“They’re not ragamuffins! Oh, can’t you see?” Jane was almost in tears.
“But what will Pegasus do?” cried Michael, angrily stamping his foot. “They wanted a meal of Coltsfoot for him. So I gathered it. I don’t want it burnt!” He hugged the herb-filling string bag to him, determined to defy the Bye-laws.
“Pegasus!” scoffed the Park Keeper. “He’s another of them taradiddles. You learn about them when you’re at school. Astronomy for Boys and Girls. Constellations, comets and such. But whoever saw a horse with wings? He’s just a bunch of stars, that’s all. And Vulpecula, and Ursa Minor and Lepus – all that lot.”
“What important names.” The two boys giggled. “We call them Foxy and Bear and Hare.”
“Call them anything you like. Just get out of here, the three of you. And take your circus beasts along or I’ll go to the Zoo and find the Keeper and have them put behind bars.”
“If a gooseberry bush may make a remark?” Mary Poppins broke in. “You did say gooseberry bush, I believe?” she said with icy politeness.
The Park Keeper quailed before her glance.
“It was just a-a kind of manner of speaking. And gooseberry bush is no libel, it’s just a sort of – er – spiky shrub. And anyway, put it in a nutshell –” Why shouldn’t he speak his mind, he thought. “It isn’t as though you’re the Queen of Sheba.”
The big man sprang from the marble seat.
“Who says she’s not?” he demanded sternly, and the lion-skin stiffened on his shoulder, the head showing its fangs.
The Park Keeper hurriedly took a step backwards.
“Well, no one can say she is, can they? What with turned-up nose and turned-out feet and a knob of hair and—”
“What’s wrong with them?” The big man glowered, reaching for the club at his side and looming over the Park Keeper, who hurriedly took another step backwards.
Majestically, a pink and white statue, Mary Poppins inserted herself between them. “If you’re looking for the Keeper of the Zoological Gardens, he is not in the Zoo. He is in the Lake.”
“In the Lake?” The Park Keeper stared at her aghast. “D-drownded?” he whispered, pale as a lily. Oh, alas, alas!”
“Paddling. With the Lord Mayor and two Aldermen. Fishing for tiddlers to put in a jam-jar.”
“J-jam-jar? The Lord Mayor? Oh, no! Oh, no! Not tiddlers. It’s against the B-bye-laws. Isn’t anyone Observing the Rules?” the Park Keeper cried in despair.
The world, as he knew it, had fallen apart. Where now was the lawful authority that he had always served? To whom could he turn for reassurance? The Policeman? No, he was off with Ellen. The Lord Mayor – oh, horrors! – was in the Lake. The Prime Minister was closeted with the King. And he himself, the Park’s Park Keeper, important though he undoubtedly was, must carry the burden alone.
“Why should it all depend on me?” He flung his arms wide with the question. “All right, I took off a bit of time, which is owed me, after all. And it wasn’t much to ask,” he lamented. “Only to find my own True Love –”
“Curly Locks, I suppose, or Rapunzel?” Mrs Corry chuckled. “You’ll find they’re suited, I’m afraid. But I’ve got a couple of soncy girls – Fannie and Annie, take your pick – and I’ll throw in a pound of tea!”
The Park Keeper put the suggestion aside as being beneath his notice.
“To find my True Love,” he repeated. “And all Litter placed in the proper baskets. No Stealing of Herbs from here, nor Cherries from the Lane. No one pretending to be what they’re not.” He waved at the intruders. “And everyone keeping the Bye-laws.”
“If you ask me, that’s a lot to ask.” The big man looked at him sternly. “True Loves don’t grow on trees, you know.”
“Or gooseberry bushes,” Mary Poppins put in.
“And what are cherries for but eating? Herbs too, if it comes to that.” The big man swallowed another cherry, and spat out another stone.
“But you can’t just pick them because you want them!” The Park Keeper was scandalised.
“Why else?” enquired the big man mildly. “If we didn’t want them, we wouldn’t take them.”
“Because you’ve got to think of others. “The Park Keeper, who seldom thought of others himself, was quick to deliver his sermon. “That’s why we have the Bye-laws, see!”
“Well, we are the others, all of us. And so are you, my man.”
“Me!” The Park Keeper was indignant. “I’m not somebody else, not me!”
“Of course you are. Everyone’s somebody else to someone. And what harm have the wild beasts done? A few green leaves one day in the year! It’s true that they’re not used to Bye-laws. We don’t have them up there, thank goodness. “The big man nodded at the sky.
“And as for pretending to be what we’re not – or what you presume to think we’re not – how about yourself? Making all this fuss and pother, meddling in things that don’t concern you – isn’t it rather presumptuous? You’re behaving as though you owned the place. Why not look after your own affairs and leave the Park to the Park Keeper? He seems a sensible sort of chap. I always enjoy looking down at him – mowing the lawns, putting waste paper into containers, faithfully going about his job.”
The Park Keeper stared.
“But it’s my job he’s going about. I mean that I’m going about it. Don’t you see? He’s me!”
“Who’s you?”
“Him. I mean me. I’m the Park Keeper.”
“Nonsense! I’ve seen him often enough. A decent young fellow, neat and natty. Wears a peaked cap with P.K. on it, not a silly little blue flannel top-knot.”
The Park Keeper clapped his hand to his head. The Prime Minister’s cap! He had quite forgotten. Perhaps he should never have worn it.
“Look here,” he said, with the fearful calm of one who is near his wits’ end. “I’m the same man, aren’t I, whatever my cap?” Surely it was obvious. Had circus people no brains at all?
“Well, are you? Only you can give an answer to that. And it’s not an easy question. I wonder. . .” The big man was suddenly thoughtful. “I wonder, would I be the same person without my belt and lion-skin?”
“And your club. And your faithful dog-star. Don’t forget Sirius, Orion!’ The two boys laughed and teased him. “Sirius can’t come down with us,” they explained to Jane and Michael. “He’d be chasing all the cats in the Lane.”
“Yes, yes, the fellow has a point. Even so,” the big man went on, “I can’t believe the Keeper I know, that watchful, conscientious servant, would go walking backwards through the Park, eyes closed, hands outstretched, and bits of crust behind his ears. And on top of that – without a ‘By your leave’ or ‘I beg your pardon’ – go bumping into an elegant lady as though she were a lamp-post.”
The Park Keeper put his hands to his ears. It was true. They were decked with scraps of sandwich!
“Well,” he blustered, “how was I to know she was there? And it wasn’t the bread that was important. What I wanted was cucumber.”