making. For where would they be – tree, grass and flower – without, as it were, his helping hand, greening the grass, coaxing the leaf from the bare bough, warming the bud into flower?
And here, among lengthening light and shadows, there was a soul in sight.
“Who’s that, down there in the Park?” he wondered, as a curious figure went back and forth, blowing a whistle and shouting.
Who else could it be but the Park Keeper? It was no wonder, however, that the sun did not recognise him for, in spite of the heavy heat of June, he was wearing a black, felt, sea-faring hat painted with skull-and-crossbones.
“Obey the Rules! Remember the Bye-laws! All Litter to be placed in the Baskets!” he bellowed.
But nobody took any notice. People went strolling hand in hand; scattering litter as they went; deliberately sauntering on lawns whose notices said KEEP OFF THE GRASS; failing to Observe the Rules; forgetting all the Bye-laws.
The Policeman was marching to and fro, swinging his baton and looking important, as if he thought he owned the earth and expected the earth to be glad of it.
Children went up and down on the swings, swooping like evening swallows.
And the swallows sang their songs so loudly that nobody heard the Park Keeper’s whistle.
Admiral and Mrs Boom, sharing a bag of peanuts between them and dropping the empty shells as they went, were taking the air in the Long Walk.
“Oh, I’m roaming
In the gloaming
with my lassie by my side!”
sang the Admiral, disregarding the signboard’s warning NO HAWKERS, NO MUSICIANS.
In the Rose Garden, a tall man, in a cricketing cap a little too small and skimpy for him, was dipping his handkerchief into the fountain and was mopping his sunburnt brow.
Down by the Lake, an elderly gentleman in a hat of folded newspaper stood turning his head this way and that, sniffing the air like a gun dog.
“Coo-ee, Professor!” called Miss Lark, hurrying across the lawns, with her dogs unwillingly dragging behind her, as though they wished they were somewhere else.
For Miss Lark, to celebrate Midsummer’s Eve, had tied a ribbon upon each head – pink for Willoughby, blue for Andrew – and they felt ashamed and dejected. What, they wondered, would people think? They might be mistaken for poodles!
“Professor, I’ve been waiting for you. You must have lost your way.”
“Well, that’s the way with ways, I suppose. Either you lose them or they lose you. Anyway, you’ve found me, Miss Sparrow. But, alas!” he fanned himself with his hat, “I find the Sahara Desert a little – er – hot.”
“You are not in the Sahara, Professor. You are in the Park. Don’t you remember? I invited you to supper.”
“Ah, so you did. To Strawberry Street. I hope it will be cooler there. For you and me and your two – um – poodles.”
Andrew and Willoughby hung their heads. Their worst fears had been realised.
“No, no. The address is Cherry Tree Lane. And my name is Lucinda Lark. Do try not to be so forgetful. Ah, there you are, dear friends!” she trilled, as she spied the Booms in the distance. “Where are you off to this beautiful evening?”
“Sailing, sailing, over a bounding main,” sang the Admiral. “And many a stormy wind shall blow, till Jack comes home again – won’t it, messmate?” he enquired of his wife.
“Yes, dear,” murmured Mrs Boom. “Unless you would like to wait till tomorrow. Binnacle is making Cottage Pie and there will be Apple Tart for dinner.”
“Cottage Pie! I can’t miss that. Let down the anchor, midshipman. We’ll wait for the morning tide.”
“Yes, dear,” Mrs Boom agreed. But she knew there would be no morning tide. She also knew that the Admiral, although he was always talking about it, would never go to sea again. It was far too far away from land and it always made him seasick.
“Obey the Rules! Observe the Bye-laws!” The Park Keeper rushed past, blowing his whistle.
“Ship ahoy there! Heave to, old salt!” The Admiral seized the Park Keeper’s sleeve. “That’s my hat you’re wearing, skipper. I won it in a hand-to-hand fight off the coast of Madagascar. Didn’t I, messmate?” he demanded.
“If you say so, dear,” murmured Mrs Boom. It was better, she knew, to agree than to argue. But privately she was aware of the facts – that the hat belonged to Binnacle, a retired pirate who kept the Admiral’s shi
p-shaped house as shipshape as only a pirate could; and, moreover, that neither he nor her husband had ever clapped eyes on Madagascar.
“And I thought I had lost my Skull-and-Crossbones! Where did you find it, you son of a sea-snake?”
“Well, it fell down, sort of, out of the sky.” The Park Keeper shuffled uneasily. “And I put it on by mistake, so to say, not meaning any harm, Admiral, sir.”
“Nonsense! You’re thinking of cannon balls. Pirate hats don’t fall from the sky. Hand it over to Mrs Boom. She carries all the heavy things while I spy out the land.” The Admiral took out his telescope and fixed it to his eye.
“But what am I going to put on my head?” the Park Keeper demanded.
“Go to sea, my man, and they’ll give you a cap. A white thing with H.M.S. Something on it. You can’t have my pirate hat, I need it. For away I’m bound to go – oho! – ’cross the wide Missouri.”
And the Admiral, singing lustily, dragged his wife and the hat away.
The Park Keeper glanced round anxiously. What if the Lord Mayor came along and found him with his head uncovered? He dared not think of the consequences. If only the long day were over. If only all these crowding people, lolling or strolling hand in hand, would go home to their suppers. Then he could lock the Park Gates and slip away into the dark where his lack of a cap would not be noticed. If only the sun would go down!
But the sun still lingered. No one went home. They merely opened paper bags, took out cakes and sandwiches and threw the bags on to the grass.
“You’d think they thought they owned the Park,” said the Park Keeper, who thought he owned it himself.
More people streamed in through the Main Gate, two by two, choosing balloons; or two by two from Mudge’s Fair Ground, buying ice cream from the Ice Cream Man, each one holding the other’s hand as the falling sun threw their long shadows before them on the lawns.
And then, through the Lane Gate, came another shadow that preceded through the two pillars a small but formal procession – a perambulator packed with toys and children; at one side a girl who carried a basket, at the other a boy in a sailor suit with a string bag swinging from his hand.