Eve's Paradise

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$uB\or of CckoP C^r\P-tfs, jHi t-rouule^omc CricC^ t>JeJK G"&rdrser, J^A^^0,,l &£? L/^>c\f mi antes: 44 ITicfoNA JS?" EVE'S PARADISE Eve's Paradise BY Mrs. BRAY AUTHOR OF "A TROUBLESOME TRIO, "TEN OF THEM, ETC. " Tears in mine eyes, and bitterness in my mouth, The fruit I thought would satisfy me Has left me hungry for ever." Translated from "The LAMENT OF ADAM," one of the Ancient Syriac Poems of about the Fourth Century. LONDON WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO. 3, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C. AND 44, VICTORIA STREET, S.W. i8<33 CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. EVE I II. CONSECRATED II III. THE

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iS IV. MARGARET 28 V. THE CURTAIN WITHDRAWN 37 VI. MOINA 45 VII. ELSIE 6l VIII. OWEN SEES EVE 74 IX. ELSIE'S VICTORY 85 X. DR. FERGUSON 94 XI. THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL. . IOI XII. LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS 113 XIII. A SOMNAMBULIST 125 XIV. THE S.P.A.K.A.U.P 137 XV. THE MEETING OF THE CHILDREN 145 XVI BITTER SWEET FRUIT 1 55 XVII. EVE LEARNS 170 XVIII. THE FIRST GIFT 174 XIX. MARGARET WRITES A

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79 XX. EVE'S FIRST VICTORY Contents. VI CHAP. PAGE XXI. ELSIE RESOLVES TO RUN AWAY 194 XXII. THE ESCAPE 202 XXIII. LOST 211 XXIV. ELSIE HAS MISGIVINGS 2l8 XXV. HOME SICKNESS 225 XXVI. EVANGELINE 233 XXVII. FAREWELL TO MOINA 240 XXVIII. THE ANSWER 247 XXIX. LEARNING TO FEEL 257 XXX. SIR JASPER FAILS 266 XXXI. HEARTACHES 276 XXXII. ELSIE IS TOLD 28 1 XXXIII. FOUR YEARS AFTER 286 XXXIV. THE OLD STORY 29I XXXV. FORGIVEN EVE'S PARADISE.

Chapter I

_Sve. " Let me not cast in endless shade, What is so wonderfully made." — Tennyson. 0, Jasper ! I do not believe that the experiment will answer ; it is unnatural, nay, more, it is monstrous ! " Here Owen Fairfax rose from his seat, and impatiently paced up and down the room. " Your eccentricities," he continued, " are enough in all conscience, but hitherto they have only concerned your self ; now you are going to take a poor little innocent child, to spoil her life, to " " There I differ from you," answered Sir Jasper Martindale ; " there may be two opinions as to that. I take this orphan child, rescue her from poverty, adopt her as my own, propose to heap every luxury upon her, and you call it spoiling her life. What more can you want ? " "What more?" answered his friend contemptuously; A iBve. 2 " do you think that all the fortunes of the world will repay her for that of which you are going to rob her ?

" " And pray what may that be ? " asked Sir Jasper, absolutely unruffled as usual, and with a slight smile on his lips ; " write me a thief if you can prove your case." Owen stopped walking up and down the room, and laid his hand upon his friend's shoulder. " Jasper, think twice about it ; I am not joking, old fellow. You may be going to give this child an earthly paradise ; you may be going to gratify every earthly desire ; but you are going to rob her of that which the very lowest street Arab possesses — the capacity for child happiness and child enjoyment. You are going to shut up her soul in prison, and check its development. Who are you that you should dare to undertake such a responsibility ? " " Nonsense, Owen ! " answered Sir Jasper ; " you do so jump at conclusions ; you stop me with all this storm of indignation before you have in the least grasped my meaning.

Arrest the development of the soul ? On the contrary, I am going to let it develop unfettered by the trammels of civilisation. Free as the eagle in the blue ether, her soul shall rise with no restraints. It shall be evolved, developed out of itself. Oh, I shall reap the fruits of my patience in witnessing the marvellous originality of a soul which has never been in contact with aught that is degrading. But come, do not look so depressed ; listen to my scheme. You burst out against it almost before I had begun. Listen to me without interrupting me ; you know that I value your good opinion more than any one I know. Give me a fair hearing." " Very well," replied Owen, " have your say ; but as for convincing me " He sat down with the air of a martyr, prepared to listen. Eve. 3 Sir Jasper hesitated a moment, for though his friend's words did not alter his determination in the very smallest degree, yet his sensitive nature vibrated a little as if out of tune.

" You know it is not altogether my own idea," he said ; " poor Vaughan, little Eve's father, and I used often to wonder what the effect would be of bringing up a child according to the plan I propose. When he was dying, he sent for me, and put the child under my charge. ' Take her,' he said, ' and do with her as you and I used to talk of in the old days. My life is over ; I leave my little girl unprovided for. Without you she must starve. Will you undertake the charge ? ' Well ! I did so, and I am now going to carry out his wishes." Owen moved impatiently. "Two fools," he muttered, " and an immortal soul in their charge." " Go on," he continued abruptly, " let us have the whole scheme out." " First of all," said Jasper, " I am going to take her to Moina. As you know, that is secluded enough for my purpose.

Surrounded by the sea, and nearly a mile from the mainland, she will be able to wander about as she pleases without knowing anything of the world. A lady will have to be found to take charge of her, but as money is no object, that will not present any great difficulty ; and besides, I shall make it worth her while to carry out my wishes. The child is to be brought up as absolutely free from the knowledge of good and evil as our first mother in Paradise. She is never to hear a harsh word ; she is never to see an angry look ; she is not even to know that there is such a thing as right and wrong." " Do you mean to say," burst in Owen, " that she is never to be contradicted, that she is to be utterly spoilt, and to be allowed to have her own way in everything? Is this to be your perfect woman ?

" Eve. 4 " Certainly not," replied Jasper ; " she will be taught obedience from her earliest childhood. Obedience will be learned, not because it is right, and because disobedience will be punished, but because she loves those who have charge over her, and it delights her to please them. She sees that they are happy when she obeys, and sorry when she is disobedient. Thus you see the highest motive of all, love, comes in. Oh, to me it is such a mean thing to obey because it is expedient ; for call it what you will, that is what such obedience really means. A child does what it is told because it finds out that it will suffer if it does not. Now, can you call that a high motive ? " " Possibly not," said Owen ; " but it is according to human nature, and human nature must be trained. You cannot get perfection from the imperfect !

" " Cannot you see," replied Jasper, " that we are arguing from a different point of view. I maintain that if you educate a soul without any knowledge of right and wrong, and place it in proper surroundings, there will be no fall." " How about Eve in the garden of Eden ? " asked Owen somewhat sarcastically. " I suppose, as a parson, you think it necessary to bring that in ; but to my mind, even the story of Eve does not present any difficulty. It merely follows out my line of argument. The highest motive of all was wanting. The command was, ' Thou shalt not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.' There, you see, was the motive given — expediency. Obey and thou shalt live for ever, disobey and thou shalt die. My Eve shall have no motive but love.

Remember what St. Paul said, ' By the law comes the knowledge of sin.' Now do you see my point ? No law — no sin." " And yet the law was our schoolmaster to bring us Eve, 5 to Christ," murmured Owen ; but Jasper went on with out heeding. " No law, no sin," he repeated ; " why should laws be made if sin be the result ? " " Then you would have a world of anarchy without any laws ? " " It is too late to do without laws now," said Jasper ; " the harm has been already done. Sin has entered into the world, and now laws are needed to restrain the sins of which they are themselves the cause. You shall see the difference with the being whom I am going to edu cate ; she will have no knowledge of sin, and therefore she will be sinless." " How about the inherited tendencies from her an cestors," asked Owen.

" What count have you made of them ? " " Mere theories," answered Jasper ; " you cannot really prove that tendencies are inherited. There is a great deal of talk about them ; statistics without end are quoted in support of such views, but after all they are worth very little. A child need not necessarily turn out a drunkard or a thief because his father was one before him, but he often does become one — indeed, as a matter of fact it is expected of him. His very surroundings in nine cases out of ten bring about the anticipated result. Remove him from every evil influence, keep him from all temptation, and I think that you will find that the in herited tendency theory will evaporate." " Then your Eve is to be brought up without any religion ? " asked Owen. " In fact, you yourself are to be her god."

Jasper hesitated a little, and looked rather uncom fortable. " You do put things in such a bald way, Owen. Of course I am not a god to her, merely the one whom she Eve 6 is to love and reverence and obey. It is true that I do not propose to teach her any religion until she is about fourteen years of age. Her mind is to remain fallow. When she is old enough, then the various tenets of our religion will be laid before her, and she will be able to judge impartially as to what appeals the most strongly to her feelings. As you know, I am not narrow-minded ; High Church, Low Church, Broad Church, she shall have her choice." " Did you ever try leaving a field fallow ? " asked Owen. " You may put no good thing in if you like, but multitudes of evil weeds will spring up." " It is of no use arguing with you," said Jasper ; " you are determined to pick holes in everything that I say."

" Not so, Jasper ; I only wish to point out the weak places in your armour. Pray go on ; I am much in terested. How about education ? " " I do not intend her to have any until she is of the age I mentioned. She is not to learn to read or write ; she is not to know that there is such a thing as a book. She is to know nothing of mankind, or that another child exists in the world beside herself. The only thing that she shall learn is music. Music and art she shall be steeped in. She comes of an artistic race ; she cannot help being a musician." " I thought that there were to be no inherited in stincts," said Owen. Jasper laughed. "You have me there, I must confess, but then music is not a moral quality, and who knows whether even that would come to much if it were not developed. The child shall live in an atmosphere of art ; she shall be surrounded with everything that is lovely.

Oh, think what a being she will be who has lived only in the beautiful, who has never seen an evil sight, who has never heard an evil Eve, 7 word, whose mind is as pure and unsullied as it came from her Maker's hands." "Is she never to have a temptation?" asked Owen. " Is there to be no apple in your paradise ? What will be the worth of perfection that has never been tempted? Give me rather the poorest outcast who has fought and battled with temptation — yes, who has even fallen and risen again, and who has at last overcome. Give me rather the prodigal son when he arose and went back to his father, than your faultless ideal who has never fallen because never tempted." " We will not talk any more about it now," answered Jasper. " You will not convince me, and I shall only convince you when in the future I show you my perfect woman.

Now you shall see the child herself, and at all events you will confess that I have good ground to work upon." He touched a bell twice, and in a few minutes the door was opened, and a nurse put a little child into the room. She was about to run up to Jasper, but seeing a stranger, hesitated, afraid to move. If she had come straight out of the garden of Paradise little Eve could not have been more lovely. She was a finely formed child of three years old, with eyes as blue as the skies, and with the blackest of eyelashes and eyebrows ; clus tering curls of ruddy gold, which looked as if sunbeams were entangled in them, and a dazzling complexion of pink and white. Owen loved children. He watched her, fascinated, and yet with an ache in his heart for the little one with this strange future before her.

" Come here, Eve," said Jasper ; and in a moment the child darted past Owen, and springing on to Jasper's knees, threw her arms round his neck, and half shutting her eyes, peeped at Owen through her long eyelashes. Eve. 8 " Say, How do you do, to that gentleman," said Jasper, putting her gently on the floor. " Eve like 'ou best. Not say, How do," said the child wilfully. " Then Eve is not a " here Jasper hastily pulled himself up. Owen smiled furtively. "But Eve will say it because she loves me," said Jasper coaxingly. " Has 'ou got any sweeties ? " said Eve irrelevantly. " Yes, when little girls do what they are Again Jasper pulled himself up, feeling he had made another slip. " Not so easy, is it, old fellow ? " said Owen ; " that old enemy human nature is rather hard to tackle after all."

Jasper took Eve on his lap very gravely. " Who gives Eve nice toys, pretty frocks, and sweeties." " Japs do," said the little woman, with her head on one side. " Then who does Eve love ? " " Eve loves Japs when him's good," said the child so gravely, that both men burst out laughing. " There, you see," said Jasper, " she has already caught up the stock phrases. However, she will soon forget all about them." " And in the meantime what is to be the end of this battle. I suppose you are not going to give in to Eve. I should say, put her in the corner until she does what you tell her." " Nasty man, not put Eve in corner," said the child, as she caught the word. " Eve, listen to me," said Jasper gravely ; " Japs loves Eve a great deal, and Eve must do what he tells her and then he will love her a great deal more, and she must go and speak to that gentleman."

Eve, 9 " Will 'ou give me sweeties if me do ? " Jasper nearly gave in, but his friend was watching him . " Eve will do it because she loves Japs." " Japs naughty now ; Eve not love him one little bit ; not speak to nasty man." She slipped off Jasper's lap, and stood there defiantly, with one finger in her mouth. Owen's heart relented ; he felt half sorry for Jasper, who did not really understand children, and who lived in his theories. He himself had a wonderful fascination for children, which none of them could long resist. Taking his handkerchief out of his pocket, he began twisting it up into a marvellous rabbit, without looking at Eve. After the animal had performed sundry strange antics, Eve approached a little nearer. " Nasty man make bunnies ; not nasty man any more ; Eve speak to him."

At this moment the rabbit made a dart at Eve, who rushed back with screams of laughter, and in another moment Owen had caught her, and the two were having such a game of play together as she never had had with her guardian. After a while the nurse came for her, and the two friends were alone. Owen sat down with a grave look on his face. " Jasper, listen to me once more ; it will be the last time I shall ask you. In the name of all that is sacred in heaven and earth, give up your scheme. Bring up this little one, whom God has entrusted to your care, as a child dedicated to Him, and not, as you propose, a little unbaptized heathen ; you are going to crush that bright child life out of her, to keep back the development of that brilliant mind. For the sake of our old friend ship will you listen to me, Jasper ?

" Owen's voice shook with emotion. Eve 10 Jasper's face only took the set obstinate expression which Owen knew well. "I never change my mind." Then Owen rose up, and stood looking down upon his friend. " God forgive you then, for you are doing a more wicked thing than if you laid your hands on the child's soft neck, and crushed the life out of her. There can be no blessing on your undertaking, and mark my words, you will live to repent it. Make your paradise. Heap your Eve with every luxury, steep her soul as you say with beauty and art. Keep the very knowledge of good and evil from her if you will. In spite of all your calculations, you have forgotten one thing. Satan may enter your paradise, and you have left God out."

Chapter II

Consecrates " And so beside the Silent Sea I wait the muffled oar ; No harm from Him can come to me On ocean or on shore. I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air ; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care." — John Whither. IWEN was deeply moved by his recent conversation. To him a child was such a precious thing. He had his theories as well as his friend, though they were of a very different character. How carefully he would have brought up that little one. How he would have dedicated her to God from her earliest infancy. How he would have taught her to obey, not from a mere emotional feeling, but because right is right, and the greatest thing is to do right, happen what may. How he would have taught self-control to that little impulsive being ; let her learn the beauty of self-sacrifice.

" Oh, she is a child one might do anything with," he murmured to himself; " and now — oh, my God, what will be the end of it all ! " He had very strong feelings, and to him it was a very dis- Consecrated. 12 tressing thought that she was to remain unbaptized. The very highest command disobeyed, might it even be that no blessing would rest on the child that had never been dedicated to Christ ? " Impossible ! " he exclaimed ; " surely God will never visit her for what is no fault of her own. Jasper has taken the risk ; he must also take the curse, if any curse should follow." But in spite of all his arguments, he could not prevent a dull heavy weight from settling on his heart. " A little godless heathen," he repeated to himself ; "oh, better if the child should die whilst she is still a baby !

" He sat down on the mossy ground, and was soon lost in his own sad thoughts. " Guess ? " cried a merry voice behind him, as two little hands were suddenly clasped round his head, cover ing both eyes. " Guess who's there?" But before he could answer, the little voice went on. " Eve saw him, and she corned softly, softly, on the tips of her toes, and she hid his eyes, and said, ' Guess who?' " " Little Eve," said Owen tenderly ; " why, what a good guess." " Come and play with Eve." "May she come with me," said Owen, turning to the nurse, who had come up full of apologies for her little charge ; " I will take great care of her." " Certainly, sir," answered the woman ; " I should like to say, if she would promise to be good, but Sir Jasper has forbidden me to use the word, though how a child is to be brought up without it is more than I can say."

" I am quite sure she will be good with me," said Owen, who did not choose to enter into any discussions with the nurse about his friend's whims ; " children always are." Eve had got hold of his hand by this time, for she saw she was going to have her way. Consecrateo. 13 " Once Eve had tea out of doors," she said ; " great long time ago, more than two days." " And Eve wants to have tea out of doors again to day, does she ? " " Nurse says so much trouble, though Eve would carry everything." "Well, missie, you know last time you would take the milk jug, and you dropped it, and spilt all the milk, and I had to go back for some more ; but you see, sir, I haveto give in to her in everything." " Nasty stone got in Eve's way, and made her tumble down ; not Eve's fault. Eve won't let milk fall to-day."

" Do you think I could carry it," said Owen, smiling. " Oh yes ! 'ou so big and strong," said Eve, clapping her hands. Before long a basket was packed ready, and Owen and his little companion set out for the woods. That was a happy afternoon for both. Owen had come down from an overcrowded parish in the East End, where he had been working through the hot July days in the midst of untold misery — the stifling air laden with smells and germs of unspeakable horrors. There had been an epidemic of fever, and day after day, and often night after night, had Owen laboured on, until he began to wonder if there was any such thing left as purity in God's own world ; if there was any sky that was not foul with the atmosphere that rose from the reeking courts, any air that was not tainted with a thousand awful smells.

He had broken down at last, and only the day before had come down to his friend, in one of the most lovely parts of England. It was something like coming out of Dante's Inferno into the Paradise of God. Was it any wonder that his whole soul revolted against his friend's schemes. To the man whose life was spent Consecrates). 14 amid the terrible realities and problems of human life, mere dreams and theories grated on every nerve. He and Jasper had been friends at their first school, friends at college, friends all their lives, although never were two men more unlike, but never before had he found his friend so uncongenial. Perhaps it was that for the first time Jasper was going to put his theories into practice. What served merely for a pleasant dis cussion in which they took opposite sides, and each argued his own point, became a terrible reality, now that they were to be worked out in black and white.

He felt as if he should like to snatch this child up in his arms and carry her away, anywhere, no matter where, even into those awful slums where he worked, for God would be there, whilst Jasper was shutting Him out. Patience, Owen, you have got to learn that there is no place in the whole universe where God is not. " 'Ou doesn't talk," said Eve ; " is the basket too heavy ; me help to carry it." Owen lowered the basket, so that Eve could take hold of the handles with him. " Me helping great deal," said Eve ; " 'ou not tired now." " No, dear, not a bit ; Eve likes to help, doesn't she ? " He sat down, and took the child on his knees ; he wanted to study her character a little more closely. " Who does Eve love best ? " he asked. " Me loves Eve," was the somewhat unexpected answer, and it came with a little shock to the young man ; " me loves Japs too when him does what Eve likes."

"But doesn't Eve like to be good, and do what Japs tells her ? " Eve laughed. " When Eve naughty, Japs gives sweeties ; when Eve good, gives sweeties too." " But Eve likes to be good best ? " Consecrates. 15 " Eve wants to have tea now," was all the answer he could get out of her, for the small mite seemed already an adept at turning a troublesome conversation. Tea was a lengthy business. Eve insisted on pouring out the miik, and then ended by feeding Owen with bits of cake. He was touched to notice that in spite of her naughty speeches, the nicest bits with the plums were all picked out for him. The feast was over at last, and the two wandered on together through the woods with the whortleberries under foot, and the glint of the sunlight through the trees. Here they played hide and seek together, Eve shouting with glee, until at last the tiny feet grew weary.

" Carry me," she said in her pretty imperious way, and Owen picked her up. and putting her on his shoulder, walked on and on. " Take me to the stream," cried Eve suddenly ; " me knows it is quite near. Japs brought me here once. I want to see it running along, and the fishes." A few yards more brought them within sight of a little stream, half hidden by the bushes growing on the banks. It ran trickling on over the clearest of pebbly beds, whilst every now and then a trout was to be seen darting along. Eve sat and watched the water, throwing in little bits of stick to see them float down with the current. After a while her merry chatter stopped, and she laid her head down on Owen's knees, still watching the stream, till the eyes grew sleepy with the monotonous motion. The lids kept drooping lower and lower over the blue eyes.

Owen sat there dreaming ; and when he suddenly looked up, little Eve was fast asleep. His thoughts, which had been wandering far away, came back to her with a rush, and the ache returned. " Poor little babe, is there nothing I can do for you ? Consecrateo. 16 You might have been, nay, surely are, one of Christ's little ones — His, and yet not His." A sudden flash came over him, and it seemed as though he heard a voice speaking to him — " See, here is water ; what doth hinder thee that she should not be baptized ? " " Dare I ? " he exclaimed to himself ; " have I any right to go against Jasper's prejudices ? Yes ! " he continued, " I have ; God has given me this opportunity, and woe is me if I should neglect it. How dared I, even for a moment, think that this was a God-deserted child." He gently raised Eve, so that she should not awake ; and pillowing her head on the soft grass, he bent down, and commending the child to God's care, prayed with a passionate earnestness that all the future, which looked so dark before her, might be overruled for good.

After that Owen was calm. One after another he re peated the prayers of the baptismal service. Then stooping down to the stream, he dipped his hand in the clear water. Then he hesitated a moment. "Eve," he shuddered a little. " No, I cannot give her that name." The child was sleeping, and smiling in her sleep. She looked like a little child angel. Gently he bent over her. "Evangeline, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." Evangeline stirred a little as the cold drops fell on her face, but she did not wake. Owen softly continued the service, " and do sign her with the sign of the Cross, in token that she may not be ashamed to fight under Christ's banner, against sin, the world, and the devil." As he traced the sacred sign on her forehead, the child's eyes opened for a moment and gazed straight into his, with that wondering look children sometimes have, and then closed again.