A Stairs - Eva Ibbotson

‘And how is Miss Hardwicke liking this part of the world?’ Mr Frisby asked now, while they waited for the clerk to bring in another box of documents.

‘Oh. very much,’ Rupert answered with his friendly smile.

He got up and moved over to the window, irked by the hours spent indoors on such a lovely day. The square was quiet in the early afternoon. An old woman sat on a seat sunning herself; a handful of children played hopscotch on the cobbles…

Suddenly, Rupert stiffened. A girl in a dark coat and skirt was hurrying in a purposeful manner across the far side: a girl whose quick, light walk as of an accidentally earthbound angel, was appallingly familiar. Now she was slowing down, hesitating, standing looking upwards at the windows of a shop. He narrowed his eyes, making out the lettering.

The clerk came back with a box file which he set down on the desk. Mr Frisby opened it, began to search among the documents…

Anna had gone into the shop. The door had closed behind her. The minutes passed.

‘Ah, this is the one we want, I think,’ said the solicitor, taking out a sheet of foolscap. ‘Now if you would just look at paragraph three, my lord. In my view -‘

He broke off, utterly amazed. The Earl of Westerholme, always so polite, so meticulous, had gained the door and, without a word of apology or explanation, ran out into the street.

- - - -*

René had finished his combing.

‘To here?’ he enquired, indicating a place level with Anna’s throat.

‘Shorter,’ said Anna, placing two fingers on her jaw, just below the lobe of her ear. ‘To here.’

René nodded. ‘Scissors, Elsie!’ he commanded.

Elsie resumed her scuffling and produced the required article.

‘Not those, you half-wit,’ said René, his French accent slipping badly. ‘The big ones.’

Elsie returned to the trolley, circled it, pounced, and eventually produced the big ones. At which moment the door of the shop was thrown violently open, a peremptory voice said: ‘Stop! Stop that at once!’ - and a man, apparently in the last stages of lunacy, took two strides across the room and jerked Rene’s arm away, sending the scissors clattering on to the floor.

René stopped. It had taken him some moments to recognize in the wild-eyed, breathless and clearly insane young man, the handsome Earl of Westerholme back from the war. Having done so, he had no desire to cross him and retreated to the far side of the shop, his sharp nose twitching with curiosity and the hope of scandal.

‘I told Proom - I made it absolutely clear - that I will not allow you to cut your hair.’

Anna, sitting captive and encircled by her tresses, had turned to see whether the crazed image in the mirror could be real. Now, her tobacco-coloured eyes wide with amazement, she addressed her employer.

‘Oh? Really? You forbid it?’ The last lingering traces of Selina Strickland vanished. Her face had grown pale with what Pinny would unhesitatingly have labelled as temper. ‘It will no doubt amuse you to tell me why?’

‘You are in my employ,’ said Rupert, who was aware that he had taken leave of his senses and did not, at that moment, greatly care. ‘None of the servants at Mersham are permitted to have short hair. It is against the regulations.’

‘What regulations?’ said Anna sweetly.

‘The regulations I have drawn up. They will be issued tomorrow.’

‘Very well,’ said Anna. ‘I resign. I will forfeit a week’s wages and leave tomorrow.’

‘Oh, God.’ The madness began to drain from Rupert. He suddenly looked like a man at the end of his endurance; the skin tight over his cheekbones, the eyes shadowed. When he spoke again it was in a voice so low that Anna thought she had misheard him.

‘I must have something, Anna,’ said the Earl of Westerholme.

She felt the ground open beneath her feet. Desperately she groped for her former rage, trying to claw her way back to normality. ‘Short hair is very modern. One must move with the times.’ The banal sentences lay where they had fallen. ‘I wish to be attractive for your wedding,’ she went on pleadingly, lifting her face to his. ‘Is that a crime?’

‘Ah. yes; my wedding.’ The word reared up to meet him, banishing the last traces of lunacy. He became aware of René staring at him salaciously, of Elsie, with her mouth open, clutching a towel… ‘You will be very attractive for my wedding,’ he said lightly. ‘For my funeral also, je vous assure.’ He lifted a hand, laid it for a moment on the rich, dark tresses where they mantled her shoulders, then turned it, letting the backs of his fingers run upwards against the shining waves. For an instant she felt his touch on her cheek; then he stepped back. ‘There, that was my ration for all eternity. People have died for less, I dare say.’ He turned and walked over to René. ‘I must apologize for having interrupted you,’ he said, taking out a sovereign. ‘Perhaps you will be kind enough to accept this as compensation for any inconvenience I have caused you.’

‘Thank you, your lordship. Thank you very much.’ René, greatly pleased, was all bows and obsequiousness.

‘You will now cut mademoiselle’s hair exactly as she instructs,‘said the Earl of Westerholme - and was gone.

Anna, left alone, sat mute and trembling, staring into the mirror at a girl she did not know, while René picked up the scissors, flourished them, advanced…

- - - -*

It was Potter who found Anna on her return from Maidens Over. He came across her in the stables, one arm flung round the white mare’s neck, her head pressed against the horse’s shoulder. Anna’s hat lay where it had fallen and she was still as stone.

Potter looked at the girl and proceeded to remove her. Had she been suffering from spavins or a slipped stifle, he would have been happy to deal with her himself. Anna, however, did not have spavins and whatever ailed the girl was clearly a matter for Mrs Park or Louise. And retrieving her hat from the straw, he led the dazed and aquiescent girl back to the house.

The head groom’s lack of interest in current hairstyles was absolute. It was therefore with surprise and irritation that he saw Anna, on entering the kitchen, become surrounded by a bevy of excited and chattering girls. However, he soon put a stop to this fuss and clatter.

‘She’s had a bit of a shock, I’d say,’ he said aside to Mrs Park.

But the kind cook had already seen. ‘Now that’s enough noise, everyone,’ she admonished them. ‘Mildred, get the kettle on.’ She pulled out a chair. ‘Come along, dear, and sit down. What you need is a nice cup of tea.’

Supper in the servants’ hall was a silent meal that night. Everyone was behaving very well: not a reproach, not a question had crossed their lips - and indeed only a professional sadist would have found it possible to reproach Anna in the state she was in. Still, it was a disappointment, no good pretending that it wasn’t. As for Anna, she sat between Peggy and Louise, very carefully chewing up pieces of roast beef and equally carefully swallowing them because Pinny had said that no food must be left uneaten on the plate and making, in the intervals of this arduous task, conversation of a quite devastating politeness. Even Proom, sitting magisterially at the head of the table, was unnerved by his housemaid’s reversal to her early upbringing. It had never been necessary for Anna to ‘make’ conversation before, it had bubbled from her in a never-ending spring. To silence Anna had been Proom’s problem, and he now sat frowning and exchanging glances with Mrs Park, whose concerned and caring gaze had hardly left Anna’s face since the girl’s return.