“I had no intention of bothering!” She opened the gate of Number Seventeen with an angry flick of her hand.
The Taxi Man started up his engine and jerked away down the Lane. “She’s upset me, that’s what she’s done!” he murmured. “If I do get home in time for me dinner, I shan’t be able to eat it!”
Mary Poppins tripped up the path, followed by Jane and Michael.
Mrs Banks stood in the front hall, looking up at the stairs.
“Oh, do be careful, Robertson Ay!” she was saying anxiously. He was carrying a cardboard box and lurching slowly from stair to stair as though he were almost asleep.
“Never a moment’s peace!” he muttered. “First it’s one thing, then another. There!” He gave a sleepy heave, thrust the package into the Nursery and fell in a snoring heap on the landing.
Jane dashed upstairs to look at the label.
“What’s in it – a present?” shouted Michael.
The Twins, bursting with curiosity, were jumping up and down. And Annabel peered through her cot railings and banged her rattle loudly.
“Is this a Nursery or a Bear-pit?” Mary Poppins stepped over Robertson Ay as she hurried into the room.
“A Bear-pit!” Michael longed to answer. But he caught her eye and refrained.
“Really!” Mrs Banks protested, as she stumbled over Robertson Ay. “He chooses such inconvenient places! Oh, gently, children! Do be careful! That box belongs to Miss Andrew!”
Miss Andrew! Their faces fell.
“Then it isn’t presents!” said Michael blankly. He gave the box a push.
“It’s probably full of medicine bottles!” said Jane in a bitter voice.
“It’s not,” insisted Mrs Banks. “Miss Andrew has sent us all her treasures. And I thought, Mary Poppins – ”she glanced at the stiff white shape beside her – “I thought, perhaps, you could keep them here!” She nodded towards the mantelpiece.
Mary Poppins regarded her in silence. If a pin had fallen you could have heard it.
“Am I an octopus?” she enquired, finding her voice at last.
“An octopus?” cried Mrs Banks. Had she ever suggested such a thing? “Of course you’re not, Mary Poppins.”
“Exactly!” Mary Poppins retorted. “I have only one pair of hands.”
Mrs Banks nodded uneasily. She had never expected her to have more.
“And that one pair has enough to do without dusting anyone’s treasures.”
“But, Mary Poppins, I never dreamed—” Mrs Banks was getting more and more flustered. “Ellen is here to do the dusting. And it’s only until Miss Andrew comes back – if, of course, she ever does. She behaved so strangely when she was here. Why are you giggling, Jane?”
But Jane only snickered and shook her head. She remembered that strange behaviour.
“Where has she gone to?” Michael asked.
“She seems to have had some sort of a shock – what are you laughing at, children? – and the doctor has ordered a long voyage, away to the South Seas. She says. . .” Mrs Banks fished into her pocket and brought out a crumpled letter.
“And while I am away,’” she read out,“‘I shall leave my valuables with you. Be sure they are put in a safe place where nothing can happen to them. I shall expect, on my return, to find everything exactly as it is – nothing broken, nothing mended. Tell George to wear his overcoat. This weather is changeable.’”
“So you see, Mary Poppins,” said Mrs Banks, looking up with a flattering smile, “the Nursery does seem the best place. Anything left in your charge is always perfectly safe!”
“There’s safety and safety!” sniffed Mary Poppins. “And I hope I see further than my nose!” It was tilted upwards, as she spoke, even more than usual.
“Oh, I am sure you do!” murmured Mrs Banks, wondering, for the hundredth time, why Mary Poppins – no matter what the situation – was always so pleased with herself.
“Well, now I think I must go and—” But without saying what she was going to do, she ran out of the Nursery, jumped over Robertson Ay’s legs and bustled away down the stairs.
“Allow me, Michael, if you please!” Mary Poppins seized his wrist, as he pulled the lid off the box. “Remember what curiosity did – it killed the cat, you know!”
Her quick hands darted among the papers, and briskly unwrapped a little bundle. Out came a chipped nose and a Chelsea china lamb.
“Funny sort of treasures,” said Michael. “I could mend this bird with a piece of putty. But I mustn’t – so Miss Andrew said. They’re to stay exactly as they are.”
“Nothing does that,” said Mary Poppins, with a priggish look on her face.
“You do!” he insisted gallantly.
She sniffed, and glanced at the Nursery mirror. Her reflection gave a similar sort of sniff and glanced at Mary Poppins. Each of them, it was easy to see, highly approved of the other.
“I wonder why she kept this?” Jane took an old cracked tile from the box. The picture showed a boat-load of people rowing towards an island.
“To remind her of her youth,” said Michael.
“To give more trouble,” snapped Mary Poppins, shaking the dust from another wrapping.
Back and forth the children ran, collecting and setting up the treasures – a cottage in a snowstorm, with Home Sweet Home on the glass globe; a pottery hen on a yellow nest; a red-and-white china clown; a winged horse of celluloid, prancing on its hind legs; a flower vase in the shape of a swan; a little red fox of carved wood; an egg-shaped piece of polished granite; a painted apple with a boy and a girl playing together inside it; and a roughly made, full-rigged ship in a jam-jar.
“I hope that’s all,” grumbled Michael. “The mantelpiece is crowded.”
“Only one more,” said Mary Poppins, as she drew out a knobbly bundle. A couple of china ornaments came forth from the paper wrapper. Her eyebrows went up as she looked at them and she gave a little shrug. Then she handed one each to Jane and Michael.
Weary of running back and forth, they set the ornaments hurriedly at either end of the mantelpiece. Then Jane looked at hers and blinked her eyes.
A china lion, with his paw on the chest of a china huntsman, was reclining beneath a banana tree which, of course, was also china. The man and the animal leant together, smiling blissfully. Never, thought Jane, in all her life, had she seen two happier creatures.
“He reminds me of somebody!” she exclaimed, as she gazed at the smiling huntsman. Such a manly figure he looked too, in his spruce blue jacket and black top-boots.
“Yes,” agreed Michael. “Who can it be?”
He frowned as he tried to recall the name. Then he looked at his half of the china pair and gave a cry of dismay.
“Oh, Jane! What a pity! My lion has lost his huntsman!”
It was true. There stood another banana tree, there sat another painted lion. But in the other huntsman’s place there was only a gap of roughened china. All that remained of his manly shape was one black shiny boot.
“Poor lion!” said Michael. “He looks so sad!”
And, indeed, there was no denying it. Jane’s lion was wreathed in smiles, but his brother had such a dejected look that he seemed to be almost in tears.