19
No one else was to be seen. Perhaps it was all over. She was too late. Then a second basin held in coarse red hands appeared round the kitchen door and in a moment a woman, large and coarse, with the sleeves of her large-checked blue and white cotton dress rolled back and a great “teapot” of pale nasturtium coloured hair shining above the third of Miriam’s “bony” German faces had emerged and plumped her steaming basin down upon the table.
Soap? and horrid pudding basins of steaming water. Miriam’s hair had never been washed with anything but cantharides and rose-water on a tiny special sponge.
In full horror, “Oh,” she said, in a low vague voice, “it doesn’t matter about me.”
“Gun’ Tak’ Fr’n,” snapped the woman briskly.
Miriam gave herself up.
“Gooten Mawgen, Frau Krause,” said Millie’s polite departing voice.
Miriam’s outraged head hung over the steaming basin—her hair spread round it like a tent frilling out over the table.
For a moment she thought that the nausea which had seized her as she surrendered would, the next instant, make flight imperative. Then her amazed ears caught the sharp bump—crack—of an eggshell against the rim of the basin, followed by a further brisk crackling just above her. She shuddered from head to foot as the egg descended with a cold slither upon her incredulous skull. Tears came to her eyes as she gave beneath the onslaught of two hugely enveloping, vigorously drubbing hands—“sh—ham—poo” gasped her mind.
The drubbing went relentlessly on. Miriam steadied her head against it and gradually warmth and ease began to return to her shivering, clenched body. Her hair was gathered into the steaming basin—dipped and rinsed and spread, a comforting compress, warm with the water, over her egg-sodden head. There was more drubbing, more dipping and rinsing. The second basin was re-filled from the kitchen, and after a final rinse in its fresh warm water, Miriam found herself standing up—with a twisted tail of wet hair hanging down over her cape of damp towel—glowing and hungry.
“Thank you,” she said timidly to Frau Krause’s bustling presence.
“Gun’ Tak’ Fr’n,” said Frau Krause, disappearing into the kitchen.
Miriam gave her hair a preliminary drying, gathered her dressing-gown together and went upstairs. From the schoolroom came unmistakable sounds. They were evidently at dinner. She hurried to her attic. What was she to do with her hair? She rubbed it desperately—fancy being landed with hair like that, in the middle of the day! She could not possibly go down.... She must. Fräulein Pfaff would expect her to—and would be disgusted if she were not quick—she towelled frantically at the short strands round her forehead, despairingly screwed them into Hinde’s and towelled at the rest. What had the other girls done? If only she could look into the schoolroom before going down—it was awful—what should she do?... She caught sight of a sodden-looking brush on Mademoiselle’s bed. Mademoiselle had put hers up—she had seen her ... of course ... easy enough for her little fluffy clouds—she could do nothing with her straight, wet lumps—she began to brush it out—it separated into thin tails which flipped tiny drops of moisture against her hands as she brushed. Her arms ached; her face flared with her exertions. She was ravenous—she must manage somehow and go down. She braided the long strands and fastened their cold mass with extra hairpins. Then she unfastened the Hinde’s—two tendrils flopped limply against her forehead. She combed them out. They fell in a curtain of streaks to her nose. Feverishly she divided them, draped them somehow back into the rest of her hair and fastened them.
“Oh,” she breathed, “my ghastly forehead.”
It was all she could do—short of gas and curling tongs. Even the candle was taken away in the day-time.
It was cold and bleak upstairs. Her wet hair lay in a heavy mass against her burning head. She was painfully hungry. She went down.