And, indeed, the world did seem to be spinning, turning for joy upon its axis, as the little Park spun round its buttercup tree. Round and round and round it went in a steady, stately movement.
The wedding-party was waltzing and singing, and the Ice Cream Man was singing too, as he pedalled back along the path. A cluster of Fruit Bars was in his hand and he tossed them on to the table.
“Three for luck and free for luck!” he cried, as he trundled by.
“Step up, if you please,” said Mary Poppins, hustling them along before her as a hen hustles her chicks. “And what are you doing, Jane and Michael, walking backwards like that?”
“I’b wadching the weddig-feast!” mumbled Michael, with his mouth full of his last cherry. He gave a long, lugubrious sigh as each creak of the perambulator drew him farther from that wonderful meal.
“Taking one more look at my Park, Mary Poppins,” said Jane, as she gazed at the happy scene.
“Well, you’re not a pair of crabs! Turn round – and walk in the right direction.”
The sunset dazzled their eyes as they turned. And the afternoon seemed to be turning with them, from two o’clock till five. Tick-tock! said every clock. Ding-dong! said the bells in the steeples.
Then the spinning world slowed down and was still, and they blinked as though coming out of a dream. Had it taken them seconds, minutes or hours to walk down that pebbly path? They looked about them curiously.
The blossoms of clover were now at their feet, instead of above their heads, and the grasses of the Wild Corner brushed against their knees. The bumble-bee went buzzing by, no larger, it seemed, than usual. And the fly on a nearby bluebell was about the size of a fly. As for the ant – it was hiding under a grass-seed and was therefore invisible.
The big Park spread serenely round them, just the same as ever. The Ice Cream Man, who had come to the last verse of his song –
“I’ll sing you twelve-o
Green grow the rushes-o,”
was wheeling away from the Wild Corner. And the Park Keeper, with the finished daisy-chain round his neck, was lumbering towards them.
They glanced down. Below them lay the little Park, hemmed in by its walls of weed. They blinked again and smiled at each other as they fell on their knees among the flowers.
The little lawns were now in shadow. Long patterns of daisy and bluebell lay black across their paths. The tiny flowers in Jane’s garden were bending on their stems. By lake and swing the seats were deserted.
“They’ve eaten every bit of the feast. Look!” whispered Michael. “Empty plates!”
“And not a sign of anyone. I expect they’ve all gone home to bed.” Jane sighed. She would like to have seen Mr Mo again, and to measure herself against his elbow.
“They’re lucky, then, ’ooever they are! Let’s to bed, says Sleepy-’Ead – as they told me when I was a boy!” The Park Keeper stooped above them and surveyed Jane’s handiwork.
“No Parks allowed in the Park!” he observed. Then he eyed the two rapt faces. “Well, you seem very preh’occupied! What are you lookin’ for?”
Jane gave him an absent-minded glance.
“Mary Poppins’ cousin,” she murmured, as she searched through the little Park.
The Park Keeper’s face was a sight to see.
“Cousin! Down there – among the weeds? You’ll be tellin’ me next ’e’s a beetle!”
“I’ll be telling you something in a minute!” said a wrathful voice beside him. Mary Poppins regarded him frostily. “Did I or didn’t I hear you referring to me as an insect?”
“Well – not to you,” the Park Keeper faltered. “But if your cousin’s down in that grass, what can ’e be but a beetle?”
“Oh, indeed! And if he’s a beetle, what am I?”
He looked at her uneasily and wished that something would strike him dumb.
“Hum,” he said, fumbling for a word. “I may be as mad as a March Hatter—”
“May be!” she gave a disdainful sniff.
“But I don’t see ’ow you can ’ave a cousin sittin’ under a buttercup!”
“I can have a cousin anywhere – and no business of yours!”
“You can’t!” he cried. “T’isn’t natural. I suppose,” he added sarcastically, “you’re related to the Man in the Moon!”
“My uncle!” said Mary Poppins calmly, as she turned the perambulator into the path that led from the Wild Corner.
The Park Keeper opened his mouth in surprise and shut it again with a snap.
“Ha, ha! You will ’ave your little joke. ’Owsumever, I don’t believe it!”
“Nobody asked you to,” she replied. “Come, Jane! Come, Michael! Quick march, please!”
Night had now come to the little Park. The wildweed, thickly clustered about it, looked very like a forest. No light came through the trackless stems, it was dark as any jungle. With a last glance at the lonely lawns, they turned away regretfully and ran after the perambulator.
“Mary Poppins! They’ve all gone home,” cried Michael. “There’s nothing left on the plates.”
“East, West, home’s best. And who are ‘they’, I’d like to know?”
“I meant your funny little cousin – and all his family!”
She pulled up sharply and looked at him with a calm that was worse than anger.
“Did you say ‘funny’?” she enquired. “And what was so funny about him, pray?”
“Well – at first he wasn’t as big as a beetle and then he stretched out to the usual s-s-size!” He trembled as he looked at her.
“Beetles again! Why not grasshoppers? Or perhaps you’d prefer a grub! Stretching, indeed! Are you trying to tell me, Michael Banks, that my cousin is made of elastic?”
“Well – no, not elastic. Plasticine!” There! It was out. He had said it at last.
She drew herself up. And now it seemed as if she were stretching, for her rage seemed to make her twice as tall.
“Well!” she began, in a voice that told him clearly she had never been so shocked in her life. “If anyone had ever warned me—” But he interrupted wildly.
“Oh, don’t be angry, please, Mary Poppins – not in your tulip hat! I didn’t mean he was funny to laugh at, but funny in the nicest way. And I won’t say another word – I promise!”
“Humph!” She subsided. “Silence is golden.”
And as she stalked along beside him, with her heels going click-clack on the path, he wondered where he had heard that before.
He glanced at Jane carefully from the corner of his eye.
“But it happened, didn’t it?” he whispered. “We did go into the little Park and join them at the feast? I’m sure it was true, because I’m not hungry. All I want for supper is a hard-boiled egg and a piece of buttered toast. And rice pudding and two tomatoes and perhaps a cup of milk!”
“Oh, yes, it was true.” Jane sighed for joy as she gazed round the great familiar Park. Within it, she knew, lay another one. And perhaps. . .
“Do you think, Mary Poppins. . .” She hesitated. “Do you think that everything in the world is inside something else? My little Park inside a big one and the big one inside a larger one? Again and again? Away and away?” She waved her arm to take in the sky. “And to someone very far out there – do you think we would look like ants?”