VOL. X.-No. 2. FEBRUARY, 1862. THE WOMAN WITH THE YELLOW HAIR. CHAPTER I.-THE HOUSE. PRICE 25 CENTS. epithets); no "quaint" gardens, stiff hedges, trimmed and shaved; no sundials; no ghost's walk where my Lady Mary in white is reputed to promenade under chilly circumstances. There were none of these traditional accidents which would almost seem de rigueur; yet it had claims to a certain stern romance of its own. Gables and oak panels have not a strict monopoly of the business of solemn adventure. Nor one of the pattern tenements which your storyteller can contract for in his first chapter, and have built for himself according to the traditional models, with plenty of gables mullioned, embayed windows, an inner skin of very black oak, and an outer one of damp, green ivy, furnished for his money. No No. This Redgrange was a square block of a mansion, very regimental yews or "cawing" rooks (these are the professional heavy, even to overloading of the ground beneath it; very plain, and with cheeks of a subdued rubicund'tint. That color had once been flaming red, but had crusted into a mellow and sober tone. There were two rows of tall ungainly windows, slim and narrow; and the great hillside of the roof was dotted plentifully with whole villages of little cots, where, indeed, the accommodation was indifferent, admitting of no more than a man's head and shoulders, stretched forward to look at the view. There were whole brigades of these garret windows. It was a very gaunt place, indeed. It lay in a sort of blasted heath, which had sternly rejected all efforts at conciliation in the way of plantation, and would display its back in a bare, unfurnished and almost mangy state through all time. Planting would not do, save immediately about the house itself, where some tall funereal trees herded dismally together, and clung timorously to its skirts, which, at a distance, gave the effect of its being wrapped in the folds of a dark pall. It was, in short, a house with nothing very remarkable about it-a disagreeable and uncomfortable thing to look at; but, no doubt, good and substantial quarters within. A warm place in the savage winters, for the walls were in parts ten and twelve feet thick. Note well, too, that the nearest post town was ten miles away. At night-take it to be a gloomy moonlight night-standing a few paces from the hall-door, those two flanking clouds of Erebus, those black patches of trees which adhered in a cowardly manner to the great house's sides, seemed to draw us slowly into their dark bosoms, with purpose of swallowing and never rendering us again. There was the blighted waste of a lawn behind us, stretching away, bounded afar off by some base and draggled hedgerows, bringing with it a sense of loneliness and awe, quite insupportable. Creeping round to the back, where lay what was called the gardens, there was an indescribable wilderness of rank luxuriance, of trees, bushes, shrubs, choking each other, and gasping for want of breathing room; and of walks swallowed up in flower-beds, and flower-beds merged into walks. own eye. The plague of neglect bad fastened on the place; it was eaten up with the leprosy of decay. It must have been long since neat-handed gardeners had trimmed, and raked, and clipped, and performed their other dainty functions under my lady's Down at the end was a rude jagged gap, a shapeless hole, which had once been a neat archway in the green hedge, shaved smooth as a wall. This was the threshold to a bowlinggreen, and beyond the bowling-green, now no more than a pure meadow of rottenness, where, indeed, it would be difficult to bowl now, and where bowler, if he tripped, would be lost to view in lank grass, high as corn. Beyond the green, which by courtesy, and out of respect to fallen greatness, may still bear its old name, was a very sad pond, once politely known as ornamental water, now degraded almost into a slimy ditch, round whose edge were some melancholy al fresco ruins, some plaster, temples and arcades, on which time is preying with a gentle decay, whose plaster skins are flaked away, and whose laths protrude nakedly. This was the glorification for some fete or gala; and the conception clearly was, that the noble company should wander down of an evening through the lath and plaster arcade, then white and snowy as paint could make it, and, leaning on the balustrade, look across the water at the moon's reflection, or the theatrical gondola, built by a scenic artist, which, no doubt, did its part in the show. That heap of collapsed boards, crunched first, then rotted out of all shape, was, no doubt, the original stageboat. That was a short and dismal description of all that and those the capital messuage, with all the rights and easements thereunto appertaining; a sclemn, surly and somewhat awful mansion, which needed only that it should have a good look-out into an adjacent graveyard, say just under the windows, to be a respectable ghostly house of the old established pattern. Now, the mystery of all this corruption and neglect was simply this that some two and twenty years ago, the father of the Faithfull family had been found one darkish winter's evening, when they sent to call him for dinner, hanging stark stone dead from one of the great bedposts in a state-room. There was a wood fire flickering up and down fitfully, and by that light there was a swinging shadow on the shining floor. Therenpon the whole Faithfull family broke up scared, and fled the place in a sort of horror-stricken rout. CHAPTER II.-THE TENANTS. TWENTY-TWO years is a long span. It will efface even that black splash of a figure swinging from that grim gallows of a state bed. There comes a season of drought for widows' tears; and for the young--for those specially who were no more than just launched upon life-those ogres of infancy lose their horrors with years; so that at this date, Mrs. Faithfull has been long drawn from private contemplation of her terrible ogre by outside duties; and now become a stern commanding matron, of awful presence, and yet affable manner, who has been, in the smoke of battle, a skilful captainess in those ball and drawingroom skirmishes, has at last fought the good fight over her daughters' bodies, and brought back a prize for her bow and spear. A word now for these two daughters-the eldest, Janet Faithfull, the youngest, Mary Faithfull. The eldest fair-haired, smooth-faced, with a sort of weary blue eye, that she was always dropping towards the ground; a dreamy reflective manner, and yet a ready tongue, which streamed with odd conceits and remotely fetched fancies, so that she was sure to draw people to cleave to her specially, even out of a mere surprise and wonder. Very pretty, though more of a latent prettiness, was this eldest daughter of the Faithfulls-one, too, whom quiet, unworldly mammas would shrink from instinctively, and caution their best-loved male child against. That quiet, unworldly mamma, she could cuff, flout, turn inside out, and riddle through and through with arrows-morally speaking, of course. For that younger daughter, she was no more than an ordinary girl, one that we all know well enough in this or that particular family, one of a file of daughters, neither plain nor pretty, neither odious nor delectable, neither dull nor brilliant, but a good average thing. She was her sister's sister, that was all. She was one of the Miss Faithfulls-" that other one, you know-not the sharp, clever one'-(so she was spoken of), and her name was Mary. She was the foil and the helot of that elder sister. Now the elder sister was about being married to one Henry St. John Smith, Esq., of Burd Castle, a very desirable man—a possible baronet and income of say eight to ten thousand a year. A great "catch," said the vulgar genteel. A poor mean-souled cur, that had thrown himself away, said disappointed trappers, grinding their teeth. Where were his eyes for their own little dears? Anathema upon his dull senses. So, lose no more time, and let us bait for fresh quarry. Henry St. John Smith, Esq, had passed the usual probation-the probation by balls. In that medium had the two atoms gravitated towards each other. At the proper period came the result; and it was proposed to Miss Jane Faithfull to become Mrs. St. John Smith, and possible baronet's wife-not Mrs. Smythe, for he had not yet been prevailed on so to vulgarize his name. And drawing all our cords together the result of the whole is this, that the heavy grim house has been furbished up, the damp partially driven out, the walks weeded, and tremendous wholesale clearings made in the wild bush region behind. With the garden razor has the bowling green been shaved, with the garden-scissors has the hedge been snipped and chopped into smoothness, and the green dead man's hole, where the stage boat paddled, skimmed neatly with a gigantic spoon. Some plastering and patching healed the sores in that poor Lazarus of a sham temple, and it blazed out brightly in holiday clothes of shining white paint. And to grow to a point at once, it being a tradidional custom with the Faithfull family that all who took the matrimonial plunge should do so under that roof, the family absent so long had now journeyed back again to the old roost, and that stony-hearted grim monster of a building had been coaxed and trimmed and brightened, in something like a surly toleration. a sort of worshipping brother, a deifying Williomo-a sober, re- | groaning with excellent things, while the family sat round and flective and somewhat heavy youth, that took time to honor admired. They were two hungry men, for the grim country the receipt of an idea. He had to do with the sea as Lieu- had whetted their appetites; and the bridegroom, as he grew tenant Smith, and was simple and almost guileless, as men of warm, and what may be called comfortable, laughed and told that profession usually are. He had come home on the news, their day's adventures, being corroborated now and again in a and did not relish it, though he had not yet seen Jane Faithfull.curt, grudging fashion by the younger brother. All this while He was even earnest with his brother to break off the business, urging that Jane was no wife for him. These traits of character, which his brother told with rapture, turned him more and more against her; but when he found that he could not prevail, he, like a wise and heavy seaman as he was, gave over battling with a bead wind, and was now actually beside his brother in a post chaise whipping down to that lonely house. They had been journeying all day, from very close to dawn, all along wild roads, where the way had to be asked, and where now toward five o'clock, when it was growing to be dark, jangling and creaking up to a miserable sort of a post-house, very bleak-looking and rusted, with a kind of escaped convict and hunted-down look. A rusted woman came out and said that this was Braynesend, which one of the brothers said was all right, and bade her look sharp and have the horses put to. Then said the younger brother, who had been anything but a cheerful mate all the road "I wish I wish we could go back." "Why?" said the other, shortly. "Because it will lead to no good. Ever since morning I find myself getting more and more depressed. This is a miserable overture for a marriage." The elder brother, who had felt the influence of this grim landscape too, was inclined to be moody, and made him no answer. "It is not too late," said the younger, eagerly. He had not touched on this delicate subject the whole day. It might be averted-put off. The whole thing has been done in such a hurry, anything will be a reasonable excuse. You know," he went on, gathering courage from the other's silence, thinking, indeed, he was making an impression, "you know I have been against the business from the beginning. You know she is not the person for you. I have heard-" "Confusion!" said the elder brother, dashing down the window, savagely. "You must stop this. Am I to sit here and listen to this talk-what do you mean, I say? Who gave you a right to preach to me? Here, put those horses to-quick! get on, get on. Will you never buckle that trace!" And he shut up the window with as violent a bang as he let it down. "Now," said he, with something like a threatening manner to his brother, "don't speak to me again on this matter. I won't take it from you. My mind's made up." His brother turned very red at this hostile language, and had as angry a rejoinder on the tip of his tongue; but he checked himself and lay back in his corner of the chaise without a word. After this burst it was not likely there would be much conversation. So it grew darker, and they plunged into a yet wilder prairie, the old provincial chaise jangling and clattering most unmusically. This was not, as the younger brother remarked, a cheering overture to an epithalamium. They should have had smiling meadows and pastoral Lubins and Phyllises and flowers and trelliswork, instead of this stiff, stark, iron-bound country. It was a dismal progress both for bridegroom and for best man. CHAPTER IV.-YELLOW HAIR. the yellow-haired woman leant upon her hands, her elbows rested upon the table, and watched the performance in a dreamy fashion-of course, wrapped up in that lover of hers-of course, devouring with her eyes those adored motions and gestures, as he devoured her. These things-this little ceremonial of devotion-may be accepted as understood-a supererogation even to mention. But the younger brother took his food seriously, and dealt forth heavy news to the matron, seasoned with a sort of ponderous dough of his conversation, all the while scowling distrustfully at the yellow-haired lady. Then they finished, and the bridegroom, still in boisterous spirits and joyous over his prize, stole her off into an adjoining room (which it seems is a privilege in this species of novitiate) and told her, by way of entertainment, all his faint-heartedness and dismals during the day. Then we hear her voice for the first time. (She had been listening in that passive, almost insensible way of her own, which with her became almost a charm). "That strange brother of yours gave you sensible advice." "What, to go back, give all up; do you tell me this, enchantress?" "Yes," she said, almost coldly, "you and I cannot look into futurity; who knows how we shall suit each other? We are not divines; there may be at this moment, in you, undeveloped, a ripe savage, a royal brute, wife-beating, wife-reviling, dissipating, drunken. In me a sleeping demon, I am thinking," and she began as usual, stroking her yellow hair; safeguard have we against these things? You may be yet cursing me, and I tearing my hair." The possible husband looked at her gloomily. what "I can see one thing for certain," he said; "you are a very curious enchantress. Where do you get these wild notions?" "Out of history, the newspapers, common talk. Now," she said, leaning her hand upon her chin, "tell me, how long have you known me; what do you know of me after all? You have, of course, like all rapturous lovers, lived 'ages since you have seen me; but now, considering it quietly and rationally, do you not know very little of me?" This strange line of conversation mystified the bridegroom wonderfully, and tamed down those splendid spirits of his. But he looked at her steadily for a moment. "I would wager all I have most precious in the world, that you will never turn out different to that opinion which I now have of you. I know you, present and future." Her answer was a laugh, loud, and a little harsh. Then she put back her hair and rose, laid her arm on his, and, casting away that philosophic manner of hers, became loving. They passed out of the room together. Exeunt slowly. All have dropped away fitfully, one by one, to rest; and so closes that day. Night was now to set in. CHAPTER V.-THE FIRST NIGHT. HENRY ST. JOHN SMITH, Esquire, as being of the worthier blood, and the more honored man, was privileged with a grand state bedroom all to himself. His brother, as being of humbler Now, here are lights as from jail windows; and with a pro-quality, was packed away up a great stone back stair, to a row digious clatter, a whole prison-yard full of convicts' chains of bachelors' lodgings, all along a stone corridor, where, indeed, jingling about them, they drive up triumphantly to the door of he might have his pick and choice. There were no other bichethe heavy mansion. lors, so he had the whole range to himself; and, to say the truth, did not very much relish this segregation. He had an instinct that he was not very far from the roof. Luckily he was not very profound in the family lagends, or he would have learnt that here, on this very stone corridor, that lamentable hanging business took place, down at the very end, in the last room of all, now fast locked. He had not this to think of. He was rather thinking of how he had found no opportunity of But inside no jail surely. Warmth, light, domestic comfort, cheerful hues, graceful women's figures, and not the hard savage outlines reasonably to be expected in such a district. So we leave our dismal forebodings in a small bundle among the straw on the floor of the postchaise, and enter shaking hands and receiving welcome, with an overflowing delight. So it was with that bridegroom at least. The brother was still moody, as from a sense of injury. Janet Faithfull, in the cha-speaking the soft word which turneth away wrath to his racter of a beautiful weird woman, for to-night, sat near to her husband in posse, stroking that yellow hair of hers. The brother kept looking at her with looks of constraint and almost open aversion. They went in and ate at a snowy round table, brother, before retiring. Nay, the good-night he had received was a fixed scowl, and a whisper from the yellow-haired lady on his arm, who swept by him scornfully. "He has told her everything," he said to himself, as he laid |
