Really? It seemed I could recall many times his eyes had told me my hair was more than just pretty. And I could recall the way he looked when he picked up the shiny shears to cut off that front hair, so delicate and brittle. He snipped with such reluctance it seemed he was cutting off fingers and not just hair that didn't feel pain. Then one day I caught him sitting in the attic sunshine, holding the long lengths of cutoff hair in his hands. He'd sniffed it, then put it to his cheek, and then to his lips, and then he hid it away in a box to keep under his pillow.
Not easily could I force laughter to deceive him and not let him know I'd seen. "Oh, Christopher Doll, you have the most expressive blue eyes. When we are free of this place, and out in the world, I pity all the girls who are going to fall for you. Most especially I'll feel sorry for your wife, with such a handsome husband to charm all his beautiful patients into wanting affairs. And if I were your wife I'd kill you if you even had one extra- marital affair! I'd love you so much, I'd be so jealous. . . I might even make you retire from medicine at age thirty-five."
"I never told you even once your hair was pretty," he said sharply, ignoring everything I'd said.
Ever so lightly I stroked his cheek, feeling the whiskers that needed shaving off.
"Sit right where you are. I'll run for the scissors. You know, I haven't given you a haircut for the longest time." Why should I bother cutting his hair and Cory's when the way our hair looked didn't seem important to our life-style? Not since we came had Carrie and I had our hair trimmed. Only the top of mine had been snipped off to signify our submission to a mean old woman made of steel.
And while I raced for the scissors, I thought how odd it was that none of our green plants would grow, yet each of us grew lots of hair. It seemed in all the fairy tales I'd read, the damsels in distress always had long, long blond hair. Had any brunette ever been locked away in a turret--if an attic could be considered a turret?
Chris sat on the floor, I knelt behind him, and though his hair hung below his shoulders, he didn't want much taken off. "Now go easy with those shears," he ordered nervously. "Don't cut off too much all at once. Feeling manly too suddenly, on a rainy afternoon in the attic, just might be dangerous," he teased, and grinned, and then he was laughing with a brilliant show of even, white teeth. I had charmed him back to how he should be.
Oh, I did love him as I crawled around and earnestly snipped and trimmed. Constantly I had to move backward for perspective, to check and see if his hair hung evenly, for most certainly, I wouldn't want to make his head lopsided.
I held his hair with a comb, as I'd seen barbers do, and I carefully snipped beneath that comb, not daring to take off more than a quarter of an inch a clip. I had a mental vision of how I wanted him to look--like someone I admired very much.
And when I'd finished, I brushed the bright hair snippings from his shoulders, and leaned back to see that I hadn't done a bad job at all.
"There!" I said in triumph, pleased with my unexpected mastery of what seemed to be a difficult art. "Not only do you look exceptionally handsome, but extremely manly, as well! Though, of course, you have been manly all along, it's a pity you didn't know it."
I thrust the silver-backed mirror with my initials into his hands. This mirror represented one-third of the sterling-silver set Momma had given me on my last birthday. Brush, comb, mirror: all three to be hidden away so the grandmother wouldn't know I had expensive items of vanity and pride.
Chris stared and stared into that mirror, and my heart faltered as he looked, for a moment, displeased and undecided. Then, slowly, a wide grin lit up his face.
"My God! You've made me look like a blond Prince Valiant! At first I didn't like it, but now I see you changed his style just a bit, so it isn't squared off. You've curved it, and layered it to flatter my face like a loving cup. Thank you, Catherine Doll. I had no idea you were so skilled at cutting hair."
"I have many skills you don't know about."
"I am beginning to suspect that."
"And Prince Valiant should be so lucky as to look like my handsome, manly, blond brother," I teased, and couldn't help but admire my own artistry. Oh, golly-gee, what a heartbreaker he'd be one day.
He still had the mirror, and casually he laid it aside, and before I knew what he was about, like a cat he pounced! He wrestled with me, bearing me back to the floor, and reached for the scissors at the same time! He yanked them from my hand, and then grabbed a handful of my hair!
"Now, my lovely, let's see if I can't do the same thing for you!"
Terrified, I yelped!
I thrust him away so he fell backward, and I jumped to my feet. No one was going to shear off one-eighth of an inch of my hair! Maybe it was too fine and too thin now, and maybe it wasn't as sensational as it used to be, but it was all the hair I had, and prettier even now than what most girls had. I took off on the run from the schoolroom. I raced through the doorway and into the immense attic, dodging behind posts, circling old trunks, leaping over low tables, and bounding over sheet- shrouded sofas and chairs. The paper flowers fanned frantically as I ran, and he chased. The flames of the low fat candles that we kept burning during the day just to cheer up and warm up a dreary, vast and cold place, bent low in our wakes, and almost guttered.
And no matter how swiftly I ran, or how cleverly I dodged, I couldn't shake off my pursuer! I threw a glance over my shoulder, and I couldn't even recognize his face--and that scared me even more. Lunging forward, he made an effort to seize hold of my long hair which bannered out behind me, and seemed so very intent on cutting it off!
Did he hate me now? Why had he spent one entire day so devotedly trying to save my hair, only to cut off my crowning glory for the sheer fun of it?
I fled back toward the schoolroom, planning on reaching there first. Then I'd slam the door, and lock it, and he'd come to his senses and realize the absurdity of it all.
Perhaps he sensed my purpose, and put some extra speed into his longer legs--he bounded forward, and caught hold of my long, streaming locks, causing me to scream as I tripped and fell forward!
Not only did I fall, but he fell too--straight on top of me! A sharp pain pierced my side! I screamed again--not in terror this time, but in shock.
He was over me, supported by his hands on the floor, staring down into my face, his face deadly white and frightened. "Are you hurt? Oh, God, Cathy, are you all right?"
Was I all right, was I? Lifting my head, I stared down at the heavy flow of blood quickly staining my sweater. Chris saw it, too. His blue eyes went stark, bleak, wild, distraught. With trembling fingers he began to unbutton my sweater, so he could spread it open and take a look at my wound.
"Oh, Lord. . ." he breathed, then expelled a low whistle of relief. "Wow! Thank God. I was so scared it would be a puncture. A deep puncture would be serious, but it's only a long cut, Cathy. Nasty, and you're losing a lot of blood. Now don't move a muscle! Stay right where you are, and I'll dash down to the bath and fetch medicine and bandages."
He kissed me first on the cheek, then was up and in a terrible hurry, racing madly toward the stairwell, whereas I thought I could have gone with him and saved time. Yet the twins were down there, and they'd see the blood. And all they had to do was see blood and they'd go to pieces and scream.