“Wot about it – eh?” the Policeman smirked, and before Ellen had time to blow her nose, he had whirled her into the dance.
One, two, three! One, two, three! High and sweet, the music flowed from the Hurdy-gurdy. The street lamps blazed with sudden brightness and speckled the Lane with light and shadow. One, two, three, went Miss Calico’s feet, as she danced along beside Mr Twigley. It was such a wild and merry tune that Jane and Michael could stand still no longer. Off they darted and one, two, three, their feet went tapping on the echoing road.
“’Ere! Wot’s all this? Observe the Rules! We can’t ’ave dancing in Public Places! Move on, now, don’t obstruct the traffic!” The Park Keeper, goggling as usual, came threading his way through Cherry Tree Lane.
“Mercy me and a Jumping Bean! You’re just the man I want!” shrieked Miss Calico. And before the Park Keeper knew where he was, she had swung him into the mazy dance where he gulped and gaped and twirled.
“Round we go, Clara!” cried Mr Wigg, swinging past with Mrs Corry.
“I used to do this with Henry the Eighth – and oh, what a time we had!” she shrieked. “Get along, clumsies! Keep your feet to yourselves!” she added, in a different voice, to Fannie and Annie who were dancing together like a pair of mournful elephants.
“I’ve never been so happy before!” came Miss Lark’s excited cry.
“You should go to sea, my dear Lucinda! Everyone’s happy at sea!” roared the Admiral, as he polka-ed madly along.
“I do believe I will,” she replied.
And her two dogs looked at each other aghast and hoped she would change her mind.
Deeper and deeper grew the dusk as the dancers whirled in a ring. And there in the centre stood Mary Poppins with her flowers clasped in her hands. She rocked the perambulator gently and her foot beat time with the music. The Match Man watched her from the pavement. And the couples, as they polka-ed past, gave her a little quick touch on the shoulder as though they were saluting her.
Straight and stiff she stood there, smiling, and her eyes went roving from one to the other – Miss Lark and the Admiral; the Topsy-Turvies; the two Noahs rolling around on their discs; Miss Calico clutching the Park Keeper; Mrs Corry in the arms of Mr Wigg; and Mrs Corry’s big daughters. Then her bright glance fell on the two young children who were dancing round in the ring. She looked at them for a long, long moment, watching their bright enchanted faces and their arms going out to each other.
And suddenly, as though they felt that look upon them, they stopped in the middle of their dance and ran to her, laughing and breathless.
“Mary Poppins!” they both cried, pressing against her. Then they found they had nothing else to say. Her name seemed to be enough.
She put her arms about their shoulders and looked into their eyes. It was a long, deep, searching look that plunged right down to their very hearts and saw what was there. Then she smiled to herself and turned away. She took her parrot-headed umbrella from the perambulator and gathered Annabel into her arms.
“I must go in now, Jane and Michael! You two can bring the Twins later.”
They nodded, still panting from the dance.
“Now, be good children!” she said quietly. “And remember all I have told you.”
They smiled at her reassuringly. What a funny thing to say, they thought. As if they would dare forget!
She gave the Twins’ curls a gentle rumple; she buttoned up Michael’s coat at the neck and straightened Jane’s collar.
“Now, spit-spot and away we go!” she cried gaily to Annabel.
Then off she tripped through the garden gate, with the baby, the flowers and the parrot umbrella held lightly in her arms. Up the steps went the prim, trim figure, walking with a jaunty air as though she was thoroughly pleased with herself.
“Farewell, Mary Poppins!” the dancers cried, as she paused at the Front Door.
She glanced back over her shoulder and nodded. Then the Hurdy-gurdy gave a loud sweet peal and the Front Door closed behind her.
Jane shivered as the music ceased. Perhaps it was the frost in the air that made her feel so lonely.
Michael reached out and tucked the rug more tightly round the Twins.
“We’ll wait till all the people leave and then we’ll go in,” said Jane.
She glanced around at the group of dancers. They were standing still upon the pavement and seemed to be waiting for something. For every face was gazing upwards at Number Seventeen.
“What can they be looking at?” said Michael, as he craned his own head backwards.
Then a glow appeared at the Nursery windows and a dark shape moved across it. The children knew it was Mary Poppins, lighting the evening fire. And presently the flames sprang up. They sparkled on the window-panes and shone through the darkening garden. Higher and higher leapt the blaze, brighter and brighter the windows gleamed. Then suddenly they saw the Nursery reflected upon Miss Lark’s side wall. There it gleamed, high above the garden, with its sparkling fire and the mantelpiece and the old armchair and—
“The Door! The Door!” A breathless cry went up from the crowd in the Lane.
What door? Jane and Michael stared at each other. And suddenly – they knew!
“Oh, Michael! It isn’t her friends who are going away!” cried Jane in an anguished voice. “It’s – oh, hurry, hurry! We must go and find her!”
With trembling hands they hauled out the Twins and dragged them through the gate. Panting with anxiety they ran up the garden path. They tore at the Front Door, rushed upstairs and burst into the Nursery.
Their faces fell as they stared at the room, for everything in it was quiet and peaceful as it had always been. The fire was crackling behind its bars and, cosily tucked inside her cot, Annabel was softly cooing. The bricks they had used for the morning’s Castle were neatly piled in a corner. And beside them lay the precious box of Mary Poppins’ dominoes.
“Oh!” they panted, surprised and puzzled to find everything just the same.
Everything? No! There was one thing missing.
“The camp bed!” Michael cried. “It’s gone! Then – where is Mary Poppins?”
He tore through the Nursery, calling her name. He ran to the bathroom and out on the landing and back to the Nursery again.
“Mary Poppins! Mary Poppins! Mary Poppins!”
Then Jane glanced up from the fire to the window and gave a little cry.
“Oh, Michael, Michael! There she is! And there is the Other Door!”
He followed the line of her pointing finger and his mouth opened wide.
For there, on the outer side of the window, another Nursery glimmered. It stretched from Number Seventeen to the wall of Miss Lark’s house; and everything in the real Nursery was reflected in that shining room. There was Annabel’s gleaming cot and the table made of light. There was the fire, leaping up in mid-air; and there, at last, was the Other Door, exactly the same as the one behind them. It shimmered like a panel of light at the other side of the garden. Beside it stood their own reflections and towards it, along the airy floor, tripped the figure of Mary Poppins. She carried the carpetbag in her hand; and the Match Man’s flowers and the parrot umbrella were tucked beneath her arm. Away she stalked through the Nursery’s reflection, away through the shimmering likenesses of the old familiar things. And as she went, the daisies nodded on the crown of her black straw hat.