“He can’t sing in tune,” the two boys whispered. “But he doesn’t know it and we don’t tell him.”
“And then there’s the music of the spheres, a sort of steady, droning sound. Rather like that spinning thing I saw you with today.”
“My humming top! I’ll get it,” said Jane.
She ran to the perambulator that was like an over-crowded bird’s nest, with John and Barbara and Annabel asleep on each other’s shoulders.
Jane thrust in her hand and rummaged among them.
“It’s not here. Oh, I’ve lost my top!”
“No, you haven’t,” said a gloomy voice, as a thin man and a fat woman came hand in hand into the Garden. “It fell out on to the Long Walk and we found it as we came by.”
“It’s Mr and Mrs Turvy!” cried Michael, as he dashed away to greet them.
“Well, it may be and it may not. You can’t be certain of anything. Not today, you can’t. You think you’re this and you find you’re that. You want to hurry, so you crawl like a snail.” The thin man gave a doleful sigh.
“Oh, Cousin Arthur,” Mary Poppins protested. “It’s not your Second Monday, not one of your upside-down days!”
“I’m afraid it is, Mary, my dear. And tonight of all nights, when I want to go looking for my own True Love, just like everyone else.”
“But you’ve already found her, Arthur!” Mrs Turvy reminded him.
“So you say, Topsy. And I’d like to believe it. But nothing’s sure on the Second Monday.”
“You’ll be sure tomorrow. Tomorrow’s Tuesday.”
“And what if tomorrow never comes? It would be just like it to stay away.” Mr Turvy was unconvinced. “Well, here’s your top and much good may it do you.” He turned aside, wiping an eye, as Jane set the coloured top on the path.
“Not yet, not yet!” Orion cried, suddenly cupping his hand to his ear.
From somewhere among the surrounding trees a bird gave a quick enquiring chirp that was followed by a rush of half-notes, not so much song as a series of kisses.
“A nightingale tuning up. Oh, glory!” Orion’s face was alight with joy.
“It belongs to Mr Twigley,” said Michael. “It’s the only one in the Park.”
“Some people do have all the luck. To own a nightingale! Think of it! Come on, come on, my lovely boy! Spin your old humming top, Jane! He’ll out-sing it, be sure.”
The four children fell on the shining toy, shouldering each other aside, arguing and complaining.
“I’ll start it! No, you won’t, it’s mine! Me! Me! Me!” they all shouted.
“Is this a Herb Garden or a Bear Pit?” demanded Mary Poppins.
“Certainly not a Bear Pit. Bears are better behaved,” said the Bear.
“But, Mary Poppins, it’s not fair!” Castor and Pollux protested. “We haven’t got a top up there. They might give us a chance.”
“Well, we haven’t got a flying horse!” Jane and Michael were equally indignant.
Mary Poppins folded her arms and favoured them all with her fierce blue glance.
“Hooligans, the lot of you!” she said. “You haven’t got this and you haven’t got that. Tops or horses – take what you’re given. Nobody has everything.”
And in spite, or perhaps because of her fierceness that embraced them all equally, their anger melted away.
Castor and Pollux sat back on their heels. “Not even you, Mary Poppins?” they teased her. “With your new pink dress and your daisy hat?”
“And your carpet bag! And your parrot umbrella!” Jane and Michael joined in.
She preened a little at the compliment as she gave her characteristic sniff. “That’s as may be,” she retorted. “And no affair of yours either. I will start the top myself!”
She stooped to seize the handle, and pumped it briskly up and down.
Slowly, the top began to turn and as it turned, it hummed – faintly at first but gradually, as it gathered speed, the sound became one long deep note, filling the Herb Garden with its music, a bee-like humming and drumming.
“A ring! Make a ring!” cried Castor and Pollux. “The Grand Chain, everyone!”
And at once they all came into a circle, formally moving round the top as the earth moves round the sun. Right hand to right hand, left hand to left – the Bear with his sugar-stick in his mouth, the Fox dapper in his Foxgloves, the Hare nib-nibbling a sprig of Parsley.
Round and round. Hand to hand. Mary Poppins and the two Banks children, Mrs Corry, her daughters and the Bird Woman, Mr Turvy dragging his feet, Mrs Turvy dancing.
Round and round. Hand to hand. Orion girt with his lion-skin, Pollux with his tunic full of herbs, and Michael’s string bag, bursting with Coltsfoot, slung about Castor’s neck.
Round and round, each hand taking the hand of each, and the big Bird flying among them. The top spun and the circle spun round it, and the Park round the circle, the earth round the Park and the darkening sky round the earth.
The Nightingale, now the night was come, came to the full of his song. Jug, jug, jug, tereu! it went, over and over, from the elder tree, outsinging the hum of the top. The song would never be done, it seemed, and the top would never stop spinning. The circle of humans and constellations would go on turning for ever.
But suddenly the bird was silent and the top, with a last musical cry, slowed down and toppled sideways.
Clang! The tin shape crashed upon the flagstones.
And the Park Keeper sat up with a start.
He rubbed his eyes as though waking from sleep. Where was he? What had been happening? He had hidden himself from the fading day and all its unbearable problems. And now the day had disappeared. It had passed through its long blue twilight hour and had almost become the night.
But that was not all. The Herb Garden he knew so well was now another garden. There, in a ring, were people he knew, the familiar solid and substantial shapes of Mary Poppins and her charges, Mrs Corry and her two large daughters, his Mother in her shabby shawl. But who were the others, the bevy of transparent figures, the creatures that seemed to be made of light – insubstantial luminous boys hand in hand with substantial children; a man in a lion-skin, bright as the sun, bending towards Mary Poppins; a Bear and a Hare, both shimmering, a big Bird lifting wings of light and a sparkling Fox with flowers on his paws?
And suddenly, like a man who has lost, and regained, his senses, the Park Keeper understood. He had known those figures when he was a boy, and many more besides. And he had forgotten what he had known, denied it, made it a thing of naught, something to be sneered at! He put his hands up to his eyes to hide the springing tears.
Mary Poppins stooped and picked up the top.
“It’s time,” she said quietly. “The day is gone. You are needed now elsewhere. Castor, put your wreath on straight. And you, Pollux, fasten your collar. Remember who you are!”
“And who you are, Mary Poppins!” they teased her. “With your ‘spit-spot and away you go!’As if we could ever forget!” They gathered their loads of greenstuff to them.
“Till next year, Jane and Michael,” they cried. “We’ll be coming to get more Coltsfoot!”
They flung up shining hands as they spoke and then, like the day, they were gone.