Update 08/30/10 - Dear Readers:

It seems to me that either an error occurred on the site after its transfer or the wrong version of this chapter got posted to begin with so long ago. My apologies! Hopefully now it makes more sense. If anything else seems totally askew, please let me know!

Always,

Margo

It had not taken Bert very long at all to become intrigued by the mysterious character that was Mary Poppins. There was most assuredly something different about her, in so many aspects really, and after only a couple of meetings with her, the man came to realize the amount of power she commanded. The magical slant to Mary was most obvious, of course, but to Bert that was not her most impressive feature. What never failed to dazzle him was borne of a different sort of alchemy - or so it seemed. The most simple and miraculous of all of Mary Poppins' tricks was her innate ability to pop into his life shortly after he had discounted her. Bert never liked to think that he had ever truly forgotten the stunning lady, but even he could not deny that from time to time other matters moved to occupy the center stage of his mind.

Coincidentally, it had not been long after he watched Mary Poppins take to the sky that Bert decided to exercise his youthful age and bountiful ambition, and put into motion an always-cherished idea to rove the mysterious and measureless world. For as foolhardy as Herbert Alfred may have seemed, however, he was sensible enough to understand that trekking the globe was not nearly as simple as it may have appeared. He would need some sort of a plan, but a bit of his own inexplicable magic would prove to serve him well. After eventually abandoning his beloved London months later and passing his time in various English cities, a stroke of luck in Liverpool would help Bert leave the country behind altogether as he came under the command of the Chief Steward of the RMS Etruria for a voyage to New York. After only three days at sea, Bert was already considering his position one of the best occupations of his life. He remained a jack-of-all-trades even miles away from the shore - his prudent overseers had soon learned how versatile the young sailor's talents were and engaged him in a number of tasks. No matter if he was serving meals to diners or straightening the officers' quarters, Bert was always pleasant and reliable. The passengers and crew members grew rather fond of bumping into him, knowing he was good for a laugh. The enjoyment provided by those in his company, not to mention the bright sunshine and the pungent sea air that engulfed him, had launched him into a state of blissful ignorance. So at peace was he to be out of the haste of the grimy city that nothing seemed to matter anymore. It was certainly of no concern of his that once the ship reached New York in a mere three days, he would have no idea where he was going next or an inkling as to how he would get there. Staring out into the endless blue expanse made him feel as if the party would never reach a destination. This thought was no cause for anxiety either. Should the ship gracefully cut into the oncoming waves forevermore, Bert imagined he would be quite content. Nowhere in his mind was there the slightest desire to return home. All that seemed to exist anywhere was the rhythmic mass of water and the gargantuan ship that sailed it.

His intoxication was not helped on the afternoon of that fourth day at sea by the fact that the bitter cold had chased nearly everyone off the decks, making Bert's own little world all the more believable. He was still working as hard as ever, however, presently laying warm, felt blankets on the abandoned deck chairs for anyone who might decide to venture into the chilly sunshine. Bert had fallen into a pattern, scooping up a dozen or so blankets from their storage before laying them precisely the same way on each chair. Most of the time it was hard to see over the contents of his hands, but he hardly worried about knocking into anyone on the vacant deck. By the time he had reached the last half-dozen chairs on the port side, the sailor was just about numb from the whipping winds - but not so deadened that he could not notice the lone passenger who had braved the weather to recline on the deck, apparently lost in her own reverie. Her skin seemed to be mimicking the pale blue of her coat and skirt, though, and so Bert could not help but ask, "Blanket, miss?"

Her head snapped in his direction, cerulean eyes growing wide after briefly gazing upon him. In a moment, she was on her feet. "Bert," a familiar voice answered. "How lovely to see you again."

For a second's time, however, Bert remained puzzled as he tried to pin the woman before him to a name. He was believing her to be a passenger he had met while onboard before the sound of her voice fully registered in his mind, snapping him brusquely back into reality. "Mary Poppins," he declared, and the smile of recognition that crawled across the woman's face was all of the proof Bert needed that he had been correct. A wonderful memory from home had been transported into his abstraction, demolishing the chill that crept through his body. His work now finished as he flopped the last remaining blanket onto what had been her chair, he wanted nothing more than to speak with her again. He chuckled. "We do seem to meet under peculiar circumstances, don't we?"

But Mary could only shrug. "If you consider earning our livings a peculiar circumstance, I suppose." Her eyes focused momentarily on his glossy-buttoned jacket. "Though I must say I almost didn't recognize you."

"Oh, just another whim o' mine, I suppose. You're looking lovely yourself, Mary. 'ere on 'oliday, I s'pose?"

At once she stopped fingering the purple feather tucked into the brim of her hat and scowled. "Never! No, I assure you this is very much a business engagement. I should have never left London were it not for some - special circumstances."

Bert could help but grow perplexed at the woman's sudden reaction, but did not feel it within his business to question this. Instead, he ventured to inquire only of the more obvious."Pardon me if I sound meddlesome, Mary Poppins, but where're the children, then?"

For a moment he wondered if he should not have asked, for Mary, who he always known to be the epitome of composedness, suddenly froze and glanced back to the chairs where she had been resting. Finding them empty, she whipped back around to him and asked, "You haven't seen him, have you Bert? A little blonde boy?" But Bert, who would not even have noticed Mary had she not addressed him first, could only shake her head, intensifying the woman's panic yet again though she did a very good job of disguising it.

"I should have known something of this sort would happen! I must have dozed off...but, honestly! You would think an eight-year-old boy of his position would no better than to do something like this!" Bert listened to the fuming Mary as he scanned the surroundings for the described child, whose nanny did the same. The wooden decks were still largely empty, though this did not very much help their search. The brunette was clinging to the ship's alabaster rail and looking overboard when something in the distance caught the gentleman's eye.

"That couldn't be 'im, could it, Mary?" He asked, pointing past the Etruria's twin funnels. Following Bert's finger up from the ground, she too caught sight of his findings and gasped. A little person could be seen halfway up some of the ship's ratline.

"Oh, he wouldn't dare-" The woman bristled in amazement before launching into her fastest attainable walk, the tails of her coat flapping in the wind to reveal their lime green lining. Bert was quick on her heels, careful to avoid her wildly-swinging handbag or the point of her umbrella. Eventually the spirited lady came to a halt, craning her neck up to examine the figure above.

Bert imagined that it had to be the child in question for shortly thereafter she called, "David, do please get down from there this instant!"

"Aw, but Mary!" Came floating down. "The view's gorgeous! I'll be down in just a bit!"

"You're going to get yourself killed!" She attempted to reason with him, but David would have none of it.

"I'll be fine!"

Bert shot an inquisitive glance at Mary, almost asking if she wanted his assistance. But she managed to communicate in a brief look of her own that she had matters well in hand at readjusted her gaze to the boy. Suddenly, a violent wind erupted, blowing this way and that across the ratline, jostling it and its contents about. The nanny's eyes seemed to follow the wind pattern, and due to her calmness Bert could only wonder if she was somehow causing it. A moment later his thoughts were interrupted, however, by the audible moan of an exasperated child.

"Mary Poppins, help me!" He cried, almost as if he had no memory of defying her wishes to scurry back down moments before. "Yes, indeed," she complied. After a quick glance around, Bert watched her open her umbrella and sail upwards, before gingerly stepping onto a piece of the rope, collecting her charge with a few inaudible words, and landing safely next to him once again. The boy called David rushed to straighten out his coat as the nanny folded her umbrella back to its resting position.

"That was really quite despicable of you, David." Mary insisted. "We're here to meet your uncle, imagine if he had witnessed your antics."

The pudgy boy stared at his toes before the sounds of chatter were carried to him on a breeze. "Here he comes now! You don't imagine he saw, do you?"

She glanced at the approaching group of men once directed by the boy. Their leader, a mustached fellow in a long, fur-trimmed coat, was chatting excitedly, pausing occasionally only to laugh. "Luckily for you," Mary decided, "I don't think he did." Soon, the prestigious-looking group was upon the three of them, and Bert could not help but feel awkward. His uncomfortableness only increased when the animated leader took a look at him and asked Mary, "Eh, what's this, company?"

But Mary pleasantly looked at Bert before beginning an introduction. "Bert, allow me the honor of introducing you to His Grace the Duke of Fife." Shocked, Bert fumbled through his acknowledgement, but the jovial duke seemed only to notice Bert's uniform.

"Ah!" He exclaimed. "Certainly, man, you haven't the inexorableness to moddycoddle the Duke with terminological inexactitudes pertaining to the circumstancialities of our peregrination!"

Bert barely caught the man's request, buried as it was under the burden of his word choice, but nonetheless he had an idea of what was being asked of him and couldn't help but try to phrase his response similarly. "No, yer grace! But we're - erm - luxuriating in - unchallengeably splendiferous meteorological encompassment, to be sure - and we're - traversing in a very propitious fashion!"

The duke and his entourage laughed with delight before once again his grace piped up. "Finally! After all of my globetrotting there is one who can challenge my !" The sailor suddenly felt compelled to live up to the gentleman's praise and so replied, "I certainly can't be the only one to escape your floccinaucinihilipilification! Where is it that you've traveled to?"

"Well, our journey was inagurated in Liverpool, and from there we headed off to New York. But after we visit America we'll go to New Zealand and perhaps Nunathloogagamiutbingoi. Then we'll sail to Queenstown, detour to Sydney before taking our jolly time traveling Europe before heading home. What do you say to that, my lad?"

But here Bert was forced to concede to the duke, who had fairly won the wordsmithing contest. "Searching my entire list of abstrusenesses, your grace, I'm afraid that all I can say is - !"

Another approving uprorar filled the air, before the Duke of Fife turned to Mary Poppins. "A fine chap he is, this friend of yours, ay?" Mary smiled at Bert before answering. "Of course. Those who do not suffer from sesquippedaliophobia hold quite a bit of honorificabilitudinitas with me."

A few cheers were emitted for her before the nobleman once again addressed Bert after glancing at his pocket watch. "Tell me, my lad, would you be so kind as to join us for tea? We stopped to collect young David here and it's now approaching high tea time. I'd love to hear more of this "supercolossus" business of yours. Was that it?" ", your grace," he corrected. "An' I'd be honored." "Excellent, then!" The duke exclaimed. He then turned to address Mary. "Louise will be in her suite, Mary Poppins. I do believe you wanted to speak with her?" "Oh yes, thank you very much!" She hastened to depart from the group as they continued on, Bert the only one seeming disappointed to watch her go.

But for as crestfallen as Bert was to watch her depart that evening, he was equally as thrilled to see her figure, dressed in powder blue, stroll up and down the deck that night. His eyes merely followed the pattern of her pacing for awhile before he shattered the silence of the darkness with, "Ay, Mary Poppins!"

Mary's head shot up, seeing where her blonde charge had once perched on the ratline none other than Bert. Her eyes twinkled.

"Lovely night, care to join me?"

"Bert! What on Earth do you think you're doing?" He only laughed. "The li'l bloke was right! The view's a beauty!" The woman's sigh was audible from even where he sat, but she was quick to respond.

"Well, since you don't seem too keen on coming down - if I must I must!" And in a moment she was ascending rapidly once again before spinning, folding her umbrella, and sitting carefully in one unbelievable movement.

"You needn't worry about losing your balance," Bert insisted, the more proper accent he had tried to muster with the duke returning. "This structure's composed of the finest monofilaments available." "Oh, don't you start that again!" Mary ordered with her brightest smiled. "Duke Alexander was quite taken with you. I must admit I am rather fond of that word of yours, though."

Bert grinned. "I've got a few tricks o' me own up me sleeves, Mary Poppins. An' I imagine they'll all come in handy on this expedition the duke's invited me on. Though I can't begin to imagine how translates to anythin'." They both looked at each other, giggling, before the brunette declared, "I do believe it's a cognate."

A silence followed before Bert quietly continued. "An' what's this I hear? You won't be comin' along?" She looked away before responding quite simply. "No, I won't."

The man mused, biting his lower lip. "I s'pose it would just be a waste for you, ay? What with the fact that you kin prolly blink and wind up wherever your 'eart desires, eh?"

"Really!" She harrumphed, taking more offense than Bert ever dreamed she would. "It should be so simple as all that!"

But he wasn't convinced. "Oh, you know yeh kin! Someday you'll prove it! Or maybe," he pondered aloud, recalling all he had learned at tea that afternoon, "you just want to get back to Buckingham Palace as quick as yeh kin! An' li'l David! I wish you wouldda told me that was just a pet name! A bit embarrasin', it was, that I didn't even recognize the duke's nephew as Prince Edward the Ayth!"

"Minor technicalities, really," Mary defended without a touch of hubris. "And for your information when I return to London I'll be leaving David and all of his royal family members and Buckingham Palace behind - I suppose the duke didn't tell you that, did he?"

"Oh, he mentioned it," Bert admitted. "But I can't say I believed 'im."

"You're not coming back to London, are you Bert?" She asked, all matter-of-factness gone from her voice.

He tried to smile coyly to lift her spirits. "The duke told you that, did he?" For it was quite true that the sailor would be joining Alexander in his journeys once his contract on the Etruria had expired. The duke was very fond of traveling and Bert was certain that this was his long-awaited opportunity to see more of the world. When he had initially formulated his plans after being extended the offer of traveling in his grace's company, he hadn't particularly planned to return to London again.

"Oh, he mentioned it," Mary mimiced. "But I can't say I believed him."

A shiver that escaped her moments later snapped Bert's thought process. "Where are my manners?" He chided himself before asking, "May I?"

She was unsure just what he meant, but nodded all the same. Shortly thereafter, Bert was unwrapping the orange scarf from around his neck, being careful not to unbalance himself on the delicate ropes. Mary grabbed a hold of his shoulder to prevent such an action as well before sitting back as he gently wrapped the scarf around her neck.

"Thank you," she breathed, smoothing it down over the front of her coat. Her eyes relocked with his for a moment before he turned his attention to the milky sky.

"Beautiful, ain't it?" Bert murmered, tracing patterns in the stars with his gaze. Mary agreed with a nod. "'ave you ever just sat on the rooftops back 'ome at night, watching the stars twinkle?" "I can't say that I have," she replied, looking down into the water below.

"Yeh really should sometime. P'rhaps someday I'll show you the sights." "Oh?" She inquired, looking at him once again. "Does this mean you're coming back, now?"

He beamed at her. "We'll see. I would for you. But 'ow would I know that you'd still be there? You do quite a bit of movin' aroun' yerself."

Mary sighed. "I may move from family to family but I never leave London. I told you earlier these were some special circumstances."

A question suddenly formed on Bert's lips, astonished as he was by the evening, and he couldn't hold it back. "Why do you stay?"

But just as quickly Mary retorted. "Why do you go?" And silence enveloped them once again as Bert feared he had overstepped his boundaries. This feeling only intensified when the woman declared. "I best retire, it's getting rather late. You can descend all right, can't you?" He affirmed that he could and Mary moved to untie the scarf from around her neck.

"No, Mary Poppins. You keep it." She smiled down at the scarf, ceasing momentarily in her movement to descend. "I'll wear it every time I arrive in or leave London. I'll remember this particular flight. And I'll remember a very wonderful friend."

Bert held Mary's arm as she once again opened her umbrella before departing. Long after she had returned indoors did he remain nearly frozen in his position on the rope. He thought of all of the adventures that would come for him, but ultimately he thought of her. She was both the most beautiful and most peculiar woman he had ever met, though Bert did not exactly understand why. He did not understand her. He wondered why that mattered to his quite nonsensical self, but it did. Often times he found himself thinking that he and Mary Poppins had much in common, but that simply couldn't be. She was far too practical to share classification with him. But what made her practical? What did she consistently do? She flew on an umbrella, she nannied children - but there wasn't much correlation.

Sometime later, the reality of it all slapped Bert hard in the face, to the point where he grasped at the ropes to keep from falling. Everything Mary Poppins did make perfect sense. He should have seen it from the very beginning, for all the evidence was there.

Whether it be a drinking glass, a family business or even an heir to the throne - Mary Poppins took broken pieces and put them back together. Though in the future, to his blunder, this realization would slip his mind.