There was also another conversation I needed to have with Thomas, one I hadn’t banked on having so quickly. I thought I might be expecting. I was unsure whether to discuss this with him yet, but I was disquieted at being in this new house and displeasing him, and I sensed his attention waning, so I thought… Well, I thought it might help me win back some favour.
I had the idea that if I asked Mrs Wiggs for her assistance, it would make her feel important and might earn me some approval. I felt a little unctuous, but I was willing to do what was necessary, so I let her style my hair. She had been offering to do this since my first day, but I had brushed her away. I hadn’t felt the need for it and I wasn’t comfortable with her touching me. It gave me the shivers, echoes of the times my grandmother used to brush my hair, hitting me on the head with the brush and near scratching my eyelashes out with each stroke.
When I asked Mrs Wiggs if she would consider helping me with my hair that night, an evening when Thomas had condescended to confirm that he would be home for dinner, she became the most animated I’d ever seen her.
‘Really, Mrs Lancaster? Are you sure? You didn’t seem keen when I offered before,’ she said.
‘It was only that I was overwhelmed at being in a new place, surrounded by new things and new people, but it is a weakness of mine and I thought—’
‘I have always helped dress the ladies of the house. I have vast experience. I’m so glad you’ve finally asked me.’
My hair has a natural curl, which makes it stubborn and difficult to work with. Instead of over-preening, I tend to roll it away from my head, allowing any wayward curls to fall around my face. When it came to Mrs Wiggs touching it, she made faces, which I could see in the mirror. This irritated me, of course, and I had to stop my own eyes from rolling because she could see me in the mirror too. She continually commented on how coarse my hair was and how stubborn the curl. Being the owner of the hair, I was well aware of this.
‘Where did you say your family were from?’ she asked, brushing and yanking my hair so forcefully I could feel my eyebrows being pulled.
‘Scotland,’ I said. ‘They were from Fife.’
‘Scotland!’ she scoffed. ‘Really? I had no idea you were a Scot.’
‘I’m not. I was born in England, my father was… English.’ I was anxious not to be drawn further into this and have my story unravel, so I turned the conversation around. ‘What about you, Mrs Wiggs? Where do you come from?’
Without thinking, I turned around to look up at her. She took my temples firmly in her hands and swivelled my head back to face the mirror.
‘Oh, here and there,’ she said, tugging at my hair again, making my eyes water.
‘You must have been born in a single place.’
‘Bristol,’ she said, and that was the end of that particular conversation. I sensed I was not the only one being intentionally vague about her origins.
‘Scots! I had no idea!’ she said again. ‘I should think they were Moors, going by your hair.’ She sighed. ‘It’s going to be very difficult to do anything elegant with this, Mrs Lancaster.’
By the time she’d finished, it was up on the very top of my head, a great pile of ringlets, but flat at the sides and the back. I looked more ewe than woman. That wasn’t the worst: she then took to my wardrobe like a plague of moths. She pulled out each dress in turn, held it aloft with a furrowed brow, as if by examining it more closely it might improve, replaced it, sighed, and went on to the next one. Soon she was uttering unintelligible mutterings. When she finally settled on the dress she found the least offensive, I had to laugh, because it was green – pale pistachio green – the very colour Aisling said made me look like a consumptive on the cusp of death. The kind that rattles, like they’re sucking on an empty bottle through a straw. The ones you wish would hurry up and die.
I agreed to wear it, purely to put an end to the whole ordeal and to please Mrs Wiggs. I hoped that Thomas would be like most men and not notice what colour did what to my complexion.
I had a headache by the time dinner was served. When I sat down at the table, Thomas gawped at me with a horrified expression.
‘What on earth have you done to your hair?’ he asked, not taking his eyes off me and putting his napkin on his lap with his mouth open.
‘I thought I would try something different. Do you like it?’
‘No, Susannah, I do not. It’s far too high. I’ll look quite the circus freak standing next to you – people will think me a dwarf. And for a person who has a very slim face, it somehow makes yours appear round, as round as a pie.’
I felt ridiculous, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Mrs Wiggs had done this on purpose. Or if she was simply clueless and I was stupid for asking.
We carried on with dinner. I was determined to make the evening a good one, even if it had got off to a bad start.
But then he said, ‘You look a little off-colour – greenish. Do you feel well?’
‘This bloody dress,’ I muttered under my breath, throwing my napkin down and sitting back.
‘I beg your pardon? What did you say?’
‘Nothing, Thomas. I said nothing.’
The greenish tinge to my skin was my cue to embark on the
