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“You are a very rude, impertinent boy. I shall report you to your Father!”
Michael looked surprised. “I didn’t mean to be rude,” he began. “It was Daddy who said—”
“Tut! Silence! Don’t dare to argue with me!” said Miss Andrew. She turned to Jane.
“And you’re Jane, I suppose? H’m. I never cared for the name.”
“How do you do?” said Jane politely, but secretly thinking she did not care much for the name Euphemia.
“That dress is much too short!” trumpeted Miss Andrew. “And you ought to be wearing stockings. Little girls in my day never had bare legs. I shall speak to your Mother.”
“I don’t like stockings,” said Jane. “I only wear them in the Winter.”
“Don’t be impudent. Children should be seen and not heard!” said Miss Andrew.
She leant over the perambulator, and with her huge hand pinched the Twins’ cheeks in greeting.
John and Barbara began to cry.
“Tut! What manners!” exclaimed Miss Andrew. “Brimstone and Treacle – that’s what they need!” she went on, turning to Mary Poppins. “No well-brought-up child cries like that. Brimstone and Treacle. And plenty of it. Don’t forget.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Mary Poppins, with icy politeness, “but I bring the children up in my own way and take advice from nobody.”
Miss Andrew stared. She looked as if she could not believe her ears.
Mary Poppins stared back, calm and unafraid.
“Young woman,” said Miss Andrew, drawing herself up, “you forget yourself. How dare you answer me like that! I shall take steps to have you removed from this establishment! Mark my words!”
She flung open the gate and strode up the path, furiously swinging the circular object under the checked cloth, and saying “Tut-tut!” over and over again.
Mrs Banks came running out to meet her.
“Welcome, Miss Andrew, welcome!” she said politely. “How kind of you to pay us a visit. Such an unexpected pleasure. I hope you had a good journey?”
“Most unpleasant. I never enjoy travelling,” said Miss Andrew. She glanced with an angry, peering eye round the garden.
“Disgracefully untidy!” she remarked disgustedly. “Take my advice and dig up those things –” she pointed to the sunflowers – “and plant evergreens. Much less trouble. Saves time and money. And looks neater. Better still, no garden at all. Just a plain, cement courtyard.”
“But,” protested Mrs Banks gently, “I like flowers best!”
“Ridiculous! Stuff and nonsense! You are a silly woman. And your children are very rude – especially the boy.”
“Oh, Michael, I am surprised! Were you rude to Miss Andrew? You must apologise at once.” Mrs Banks was getting very nervous and flustered.
“No, Mother, I wasn’t. I only—” He began to explain, but Miss Andrew’s loud voice interrupted.
“He was most insulting,” she insisted. “He must go to a boarding-school at once. And the girl must have a Governess. I shall choose one myself. And as for the young person you have looking after them –” she nodded in the direction of Mary Poppins –“you must dismiss her this instant. She is impertinent, incapable and totally unreliable.”
Mrs Banks was plainly horrified.
“Oh, surely you are mistaken, Miss Andrew! We think she is such a Treasure.”
“You know nothing about it. I am never mistaken. Dismiss her!”
Miss Andrew swept on up the path.
Mrs Banks hurried behind her, looking very worried and upset.
“I – er – hope we shall be able to make you comfortable, Miss Andrew,” she said politely. But she was beginning to feel rather doubtful.
“H’m. It’s not much of a house,” replied Miss Andrew. “And it’s in a shocking condition – peeling everywhere, and most dilapidated. You must send for a carpenter. And when were these steps white-washed? They’re very dirty.”
Mrs Banks bit her lip. Miss Andrew was turning her lovely, comfortable house into something mean and shabby, and it made her feel very unhappy.
“I’ll have them done tomorrow,” she said meekly.
“Why not today?” demanded Miss Andrew. “No time like the present. And why paint your door white? Dark brown – that’s the proper colour for a door. Cheaper, and doesn’t show the dirt. Just look at those spots!”
And putting down the circular object, she began to point out the marks on the front door.
“There! There! There! Everywhere! Most disreputable!”
“I’ll see to it immediately,” said Mrs Banks faintly. “Won’t you come upstairs now to your room?”
Miss Andrew stamped into the hall after her.
“I hope there is a fire in it.”
“Oh, yes. A good one. This way, Miss Andrew. Robertson Ay will bring up your luggage.”
“Well, tell him to be careful. The trunks are full of medicine bottles. I have to take care of my health!”
Miss Andrew moved towards the stairs. She glanced round the hall.
“This wall needs re-papering. I shall speak to George about it. And why, I should like to know, wasn’t he here to meet me? Very rude of him. His manners, I see, have not improved!”
The voice grew a little fainter as Miss Andrew followed Mrs Banks upstairs. Far away the children could hear their Mother’s gentle voice, meekly agreeing to do whatever Miss Andrew wished.
Michael turned to Jane.
“Who is George?” he asked.
“Daddy.”
“But his name is Mr Banks.”
“Yes, but his other name is George.”
Michael sighed.
“A month is an awfully long time, Jane, isn’t it?”
“Yes – four weeks and a bit,” said Jane, feeling that a month with Miss Andrew would seem more like a year.
Michael edged closer to her.
“I say –” he began in an anxious whisper, “she can’t really make them send Mary Poppins away, can she?”
“Odd!”
The word sounded behind them like an explosion.
They turned. Mary Poppins was gazing after Miss Andrew with a look that could have killed her.
“Odd!” she repeated, with a long-drawn sniff. “That’s not the word for her. Humph! I don’t know how to bring up children, don’t I? I’m impertinent, incapable, and totally unreliable, am I? We’ll see about that!”
Jane and Michael were used to threats from Mary Poppins, but today there was a note in her voice they had never heard before. They stared at her in silence, wondering what was going to happen.
A tiny sound, partly a sigh and partly a whisper, fell on the air.
“What was that?” said Jane quickly.
The sound came again, a little louder this time. Mary Poppins cocked her head and listened.
Again a faint chirping seemed to come from the doorstep.
“Ah!” cried Mary Poppins triumphantly. “I might have known it!”
And with a sudden movement, she sprang at the circular object Miss Andrew had left behind and tweaked off the cover.
Beneath it was a brass bird-cage, very neat and shiny. And sitting at one end of the perch, huddled between his wings, was a small, light-brown bird. He blinked a little as the afternoon light streamed down upon his head. Then he gazed solemnly about him with a round, dark eye. His glance fell upon Mary Poppins, and, with a start of recognition, he opened his beak and gave a sad, throaty, little cheep. Jane and Michael had never heard such a miserable sound.
“Did she, indeed? Tch, tch tch! You don’t say!” said Mary Poppins, nodding her head sympathetically.
“Chirp-irrup!” said the bird, shrugging its wings dejectedly.
“What? Two years? In that cage? Shame on her!” said Mary Poppins to the bird, her face flushing with anger.
The children stared. The bird was speaking in no language they knew, and yet here was Mary Poppins carrying on an intelligent conversation with him as though she understood.
“What is it saying—” Michael began.
“Sh!” said Jane, pinching his arm to make him keep quiet.
They stared at the bird in silence. Presently he hopped a little way along the perch towards Mary Poppins and sang a note or two in a low, questioning voice.
Mary Poppins nodded. “Yes – of course I know that field. Was that where she caught you?”
The bird nodded. Then he sang a quick, trilling phrase that sounded like a question.
Mary Poppins thought for a moment. “Well,” she said, “it’s not very far. You could do it in about an hour. Flying South from here.”
The bird seemed pleased. He danced a little on his perch and flapped his wings excitedly. Then his song broke out again, a stream of round, clear notes, as he looked imploringly at Mary Poppins.
She turned her head and glanced cautiously up the stairs.
“Will I? What do you think? Didn’t you hear her call me a Young Person? Me!” She sniffed disgustedly.
The bird’s shoulders shook as though he were laughing.
Mary Poppins bent down.
“What are you going to do, Mary Poppins?” cried Michael, unable to contain himself any longer. “What kind of a bird is that?”
“A Lark,” said Mary Poppins briefly, turning the handle of the little door. “You’re seeing a Lark in a cage for the first time – and the last!”
And as she said that, the door of the cage swung open. The Lark, flapping his wings, swooped out with a shrill cry and alighted on Mary Poppins’ shoulder.
“Humph!” she said, turning her head. “That’s an improvement, I should think?”
“Chirr-up!” agreed the Lark, nodding.
“Well, you’d better be off,” Mary Poppins warned him. “She’ll be back in a minute.”
At that the Lark burst into a stream of running notes, flicking his wings at her and bowing his head again and again.
“There, there!” said Mary Poppins gruffly. “Don’t thank me. I was glad to do it. I couldn’t see a Lark in a cage! Besides, you heard what she called me!”
The Lark tossed back his head and fluttered his wings. He seemed to be laughing heartily. Then he cocked his head to one side and listened.
“Oh, I quite forgot!” came a loud voice from upstairs. “I left Caruso outside. On those dirty steps. I must go and get him.”
Miss Andrew’s heavy-footed tread sounded on the stairs.
“What?” she called back in reply to some question of Mrs Banks. “Oh, he’s my Lark, my Lark, Caruso! I call him that because he used to be such a beautiful singer. What? No, he doesn’t sing at all now, not since I trapped him in a field and put him in a cage. I can’t think why.”
The voice was coming nearer, growing louder as it approached.
“Certainly not!” it called back to Mrs Banks. “I will fetch him myself. I wouldn’t trust one of those impudent children with him. Your banisters want polishing. They should be done at once.”
Tramp-tramp. Tramp-tramp. Miss Andrew’s steps sounded through the hall.
“Here she comes!” hissed Mary Poppins. “Be off with you.” She gave her shoulder a little shake.
“Quickly!” cried Michael anxiously.
“Oh, hurry!” said Jane.
