A/N: Haha, didn't know I'd be able to write a semi-comedy featuring Steerforth in it! ;) Also, in case my implications don't make it clear in the story, this is all supposed to take place the day Steerforth runs off with Little Emily. Thus, there's also a bit of irony in there, since Miss M. is obviously opposed to Steerforth's liason, and doesn't yet know it was she who arranged it in the first place. Third person POV focusing on Miss Mowcher. ;)
Thanks to Holly for her help!
**Written for FanFic100!**
A Little Off the Top
or, Miss Mowcher's Best Work
072. Fixed.
It is one of Miss Mowcher's greatest fancies, to think that one day, when she is Rich, that she would like to put a very low ottoman on the floor, and have her clients sit on that, while she works, and let their legs splay out in front of them, and let 'em be inconvenienced for a change, instead of her. This thought is occasioned, on the particular day of which we speak, by Miss Mowcher's tilting her head all the way backwards, to look up at the table she is supposed to stand on.
"I'm in a fine feather today," she grumbles, yanking on the knot of her giant fan-shaped bonnet irritably. "It's the weather, surely." This is probably true. On many days of the year, the pygmy hairdresser can ascend to her perch like a regular person climbing a flight of stairs; can stifle her inner disgust for the fashionable world, and talk about it as though she fed upon it, and above all, tolerate Steerforth's idle and self-centered prattling. But alas to those who schedule on a dreary, cold, rainy day, for these tempt the fates, as the angry little woman wields her pair of shears, with a gleam in her eye!
But it's not only the weather, Miss Mowcher pursues as she clambers up onto a chair. I'm suspicious of that one. I know his way. No matter if he wants to treat hisself like rubbish, but he best not bring a pretty Polly into it, else, by my eye...And she recalls their last meeting in the Yarmouth inn, with the fresh-faced youth who was his friend. If he treats his own sex so badly, God save the weaker one!
Steerforth, according to Miss Mowcher's amazingly precise gentleman's watch, is ten minutes late for his appointment when he breezes into the room, shaking the raindrops from his umbrella (which is nearly the hairdresser's equal in size). He don't seem to be bothered by the weather, in his exquisite dreadnought and shining hat, Miss Mowcher muses, in the interim. I shall find out why he's in such fine temper, or I have no claim to the name of MOWCHER.
"Miss Mowcher!" the handsome young man cries, with a broad smile, upon sighting her. "A minute angel, to be sure. I've kept you waiting, I'm afraid."
"Ah, it's worth it, young man," Miss M. responds, waggishly, and inwardly highly offended at his latest reference to her size, as he pulls his chair toward the table. "Worth it to me," she simpers, "because I like to look at you so, and worth it to you, as your head is starting to look like a washerwoman's mop! You didn't tell me it was an emergency."
"Ah, I've scarcely noticed it myself, Mowcher," Steerforth says blithely as, to Miss Mowcher's infinite annoyance, he reclines casually and carelessly crosses his long legs, nearly upsetting a bottle of hair tonic in the process.
"Been to see the peacocks?" Miss Mowcher manages to ask, insinuatingly.
"Boats, rather. I am quite the fisherman now, Miss Mowcher!"
"Fisher of men, maybe," the hairdresser replies, dryly, as she plunges her short arm into her bag for a shoulder cloth. "You have enough disciples for the title, I think."
"You flatter me," Steerforth laughs gaily. Then, he lowers his voice in an almost confidential tone. "Pray you won't spread this to your various sundry salons, Miss M. - I know your way - but I think I've dug myself up a pearl, in my excavations, indeed."
"Indeed!" cries Miss Mowcher - but her hand twitches on her shears.
"Upon my word as a gentleman," Steerforth laughs. "I do so love the Yarmouth folk - but, do you know, it's almost as if they were separate breeds! The men are clumsy, boorish - one simple youth in particular, Ham he's called, and he has about the wit of one - and the girls are delicate and trusting creatures. Sweet and simple little things! Marvels of nature!"
Yet his cavalier tone, which seems to state "I've found myself another simple plaything," makes the hairdresser grit her little teeth. She knows what it is to be a plaything - far too well, does she know it, and the keenness of this difference can sometimes blind her normally sharp wits. Ah, she's small and weak, I'll bet my eye. Trying to base herself on someone bigger and grander, playing the part - of a lady, this time - so she thinks she's happy. Well I'll make him pay, my dear. "It'll hurt him far more than it will hurt you," she adds, unconscious she has said it aloud.
"What's that, Miss Mowcher?" Steerforth inquires, but Miss Mowcher is imperturbable, and swats at his ear.
"Trying to eavesdrop on my inner sanctum, are we, Steerforth? Fie, for shame!"
Perhaps if Steerforth knew all that was in the hairdresser's "inner sanctum", he would not have requested "a little off the top" in such an easy, offhand manner!
"I'm going to see her this afternoon," he pursues, in the same confidential - yet almost slightly guilty, tone.
"You are, are you?" An Idea begins to form in Miss Mowcher's rainy day head. If only your rainy day head were a little less cloudy, a little less stormy, Miss Mowcher - and you would be able to deduce, more clearly, the mischief Steerforth is planning!
But she only says, "Sometimes, Steerforth, I declare you do try to make me envious! Not enough ROUGE on my little face, eh? Well then! I'll go straight out and buy myself three pots of facepaint, and if that don't do the trick I shall drown myself! Now how do you like THAT? Ain't I volatile?"
Her mighty shears are working busily as she says this.
"Ha, Mowcher," says Steerforth, "I should say I was the volatile one."
"Perhaps," the hairdresser says, lightly, as, with shears in hand, she critically inspects a spot on his head.
"God!" Steerforth cries, suddenly, darting a hand to his head and bounding out of his chair. "Mowcher! You've stabbed me!"
"Ah, ducky ducky," replies Miss Mowcher, roguishly, as she beckons him to return. "You dear innocent thing! You think I pinked you with my shears? No, I BIT you, that's what! Bit you right on the top of your sweet head, like a cannibal. Aren't you surprised?"
"Hmm," Steerforth responds, suspiciously regarding her ugly, coquettish face. "Pray, be more careful."
I shall be careful, you, that I will, thinks Miss Mowcher lightly, and proceeds. "So, we have a rendezvous, my dear?" she asks, casually, as she plies her scissors - so focused is she, that she fails to recall a certain letter delivered by her own hand.
"Not quite..."
"Ha, I've drawn blood!" she cries, figuratively, wagging her oversized forefinger. "I've found you out!"
Steerforth does not answer.
Close, hmm...I'll get him talking. "Well look what I've found!" the hairdresser cries. "A GREY HAIR!"
"Where?" demands Steerforth, whirling.
The hairdresser holds out her evidence, freshly yanked from the young man's head. "Ah, ducky, you've been fretting! I bet you've been wondering if Polly Pearl has set her eyes for Mr. Bacon, after all!"
"She has not."
"Bully for you, then!" the dwarf exclaims, gleefully.
"Miss Mowcher," says Steerforth, with less couth than is his usual custom, "you are taking awhile today."
"You have bigger fish to fry, my pet?" Miss M. asks, sweetly.
"Rather."
"Well then, I shall cure my idle ways today! Here! Watch me, Steerforth! I am Reformed!"
Her scissors move rapidly for about five minutes. "Ah! I've done some fine handiwork today! I would like to pat myself on the back - if I could reach! - but la, don't you offer, or I'll hang myself! Now you run along, sir! Don't you keep Polly Pearl waiting, for I daresay, she ain't the angel I am!"
Now that he is assured he will make his rendezvous appointment, Steerforth nods courteously, and bows, and puts on his gloves and applies his dreadnought, and makes small talk, in every sense of the term, with the dwarf hairdresser as she packs her bag. Blowing a final mischievous kiss in his direction, Miss Mowcher waddles down the hallway to her next appointment.
Upon her disappearance, Steerforth hastily packs a traveling bag - as though he plans to go on some long journey and will need provisions. He rings the bell for Littimer - yet when the manservant enters the room, his face turns white and he gasps, without a shred of respectability - "SIR!"
"What's wrong, man?" cries Steerforth, going pale at his man's fearful expression. Then, in a moment of realization, he snatches a little green hand mirror from his suitcase.
The reflection that meets his face is not his own! It is the image of something molting; of a large great spot of hair cropped almost to baldness; of the locks remaining dripping in bear's grease, of a reddish-black scab from the scissors' gash, and of disengaged clumps of hair hanging about his ears.
And in the horrified silence that follows, it is Littimer, after a great deal of constraint and suppression, who manages to choke out, with his former bland respectability, "Ahem - I assume you had a haircut today, sir?"
This is the last time Miss Mowcher ever sees Steerforth again, but she don't consider it a loss. "Best to make him ugly on the outside, too," she muses that evening, as she warms her damp feet by the fender at home. "That's Truth! And I hope it discourages the poor girl he's pursuing." Alas, Miss Mowcher. Even you, with your mighty shears, cannot cut the ties that bind Steerforth to his pearl called Emily - forsooth, unbeknownst to you, you tied that connection with your own vengeful hand!
But the Miss Mowcher is blissfully unaware of her terrible blunder, and we will leave her so, that she may have one evening in triumph. So triumphant is the hairdresser, indeed, that she is not even sure if she requires an ottoman, anymore. She did peep into a few streaming windows, on her way home, as a reward for herself, and she spied a nice green-and-gold broidered specimen, which was low enough to make long legs splay nicely. "But why bother," she asks herself, philosophically, "when I clearly do my best work from the top of a table? Ha ha ha!"