then?”
“For the present, ma’am.”
“But, Mary Poppins, last time you were here you left without a Word of Warning. How do I know you won’t do it again?”
“You don’t, ma’am,” replied Mary Poppins calmly.
Mrs Banks looked rather taken aback.
“But – but will you, do you think?” she asked uncertainly.
“I couldn’t say, ma’am, I’m sure.”
“Oh!” said Mrs Banks, because, at the moment, she couldn’t think of anything else.
And before she had recovered from her surprise, Mary Poppins had taken her carpet-bag and was hurrying the children upstairs.
Mrs Banks, gazing after them, heard the Nursery door shut quietly. Then, with a sigh of relief, she ran to the telephone.
“Mary Poppins has come back!” she said happily, into the receiver.
“Has she, indeed?” said Mr Banks at the other end. “Then perhaps I will too.”
And he rang off.
Upstairs Mary Poppins was taking off her overcoat. She hung it on a hook behind the Night-Nursery door. Then she removed her hat and placed it neatly on one of the bed-posts.
Jane and Michael watched the familiar movements. Everything about her was just as it had always been. They could hardly believe she had ever been away.
Mary Poppins bent down and opened the carpet-bag.
It was quite empty except for a large Thermometer.
“What’s that for?” asked Jane curiously.
“You!” said Mary Poppins.
“But I’m not ill!” Jane protested. “It’s two months since I had measles.”
“Open!” said Mary Poppins, in a voice that made Jane shut her eyes very quickly and open her mouth. The Thermometer slipped in.
“I want to know how you’ve been behaving since I went away!” remarked Mary Poppins sternly.
Then she took out the Thermometer and held it up to the light.
“Careless, Thoughtless and Untidy,” she read out.
Jane stared.
“I’m not surprised!” said Mary Poppins, and thrust the Thermometer into Michael’s mouth. He kept his lips tightly pressed upon it until she plucked it out and read:
“A very Noisy, Mischievous, Troublesome little Boy.”
“I’m not,” he said angrily.
For answer she thrust the Thermometer under his nose and he spelt out the large red letters.
“A-V-E-R-Y-N-O-I-S. . .”
“You see?” said Mary Poppins, looking at him triumphantly. She opened John’s mouth and popped in the Thermometer.
“Peevish and Excitable.” That was John’s temperature.
And, when Barbara’s was taken, Mary Poppins read out the two words, “Thoroughly Spoilt.”
“Humph!” she snorted. “It’s about time I came back!”
Then she popped it quickly in her own mouth, left it there for a moment, and took it out.
“A very Excellent and Worthy Person, Thoroughly Reliable in every Particular.”
A pleased and conceited smile lit up her face as she read her temperature aloud.
“I thought so,” she said priggishly. “Now – Tea and Bed!”
It seemed to them no more than a minute before they had drunk their milk and eaten their Coconut Cakes and were in and out of the bath. As usual, everything that Mary Poppins did had the speed of electricity. Hooks and eyes rushed apart, buttons darted eagerly out of their holes, sponge and soap ran up and down like lightning, and towels dried with one rub.
Mary Poppins walked along the row of beds tucking them all in. Her starched white apron crackled, and she smelt deliciously of newly-made toast.
When she came to Michael’s bed, she bent down and rummaged under it for a minute. Then she carefully drew out her camp bedstead with her possessions laid upon it in neat piles. The cake of Sunlight soap, the toothbrush, the packet of hairpins, the bottle of scent, the small folding armchair and the box of throat lozenges. Also the seven flannel nightgowns, the four cotton ones, the boots, the dominoes, the two bathing caps and the postcard album.
Jane and Michael sat up and stared.
“Where did they come from?” demanded Michael. “I’ve been under my bed simply hundreds of times and I know they weren’t there before.”
Mary Poppins did not reply. She had begun to undress.
Jane and Michael exchanged glances. They knew it was no good asking, because Mary Poppins never explained anything.
She slipped off her starched white collar and fumbled at the clip of a chain round her neck.
“What’s inside that?” enquired Michael, gazing at a small gold locket that hung on the end of the chain.
“A portrait.”
“Whose?”
“You’ll know when the time comes – not before!” she snapped.
“When will the time come?”
“When I go!”
They stared at her with startled eyes.
“But, Mary Poppins,” cried Jane, “you won’t ever leave us again, will you? Oh, say you won’t!”
Mary Poppins glared at her.
“A nice life I’d have,” she remarked, “if I spent all my days with you!”
“But you will stay?” persisted Jane eagerly.
Mary Poppins tossed the locket up and down on her palm.
“I’ll stay till the chain breaks!” she said briefly.
And, popping a cotton nightgown over her head, she began to undress beneath it.
“That’s all right,” Michael whispered across to Jane. “I noticed the chain and it’s a very strong one.”
He nodded to her reassuringly. They curled up in their beds and lay watching Mary Poppins as she moved mysteriously beneath
