“The Hornpipe!” Miss Andrew was shocked. “I could never think of such a thing. Besides, I don’t even know it!”
“Of course you could!” said the Admiral. “Everyone on sea or land can do the Sailor’s Hornpipe. All you need is to hear the music. Strike a chord, Binnacle. Up with the anchor!”
Binnacle grinned at the Admiral, and the concertina, at a touch of his hand, broke into the rocking tune.
The Admiral’s feet began to twitch, so did Mrs Boom’s. So did the Prime Minister’s. And Mrs Nineteen and Mr Twenty, hearing the sound from their front gardens, began to sway with the music.
But Miss Andrew stood as if carved in stone, her face fierce and determined. ‘Nothing will move me,’ it seemed to say, ‘not even an earthquake’.
Mary Poppins regarded her thoughtfully, as the music grew wilder and wilder. Then she plucked the mouth organ from Michael’s pocket and put it to her lips.
Immediately a tune broke from it keeping time with the concertina. And slowly, slowly, as though against its will, the stone figure thrust from beneath its skirts two large feet that had never danced but were now beginning to shuffle. Heel and toe, away we go, across the bounding main.
And suddenly they were all sailors, Miss Andrew among them, unwillingly moving her great bulk through the measures of the hornpipe.
The Twins and Annabel bobbed up and down. Jane and Michael pranced beside them, while the Cherry Trees bent and bowed and the cherries twirled on their stems. Only Mary Poppins stood still, the mouth organ, held against her lips, giving out its lively tune.
Then it was over, the last chord played, and everyone – except Miss Andrew – was breathless and pleased with themselves.
“Bravo, messmate!” the Admiral roared, doffing his hat to the stony figure.
But the stony figure took no notice. It had caught sight suddenly of Mary Poppins, stuffing the mouth organ into Michael’s pocket.
A long, long look, as of two wolves meeting, passed between the pair.
“You again!” Miss Andrew’s face was contorted with rage and the realisation that for the second time Mary Poppins had bamboozled her. “It was you who made me perform like that – so shameful, so undignified! And you, you, YOU, who sent Luti away!” She pointed a large, trembling finger at the calm and smiling figure.
“Nonsense, madam, you are much mistaken,” the Prime Minister broke in. “No one can force another to dance. You owe it to your own two feet, and very apt they were. As for Miss Poppins, a respectable well-behaved young woman, always so busy with her charges, could such a one gallivant about, dispatching cooks – or for that matter, chemists – to somewhere in the South Seas? Certainly not. It’s unthinkable!”
Jane and Michael looked at each other. The unthinkable, they knew, had been thought. It had, indeed, recently happened. And Luti was on his way to his homeland.
“Everyone needs his own home,” said Mary Poppins calmly. And she twirled the perambulator round and sent it speeding homewards.
“And I need mine,” cried Miss Andrew wildly, flinging herself against Binnacle’s front door.
“Well, you’ve got one here,” said Binnacle. “Unles –” he smiled a terrible pirate smile –”unless you’d prefer Number Eighteen.”
“Oh, never, never! Not without Luti!” Miss Andrew buried her face in her hands. And before she knew it, Binnacle and the Prime Minister – who was still holding the medicine bag – had hustled her into the house.
“Well, she’s safely in port,” said Admiral Boom. “They’ll put her on an even keel.”
And, taking Mrs Boom’s arm, he allowed her to lead him away.
It was growing dark when Mr Banks, coming along the Lane, glanced at Binnacle’s front window and beheld a curious sight. In a small room, clean and bare as the deck of a ship, sat Miss Andrew in the only chair, looking like somebody who has been shipwrecked. An empty glass stood on a table nearby and beside her, squatting on his haunches, was Binnacle, absorbed in something she was reading aloud – an activity that, from the look on her face, filled her with rage and disgust.
And, in the doorway, intently listening, was no less a person than the Prime Minister. The Head of the State in Cherry Tree Lane concerning himself with the goings-on in the home of an ex-pirate!
Amazed, Mr Banks took off his hat. “Can I be of service, Prime Minister? Is anything amiss?”
“Oh, Banks, my dear fellow, such tribulations! The lady whom you see inside has vacated Number Eighteen because her companion – a cook or a chemist, I’m not sure which – has apparently deserted her. And Binnacle, the Admiral’s servant, has taken her to live with him on two important conditions – one, that she dance the Sailor’s Hornpipe and the other, that she read to him. Well, she has danced, though unwillingly, and now she is reading aloud.”
“I am flabbergasted!” said Mr Banks. “Miss Andrew dancing! Luti gone! I think you should know, Prime Minister, that that companion was neither a cook nor a chemist, but a boy hardly taller than my daughter Jane, who was brought by Miss Andrew from the Southern Seas.”
“A child! Good Heavens, we must get the police! A lost boy must be searched for.”
“I wouldn’t advise it, Prime Minister. The police might frighten him. Give him just a little more time. He’s a bright lad. He will find his way.”
“We-ell, if you think so. You know them better than I.”
“I do, indeed. Miss Andrew was once my governess. And she’s known as the Holy Terror. The boy has had a lucky escape.”
“Ha! Well, it’s Binnacle now who’s the Holy Terror. He has given her cold porridge to eat, made her drink various medicines mixed together in a single glass, and he won’t let her read to him anything but copies – new or old – of Fizzo!”
“Fizzo! But that’s a comic, surely. And Miss Andrew is a learnt woman. Having to read comics aloud will simply horrify her. Perhaps it will even drive her mad.”
“Well, I happen to like them, Banks. I get so weary of making Laws that I find Fizzo quite restful. We have just had Tiger Tim and the Tortoise and are now in the middle of Sam’s Adventure. So, excuse me, please, my dear fellow. I must hear how he and Gwendolyn manage to deal with the Dragon.”
“Oh, of course!” said Mr Banks politely.
And, leaving the Prime Minister craning his head to catch the story, he hurried home full of the evening’s news.
Number Eighteen, as he passed it, had something of its old friendly look and Miss Lark’s dogs were busily sniffing at something under the hedge. They could smell the old bones they had given Luti and, since he seemed to have gone away, they were anxious to retrieve them. Why leave such treasures for other dogs?
“I have news for you,” Mr Banks exclaimed, as Mrs Banks met him at the door. “The sensation of the year, my dear! Luti is no longer with us and Miss Andrew has left Next Door and gone to live with Binnacle.”
Mrs Banks gave an astonished shriek and collapsed upon a chair.
“Luti lost? Oh, that poor dear child! Shouldn’t we go and look for him? So young and in a strange land.”
“Oh, Luti has a good head on his shoulders. He’s probably made his way to the docks and stowed away on some trading ship. It’s Miss Andrew I’m thinking about. She kept that boy like a bird in a cage and now she’s a bird in a cage herself, reading stories from Fizzo.”