"My mother bids me bind my hair."--_Old Ballad_.
"Oh Mary, Mary, what is to be done about the hair?" cried Sophy, one
Sunday after church.
"Isn't it dreadful?" said Dora. "Those fearful curl-papers sticking out
with rolls of old newspapers! I told them it was not fit to be seen
last Sunday, but there were even Elizabeth and Jane Hewlett in them
to-day."
"Yes," said Mary, "they said that mother's aunt was coming to tea, so
she had curled them before they came out. I told them I would excuse it
for this once, but that I should send any one home who came such a
figure on Sunday."
Elizabeth and Jane, be it observed, were George Hewlett's daughters, the
most civilised, if the dullest-witted, of the flock. Polly, Betsy, and
Judy were the children of Dan Hewlett. As a rule, all the old women of
the parish were called Betty, all the middle-aged Lizzie, and the girls
Elizabeth.
"It is worse on week-days," said Dora. "One would think it was a
collection of little porcupines!"
"And so dirty," began Sophy, but she was hushed up, for Edmund was seen
approaching, and Mary never allowed him to be worried with the small,
fretting details of school life.
It was a time when it was the fashion for young ladies up to their teens
to have their hair curled in ringlets round their heads or on their
shoulders. Sophy's hair curled naturally, and had been "turned up" ever
since she had come to live at home in the dignity of fourteen, but she
and both her sisters wore falls of drooping ringlets in front, and in
Mary's case these had been used to be curled in paper at night, though
she would as soon have been seen thus decorated by day as in her
night-cap. But there was scarcely another matron in the parish who did
not think a fringe of curl-paper the proper mode of disposing of her
locks when in morning _desabille_, unless she were elderly and wore a
front, which could be taken off and put on with the best cap.
Maid-servants wore short curls or smooth folds round side-combs under
net caps, and this was the usual trim of the superior kind of women.
The working women wore thick muslin white caps, under which, it was to
be hoped, their hair was cut short, though often it straggled out in
unseemly elf-locks. Married women did not go bareheaded, not even the
younger ladies, except in the evening, when, like their maiden sisters,
they wore coils of their back hair round huge upright ornamental combs
on the summit of their heads.
But the children's heads were deservedly pain and grief to the Carbonel
senses, and Mary was impelled to go and make a speech in school,
desiring that no more curl-papers should appear there on Sundays, and
recommending that all hair should be kept short, as her own and her
sister's had been, till the fit age for the "turning up" was attained.
She called up Susan Pucklechurch and Rachel Mole, who had nice smooth
hair neatly parted in the middle, and declared them to be examples of
the way that heads ought to appear.
That afternoon the women stood out at their gates. "So the lady told
you to take pattern by Widdy Mole's child, did her?" said Nanny Barton,
loud enough for all her neighbours to hear.
"Ay, mother, by Rachel Mole and Susie Pucklechurch."
"As if I'd go out of my way to follow after a mean creeper and low thing
like Widow Mole," exclaimed Mrs Barton.
"She knows which way her bread is buttered. A-making favourites!"
exclaimed Nancy Morris.
"Getting in to work in the garding away from Farmer Goodenough, as her
man had worked for for years, ay, and his before un," chimed in Nanny
Barton.
"And if you could see the platefuls and cupfuls as the ladies carries
out to her," added Betsy Seddon. "My word and honour! No wonder she is
getting lively enough just to bust some day."
"That's the way she comes over them," said Nanny Barton.
"That's what them gentlefolks likes, and Bessy Mole she knows it,"
observed Nancy Morris; at which they all laughed shrilly.
"As though I'd take pattern by her," exclaimed Nanny Barton. "I'd
liefer take pattern by Softy Sam, or Goodenough's old scarecrow."
"Whatever's that?" demanded Tirzah, coming out of the "Fox and Hounds."
"What have they been after now?"
"Just the lady's been a preachin' down at that there school, how that
she don't want no curl-papers there, and that all the poor children's
heads is to be clipped like boys, and setting up that there Rachel
Mole's bowl-dish of a poll to set the fashion."
"There! As I telled you," said Tirzah. "That's the way gentry always
goes on if they gets their way."
"They just hates to see a curl or a bit of ribbon," added Betsy Seddon.
"Or to see one have a bit of pleasure," added Nancy Morris.
"Pucklechurches and Mole, they never durst send their poor children to
the fair--"
"And to hear the lady run out agin' me for just having a drop of beer,"
exclaimed Nanny Barton. "Nothing warn't bad enough for me! As if she
hadn't her wine and all the rest of it, and a poor woman mayn't touch
one draught, if it is ever so--"
"Well, you know, Nan, you'd had a bit more than enough," said Tirzah.
"Well, and what call to that was hern or yourn?" cried Nancy, facing
upon her.
"A pretty job I had to get you home that night," said Tirzah; and they
all laughed. "And you wouldn't be here now if Tom Postboy hadn't pulled
up his horses in time."
"And was it for her to cast up to me if I was a bit overtaken?" demanded
Nanny.
It may be supposed that after such a conversation as this there was not
much chance of the bowl-dish setting the fashion. There was not the
same ill-temper and jealousy of Susan Pucklechurch being held up as an
example, for her family were the natural hangers-on of Greenhow, and
were, besides, always neater and better dressed than the others; but
Mrs Mole was even poorer than themselves, and had worked with them,
even while "keeping herself to herself," a great offence in their eyes.
Thus nobody was inclined to follow the clipped fashion, except one or
two meeker women, who had scarcely seen that their girls' hair was
getting beyond bounds. It is to be remembered that seventy years ago,
long hair could hardly be kept in respectable trim by busy mothers
working in the fields, and with much less power of getting brushes and
combs than at present; so that the crops were almost the only means of
securing cleanliness and tidiness, and were worn also by all the little
daughters of such gentry as did not care for fashion, nor for making
them sleep on a ring of lumps as big as walnuts. So that Mrs Carbonel
and her sisters really wished for what was wholesome and proper when
they tried to make the children conform to their rules, if the women
could only have seen it so, instead of resenting the interference.
Sunday brought George Hewlett's two girls with their hair fastened up in
womanly guise, and their cousins becurled as before; but there was
nothing particularly untidy, and Mary held her peace.
However, the war was not over, and one day, when, after a short absence,
Dora and Sophy went into the school, they found five or six girls
bristling with twists of old newspapers, and others in a still more
objectionable condition, with wild unkempt hair about their necks, and
the half-dozen really neat ones were on the form around Mrs Thorpe, who
proceeded to tell Dora that she was quite in despair, the more she spoke
to the girls about tidy heads, the worse they were, and she was really
afraid to let her own children or the clean ones sit near the dirty
ones.
Dora's spirit was roused. "Very well," she said, "Mrs Carbonel and I
will not be disobeyed. Come here, Lizzie Barton. Your head is
disgraceful. Lend me your scissors, Mrs Thorpe."
Lizzie Barton began to cry, with her knuckles in her eyes, and would not
stir; but Dora was resolute. One child made a rush for the door; but
Dora desired Sophy to stand by the door and bar the passage, and called
Mrs Thorpe to hold Lizzie Barton, who certainly was a spectacle, with
half-a-dozen horns twisted out of old advertisement papers, but the rest
of her hair flying in disgusting elf-locks. She was cowed, however,
into standing quiet, till her appendages had been sheared off by the
determined scissors. "There, I am sure you must be much more
comfortable," Dora assured her. "Get your mother to wash your head, and
you will look so nice to-morrow. Now then, Betsy Hewlett."
Betsy cried, but submitted; but the next victim, Sally French, howled
and fought, and said, "Mammy would not have it done." But Dora sternly
answered, "Then she should keep your head fit to be seen." And Mrs
Thorpe held down her hands, with whispers of "Now, my dear, don't."
And so it went on through nineteen girls, the boys sniggering all the
time. Some cried and struggled, but latterly they felt it was their
fate, and resisted no longer. Even Mary Cox, who had a curly head by
nature, stood still to be clipped. Dora's hands were in a dreadful
state, and her mind began to quail a little; but, having once started,
she felt bound to go on and complete her work, and when she finally
dismissed the school, there was a very undesirable heap of locks, brown,
black, and carroty, interspersed with curl-papers, on the floor. The
girls looked, to her mind, far better, and Mrs Thorpe, a little
doubtful, gave her a basin of water to wash her hands.
Home the two sisters went, their spirits rising as they laughed over
their great achievement, and looked forward to amusing Mary with the
account of the various behaviour of the victims.
So they burst upon her, as she was planting bulbs in the garden, and
Edmund helping her by measuring distances.
"Oh, Mary, such fun!" cried Sophy. "We have been cutting all the
children's hair."
"What do you mean, Sophy?"
"They had their heads worse than ever," said Dora, "so I took Mrs
Thorpe's scissors and clipped them all round."
"My dear Dora, I wish you had not been so hasty," Mary was gently
saying; but Edmund was standing up, looking quite judicial.
"Did you get their parents' permission?" he demanded.
"No, of course I never should."
"Then what right had you to meddle with the children?"
"They were quite horrid. My hands! They'll never recover," said Dora,
spreading out her fingers.
"Very likely; but the children were not your slaves. You have a perfect
right to forbid them to enter your school except on certain conditions,
but not to tyrannise over them when there. You have done more harm than
you will undo in a hurry."
"I am afraid so," murmured Mary.
Dora had a temper, and answered angrily, "Well, I'm sure I did it for
the best."
"I don't approve of opinionative young ladies," said Edmund, who was
really from old habit quite like an elder brother.
"Oh, Dora," sighed Mary, "don't!"
Dora felt impelled to argue the matter out on the spot, but something in
Mary's look withheld her. She went away, stepping high and feeling
stately and proud; but when she had walked up and down her own room a
few times, her better sense began to revive, and she saw that she had
acted in anger and self-will quite as much as from a sense of propriety,
and she threw herself on her bed and shed some bitter tears.
They would have been still more bitter if she could have heard the
exclamations of the mothers over their gates that evening.
"Well, to be sure, that a young lady should have treated my poor like
that!"
"Her father says, says he, `I'll have the law of she.'"
"My Jenny, she come home looking like a poor mad woman. `Whatever has
thee been arter?' says I. `'Tis the lady,' says she."
"Lady! She ought to be ashamed on herself, a-making such Betties of the
poor children."
"Ah! didn't I tell you," gibed Tirzah, "what would come of making up to
the gentlefolk, with their soft words and such. They only want to have
their will of you, just like the blackamoors."
"You'll not find me a sending my Liz and Nan," cried Mrs Morris, "no,
not if her was to offer me a hundred goulden guineas."
"I don't let my gal go to be made into a guy!" was the general
sentiment; and Mrs Verdon, in her bed, intensified it by warning her
neighbours that the cropping their heads was "a preparation for sending
them out to them foreign parts where they has slaves."
And on Sunday, there were only ten of the female pupils at school, and
poor Dora and Sophia both cried all church time. They thought their
hasty measures had condemned their poor girls to be heathens and
good-for-nothings for ever and ever.
Tirzah Todd laughed at them all. The Todds had gipsy connections; Todd
himself was hardly ever visible. He was never chargeable to the parish,
but he never did regular work except at hay and harvest times, or when
he was cutting copsewood. Then old Pucklechurch's brother, Master
Pucklechurch of Downhill, who always managed the copse cutting, used to
hire him, and they and another man lived in a kind of wigwam made of
chips, and cut down the seven years' growth of underwood, dividing it
into pea-sticks from the tops, and splitting the thicker parts to be
woven into hurdles, or made into hoops for barrels. They had a little
fire, but their wives brought them their food, and little Hoglah, now
quite well only with a scarred neck, delighted to toddle about among the
chips, and cry out, "Pitty! pitty!" at the primroses.
Copse cutting over, Joe Todd haunted fairs and drove cattle home, or did
anything he could pick up. He lived in a mud hovel which he and Tirzah
had built for themselves on the border land, and where they kept a tall,
thin, smooth-haired dog, with a grey coat, a white waistcoat, a long
nose and tail, and blue eyes, which gave him a peculiarly sinister
expression of countenance, and he had a habit of leaping up and planting
his fore feet on the gate, growling, so that Dora and Sophy were very
much afraid of him, and no one except Mr Harford had ever attempted to
effect an entrance into the cottage. It was pretty well understood that
Joe Todd and his lurcher carried on a business as poachers, and Tirzah
going about with clothes'-pegs, rush baskets, birch brooms, and in their
season with blackberries, whortleberries, or plovers' eggs, was able to
dispose of their game to the poulterers at Minsterham, with whom she had
an understanding. Her smiling black eyes, white teeth, and merry looks,
caused a great deal of business to be done through her, and servants
were not unwilling to carry in her stories about rabbits knocked down
unawares by a stick, and pheasants or partridges killed by chance in
reaping. Indeed, she had a little trade in dripping and other scraps
with sundry of these servants, which rendered them the more disposed to
receive her.