He gave her a mischievous, questioning glance, daring her to deny it.
“And well-brought-up and respectable too!” Jane added her teasing to his.
“Impudence!”
She swung her handbag at them, and missed.
For already they were darting away to what was waiting for them.
Wherever she was, she would not be lost. That was answer enough.
“Somewhere! Somewhere! Somewhere!” they cried.
And, leaving the dark Park behind, they ran, laughing, across the Lane, through the gate and up the path and into the lighted house. . .
A.M.G.D.
THE HERBS IN THE STORY
and their botanical, local and Latin names
SOUTHERNWOOD Old man, Lad’s love Artemisia abrotanum
LAVENDER Lavandula vera
MONEYWORT Creeping Jenny, Herb twopence
Lysimachia nummularia
SWEET BASIL Ocimum basilicum
DANDELION Dens leonis, Swine’s snout Taraxacum officinale
CHAMOMILE Anthemis nobilis
HONEYSUCKLE Woodbind Lonicera caprifolium
FOXGLOVE Folk’s glove, Fairy thimbles Digitalis purpurea
PARSLEY Petroselinum crispum
FENNEL Foeniculum vulgare
SOLOMON’S SEAL Lady’s seals Polygonatum multiflorum
COLTSFOOT Ass’s foot, Coughwort Tussilago farfara
GOOSEBERRY Feverberry, Goosegogs Ribes grossularia
RAMPION Campanula rapunculus
CUCUMBER Cowcumber Cucumis sativus
HEARTSEASE Love in idleness, Herb constancy Viola tricolor
LEMON BALM Herb livelong Melissa officinalis
ELDER Pipe tree, Black elder Sambucus nigra
ROSEMARY Polar plant, Compass-weed Rosmarinus officinalis
FORGET-ME-NOT Myosotis symphytifolia
ST JOHN’S WORT All heal Hypericum perforatum
MARIGOLD Ruddes, Mary Gowles, Oculis Christi
Calendula officinalis
CORIANDER Coriandrum sativum
CORNFLOWER Bluebow, Bluebottle, Hurtsickle Centaurea cyanis
MARJORAM Knotted Margery Origanum majorana
RUE Herb of grace, Herbygrass Ruta graveolens
GOOD KING HENRY Goosefoot, Fat hen Chenopodium Bonus Henricus
SWEET CICELY Chervil, Sweet fern Myrrhis odorata
ROCKET Dame’s violet, Vesper flower Hesperis matronalis
BRACKEN Brake fern, Female fern Pteris aquilana
MISTLETOE Birdlime mistletoe, Herbe de la Croix Viscum album
LOVAGE Levisticum officinale
CYCLAMEN Sowbread Cyclamen hederaefolium
SORREL Cuckoo’s meat, Sour suds Rumex acetosa
To Bruno
CRACK! WENT THE teacup against the bowl of soapsuds. Mrs Brill, washing the china, scrabbled among the sparkling bubbles and fished it up in two pieces.
“Ah well,” she said, as she tried, and failed, to fit them together. “It’s needed somewhere else, I suppose.” And she flung the two halves, with their twined roses and forget-me-nots, into the dustbin.
“Where?” demanded Michael. “Where will it be needed?” Who would need a broken cup? he wondered. It seemed a silly idea.
“How should I know?” fussed Mrs Brill. “It’s an old saying, that’s all. Now, you get along with your bit of work, and sit yourself down while you do it so that nothing else gets broken.”
Michael settled himself on the floor and took the dishes as she handed them to him, drying them with the tea-towel and sighing as he did so.
Ellen had one of her dreadful colds, Robertson Ay was asleep on the lawn and Mrs Banks was taking an afternoon rest on the sofa in the drawing-room.
“As usual,” Mrs Brill had complained, “no one to give me a helping hand.”
“Michael will,” Mary Poppins had said, seizing a tea-towel and thrusting it at him. “And the rest of us will go shopping and bring home the groceries. That will help.”
“Why me?” Michael had grumbled, kicking a chair leg. He would like to have kicked Mary Poppins but that he would never have dared. For fetching the groceries was a special treat because, whenever the bill was paid, the grocer gave each of them – even Mary Poppins – a tasty liquorice stick.
“Well, why not you?” said Mary Poppins, giving him one of her fierce blue looks. “Jane did it last time. And somebody has to help Mrs Brill.”
He knew there was no answer to that. If he mentioned liquorice, he would only get a short, sharp sniff. And anyway, even the King, he supposed, had sometimes to dry a dish or two.
So he kicked another leg of the chair, watching Mary Poppins as, with Jane carrying a string bag and the Twins and Annabel huddled into the perambulator, she went away down the garden path.
“Don’t polish them. We haven’t time for that. Just dry them and put them in a pile,” Mrs Brill advised him.
So there he sat by the heaped-up dishes, forced into doing a kindly act and not feeling kind at all.
And after a time – it seemed like years to Michael – they all came back, laughing and shouting and, sure enough, sucking liquorice sticks. Jane gave him one, hot from her hand.
“The grocer sent it specially to you. And somebody’s lost the tin of cocoa.”
“Somebody?” Mary Poppins said tartly. “You, Jane, were carrying the bag! Who else could that somebody be?”
“Well, perhaps it just dropped out in the Park. I could go and look for it, Mary Poppins.”
“Not now. What’s done is done. Somebody loses, somebody finds. Besides, it’s time for tea.”
And she gathered the little ones out of the perambulator and hurried them all up the stairs before her.
In no time they were sitting round the Nursery table waiting for hot buttered toast and cake. Except for the liquorice sticks, everything was the same as usual. Mary Poppins’ parrot-headed umbrella, her hat, which today had a pink rose in it, her gloves and her handbag were neatly in their places. The children were all neatly in theirs. And Mary Poppins was going about her afternoon’s work like a neat and orderly whirlwind.
“It’s just like any other day,” said Number Seventeen to itself, as it listened to the familiar sounds and felt the familiar movements.
But Number Seventeen was wrong, for at that moment the doorbell rang and Mrs Brill came bustling into the drawing-room with a yellow envelope in her hand.
“Telegram!” she announced excitedly to Mrs Banks. “Your Aunt Flossie’s broken her leg, maybe, or it could be something worse. I don’t trust telegrams.”
Mrs Banks took it with a trembling hand. She didn’t trust telegrams either. They always seemed to bring bad news.
She turned the envelope over and over.
“Well, aren’t you going to open it?” Mrs Brill was eager to know the worst.
“Oh, I don’t think I will,” said Mrs Banks. “I’d rather wait until my husband comes home. It is addressed to him, anyway. See – ‘George Banks, Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane’.”
“Well, if it’s urgent, you’ll be sorry you waited. A telegram is everyone’s business.”
Mrs Brill reluctantly left the room. She would have enjoyed hearing bad news.
Mrs Banks eyed the yellow envelope, as it stood there on the mantelpiece, leaning against a photograph and coolly keeping its secret.
“Perhaps,” she said hopefully to herself, “it’s good news, after all. Mrs Brill doesn’t know everything.”