Jack was still twelve when he first met Mary Poppins.
He and his friend Angus, a fellow leerie a month and five days younger than him, had been on their way home—back to supper with Bert and the Sweeps.
The problem was, Bert had sent them to light a part of London that they'd never worked in before. So with Angus rolling their bike along as they walked and Jack leading them from alley to alley, moving in a constant fog, they became terribly lost.
Jack was the first to admit it. "Think we took a bad turn near the butcher's," he decided as they stopped in a narrower corridor.
Angus scowled. "Told you we was too far north."
"I'll get us home," Jack promised. "Soon as we find a lamppost, I'll trip the light an' lead the way."
"I've done with lamps tonight," sighed Angus.
Suddenly, as they rounded a corner, a tall shadow hit the wall they were facing, lit by a bin fire.
The shadow's mouth moved; apparently talking to someone whose shadow didn't join it. "Is that so?" it was saying briskly. "Well, thank you for your help. I shall be certain to pass it along."
Jack and Angus, intrigued by the posh voice in this maze of alleys, slowly rounded the corner. They almost bumped into the woman the shadow belonged to, who was going in their direction. She was the loveliest lady either boy had ever seen. Wearing dark blue, a pair of spotless gloves, a brolly with a bird's head for a handle, and a hat with flowers all around it, she was rather like looking at a fine painting. Especially in that dark place.
Jack's mouth fell open. "Sorry," he blustered as they stumbled backward to avoid hitting her.
The lady straightened her hat and looked down at them searchingly. Then, as if they were passing one another on the lofty streets downtown, she nodded and said—not unkindly, but as if she were in a hurry—she said, "Good evening!"
And then she bustled past them in a firm step. She didn't seem to need to lift her skirts as Katie Nana did, and her lipstick was not a bit affected by the low light in the alleys, red as ever.
On her way past, she paused and glanced at Jack, right in the eyes. "You'll want to take five lefts and then turn right past the fourth gray chimney."
The two boys exchanged a look.
"Here," demanded Angus, "who were you talkin' to?"
They glanced around, but couldn't see anyone. Squinting, the only movement was the glimpse of something thin and pink sliding in between two old crates.
"JackRat," the woman replied curtly, starting back on her way.
Jack, who had been looking intently at the spot where the thin pink thing had vanished, turned around with his mouth open. "My JackRat?" he demanded, a corner of his mouth quirking up.
She stopped again. "Yes," she said rather impatiently. "Although if you ask me, you are his, and not the other way round. He has been a wonderful help."
"Did…" Jack licked his lips, hesitating nervously. Somehow, just looking at her, a thrill of excitement started low and insistent in his chest. He didn't seem to have any trouble believing this stranger could talk to animals. "Did you ask him directions, miss?"
Angus waited, holding his breath, for her answer. He looked just as affected as his friend.
"Yes," she repeated.
"Are you lost too, then, miss?"
"Lost!" The woman's hand flew to her chest. "Lost! I am never lost, thank you. I am perfectly capable of returning home on my own. The directions were on your behalf."
"How did you know we was comin'?" asked Angus in a hushed voice.
But Jack, who was getting giddier all the time, drove an elbow into his ribs. Something about this woman was familiar—and really, there could only be one such person. If this wasn't Bert's famous nanny, he'd eat his cap.
"'Cos she's Mary Poppins, o' course," he decided aloud.
Mary Poppins dipped her head to him, turning completely around now. There was a professional smile tickling her face, as if she had been waiting for this moment. She offered them a dainty hand.
"How do you do?" she asked with splendid politeness.
Each boy shook with her, and each boy gaped as they did. Angus had heard one or two tales of Mary Poppins—to the handymen and their apprentices, Bert painted her as a fairy godmother of sorts. Someone with remarkable abilities, to be regarded with deepest respect, to be respected spoken of fondly. But his descriptions of her to the other men were vague. Only to his own student, to Jack, did he give the real picture—a woman of imagination and empathy, the sturdiest head on any pair of shoulders, the loveliest person in creation. Bert's best friend and the lucky (if magic) lady who had won his heart.
It was Bert's affection for Mary Poppins that ran through Jack now, so that he looked at her with a similar amount of familiarity and delight. He didn't deeply fancy her the way Bert did, nor did he harbor a child's crush, but he liked her on the instant, and thought there could be no better lady for his mentor. Bert deserved someone with a helper's soul like his, even if she—according to the Match-Man himself—came and went as she pleased.
"My friend the Sweep told me all about you—you can get us back, can't you?"
"Dear old Bert," was Mary Poppins' shining response to this. It was the first time her smile was really warm during the whole exchange, like an ordinary girl instead of the extraordinary person the boy knew her to be. It seemed she was pleased at being the subject of the Sweep's stories. "Whatever can you mean, getting back?"
"Well, we're lost, aren't we?" Jack saw Angus shaking his head hard out of the corner of his eye, and turned to silence him with a look. "Gotta be home in time for supper."
"Bert's own protégé, lost on a marvelously clear London night." Mary Poppins clicked her tongue. "Disgraceful."
"We could get on if we had a lamp or two," Angus spluttered out indignantly. "Just us. But there's none about!"
"You can take us," Jack repeated, looking up into her eyes without flinching. To other children, she might have seemed cold and posh. But Jack felt as if he knew her better already. He liked the blue in her stare, the confidence he saw there. "Can't you, Mary Poppins?"
"Well," she hummed, "it all depends on how lost you may be. Kindly tell me—would you say you are only slightly lost—"
"Yes!" Angus chirped.
Mary Poppins' eyes grew larger, sharper, and her mouth became taught. Angus' jaws snapped shut in an instant, and he blushed.
"Are you only slightly lost," Mary Poppins continued in the same tone, "or are you hopelessly lost? You see I'm rather in a hurry, and unless it's an emergency, I'm afraid I can't stay."
And she opened her umbrella, fixing her hair with a glove the way ladies do in parlor mirrors before walking out the door.
Sensing her intent to leave, Jack hurried around to her front again. "Hopelessly, miss," he insisted.
After staring at him a moment with those strong blues and a stern grip on her brolly, she gave the tiniest of sighs through her nose. "Very well, if that's the case, I suppose I have no choice but to take you both home."
Jack's face nearly split open in a grin. "Thankin' y'kindly, Mary Poppins!" Wait until Bert heard about this!
She twirled her umbrella expertly and tucked it tight against her side. Jack watched her, enchanted, hardly believing she was really a foot or so away from him. He had been hearing about her, picturing her, for nearly four years of his life now. It was intoxicating just to be near her shadow—like standing in the shade of Father Christmas himself.
"Angus, as I recall, you mentioned the need for lamps?" She didn't look back at him as she asked.
Angus watched the back of her head curiously. "That's right, ma'am. We're leeries. Need a bit 'o time an' tide—"
"He means a bit o' light to guide," Jack interrupted quickly, proud he was able to translate a lamplighter's rhyming language.
"That won't be necessary, Jack, thank you. You'll find I am fluent in leerie," Mary Poppins informed him briskly, not sparing him a glance either. "As well as rodentia. Now step back, please, three steps each. That's the way. And stand up straight. No sense in going anywhere if you're to get there walking like a pair of flour-sacks."
Jack snapped to attention, standing as straight as an iron rod. Angus mimicked him, and the two tried hard not to snicker at the other's grim expression.
Mary Poppins did not so much as blink. Jack got a good look at her face and Angus was watching from behind. She didn't twitch a pinky or shuffle a boot. But it seemed with her breath alone, in and out, there appeared dozens of lamp frames—bronze ones—all around them. They just floated in midair, no posts in sight, high and low and one so near Jack's ear, he briefly felt the cold of its metal tickling him. The frames had been topped with round crowns instead of the pointy lamp heads the young leeries were used to.
"As I live an' breathe," Jack heaved out, stiff with shock and delight.
"Mind your fingers, Angus." Mary Poppins had only to clear her throat in the direction of the bicycle the boys had been rolling with them. It lifted into the air itself, following the nanny's every movement like a dog.
"Ace!" cried Angus, whistling.
"Right. Off we go," Mary Poppins announced. And they began to march.
Slowly, around the frames, growing like flowers from soil, glass walls began to form. They were peach-colored walls, like glass from the sea.
"They're not lit," Angus observed.
"Really." Mary Poppins treated them to the best-executed eyeroll they had ever seen. "Surely you don't expect me to do everything! I did hear you call yourselves lamplighters, did I not?"
Jack nodded. He nudged Angus, who closed his mouth quickly and nodded too.
"And you are equipped with the skills to light these lamps, are you not?"
"Yes, Mary Poppins!"
"Very well then, spit-spot." She nodded toward the flameless lamps. "You'll find a dial at their base. I trust the pair of you at least know how to turn one of those?"
Jack pursed his lips, determined to prove his trade, and stepped swiftly up to one of the bobbing lamp heads. Once he'd caught it, he pulled out a rag from his jacket pocket and wiped down each glass wall with a quick hand. There was no need, he realized; Mary Poppins had made them all spotless. But he caught her eye and saw her watching him with her chin lifted in approval.
Dipping his head to her, he turned the dial.
Immediately, the most wonderful blue flame flickered to life inside the dome, casting a dawn-colored glow along the alley around it.
Angus whistled again, and excitedly went to light a few of his own. Mary Poppins said nothing more, only turning and heading off.
They carried on that way for the rest of their trip. The two boy leeries lit every lamp they came across, bounding and leaping to capture the trickier ones, with the magic nanny silent and fast ahead of them. Jack matched Mary Poppins as she ducked, turned, and practically danced along to make sure she didn't bump into the postless lamps. She didn't falter for a moment, reaching the end of each corridor much faster than even the two street urchins did. When this happened, she waited for them, brolly tucked in front of her, not a bit out of breath, until they were all able to move on together. Jack edged along a particularly crowded alley sideways, hopping a little, and he couldn't help laughing. Angus was just as nimble, and kept getting distracted by the lamps, so that more than once, their guide had to call out for him to pick up the pace.
"Spit-spot," Mary Poppins commanded as they joined her. She started up again, more determined than ever, and they unconsciously tripped over one another trying to be the person directly behind her in line, winning second-place. "If I am not back precisely on schedule, I fear there will be no bedtime story. The children will be most disappointed, and I make it a rule never to disappoint my charges—unless provoked by righteous intent."
Among her long, uppity words, Jack heard two he recognized and grinned. "I wouldn't mind hearin' one o' those meself as we go."
"We're too old for bedtime stories," Angus hissed to him, a little reluctantly.
But there was no hiding from the lady with the flowered hat.
"Too old for stories?" Mary Poppins looked heavenward. "What utter nonsense."
"That's what I say!" agreed Jack. Wasn't the nanny herself the stuff of Bert's bedtime yarns when he had been only nine? Ignoring his friend, he added conversationally, eager to keep her attention, "Speakin' o' stories, Mary Poppins, I saw a book the other day in the market—nice pretty blue cover with a big ship on the front. Looked like a good wail. A pirate one, I thought, but I only 'ad tuppence at the time—"
"Silly Jack." Mary Poppins skirted around a bin. "A cover, I'll thank you to learn, is not the book. The truly special things are all inside. Take the tale of the Wealthy Widow, for example."
"The what?" Angus scrunched up his nose. The words were so far apart from one another to the orphans' ears; they both couldn't help staring at Mary Poppins in deepest interest.
She sniffed. "Surely you've heard of it."
Jack wagged his head back and forth, liking the way Mary Poppins interacted with a puddle as they encountered it. She didn't walk right through it and muddy her boots, nor did she give it a wide birth. Instead, as easy as a Sunday stroll, she went right on the edge of it, sending the smallest ripples through its surface. Not enough to get her feet wet, not enough even to muddle their reflections. In fact, Jack was almost certain he saw her reflection hang back there in the water while she moved on.
It winked at him!
Hand practically trembling with the pleasure of their situation, Jack neatly tipped his hat to it. Then said to the real thing, "Let's hear it, please, miss!"
She met his gaze for just a moment. He was heartened to see friendliness there, not unlike the playful expression her reflection had worn. Kind, but firm. "Oh, all right then."
Jack grinned at his mate, who was watching the bike drift above them. Angus couldn't resist kicking at the puddle a little as they walked by, wetting his striped shirt, but his companions didn't seem to mind as the story began.
"Once upon a time, there was a very expensive lady living in a tower. Her husband had recently passed on, and left her all kinds of precious jewels and treasures in his will. She was called Lady Hyacinth Macaw, for she adored the islands and far-off places. She would read of them nightly, for her husband had also given her his vast library of maps. She dreamt of a day when she might be a part of their splendor. If she could not visit beautiful places, she could pretend to be one. Not at all a practical point of view, I should say. Everywhere she went, she wore the most exquisite gowns. The finest brooches. Any number of gems adorned her neck and her hair. Many people befriended her for how much she had and how much she was willing to give. Outwardly, they were capital friends, you know. But their hearts were dreadfully greedy."
Jack watched Mary Poppins' face as she told the story. It did not change to suit the events she relayed, and she stared straight ahead all the while. It was almost as if she weren't telling a story—the only thing that gave it away was the charming, deep way she spoke and the faraway look in her eyes.
"One night," she went on, shooing another lamp with her umbrella, "while she was sleeping, a terrible thing happened. Her own friends—so-called—snuck into her tower and took all the riches they could find!"
"Do what?" Angus looked up, sucking in through his teeth.
"Come off it," Jack added with feeling, taking one of the flying lamps in both hands and looking in with an expert's eye. The glass was spotless, even when he let go, and the flame inside danced so violently, he could almost see Mary Poppins' story inside it—moving and living with the toss of the light.
"Don't dally, Jack, please." Mary Poppins called to him in her regular voice. Then she continued: "When she woke, all she had left was a pocketful of rubies, a few splendid gowns, and that library of maps. Well, as you might expect, Lady Hyacinth Macaw was aghast. She had first lost her husband, and now all her material treasures. What else was there to do but to leave that tower at once? After all, there was nothing there for her anymore. You see she was the wealthiest, most breathtaking lady on the outside, but beneath all her finery, what she really wanted was to get away from ordinary things and live where nobody would ever cheat her again. Where she could be alone with the things she had left—her husband's maps and a sense of adventure!"
"Where did she go?" Jack demanded.
"She took her pocketful of rubies, for it was all the money she had left, and traveled to a reef far from civilization. And that elegant Lady Hyacinth Macaw—so clever was she—she refused to wear a single gown. She kept them all locked in her old tower and when she came to her coral home, she wore none of the soft fabrics and fancy jewels she still owned. In fact, she hardly wore anything at all."
"Nothing?" Angus' mouth fell open.
"You sure, Mary Poppins?" Here, Jack's step faltered. The boy could not fathom why anyone who had so little left would decline from using any of it. If he had fine, colorful clothes….But they'd be powerful difficult to wash, he realized simply. And I like me cap.
Mary Poppins blinked down at them, now walking backwards of all things, and the alleys seemed to turn to accommodate her angle, instead of her turning to accommodate theirs. "I am always sure. She had a perfectly good reason, I should think. After all, would you try to rob someone who wasn't even wearing proper clothes?"
Jack thought about this for a moment while he walked. "I don't like to think as I'd rob anybody," he admitted. "But if—if I was the sort, I wouldn't do it to her."
"Angus?"
"Nor me neither," Angus decided.
"And why ever not?" Without waiting for their answer, Mary Poppins turned back around and finished for them. "It's because to an untrained eye, a person who looks poor on the outside could not possibly have any treasures worth stealing."
"But she did have," Jack interrupted, and flushed when she glowered at him for it.
"I beg your pardon?"
"She still 'ad her maps," he stammered. "Didn't she, Mary Poppins? She had the stuff her husband gave her."
"Maps," Mary Poppins tutted, "are not treasures."
"Were too, to her they were!" protested Angus, coming to step in time beside Jack. Offering his support. "It's like me bike. Dinged up a smidge, it is, but—but it's mine all the same."
"Best bit o' transport this side o' the Buck House," agreed Jack.
Mary Poppins narrowed her eyes at them, stopping their walk for the moment. It was definitely night now, and the lamps around them seemed to grow brighter by the second. It made her cheeks seem rosier and her hair softer, and Jack wondered fleetingly if she'd made them that way on purpose. He got the feeling that if anyone were to make lights, they would probably all do it in a way that would suit them best.
Then she smiled. "Quite right, I'm sure. And now you see, gentlemen, that the story of the Wealthy Widow lends itself perfectly to my point."
Angus glanced at Jack, trying to keep up. Jack did not return the glance. He could only look at Mary Poppins, something stirring within him. It was just a bedtime story she'd told, but he felt smarter for having heard it. The words quite right were still ringing in his ears.
"More often than not, you'll find your first impression was mistaken," she added. "Be it that of books and their covers…" Mary Poppins met their eyes, one at a time. "Or of people."
It must have been an hour or so before they began to recognize their surroundings. But Mary Poppins, at the boys' insistence, told tale after tale—all of them part of a mental diet high in morals and silliness—so really it felt more like a few minutes to them. When a good story fills the air, time seems to disappear.
Suddenly, Jack flung an arm out to stop his friend, looking around. "D'you smell what I smell, Angus?"
Angus gave a particularly deep sniff. For a second time, Mary Poppins' eyes grew twice their size and she stared furiously at the crowns of their heads at their manners. "Sixpence an' cages," he decided.
Jack tweaked his own nose with a thumb. "Must be near the bank."
"Well!" Mary Poppins straightened her hat. "I trust you can find your own way home from here."
Jack saw her hand go for the catch on her brolly and he felt stifled, heart squeezing, like a toddler just before its mother turns out the light for the night. "You won't see us back?"
It wasn't that he was frightened. He and Angus absolutely could get home from here. Jack knew the way by heart; he could have drawn it on the pavement with the sooty end of a broom if you'd asked. No, all at once he hated the idea of this dazzling woman leaving their side. There was something safe and mysterious and mad about her. He couldn't help feeling she might blow away forever if they let her out of their sight. As if it had all been a game they'd made up.
"Go on, join us for supper!" Angus pleaded, tugging at her sleeve just once. It was all he had the courage to do, but he seemed as spellbound with her as his mate was. At any rate, he was reluctant to see her go.
"Certainly not; you are quite capable of conducting yourselves further without my help," she tutted, eyelids lowered. "I happen to know your mentor, Jack, saves the bank lamps for last on his rounds at night. If you hurry, you may catch him at it." Mary Poppins tilted her chin in the direction of the nearest alley opening. Fidelity Fiduciary Bank, or the edge of it, could be seen just across the street.
"What 'bout you, then, Mary Poppins?" Jack folded his arms, tucking his thumbs underneath them at the chill in the night air. "Don't you wanna see dear ol' Bert?"
Angus started to chuckle and had to pretend to be sneezing. Mary Poppins did not seem impressed with either reaction.
If she noticed the cheekiness Jack was barely concealing in his tone, she didn't let on. All he got in response was a crisp, "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. Jiggity-jog, on you go. I mustn't be late, now."
"He sure likes seein' you, though, that's what he told me," Jack pressed.
"Did he really?" The whisper of a smile danced in her eyes and tickled the corners of her mouth.
Jack wanted to believe her cheeks were pinker than ever, but he wouldn't dare. Something about the way this governess held herself made you careful even in the way you thought about her when she was present. "He'd be right chuffed if you'd go and say hello. Really he would."
"Honestly," Mary Poppins shook her head. "Of all the nonsensical—I'll thank you to realize one's duties come first, before any sort of lark, however dear one's friends might be—"
"Chores before your mates?" Jack exchanged an exaggeratedly-scandalized stare with Angus, whose head was wagging hard. "You don't mean that, Mary Poppins!"
"Oh, silly Jack."
He was beginning to like the sound of that. A sly little smirk made him look older as he glanced up at her, otherwise-innocent. Visions of Bert's wide grin, twinkly eyes going into overtime, filled his head.
Mary Poppins' hand drifted to her perfectly-done hair, as though it needed patting down. "And anyway, I fear I've already been to see him this week. Moderation in all things."
Jack's arms dropped in shock. Bert had seen Mary Poppins in the last few days? And he hadn't mentioned it? To Jack?
"You're bloomin' jokin'!" Angus seemed to be having a hard time believing this as well. Any of the handymen would have expected Bert to fly from the rooftops with the news of Mary Poppins' return should it ever happen. And here she was, in the flesh, telling them the opposite.
Mary Poppins' hint of a smile disappeared. "I assure you I am not joking. And now, if you'll excuse me, I really must be getting back."
In one last attempt, Jack hurried to catch up as she headed out into the open street. "Won't we need the lamps, though?"
Both boys reached the exit of the alleyways, standing in the frosty streets of the city. A few bushes of fog sat here and there, but otherwise the cobblestones were slick and sparkling, and the air was clean, the horizon easily charted.
"What on earth are you talking about?" She made as if she might open her umbrella, but instead tightened its strap and paused, glancing back at them with stern blues.
Angus jabbed a thumb behind them. "Them lanterns wot helped—"
He and Jack turned completely around, gaping. Their bike was grounded, leaning placidly against the wall on their left. There was not a single lamp left floating behind London's structures. It was all gone, as though it had never happened.
"I expect you'll find all the light you need here along this path," Mary Poppins told them tartly, gesturing with a gloved hand to the many lampposts their brethren had already lit in their absence.
"But yours were better, miss," said Angus, glowering at the empty alley.
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."
She started off, and Angus turned around with a small sigh, retrieving the bike. Jack watched the nanny get further and further away, biting the inside of his cheek. A sudden fear tugged at the back of his mind.
"You won't leave 'im without sayin' goodbye," he called out. "Will you, Mary Poppins?"
She stopped.
"I shall stay until the wind changes," she told him curtly, and somehow there was no need for her to raise her voice. "Kindly stop looking like a balloon without air, Jack," she huffed. A bit more gently, she added, "I daresay we'll meet again."
Jack felt one of his dance-with-the-flame smiles spreading. He stood a little taller.
"If you behave yourself," finished Mary Poppins.
And with that, she rounded the corner and was gone.