The hair had to go.
I suppose it was inevitable. Given all the times I had masqueraded as a fashionable Young Thing or, perhaps more to the point, as a male, I'm sure I would have had to cut my hair sooner or later.
But I didn't have to like it.
Geoffrey Nesbit had arrived with the local military barber early this morning. I had been about to pass comment on the necessity of retaining a man for the sole purpose of trimming regulation haircuts, until I considered the sheer number of heads which needed to be kept in military order. For some reason, I had been expecting a white man, but the local barber appeared to be a gentleman of Sikh extraction, with the first streaks of white appearing in his dark beard.
The Sikh man, who was introduced as Singh, expressed no surprise when informed my hair was to be cut regulation short, but I sensed he faced all of life's surprises with the same phlegmatic expression. Nesbit muttered something about train tickets and made his escape.
I sat in a chair facing away from the mirror, not wanting to witness the imminent destruction.
"Um." I said suddenly as he picked up his scissors.
"Yes, memsahib?"
"Could you leave it as long as possible?" I asked hesitantly. I didn't care to keep the guise of a military officer any longer than necessary, and that included the haircut. Mr. Singh gave this due consideration.
"As if the sahib has forgotten a trim for some time?"
"Yes. If you could."
Singh answered this with an amused phrase in a dialect form of Hindi, which I eventually decided was an affirmative statement.
As the barber worked, I tried to ignore the feeling of weight dropping away from my head. I'd once told Holmes the reason I wore my hair long was for convenience's sake, but more than once, while shoving my plaits underneath a turban or trying to wring gallons of rainwater from my sopping hair or trying to untangle a hideous knot that had mysteriously formed, I wondered if bobbed hair might offer its own sort of conveniences.
I had never seriously considered the question until Holmes, who was badly wounded and more than a little drunk at the time, let the question slip. I think he was nearly as surprised as I.
Partially, it was a streak of sheer bloody-minded rebellion, although I'd never admit it. Conventional girls announced their independence with bobbed hair, painted nails and short skirts; I liked to think I was possessed of more stealth. Interestingly, I had found that my rather old-fashioned appearance helped soothe ruffled feathers among some of the male dons at Oxford. A feminist theologian was easier to accept when she came dressed as a sober scholar, rather than one of the flighty Young Things that seemed to infest the undergraduate dormitories.
Those were my excuses, but my reason was Holmes.
On those rare occasions he deigned to comment on my physical appearance, it was usually to rate the effectiveness of a particular disguise. Not really the type of compliment most wives hope to garner.
I had always thought "vestige of femininity" was a phrase more likely to come from Holmes than Mrs. Hudson. No words had ever passed between us on the subject, bar that one night, but none were necessary. It was one of those things.
Singh stepped back for a look at his handiwork, made a fiddling adjustment and with one last snip I was transformed into an officer of His Majesty's army. Singh passed me a hand mirror and I could sense him bracing for the inevitable storm. But if he was expecting hysterics I had to disappoint him.
"Thank you, Mr. Singh." I said calmly. I couldn't bring myself to say it looked good; I've always considered military haircuts to be particularly hideous, although Singh's work was one of the better specimens I had seen.
Nesbit, when he returned, was more effusive in his praise, although I thought some of the enthusiasm was forced for my sake. I was a little annoyed by this male behavior.
"After all," I thought, "it's just hair." The radicality of the thought startled me.
The next morning Nesbit passed a drill sergeant's eye over my uniform before we boarded the train which would take us to Khanpur and Holmes. There was the briefest hint of a smile before a neutral mask dropped into place.
"Don't take this the wrong way," he said, "but you make a rather convincing man."
I couldn't help but grin. Vestige of femininity indeed. "I'll take it as a compliment to my acting skills."
"Well, you won't have to keep up the act too long. With any luck we should be in and out of there in less than four days." I made a noncommittal sound, being disinclined to trust in luck after the events of the past few days. Holmes' capture at the hands of the maharaja was only the latest in an extraordinary streak of bad luck.
"I must say, an idea like this would have never occurred to me."
"It has the advantage of audacity." I agreed. I caught myself fingering the ends of my newly-cropped hair and cursed silently. I was going to have to accustom myself to the new length before Khanpur, lest I raise suspicions.
"A person would have to be daft to think they could get away with this, so the idea that someone would try is easily dismissed." Nesbit looked like a child with a new toy and I privately wondered what mad schemes he was plotting.
A shrill whistle and huge puffs of stream from the locomotive announced the impending departure of the train, bringing us back to the matter at hand. Nesbit turned to me.
"Ready, Miss Russell?"
I made tsking noise. "I'm an officer now; that's Captain Russell to you."
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I got my hair cut short over the winter holidays and I was reminded of Holmes' reaction Russell's haircut. Something along the lines of, "You know Russ, I think I prefer you with the hair and without the mustache."
So I just had to write this little drabble.
Questions? Comments? Criticisms? Complaints? Review!
.•´¨•»¦«•Kerowyn•»¦«•´¨•.