Half-Past Bedtime

by Sir H. H. Bashford

  "I believe we're lost," said Cuthbert, but Doris didn't seem to hear,and so they toiled on with sinking hearts, and then at last, just asthey were almost spent, they suddenly knocked their knees against alittle gate. It was the sort of gate that leads into a garden path; andthough they could see no sign of this, or even of a light, they pushedit open with a great effort, and went plunging into the snow beyond.

  Sometimes people have been frozen close to a house, but in a littlewhile they saw a great dark shadow; and then to their joy they foundthemselves in front of a door, with a gleam of light shining through theletter-box. For a long time they knocked, but nobody came; and severaltimes they shouted through the letter-box. But still nobody came, andthen from behind the house they heard the barking of a dog.

  Doris gripped Cuthbert's arm.

  "It's old Mother Hubbard's," she said. "That's her dog. I know it'sbark."

  "Then we'll never get in," said Cuthbert, but just as he said that theyheard footsteps coming down the hall.

  "Who's there?" said a voice. It had an odd sort of creak in it, like thecreak of a drawer that is seldom opened. Cuthbert told her; and then,after a long pause, the door moved a little on its hinges. An eddy ofsnow whirled in in front of them, and the door swung back an inch or twomore.

  "You'd better come inside," said Miss Hubbard, and they went into thehall, her first guests for fifty years. She stood looking at them over aflickering candle. Her eyes were frostier than the wind outside. The airof the house smelt like a tomb. They could hear the ticking of severalclocks.

  "You'd better come into the scullery," she said, "and shake the snowoff," and she led them in silence to the back of the house, where sheleft them alone for nearly twenty minutes before she came back to askthem in to tea.

  "It's in the drawing-room," she said, "and I hope you won't talk. I'mvery strong and I have a big dog."

  So they followed her into the drawing-room, and then a second, and evenmore wonderful, thing happened. Cuthbert stopped short, and so didDoris, and old Miss Hubbard switched round and stared at them.

  "What's the matter?" she asked. "What are you gaping at?"

  "Why, it's the penny room!" said Cuthbert; and so it was. For there wasthe queer high-backed piano; and there was the picture of peoplehunting; and there were the old-fashioned heavy ornaments.

  "But where's the dog," said Doris, "the blue china dog that used tostand on the mantelpiece?"

  Old Miss Hubbard had turned quite white.

  "The blue china dog?" she asked. "What do you know about that? It wasbroken thirty years ago."

  "But it's the same room," said Cuthbert, "and there was a girl in it,and she gave a man a penny for his thoughts."

  Old Miss Hubbard began to tremble. She sat down heavily, and her eyeslooked frightened.

  "But how do you know?" she asked. "You're only children; and that wasmore than fifty years ago."

  Cuthbert felt in his pocket and pulled out the penny.

  "This is the penny," he said, "that the girl gave him. We've just foundit, quite by accident. And he didn't tell her all of his thoughts. Heonly told her some of them. The rest are in here, and we made them comeout."

  He began to polish it again with his handkerchief; and then he gave itto her, and they stood watching her. For about five minutes she satquite still; and then she looked up, and her voice had changed a little.

  "If I tell you a story," she said, "will you let me keep it?"

  Cuthbert looked at Doris, and Doris nodded her head.

  "Why, of course," said Cuthbert. "We should be very pleased."

  So while they were having tea she told them that long ago a girl hadlived in that house, and that she fell in love with a young man, who wasa carpenter by trade. But he was also a naturalist, and especially fondof birds, and he wanted to discover all sorts of things about them; andone day he told the girl that he was just going away to work on arailway in South America. Then he hesitated, as if he wanted to tell hersomething else, and she gave him a penny for his thoughts; and then heleft the house, and was drowned at sea, and the girl never knew whetherhe had loved her or not.

  "It was very silly of him," said Miss Hubbard, "not to have told her.But perhaps the girl was sillier still. For she was so sad that shewasted her whole life; and now it seems that he loved her after all."

  Then she went to the window and pulled up the blind. The storm had dieddown, and it had stopped snowing. Brighter than eyes at a Christmasparty, the stars in their thousands shone in the sky. Cuthbert and Dorissaid that they must be going; and old Miss Hubbard took them to thefront door.

  "You must come and see me again," she said. "Come as often as you like;and perhaps next time you'll bring some of your friends."

  "But she never told us," said Cuthbert, "who the girl was."

  "Why, you silly," said Doris, "it was Miss Hubbard herself."

  Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard To fetch her poor dog a bone, But this Mother Hubbard in her heart's cupboard Lives in the dark alone.

  Sorrow's grey dust on the chandelier Never a sun-ray sees, Never a finger stirs the blind, Nor the harpsichord's yellow keys.

  Dumb is the clock with the china face, The carpet moulds on the floor; Oh, won't you come down to her house with me And open Miss Hubbard's door?

  MARIAN'S PARTY

  The Little Temple]

  XI

  MARIAN'S PARTY

  For a whole month after Cuthbert and Doris had had tea with old MissHubbard the snow lay white upon the ground, and the ice grew thick overthe ponds. Day after day during the Christmas holidays the children wentskating or tobogganing; and Cuthbert and Doris learnt to waltz onskates, and even Marian learnt to cut threes. And then the frost broke,and it rained all through February, and then came March with itsblustering winds. Sometimes it was an east wind, drying the wet fieldsor powdering them over with tiny snowflakes; and sometimes it was a westwind, shouting in the tree-tops, with its arms full of sunshine andgolden clouds; and the week before Marian's birthday, which was on the27th, was the windiest week of all, chasing people's hats across thetram-lines, and blowing the chimney-smoke down into their sitting-rooms.

  Marian always had a party on her birthday, and this year it was going tobe a specially nice one. Twelve of her friends were coming, and so wasUncle Joe, and so were Captain Jeremy and Gwendolen's aunt. So was MrParker, who lived with Uncle Joe, and so was Lancelot, the bosun's mate;and the most wonderful thing of all, so was old Miss Hubbard.

  It had been Cuthbert's idea to ask Miss Hubbard, and she had promised tocome on one condition--that she might be allowed to bring thebirthday-cake and the nine candles to stick into it. For Marian wasgoing to be nine, and it was nearly two years since she had met Mr Jugg;and she sometimes wondered--it seemed so long ago--if she had ever seenhim at all. Cuthbert used to tease her by pretending that she hadn't,and that Mr Jugg was only a dream, just as he used to tease her bytelling her that the 27th of March was a silly sort of day on which tohave a birthday. That was because his own birthday came in April, sothat it was always in the holidays; but Uncle Joe, who knew a lot aboutbirthdays, used to take Marian's side. March was the soldier's month, hesaid, full of bugles, and one of the best months to be born in; while,as for Cuthbert, anyone could tell by listening to him that he had comein April with all the other cuckoos.

  So Marian was naturally rather excited; and then, on the very morning ofher birthday, Cuthbert woke up with a strawberry-coloured tongue and achest as red as a cooked lobster. That was just the sort of thing,Marian thought, that Cuthbert would do, although she knew that she oughtto feel sorry for him; and then the doctor came and said that he hadscarlet fever, and that was the end of Marian's party. For Mummy had toput on an overall and begin to nurse Cuthbert, and a big sheet was hungacross the bedroom door, and Mummy had to sprinkle it with carbolicacid, and of course Marian wasn't allowed to go to school. But she couldgo for walks, said the doctor, as long as she went by herself anddidn't go
near anybody, or travel in trams and things; and so she spentthe morning in taking notes to her friends, telling them that therewasn't to be a party after all. As for Uncle Joe, Mummy sent him amessage by a carrier who passed near his house. "And the first thing inthe afternoon," she said to Marian, "you must slip across the fields toold Miss Hubbard's."

  Now a little girl whose only brother has just been silly enough to getscarlet fever is one of the loneliest people in the world; and that wasjust how Marian felt. Even her mummy tried to keep away from her,because she was nursing Cuthbert, who was so infectious; and she had hadstrict orders when she arrived at Mother Hubbard's not to go inside herhouse.

  "Everybody's happy," said Marian, "except me," as she saw the peoplelaughing in the country roads, and the horses biting at each other'smanes, and the birds circling together in the soft air. For, as ifSomebody had known that it was going to be her birthday and waved a wandduring the night, the wind had dropped and the clouds vanished, and theair was full of a thousand scents. There were earth-scents, warm andwet, and hedge-scents of primroses and growing weeds, and the scents ofsmall animals, and cow-scents and lamb-scents, and tree-scents of barkand cracking buds. Invisibly they rose and spread and mingled, likechildren flocking upstairs in their party frocks; and the sun beameddown on them like some gay old admiral who had just spied summer on thehorizon.

  But Marian was still unhappy and disappointed, and when she had givenher message to old Miss Hubbard she wandered across the fields, not verymuch caring where she went or what might happen to her. That was how shewas feeling when she came at last to a small wood, called the Pirate'sWood because it was shaped rather like a ship, with a lot of masts init, easy to climb. It was Cuthbert who had christened this wood, becausehe had climbed higher than the others--almost to the top of the tallesttree. But Doris had climbed nearly as high, and they both laughed atMarian, because she would only climb half-way up. It occurred to herthis afternoon, however, that she would climb higher than either ofthem; and she didn't care, she said, if she fell from the top.

  So she swung herself up on to the lowest branch of the big elm-tree nearthe middle of the wood; and presently she saw above her the fork betweentwo boughs that Cuthbert had christened the crow's-nest. Level with hernose, cut in the bark of the trunk, was a big D, standing for Doris, sothat already she had climbed as high as Doris had climbed, and was ableto look out over the other trees. But now she had come to the hardestpart of the climb, for in order to reach the crow's-nest she would haveto swarm up a piece of the elm-trunk from which there were no branchessticking out to help her. There were only roughnesses in the bark, intowhich she would have to dig her fingers, and first of all she had topull up her skirt and tuck it down inside her knickers. For a moment ortwo she began to be frightened. But then she told herself that shedidn't care; and soon she had swarmed high enough to reach one of theforking boughs, and had swung herself up into the crow's-nest.

  She was now as high as Cuthbert had climbed, and rippling away below hershe could see the fields and farm-lands stretching into the distance.Two or three miles to her right lay the spires and chimneys and crinkledroof-tops of the town, and two or three miles to her left, golden in thesunlight, the hills lay strung along the sky. Then she saw yet anotherfork between two slender boughs, just about a foot above her head, andin a minute or two she had climbed higher even than Cuthbert had done,and was safely perched in the top of the tree. If only the others hadbeen there she could have sighted imaginary ships for them sooner thanany of them had done before; and then she remembered again how sad andlonely she was, and that nothing really mattered after all.

  So she stuffed her handkerchief into a crack in the tree just to provethat she had really climbed there; and it was just then that she saw ayoung man swinging across the fields toward the wood. He was wearing anold shooting-jacket and grey flannel trousers; and he was singing asong, of which she couldn't hear the words. She saw him climb agate--rather cautiously, she thought; she had expected from his generalair that he would vault it; and then he disappeared under the trees justas she began to climb down.

  But climbing down anything is often more difficult than climbing up, asMarian found; and half-way down she suddenly discovered that she hadsomehow worked herself to the wrong side of the tree. Below her were twoor three branches that she thought would bear her, but there were longgaps yawning between them; and the main trunk was growing broader andbroader, so that she could no longer span it with her arms. Once a pieceof bark broke in her fingers, and she slithered down a yard or more andnearly fell; and she could feel her heart jumping against her ribs, asshe stood with both feet on a bending bough. Then she heard the youngman singing again in a cheerful voice, and she thought of shouting tohim, but she felt too shy; and then she began to lower herself verycarefully until she touched the branch below her with the tips of hertoes.

  The young man stopped singing.

  "Steady on," he cried. "You're touching a rotten branch."

  Marian pulled herself up again.

  "But it's the only one there is," she said. "I can't reach any other."

  She heard him whistle.

  "Hold on," he said. "I'm trying to find you--half a tick."

  He came to the bottom of the tree and looked up.

  "Where are you now?" he asked. Marian thought it a silly question.

  "Why, just here," she said.

  "Well, why don't you come down," he asked, "the same way that you gotup?"

  "I don't know," she said. "I wish I could. But I've got wrong somehow.I'm stuck."

  She saw him touching the elm-trunk with his hands, running his fingerslightly and quickly over it. Then he swung himself up on to the lowestbough, and soon he was near enough to touch her hand.

  "Now catch hold," he said, "and jump toward me. Don't be frightened. I'mas firm as a rock."

  Marian jumped, and he caught and steadied her.

  "Now you're all right," he said. "You'd better go down first."

  In another moment or two he was on the ground beside her, looking downat her with a smile. He was about six feet high, she thought, withqueer-looking eyes and curly brown hair and a skin like a gipsy's.

  "Well, what are you doing here," he asked, "climbing all alone?"

  Marian told him about her party, and how she had had to put it off. "Andit'll be seven or eight weeks," she said, "before Cuthbert's well again,so that I shan't have one at all."

  "Yes, I see," he said. "That's jolly bad luck. What about having sometea with me?"

  Marian looked at him a little doubtfully.

  "But where do you live?" she asked. "Do you live near here?"

  "Well, just at present," he said, "I'm staying with Lord Barrington. ButI have a flask in my pocket full of hot tea, and I stole some cakesbefore I came out."

  So they sat down together between the roots of the elm-tree, and thesun poured down upon them, almost as if it had been summer.

  "But why did you come here," said Marian--"to this wood I mean?"

  "Oh, just by accident," he said, "if there's any such thing."

  Marian looked him up and down again. She wondered what he was. Perhapsit was rude, but she ventured to ask him.

  "Well, I used to be a painter," he said, "once upon a time. I was rathera successful one. So I saved a little money."

  "But you're quite young," she said. "Why aren't you one now?"

  "Because I had a disappointment," he said, "just like you have had."

  Marian began to like him.

  "Was it a bad one?" she asked.

  "Pretty bad," he said. "I became blind."

  For a moment Marian was so surprised that she couldn't say anything atall; and then she felt such a pig that she didn't want to say anything.For what was a silly little disappointment like hers beside so dreadfula thing as becoming blind? But he looked so contented and was humming socheerfully as he counted out the cakes and began to divide them that hercuriosity got the better of her, and she spoke to him once more.
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br />   "But how did you know," she asked, "that I was up the tree?"

  "Quite simple," he said. "I heard you."

  "And how could you tell that that was a rotten branch?"

  "Because I heard the sound of it when your toes touched it."

  Marian was silent for a moment.

  "You must have awfully good hearing," she said. "But I suppose you'vepractised rather a lot."

  "Well, a good deal," he admitted. "You see, I was in the middle of Asiawhen I first lost my sight. I was camping out, and painting pictures,and shooting an occasional buck for my breakfast and dinner. Then a gunwent off while somebody was cleaning it, and the next moment I wasblind; and for a couple of months there was only one thing I wanted, andthat was to die as soon as I could."

  He poured out some tea for her and dropped a lump of sugar into it.

  "And then one day," he said, "there came a man to see me, and he told methat I oughtn't to be discouraged. He was an old priest of some queersort of religion that the people of those parts believed in; and he wassorry for me, and took me to stay with him in a little temple up in themountains. I never knew his name, we were just father and son to eachother, and I suppose that most people would have called him a heathen.But he had lived all his life up among the mountains, studying natureand praying to God. Well, I stayed with him for more than a year, and heused to talk to me about the things he knew. I was a bad pupil, I'mafraid, but he was infinitely patient; and after a time I began tolearn a little. 'You are blind, my son,' he used to tell me, 'but only alittle less blind than other people. And you have ears that are stillalmost deaf. Why not stay with me and learn to hear?' I told him that I_could_ hear, but he only smiled--it's a lovely thing to hear peoplesmile--and then he began to teach me, just as he would have taught achild, the ABC of hearing."