Were Mr. and Mrs. George Knightley proposing that they travel with me to London for the cutting of hair? On one hand, borrowing from Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities!” On the other hand, I’d never been to London. We’d be staying overnight atthe home of Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley in Brunswick Square. Both the Woodhouse/Knightley sisters would accompany me to the tonsorial parlor on—they assured me— the poshest street in Mayfair.
Shock turned to mortification when we were turned away at the door by an angry wife, who informed us that her husband did not cut the hair of women.
The worldly Isabella whispered from the stoop, “She must think we’re not gentlewomen.”
Undaunted, Emma rapped on the door again. The woman yelled, “Go away!”
“Please, then—tell us who else will do it.”
“No one!”
Isabella whispered to her sister, “Mention remuneration.”
Emma said, “We will of course be paying your husband for his kind service.”
“I bet you have plenty!” the woman yelled back.
That was quite enough! I asked the sisters, “Can’t we just buy some shears and do it ourselves?”
“No!” said Emma, sounding cross. “We haven’t journeyed to London to chop off a lifetime of hair without experience or finesse!”
What would my father have thought of this pursuit? Of this mission, the un-dowdying of Miss Bates? But what if—dare I even think it—a goal was met, iftheirfather viewed me in a new and favourable light?
On the way back to Brunswick Square, in the carriage, Isabella said, “I know someone who knows someone who might be able to help.”
The someone who knew someone was a bishop, a man of not only letters but broad-mindedness. And the personheknew was a religious leader of the Hebrew faith, a rabbi on Petticoat Lane.
I didn’t know how that applied to my situation, but Isabella did. She explained it with some delicacy: Jewesses were obliged, before marriage, to cut their hair and cover it in public, under wigs. Surely they couldn’t fit great lengths of hair under those wigs, could they? Someone had to cut it. We would start with wigmakers and work backward.
Did we even know that people of the Hebrew faith, outside the pages of William Shakespeare, were merchants? Though he’d never had reason to visit the East End, Mr. Knightley was comfortable stopping men we passed, bearded men wearing skullcaps, to guide us.
Signs above the shop were in letters I knew to be Hebrew, unhelpful, but wigs displayed in windows told the tale. Our entrance provoked eye-popping stares and exclamations in another language. But we were not turned away. The wigmaker’s wife was present—necessary, I guessed, to maintain propriety, to fit the wigs on the affianced. A young man, stitching in a corner, translated.
Mr. Knightley yelled, “We are in need of someone who cuts the hair of women,” pointing to me.
The young man told us that we’d come to the right place! His mamme often cut hair! Sentences were exchanged between Mr. and Mrs. Eichenbaum, not translated.
“Vimmins now!” she said, pointing to a curtain. Mr. Knightley excused himself and went outside.
I sat on a stool in the tiny back room. Emma and Isabella watched, Emma pointing instructively to her own tendrils, as if this wigmaker/barber were a magician. Untranslated, she added, “Leave enough so she can twist it into a topknot—”
But Mrs. Eichenbaum had a firm grip on my braid and, without warning, was sawing through it at the nape of my neck. WhenI realized what had happened, and felt the nothingness left behind, I yelped.
“Nit gut?” asked Mrs. Eichenbaum.
“Noooo!” I wailed. “Noooo.”
Emma and Isabella were both looking stricken. Isabella smoothed the remaining hair behind my ears and said, “It will frame your face.”
“And it’s all one color now,” said Emma.
“Gamin-like,” said Isabella.
Mrs. Eichenbaum appeared to be judging and weighing the liberated braid, unhappily. Finally, in English, “One bob I pay.”
“Youpay?” asked Emma.
Isabella said, “She thinks we came to sell your hair.”
