“Perhaps they’ve blown away too!” The Professor glanced up into a tree, looking for Andrew and Willoughby. Then he peered short-sightedly down the Walk.
“Ah, here they come!” he murmured vaguely. “How strange they look with only two legs!”
“Two legs!” said Miss Lark reproachfully. How absent-minded you are, Professor. Those aren’t my darling precious dogs – they’re only Jane and Michael.”
The Admiral whipped out his telescope and clapped it to his eye.
“Ahoy, there, shipmates!” he roared to the children.
“Look!” shouted Michael, running up. “I put out my hand to hold my cap and the wind blew a leaf right into it!”
“And one into mine the same minute!” Jane panted behind him.
They stood there, laughing and glowing, with their packages held against their chests and the star-shaped maple leaves in their hands.
“Thank you,” said Mary Poppins firmly, as she plucked the leaves from between their fingers, gave them a scrutinising glance and popped them into her pocket.
“Catch a leaf, a message brief!” Miss Lark’s voice shrieked above the wind. “But, of course, it’s only an old wives’ tale. Ah, there you are, dear dogs – at last! Take my hand, Professor, please. We must hurry home to safety.”
And she shooed them all along before her, with her skirts blowing out in every direction.
Michael hopped excitedly. “Was it a message, Mary Poppins?”
“That’s as may be,” said Mary Poppins, turning up her nose to the sky.
“But we caught them!” Jane protested.
“C. caught it. G. got it,” she answered, with annoying calm.
“Will you show us when we get home?” screamed Michael, his voice floating away.
“Home is the sailor, home from the sea!” The Admiral took off his hat with a flourish. “Au revoir, messmates and Miss Poppins! Up with the anchor, Pompey!”
“Ay, ay, sir!” Pompey seemed to be saying, as he galloped after his master.
Michael rummaged in his package.
“Mary Poppins, why didn’t you wait? I wanted to give you a toffee-apple.”
“Time and Tide wait for no man,” she answered priggishly.
He was just about to ask what Time and Tide had to do with toffee-apples, when he caught her disapproving look.
“A pair of rag dolls – that’s what you are! Just look at your hair! Sweets to the sweet,” she added conceitedly, as she took the sticky fruit he offered and nibbled it daintily.
“It’s not our fault, it’s the wind!” said Michael, tossing the hair from his brow.
“Well, the quicker you’re into it the quicker you’re out of it!” She thrust the perambulator forward under the groaning trees.
“Look out! Be careful! What are you doin’?”
A howl of protest rent the air as a figure, clutching his tie and his cap, lurched sideways in the dusk.
“Remember the Bye-laws! Look where you’re goin’! You can’t knock over the Park Keeper.”
Mary Poppins gave him a haughty stare.
“I can if he’s in my way,” she retorted. “You’d no right to be there.”
“I’ve a right to be anywhere in the Park. It’s in the Regulations.” He peered at her through the gathering dark and staggered back with a cry.
“Toffee-apples? And bags o’ nuts? Then it must be ’Allowe’en! I might ’ave known it.” His voice shook. “You don’t get a wind like this for nothin’. O-o-ow!” He shuddered. “It gives me the ’Orrors. I’ll leave the Park to look after itself. This is no night to be out.”
“Why not?” Jane handed him a nut. “What happens at Hallowe’en?”
The Park Keeper’s eyes grew as round as plates. He glanced nervously over his shoulder and leant towards the children.
“Things,” he said in a hoarse whisper, “come out and walk in the night. I don’t know what they are quite – ghosts, perhaps, or h’apparitions. Anyway, it’s spooky. Hey – what’s that?” He clutched his stick. “Look! There’s one of them up there – a white thing in the trees!”
A light was gleaming among the branches, turning their black to silver. The wind had blown the clouds away and a great bright globe rode through the sky.
“It’s only the moon!” Jane and Michael laughed. “Don’t you recognise it?”
“Ah!” The Park Keeper shook his head. “It looks like the moon and it feels like the moon. And it may be the moon – but it may not. You never can tell on ’Allowe’en!”
And he turned up his coat-collar and hurried away, not daring to look behind him.
“Of course it’s the moon,” said Michael stoutly. “There’s moonlight on the grass!”
Jane gazed at the blowing, shining scene.
“The bushes are dancing in the wind. Look! There’s one coming towards us – a small bush and two larger ones. Oh, Mary Poppins, perhaps they’re ghosts?” She clutched a fold of the blue coat. “They’re coming nearer, Mary Poppins! I’m sure they’re apparitions!”
“I don’t want to see them!” Michael screamed. He seized the end of the parrot umbrella as though it were an anchor.
“Apparitions, indeed!” shrieked the smallest bush. “Well, I’ve heard myself called many things – Charlemagne said I looked like a fairy and Boadicea called me a goblin – but nobody ever said to my face that I was an apparition. Though I dare say –” the bush gave a witch-like cackle – “that I often look like one!”
A skinny little pair of legs came capering towards them and a wizened face, like an old apple, peered out through wisps of hair.
Michael drew a long breath.
“It’s only Mrs Corry!” he said, loosing his hold on the parrot umbrella.
“And Miss Fannie and Miss Annie!” Jane waved in relief to the two large bushes.
“How de do?” said their mournful voices, as Mrs Corry’s enormous daughters caught up with their tiny mother.
“Well, here we are again, my dears – as I heard St. George remark to the Dragon. Just the kind of night for—” Mrs Corry looked at Mary Poppins and gave her a knowing grin. “For all sorts of things,” she concluded. “You got a message, I hope!”
“Thank you kindly, Mrs Corry. I have had a communication.”
“What message?” asked Michael inquisitively. “Was it one on a leaf?”
Mrs Corry cocked her head. And her coat – which was covered with threepenny-bits – twinkled in the moonlight.
“Ah,” she murmured mysteriously. “There are so many kinds of communication! You look at me, I look at you, and something passes between us. John o’Groats could send me a message, simply by dropping an eyelid. And once – five hundred years ago – Mother Goose handed me a feather. I knew exactly what it meant – ‘Come to dinner. Roast Duck’!”
“And a tasty dish it must have been! But, excuse me, Mrs Corry, please – we must be getting home. This is no night for dawdling – as you will understand.” Mary Poppins gave her a meaningful look.