Work Text:
I.
“... consider, then, this prodigious specimen of periwig, my friends.” Thomas gestured at the article in question, presently installed atop a garden statue’s head. “This utter nuisance, this ‘Horrid Bush of Vanity’!” The ill-used Puritanism was met with amusement, except from Peter Ashe, who covered his face with his hand. Miranda, the faithful lookout and accomplice, gestured at Thomas to proceed. “What tales it can tell us! Some of them might even be true.”
The statue was, in the previous century’s fashion, mounted on a high pedestal in the centre of the garden square facing the villa. Thomas, for his part, was perched precariously against its shoulder and outstretched arm, his knee poised dangerously close to disturbing the fig leaf - all in hopes of this fine Apollo pardoning his familiarity. The wind, deceptively warm for the English spring, ruffled Thomas’s natural hair, cut short enough so as not to fall over his eyes.
“The tale of Diane,” he went on, “a miller's daughter from a small village in France. From her earliest childhood, she had followed her brothers into the woods, hunting alongside them as if she were a boy.” Nobody interrupted him at this point, because that would be against the spirit of the dare. “One winter, however, the woods came to their door. A lone wolf it was, but the rest of the pack was prowling in the trees around the house.” Thomas lowered his voice as befitting a tale of horror: “The winter had been long, and the wolves had grown lean and so very hungry. But so had Diane and her family. She found a long stick and lighted it from the fireplace and then she stepped outside, despite all cries of protest. She waved her burning stick in front of the wolf, bidding it to leave them alone. And so it did!” His voice grew louder again, regaining its cheer: “At the first thaw, the family was still hungry, so Diane cut off her hair and sold it to a wig maker. She does not regret it overmuch, for she likes to wear a head-dress.”
He met Miranda’s fond look with a smile that was utterly unabashed: the terms of the dare had never restricted his choice of subjects to those within the bounds of propriety.
“The tale of Alejandro, a novice entering a Catholic monastery. From his earliest childhood, he had felt a vocation to the priesthood, so all his studies were directed to that lofty aim. His entire early life might as well have been one prolonged novitiate, and he found in himself not the least hesitation, only joy and impatience. Given the choice, he would have refused to be a king instead. Alas, on the day of his ordination - just before the ceremony, in fact - he chanced to look out of the window and catch a glimpse of a young noblewoman whose carriage had broken down. Her beauty and grace as she shouted abuse at the carriage-driver pierced the poor novice’s heart,” Thomas failed to suppress a grin at the ensuing laughter, “and so to this day, he regrets. He regrets having shorn off his hair and left the world without ever truly having known it.” He held up his finger. “But one thing is of some small comfort to him - his hair has entered high society, even if he himself has not.” More laughter. “And who knows, perhaps it will find its way to that charming noblewoman someday.”
Miranda checked his pocket watch and gestured for one more anecdote.
“The tale of Comte de... Bon Ton, a card sharp extraordinaire. He had a lion’s mane of hair and invented all his tricks himself, but they said that it was the hair that was the source of his luck. But then he fell in love with the king’s secret mistress, and instead of cutting off his head, the king’s men cut off his hair. But that did not crush his spirit any - he simply retired from gambling and the lady eloped with him anyhow.”
Miranda’s eyebrows crept up, and he was suddenly glad that none of his audience were literary critics. “Where was I? Oh yes, the hair for the periwig. It could have come from anywhere in the world, from France to the Indies. It could have sprouted forth from any head, be it a pauper’s or that of a disgraced noble. So, an unsolvable mystery lies at the root of every wig ever worn by a gentleman, ergo no gentleman should be afraid of a little mystery. And the time is up, I believe?”
“Is Apollo a gentleman?” Miranda asked innocently.
He was certainly wearing a wig, the audience agreed. “Nonsense!” Thomas protested. “Gods aren’t gentlemen! When have you ever heard of them wearing silk stockings?”
“Enough!” Miranda implored laughingly. “You, sir, have more than bested us!” He had not been prepared to part with the stockings anyhow - it wasn’t that warm out here. As he climbed down, Miranda directed a triumphant smile at the Skeptic who had inspired this impromptu exercise in scandalous oration. “Does anybody else think that my husband’s arguments are always rehearsed?”
The Skeptic sought to redirect the attention from his person, asking if there was no honest hair left in England.
“He meant to say it’s all the wicked hair’s fault,” Miranda whispered as they sneaked back into the ballroom through the garden door before they were missed.
“But that is exactly why I removed it before commencing the speech! … oh.” Thomas’s hand flew up to his head. “Why has no one told me?”
“I thought you liked letting your thoughts breathe,” Peter deadpanned. “At least, that’s what you said last time you misplaced it.”
“Traitors, the lot of you,” Thomas grumbled, making all haste to retrieve the nuisance.
Contrary to his reputation and Thomas’s opinion of him, Apollo proved to be gentlemanly enough.
II.
New Spring Gardens, as opposed to the Old Spring Gardens at Charing Cross, offered a charming retreat from a gentleman’s many and varied preoccupations. Even if its walks weren’t half as many or varied. The admission was free, not counting the sixpenny boat ride for the want of a bridge. But then again, as soon as the bridge was built, the gardens would lose some of their idyllic quality.
In the end of May, communing with nature was pleasant, but came at the risk of being accosted by a masked lady of dubious repute, wanting nothing more than to... accost.
“I am at your mercy, madam!” Thomas declared, backing into a tree. “Do with me as you will.”
“Such an eager surrender, sir.” The lady chuckled, searching his pockets with deliberation. “What if I were to steal you away and you never found your way home again?”
“That, I fear, is out of realm of possibility.”
She liberated a wild flower from his buttonhole and smelt it playfully. “Oh? Why is that?”
“Because I am married to the most charming lady in the world, and might want me back to entertain her.” She snickered. “You are, however, free to take these hostage.” He held out his hat and wig.
“Oh, Thomas,” Miranda groaned, breaking character, “not again! For god’s sake, hang them on a bush or throw them in the river, but I am not your wig’s keeper.”
He sighed, tragically. “I’m sorry, dearest.” He paused. “What about the hat, then?”
He redeemed himself by showing her a secret shrine that other libertines had fashioned out of an old tree, festooning it with all manner of decorations from ribbons to glass beads. She made a wish, tying her ribbon to one of the less festive branches, then noticed that Thomas had not done the same.
“It’s not that easy for me,” he explained. “I either have too many things to wish for or too few.”
“Pick one.” She added emphatically: “A selfish one.”
The supper was served in one of the arbours. Thomas was deeply entrenched in a spirited debate about the gardens of Versailles when the other party, exasperated, wondered how much a man without a wig could truly know about such things.
“You did tell me I could hang it on a bush,” Thomas whispered to Miranda penitently.
III.
“Can’t the carriage go any faster?” he asked in frustration, peering out of the window.
“It cannot go at all, my dear,” Miranda told him calmly. “Haven’t you seen the number of them?”
Thomas shrank deeper into his corner. He would have liked to believe that charitable effort was enjoying a new popularity in the society, but the entire fete had left him in a state to walk his way back to London.
It had been over a quarter of an hour, the park gates hopelessly blocked by a double file of carriages. “How does he always manage to do it?”
“Someone must have told him you would be attending.” Miranda moved to Thomas’s bench, taking his hand into hers. “I’m sorry. I should have been better informed myself.”
“What’s wrong with building baths for the poor, anyhow? It’s not as if I was throwing the whole family fortune away!”
If you asked his father, until he was at least an MP, he was not allowed to give a penny to a starving man!
With a sigh, he put his head on Miranda’s shoulder. “I should like to write a novel. It will be about a mysterious masked man attending fetes and donating outrageous sums of money.”
“Where will the money come from?”
“Does it matter?”
“Well, if he steals it, then it will be a retelling of the legend of Robin Hood-”
His woefully unbewigged state was not noticed by either of them until they were climbing out of the carriage. Horrified, Thomas was afraid to imagine since when he had been without. Their footman walked him and Miranda round the carriage and pointed them to a hole in the back.
He stared at it, amazed. “So while I was talking about noble thieves, I was ignobly robbed myself?” Miranda nodded in resignation. “Why, that’s the funniest thing I have ever heard!” It made him forget why he had been gloomy in the first place.
“Only you would say that,” Miranda murmured.
IV.
The incident became something of an anecdote, as Thomas did not hesitate to share it with his circle of friends. So long as none of them took it as a cautionary tale against all flights of fancy.
Most of them probably did, for all the good that it did them.
“My friend, you are looking at me as if it were my fault,” Thomas observed, sitting down on the great marble steps.
Peter shot him a look, suspecting that it was all part of some jest. Thomas assured him that it was nothing more than a stroke of bad luck.
“Well, it is!” Peter insisted. “ You are the wig-thief magnet! Such things never happen to me when I am on my own.”
“If it’s any consolation, I’m sure they liked your wig better - it has sat in Session and decided the fate of the country.”
“The wig decided it,” Ashe repeated slowly, finding it a hard pill to swallow.
“Of course the wig. Also, Wool-Pullers. That is what they are called, I believe.”
“Wool-Pullers and Woolgatherer, a match made in Hell!”
Hell always sounded like such a busy place. “At least I am not alone?”
Miranda believed that the wig-thieves ought to give him a share of their earnings, for no one was better at distracting the solemn worthies of Whitehall.
V.
Thomas had a complicated relationship with Christmas. From his early childhood, he had taken away the sense that he ought not enjoy it overmuch, but he had always liked the tinsel.
Spending it with Miranda in Paris was shaping up to be their best one yet. Provided that her new Christmas gown arrived somewhere before the Christmas dinner and ball.
On her third circle round the room, Thomas put away his book and declared that an impatiently awaited gown never boiled, therefore they must go outside and join the merry carolers on the streets.
“How happy the lover,” he sang. “How easy his chain!/How sweet to discover/He sighs not in vain/No joys are above/The pleasures of love!”
“That is not a Christmas carol!” she protested, pausing by the window.
“Ah, but a carol you might resist, but your favourite opera? Never!”
“I never should have taught you in the song in the first place.”
Their passage was much slowed by the festive crowds, and Miranda was wary of pickpockets, but by and by, they worked their way to the labyrinthine age-old fairgrounds, covered from the falling snow. The booths were well-lit by candles and brimming with goods from all over the world. Jewels, lace, silver, heaps of colored sweetmeats, there was something of everything. The more elegant fair goers could take their coffee and chocolate with white linen and fine candelabra.
“All this does nothing to distract me from the fact that I am to spend Christmas in an old gown,” Miranda huffed, eyeing a lady in the distance whose overcoat and gown were clearly new.
“What about this?” Thomas called her attention to an advertisement of a talking monkey from Far East.
“I already have you carolling all evening, what do I want a monkey for? Thomas? Thomas, what on earth-”
The monkey was a splendid creature with a long nose and an intelligent little dark face. It was wearing a sort of a jacket over its pale brown fur against the cold. Its Oriental keeper turned out to be a master ventriloquist, greeting Thomas in English.
He played along, returning the greeting formally, his hat in his hand. “My wife is not having a very merry Christmas, I’m afraid. Would you care to help me cheer her up?”
And so they did, until the monkey grew so bold as to sit on his lap and take a fancy to his wig, perhaps mistaking it for a fellow monkey. Matrimony was, after all, a solemn duty.
“I can’t believe you’ve left it behind!” Miranda said as they hastened back to the house where they were staying.
“It is all a ploy to make you feel sorrier for my tragic loss than for your mysterious absence!”
She assured him that nothing could eclipse a new gown in a lady’s heart - barring an exceedingly silly husband. The wig and the gown were delivered to them one after the other on the next day.
I.
“Miranda?” he asked her one grey morning, having stayed up all night, thinking. “What manner of wig does one wear to a hanging?”
She put down her chocolate carefully. “Whose hanging, dear?”
“A pirate’s, apparently.” Definite not an allonge type of situation. “Exciting, isn’t it?”
She looked at him for a long moment. “That stylish white one you have been meaning to show off.”