Half-Past Bedtime

by Sir H. H. Bashford

"And lone, lorn orphans," said Mr Parker, "and the man what comes to mend the bath."

"But that's jumping forward," said Uncle Joe, "a long time, for when Adam and Eve left the Garden they didn't even know what children were, and their hearts were full of bitterness against the good Lord God. That was one of the reasons why He thought it would be so nice for them to have a little girl of their own, because then in time they might begin to guess, He thought, something of what He felt toward themselves.

"So about a year after they had left the Garden little Bella was born, and they both thought that she was the loveliest baby that had ever been seen since the world began. Poor Adam and Eve were then living in a dark street on the outskirts of the town, and all that they could afford was one room on the top floor at the back.

"Adam had got work at one of the factories where they made boots and shoes, but he was only a beginner, of course, and hadn't learnt much, and so his wages were very small. Sometimes Eve took in a little washing, or got a job from somebody of darning socks, but she did her best to keep their home tidy and some fresh flowers on the mantelpiece. Every day, too, she put crumbs on the window-sill, and soon she had made friends with the birds that came and ate them, and sometimes a bird would fly from the Garden, and feed from her hand, and tell her the news. Both Adam and Eve, you see, knew the birds' language through having lived with them for so long. But they were never able to teach it to their children, and since they died no one has ever learnt it.

"Soon after Bella was born Adam got a rise in wages, but soon after that Eve had another baby; and then she had some more, and though they rented another room or two they were always poor and often hungry. But after a while they began to think less often of their old life in the Garden of Eden, and sometimes they would even wonder whether they would go back there if the good Lord God gave them the chance. You see, in spite of their poverty and their hard work and the noise and smells of the great town, they had learnt what it meant to have children, and to bend over their cots and kiss them good-night.

"When Bella was eight she was rather a fat little girl, with dark eyes and an impudent mouth, and she wore her hair in a long pigtail, and her nose was ever so slightly turned up. Adam and Eve thought that she was very beautiful, but everybody else thought her quite ordinary, and she spent most of her time in the streets, though she was always punctual for meals. She had lots of friends, most of them boys, but every now and then she would get tired of them all; and those were the times when she would go exploring and generally end up by hurting herself. Eve was too busy ever to bother much about what Bella did or where she went, and the Garden of Eden was the only place that she had strictly forbidden her to go near. It was one of the rules, of course, that nobody was to go near it, and there were angels at the gate with swords of flame; and this was a rule, Eve thought, that it would be very much worse for one of her children to break than for anybody else.

"So she had always told Bella never even to go up the street that led into the fields just outside the Garden; and if Bella hadn't been feeling bored on this particular day—it was just a week after her birthday—and if it hadn't been so hot, and the sun so scorching, and the streets so dusty, and everybody so cross, and if Bella hadn't been inquisitive just like her mother used to be, and if she hadn't sort of happened to be walking up that street, and if the fields at the end of it hadn't seemed so cool and so inviting, and if Bobby Gee, who was a great friend of hers, hadn't dared her to do it—well, there's no saying, but perhaps after all Bella wouldn't have stood looking at those dreadful gates.

"There was now only a strip of grass between her and the Garden, and she could see it stretched there beyond the railings. It was the middle of the afternoon, and so heavy was the sunshine that the leaves of the trees were all pressed down by it. None of them stirred. There was no sound. The lawns beneath them looked like wax. And where were the angels? Bella held her breath. There were none to be seen. There were only the sentry-boxes.

"Very cautiously she took a step or two forward. Her bare feet made no noise. The bars of the gate quivered in the heat. Then she stopped again and listened. At first she heard nothing, but then, very, very faint, there came to her ears the ghost of a sound. It came and died, and came and died, like the waves of a sea hundreds of miles off. She crept nearer and listened again, and now there were two sounds, rising and falling. They came from the sentry-boxes, one on each side of the gate. The angels inside were fast asleep. Bella bit her lip and crept forward. She could feel her heart jumping like a mouse in a cage. The scents of the Garden came to meet her. She could see its curved and vanishing pathways.

"But what caught her eyes and made them grow round was a bending tree just inside the gate. With her hands on the bars she stood looking at it, and presently her mouth began to water. For from every branch of it there hung such apples as she had never seen in all her life, and from the lowest bough there hung an apple that was the biggest and most beautiful of them all. And then another thing happened, for as she pressed against the bars the great gate began to move. Very slowly it swung open, and still the angels were fast asleep. Her heart was beating now like two clocks at once—what an apple it would be to eat! A bright-coloured bird hopped across the grass, and stood looking up at her with an inquiring eye. She glanced round about her and over her shoulder, but there was nobody in sight. Dared she go in? She thought about the rules, and what her mother had said, and then she remembered Bobby Gee. The angels were still breathing lightly and regularly. The bright-coloured bird had flown away.