Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1874 — ANNIE BELL. [ARTICLE]

ANNIE BELL.

BY MARIA J. MACINTOSH.

When John Bell, the old merchant, retired upon a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, the people of his native town thought him a man of almost inexhaustible wealth, for those were times in which men lived comfortably on an income of twenty-five hundred dollars, and luxuriously on one of five thousand. John Bell was an old-fashioned man. He had carried a conscience into his business, and, what was perhaps more remarkable, he had brought a conscience out of it. He knew that he . was called “Honest John Bell,” and he prized the title more than he did his wealth —far more than he would have done the prefix honorable to his name, won as he knew that title too often is by chicanery and intrigue. John Bell was still a hale man of middle age when he withdrew to the town of E , in New Hampshire, with a son sixteen years old and a daughter only eight. I’hat son was the unsuspected cause of his pausing in the full course of successful trade, stifling the promptings of ambition and the eager strivings of an active nature, and settling himself down to the stillness of a country town within sight of the house in which he had been born, and the academy in which he had received iris edneation. To the great mortification of his more aspiring son, the name of Robert Bell was now placed on the rolls of this same academy. To the remonstrances of the young gentleman, who having declined a collegiate course, and entered the counting-house of a New York merchant two years before, considered himself as already in the class of men, and beyond schools, the father re--plied:- . “I put you there, hoping that it may not be too late for you to unlearn some things that your New York associations have taught you. If I could only see you a boy again, I should be happy indeed!” This could not be. The shadow went not back Upon the dial-plate for Robert Bell. A boy in years, he w’as a man in heart; his strongest desire, to have a clear field for the exercise of his: powers. “My father was only a shopkeeper,” he said to his wandering sister, “I will be the Napoleon among merchants. A hundred thousand! it may do to vegetate upon in a country-town, but that will not do for me. I shall be a millionaire, and then, Annie, I will send for my pretty sister to preside over the most luxurious establishment in New York.” Such were the dreams of the boy—dreams excited by the silly boasts of his companions at school, and by the flattering homage which he saw paid to wealth, even by those who were reputed wise and good men. John Bell had hoped, in transferring his home to a country-town, that its unsophisticated society, its simple pleasures and natural modes of living, would restore to his son the freshness of his boyhood.- But, ere the five years were passed which lay between Robert’s removal to E and his majority, the father saw that this could not be, and, weary of the sullen discontent of his son, and fearful of its influence on the happiness of his pet Annie, he sent the boy, at eighteen, to New York?, consigning him to the care of an old friend who was doing a very large business in Wall street, as a banker and broker. Years passed by, bringing nothing but good to the merchant’s home, where Annie Bell grew like some fair young flower, gathering sweetness and brightness from all around her. There was sunshine in the ripples of her golden hair, sunshine in her dimpled smiles. No fairy dancing in greenwood shades ever moved more lightly; no bird ever caroled more sweetly. And beneath all this lightness lay woman’s thoughtful tenderness and a rare strength of prihciple. Robert Be’l made an annual visit at Christmas to his father, bringing Annie costly presents, and his father such letters from his old frien4 as made him forget his fears, and rejoice in his son’s ability and success. When Annie was eighteen, and Robert twenty-six, John Bell died—died suddenly, having failed to do what he had often called other men fools for not doing—to ipake a will. It was of little consequence, people said; he vyould have left all to his children, of course, and Robert will take care of Annie’s portion as well as his own. Poor Annie! She struggled to be calm, but the brightness was all tone as she saw the dear old ome . dismantled, the familiar things, hallowed by the touch of the hand she had loved so tencleaiy, thrown aside valueless, or borne away as the property of strangers. But she was young, and life again grew bright for her in Robert’s home in the city —a home over which a fashionable wife presided, and where there was a luxury and display quite new to our simple Annie. “Why, Robert, how rich you must be!” .as she gazed arbund rooms rich with brocade ■■and velvet, and dazzling with ormolu, and whose, walls were hung with

pictures which seemed to her the choicest gems of art. “Silly child!” cried Robert, “all this is only my stock in trade. Who do you suppose wopld do business with a ppor banker?” “But then, you must be rich to have such stock in trade,” cried Annie decisively. Robert answered only by a quick glance at his wife. She was readier of tongue. “Certainly, Annie,” she said, "must be or will be, for appearances produce realities.” • _ . .. Mrs. Robert Bell was perhaps also classed by Robert as part of his stock in trade, her social talent attracting many of those to his house who afterward became useful to him in business. Not a few men of retired habits and inherited wealth, not a few well-endowed widows, had been decided—in the delicate question of the banking-house which should become the depository of their unemployed capital and the adviser and agent in its investment—by a graceful attention from a lady who combined the elegance of perfect ton with a tact that enabled her to adapt herself to each varied form of character among those whose favor she desired to win. There was no doubt that this marriage, if a speculation, had been a profitable speculatien for the house of Braine & Bell; and now, just as an unusual run on the stock of the Ocafenoca Railroad, of which Braine & Bell were the principal holders, had been made by the “bears”—Braine & Bell were “bulls,” of course—and they might have suffered in consequence, John Bell had died, and the fortune he left—Annie’s share of it as well as Robert’s—served as a very convenient bolster for the sinking heads of the firm. “Annie, I find that my father’s property has increased in value since he retired from business. His estate is valued at two hundred thousand dollars. So you see you are an heiress. What will you do with your money?” “That is for you to say, Robert,” said Annie, quickly; then hesitated, and, blushing and stammering, added: “Of course, Robert, I want you to take—that is, I want to pay—that is, I mean—my expenses here, you know.” “Oh, that is nothing!” exclaimed Robert. “Oh, yes, Robert; indeed I could not be easy.” “Oh, well—be easy. I’ll see to all that; but that will be a bagatelle— a thousand or so,-two at most—ho w much more will you want? All you do not want had bet, ter be invested in railroad bonds—pay capitally.” “Could I have five hundred dollars to spend as I please?” asked Annie, timidly. “Five hundred dollars! Why, you will want that for your dress alone as’ soon as you lay aside this heavy, gloomy dress; and, by-the-by, dear, I wish you would lighten your mourning—now don’t begin to cry, Annie—you know, if it would do him any good, I would wear it, and have you wear it, forever; but it cannot, and it does me serious harm.” “Harm, Robert?” sobbed Annie, trying vainly to press back her tears. “How can that be 1 If .it is so, I had better go away.” “Just like a woman’s reasoning. Now listen to me one moment, Annie, and 7 you will understand the case, and, I am sure, will do what- I want. It is not, Annie, that I feel less our great loss than you do, but business men have not time to listen to“feeling; hence, if one pauses in the race for that, down he goes, and a dozen trample over him in their eager rush _for the prize we are all seeking. A pretty, agreeable young lady in a house is often a great help in my business, and you know, dear, we are in the same boat now, and sink or swim together.” “But, Robert, I do not yet understand what my mourning has to do with all this.” “Why, Annie, do you not see that it makes the house gloomy, and people will not come to a gloomy house? Sarah would have given one of her charming petite soupers last week, but how could she entertain gay guests while you moved like a heavy, black cloud over the scene?” “Then, Robert, let me go away.” “And have everybody saying I was so hard-hearted 1 had driven my sister from my house!” “What shall I do, Robert?l know not what you wish,” Annie spoke impatiently. “1 will tell you, Annie. I have asked two or three gentlemen to dinner to-day; let Sarah make some change in your . dress; it shall still be black, but it may be a little lighter, a little more becoming, and then come to dinner determined to be my bright, beautiful sister again.” “I will do my best,” Annie said, coldy, and Robert kissed her and called her his pet, and then hurried away, feeling himself a little ashamed of his own talk. Could he ' have looked back and seen tine girlish face fall into the clasped hands, and heard the deep sobs that shook the slender fopuii he would scarcely have been comforted. But he did not look back, and the storm hilled at last, and Annie rose and sought Mrs. Robert Bell, decided to do all they wished to night, and to morrow to write to a friend in E to look out a home for her there. We have said that Mrs. Robert Bell possessed tact, and she manifested it on this occasion. Annie was asked to make no painful changes, and yet, by the aid of a skillful coiffeur and modiste, a different air-was given to her dress, which seemed now-to render more interesting the sweet, childlike face glowing with the excitement of dressing for the first time consciously for effect. Among the guests of the evening was a young Southerner, rich, handsome, agreeable. The first quality, was his passport to the eociety'of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Bell. The others won for him the heart of Annie. Over their loves I shall not linger. It was the old story—who does not know it ? Bryan Randolph, proud of his pedigree, of his old home, of the associations with his- name, who had sometimes doubted whether he should find any one worthy of bearing the honored name and continuing the line of the Randolphs, saw this fair, simple Annie Bell, and doubted only whether he were worthy to win and wear so charming a prize. And Annie—well, Annie never wrote that to-qiorrow’s letter to seek a a ho<ne at E-—, but consented to transfer her home to Southern lands, 1 Bryan was impatient to wear what he had won, but his father must signify his consent before Annie would become his wife; and, with the best heart in the world, his father had strong prejudices, and hated Yankees, and so Bryan dared not trust his cause to a letter, but must return in person. “Only for a few wteks, Annie, and then you must be ready,” he said.

“I will be ready,” answered the blushing Annie; and then, by one of those strange associations of thought which it is difficult to trace, she suddenly exclaimed, in a gleeful voice: “I am so glad I am rich! Did you know I was an heiress ? ■Ar’n’t you glad of it?” ‘‘No, indeed,” said Bryan, coldly, for him. “Why, father does not care about wealth; he would give all the gold that ever was coined for one ounce of good blood—an honorable name is his strongest passion.” Annie shrank a little from her loverfelt a little that he did, not understand, perhaps that he undervalued her; then, with a little quiver in her voice, which went to Bryan’s heart, she said, softly: “Was not my father’s an honorable name? He was called ‘Honest John Bell.’ ” “Yes, indeed, a noble name; something to be proud of. I shall tell my father that, Annie.” Robert Bell, well pleased with his sister’s engagement, was strangely angry with her for insisting on the postponement of the marriage until Randolph Bryan could see his father, obtain his consent, and return. “Obtain his consent!” he said, with a sneer; “you talk as if that was certain; you know little of the pride of'these Southern dons.” Annie grew a little pale, but she answcred, steadily: “The more danger there is of Mr. Bryan’s refusal, the more necessity there is that his son should not take his consent for granted.” Robert was silenced, but by no means pacified. He hastened to his wife, who was reclining on a couch in her dressingroom, resting after a round of visits. “How have things gone to-day?” she asked, quickly. “Worse and worse. I have had to call in everything we could get— ’* “Annie’s one hundred thousand dollars?” —— , ■ '■ ■ “Swallowed up long ago, poor child! That is what makes me half mad at the idea of her letting Bryan go home without her. He would never miss that hundred thousand dollars; he has more wealth now than he knows what to do with—as his wife Annie would have been splendidly provided for, and she would have owed it to me, so that if I had never been able to pay her a cent, I should not have been troubled. Now—well, I cannot help it, I could not command Fortune; I have done as welt for her as for - myself.” “Is it too late to make some provision for her? The place at Newport is safe—you bought that in my name. If this house could only be secured to Annie—” “Capital! I will see to it at once. Tomorrow everything may be discovered, and then it will be too late. It is only four o’clock, and Emmonds never leaves his office before five. Make an excuse for me if I am late for dinner”—and Robert Bell hurried away. For months he had been living the feverish life of one who knows that more than fortune, reputation, his right to a place among honorable men, rested as much on chance as does the stake which the desperate gambler has just thrown upon the fatal red or black. His father’s fortune had long been sunk—his own earnings had gone before—his Wife’s dower had been expended in furnishing the house at Newport, and the yet more expensively arranged house in the city. Sarah had been reared in luxury, and must not be asked to sacrifice her accustomed surroundings. They must live up the income which her family supposed them to possess—to bo of being in any strait would be fatal. Expensive houses, rich furniture—these were the capital on which he traded—these gave confidence to depositors. And when losses followed losses, and nothing that was properly their own was left—what then ? Why, credit was more than ever necessary to them—and confidence makes credit—and so on to the end—the bitter end of ruin and shame. Am I sketching a strange, fanciful picture? Is the picture not a portrait the truth of which every day’s experience may verify? Must it, shall it be ever thus? O mothers, to whose honored bands the Giver of~ life has committed the first guardianship, the first guidance of the future man, will you not sacrifice your little vanities to the grand posSibilities of your position? Will you not become, as you may, the regenerators of society, by teaching your children to prize unsullied honor above wealth? to think the gaze and envy of their fellow creatures a poor exchange for a mind at peace, and a heart on which rests the sunlight of God’s favor? We speak to mothers, because we believe that in the nursery often the mold has been cast that shapes the future life; but we must not linger—the end is near. For a few weeks longer Robert Bell was able to stave off the coming ruin. Its shadow was upon him during all those perhaps none but the simple Annie, who’had seen the deep depression of his lonely hours and his reckless gayety in society, could have been surprised when the last blow fell. To herthe surprise was utter. No dream, no faintest suspicion of the truth had eyer dawned upon her. How could the daughter of “ Honest John Bell ” suspect poverty, ruin, where all. the appliances of luxury were seen ? It was yet early. Anniehad taken her breakfast alone—by no means an unusual event in that self-indulgent household. The French maid of Mrs. Bell came to ask that “mademoiselle would have the bonte to come to the chamber of madam.” Annie found her sister-in-law surrounded by trunks half packed, while both bed and couch were covered with laces, silks, and boxes of jewelry. “Sarah, where are you going?” exclaimed the astonished Annie. “Hush-sh sh, Annie!—close the door. I cannot trust a servant except Fanchette.” “And now the door is closed, what is the matter?—where is-Robert?” “The matter is, Annie, that Robert has failed. He and his partner have lost every thing. TJiey cannot pay sixpence on the dollar.” “Gannot pay! O, Sarah, what will become of their creditors?” cried Annie. “It would be more sisterly, I think, to ask what will become of them—the creditors must take care of Annie did not answer as she might have done—that it was too Iqte for them to do tpat. She said : “Of course, Sarah, Robert is my first thought, and he knows, if you do* not, that all I have will be his,as much as it is mine.” , “He deserves no le l a from yOuifor, in all the anxieties of the last few days, he thought of you, and secured this house and flurniiure to you.” “Secured this house and furniture to’ me! I do not understand. Robert always told me that my father had Jeff me one hundred thousand dollars." V.;„

“Did you expect Robert to put that sum in his pocket and keep it till you called for it? He put it in his business, and it went, of course, with the rest. But this house and furniture will sell, I dare say, for fifty thousand; so you will not be poor. l * . ; ' —■; ? .■. . “But, Sarah, surely this belongs to Robert’s creditors. He told me himself that they trusted him the more for seeing this handsome house and furniture, and—and—” Annie hesitated. She knew not how to putthe thought into words, that Robert was perpetrating a fraud in thus putting beyond the reach of his creditors what he knew had been regarded by them as security for his payment of his debts; but her countenance was sufficiently expressive, and Sarah exclaimed: “Annie, you are too absurd ! I tell you the house is yours, and you may be thankful to Robert for taking such care of you. I sent for you to tell you that I am going to papa’s; and I think you had better come there with me for a few days, till things settle down and people are done talking. Of course you will either sell or let this house.” “Sarah, do you know where Mr. Phenix lives ?” Sarah uttered an impatient exclamation: “I do not believe you have heard a word I said to you! lam sure I don’t know what you want with Mr. Phenix. I suppose you can find where he lives by looking in the directory. I shall leave here this evening, and I advise you to pack your trunks at once.” Annie went to her room, but it was only to put on her bonnet and shawl. She knew that a directory stood on her brother’s table, and she soon acquainted herself with the place of Mr. Phenix’s residence. What she was to do there Annie could scarcely have told; she only felt that she needed such guidance as her father would have given, and that she had often heard him name Mr. Phenix as a man whom he thoroughly trusted. Annie found the house—found Mr. Phenix, for, as we have said, it was yet early, and he was not so active at sixtyfive as he had been when John Bell had known him. We will not dwell upon the interview which followed between the honest old merchant and the young girl anxiously inquiring what was the right way—the straight though narrow path which few, it must be confessed, now follow. Mr. Phenix remembered his visitor as a child, and to her appeal, “Please to tell me, just as my father would have done, what I ought to do!” he answered, gravely: “That will depend, my dear young lady, on what your object is—whether to keep all you can legally ‘for yourself— ” “Oh, no! no!” interrupted poor Annie, with almost passionate emphasis, “I only want to be honest, and, if I can, to save other people from suffering by Robert.” “Then there is no doubt that the house, which is not yours by bona-fide sale, but only by a conveyance intended to put it out of the reach of the creditors, to whom it had been exhibited as part of their security, ought to be given up with your brother's other property, and that your claim on his assets should be put on a par with the claims of other creditors.” “And how should I do this—l am so ignorant?” “You must choose some person to act for you, and give him a power of attorney.” “And would you O Mr. Phenix, for my father’s sake—would you act forme?” “I will for your own sake; but now tell me where you are going, and on what you are to live till this business is arranged?” “ I don’t know exactly. Sarah told me I could go to her father’s with her, till things settled down, but then she thought that—that—” “That you would sell the house arid furniture, and be a rich heiress still; but now that your riches are about to take to themselves wings, what can you do?” “ I think I could be a governess, perhaps, or a teacher of little children in a school, or I could embroider, or color photographs.” Poor Annie’s heart grew faint, the radiance all faded from her eyes and the color from her face, as she enumerated thus her little accomplishments. They seemed so very little, and such a long, dull tract of lonely, toilsome life seemed to stretch out before her, while hovering aboveTt gleamed and glistened imnocking brightness the life of love and joy which would have been hers as Randolph Bryan’s wife—a life never now to be hers, “ for his father will never consent to his wedding one who brings with her neither riches nor good name.” “Poor child! you are faint—rest yourself and I will call Mrs. Phenix.” But Annie would not be delayed; action, she felt, was the best medicine for her grief. The arrangements were soon completed that were necessary to make Mr. Phenix jier agent—her trunks were packed—and then came the important question. “ Where shall I go?" Sarah had departed in a rage with what she termed the absurdity of Annie’s proceedings, accusing her of unsisterly insensibility, and assuring her that neither Robert nor she would interfere, with her hereafter; since she had found another adviser. Annie was not wholly destitute, for there Still remained in her purse nearly' three hundred dollars of the last money which Robert had paid her, as a dividend on her shares of certain stock. With this sum she might have lived with tolerable comfort for some months at E-—but in New York she wduld be more likely to obtain such employment as she could honestly engage to perform. But where could she hope to find a homo at once cheap and respectable—she who had never entered a boarding-house in her life? Her painful thoughts were interrupted by Mrs. Phenix, whose kind heart had been stirred by her husband’s narration of his morning ' interview with Annie. “Come to us, my child, for the present, you want quiet; things will shape themselves by-and-by — we will help you to look for employment;” and so these good Samaritans poured oil and wine into the Wounds they knew of—there was one they knew notoF, which was draining the life-blood from the young heart. Annie had accepted separation from Randolph Bryan; as a consequence less of her poverty than of ' the disgrace which had fallen on her name, she had accepted it with mute desI pair. -“My father values an honorable name more than millions of gold,” were words that rang in her ears even in her I dreams. Randolph Bryan had hastened home on , wings supplied' by love and hope. His fafher would be angry, doubtless, at his marrying a Northern girl, but he could not refuse him what he would see was so necessary to his happiness, and he would love Annie as soon as he saw her. She was jus) what his father most admired in ! wonym. hope had told a flatJ "

tering tale. Mr. Bryan utterly refused to listen to his son. Randolph grew angry, said willful words, and so threw a darker shadow around Annie’s image in his father’s mind. Thus, one morning, in the second week after Randolph’s return, found the father and son sitting in almost silent estrangement over their late and luxurious breakfast. The mail-bag was brought in, and, opening it, Mr. Bryan ‘tossed contemptuously to his son a letter bearing the New York post mark. Randolph tore it open, and sat in utter bewilderment over the few lines in which Annie, with a quietude that seemed to him coldness, released him from every claim lie had given her upon him. Poor child! how she had striven to suppress the cry of her heart as she wrote; there was just the one crushing fact—he was nothing to her nowpwhat need of cries? she could die silently. Randolph, too, was stunned. He, too, saw only the fact —they were parted—wherefore ? He looked to Iris father, and saw him reading eagerly a New York journal, while the flush of anger was on his brow, and his eyes gleamed like live coals, as throwing the paper to his son, he said: “Read that, sir, and see with what you would Lave allied us.” Randolph read an account of the dishonorable failure of Messrs. Braine & Bell—an account which certainly did not extenuate aught. He read, and his heart grew Jighter. This, then, was Annie’s reason: she would noll ink him w ith dishonor. “Father,” he said, placing Annie’s letter before Mr. Bryan, “read that, and do my poor Annie justice!’ Mr. Bryan read, and was silent. “Father, I ask you as a gentleman, what answer should I make to such a letter?” Slowly, reluctantly, doubtless, Mr. Bryan answered, but decidedly: “You must go, my son, and bring her back with you. You had best set out tonight,” / ■. ’.. “And will you welcome her, father ?" The fire flashed again. “You appealed to me as a gentleman, sir. Do you doubt that I shall act as one to a lady in my own house?” “Your daughter, father?” . No answer followed. Mr. Bryafi had opened another journal—one day later—and his eye had lighted again on the names of Braine & Bell. The journalist, referring to the facts given the previous day, added that a gleam of light had been thrown upon the dark transaction by the noble conduct of a lady connected with one of the parties, whose name was suppressed from respect for her delicacy. Then followed an account of a meeting of the creditors of Messrs. Braine & Bell, at which Mr. Phenix, of the well known firm of Phenix & Co., No. Wall street, appeared, and, acting for this lady, relinquished to the creditors property valued at more than fifty thousand dollars, which had been secured to her. “bee here, Randolph,” said Mr. Bryan, in his gentlest tones, “can this be your Annie?” “Of course it is, father," cried Ran. dolph, exultantly, “this is just like my Annie.” “Randolph, I think I will go with you.” Six days were, as Randolph Bryan felt, wanted in the voyage—for time and space had not yet been annihilated, even for lovers. But the end comes surely, however slowly. The calm atmosphere of a golden October day, when the air seems full of blessing, was arouhd them as they sailed up the beautiful harbor of New York. Mr. Bryan was nearly as impatient now as Randolph, and when Annie first appeared before him, not knowing whom she was to meet, her white, sad face and spiritless movements appealed to all that was pitiful in his heart, and won from the chivalrous gentleman a tender courtesy that would scarcely have been yielded to the heiress and the beauty. Annie is now the joy and light of her husband’s home, as she once was of her father’s; and Robert Bell, who has compromised with his creditors and resumed business, declares that he has no anxiety about her, and is convinced that she owes her present happiness to his brotherly care. — Appleton'e Journal.