Bessie Bradford's Prize

by Joanna H. Mathews

"DEAR LENA,

"I am in the most awful scrape any one was ever in, and you are the only one who can help me out of it. If you can't, there is nothing for me but to be arrested and awfully disgraced, with all the rest of the family too, and the—"

This was as far as Lena had read when Hannah's returning footsteps had impelled her to put the letter out of sight; but it had been enough in her weak state to startle her out of her self-control, and it has been seen what a shock it gave her. "Arrested" had a terrible significance to Lena.

Not very long before Mrs. Neville's family had left home, Lena had seen a boy, about her brother Percy's age, arrested in the streets of London. He had been taken up for some grave misdemeanor, and having violently resisted his captors, they had found it necessary to handcuff him, and when Lena saw him he was being forced along between two policemen, still fiercely struggling, and with his face and hands covered with blood. The sight had made a dreadful impression upon the little girl, and when she heard the word "arrested" it always came back to her with painful force.

Had it been Maggie or Bessie, or any other child whose relations with her mother were as tender and confiding as are usually those between mothers and daughters, the impression might have been lessened by learning that such a sight was not a usual one, and that people when arrested were not apt to resist as desperately as the unhappy youth whom she had seen; but not being accustomed to go to Mrs. Neville with her joys or troubles, Lena had kept her disagreeable experience to herself and supposed it all to be the necessary consequence of an arrest, and Percy's words had conjured up at once all manner of dreadful possibilities. In imagination she saw him dragged along the streets in the horrible condition of the criminal she had seen, and the whole family covered with shame and disgrace.

Percy was four years older than Lena, but had not half his young sister's strength of character, judgment or good sense, and he was, unfortunately, afflicted with that fatal incapacity for saying no, which brings so much trouble upon its victims. He was selfish, too; not with a deliberate selfishness, but with a heedless disregard for the welfare and comfort of others, which was often as trying as if he purposely sought first his own good. He would not have told a falsehood, would not have denied any wrong-doing of which he had been guilty, if taxed with it; but he would not scruple to conceal that wrong, or to evade the consequences thereof, by any means short of a deliberate untruth. His faults were those with which his father and mother had the least patience and sympathy, and those which needed a large share of both; had he ever received these, the faults would probably never have attained to such a growth, for he was in mortal dread of both parents, especially of his mother, and this, of course, had tended to foster the weakness of his character.

Poor Lena lay wakeful but quiet for hours, wondering and wondering what could be the matter, and what those terrifying words with which Percy's letter commenced could portend. And she, he wrote, was "the only one who could help him." She wished vainly for the letter, that she might know the worst at once; but she had no means of reaching it at present. Her feet could not yet bear to be touched to the ground, and she dared not wake Hannah and ask for it. Such an unusual request at this time of night would arouse wonder and surmise, even if Hannah could be induced to bring her the letter and give her sufficient light to read it. The old nurse would think her crazy or delirious, perhaps run and call her aunt and uncle. No, no; that was not to be thought of, the poor child said to herself as she lay and reasoned this all out; she must wait till the day came, and then she must contrive to read the letter when she was alone. Then she could decide whether or no it would do to take Colonel and Mrs. Rush into her confidence. She could not bear to think of keeping anything from this kind uncle and aunt, who had shown themselves so ready to enter into all her joys and sorrows, who took such an interest—so novel to her—in all her duties, her occupations, and amusements; who, with a genuine love for young people, were at no little pains to provide her with every pleasure suitable for her.

But—Percy—she must think of him first. Oh, if she only knew all that was in that dreadful letter!

But at last she fell asleep again, sleeping late and heavily, far beyond the usual hour. When she awoke, she insisted upon being taken up and dressed, although her aunt and nurse would fain have persuaded her to lie still and rest; and that done, her object was to obtain possession of Percy's letter without attracting attention to it. Being totally unaccustomed to anything like manoeuvring or planning, she could think of no excuse by which she might have the table brought near her chair, or the chair rolled near the table. The maids thought her remarkably fractious and whimsical and hard to please, but laid it all to the reaction from last night's hysterical attack. Do what she would, she could not contrive, poor helpless child, to come at the drawer of the table unless she spoke out plainly, which she could not do, and she had been wheeled into the nursery before the opportunity offered.

But here she found the way opened to her. Hannah, who would let no one else attend to her young lady's meals when they were taken upstairs, departed for Lena's breakfast; and after she had gone, Lena speedily bethought herself of a way of procuring Letitia's absence for a while by sending her down-stairs with directions for some change in her bill of fare.