“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.