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This Relation given by the affrighted Gentlewoman was only laughed at and ridiculed as the Effect of Spleen-Vapours, or the Frenzy of a deluded Imagination, and was thought no more of, till one Night, when the Earl of Kilmarnock, sitting round a Bowl by the Winter Fire with my Lord Galloway, and it is at such a Time that men are most prone to fall-to telling of Ghost Stories, and their Lordships' conversation turning on Spectres and Apparitions, the vulgar notions of which they were deriding, the terrible tale of the Bloody Head was brought up, and then dismissed as the idle fancy of a Hoity-toity Tirewoman.
More at mercy than thyself, because without rank to make the oppressor careful, or an imperial kinsman to revenge a wrong done her, she is subject to whatever threatens you a cell in this infidel stronghold, ruffians for attendants, discomforts to cast her into fever, separation from me to keep her afraid. Why not suffer her to go with you? She can serve as tirewoman or companion.
Lady Glencora, as we know, could talk with imprudent vehemence by the hour together if she liked her companion; but the other lady seldom committed herself by more words than she had uttered now, unless it was to her tirewoman. "How very well you are looking," said the Duchess. "And I heard you had been so ill."
How shall I ever face Danvers again such a figure? She's an excellent tirewoman, but she will be neither to have nor to hold when she sees that gown that she set such store by! Nay, I can hardly step for it." "I think I could repair it, with Her Majesty's and your Royal Highness's permission," said Anne, who was creeping about on her knees picking up the pearls." "Oh! do! do!
"Bah!" said he; and with that he whistled for his troopers; and while we looked, my dear lady and her tirewoman were helped upon their horses, and at the leader's word of command the escort formed upon the captives as a center.
The Queen was receiving I know not whom, some persons just presented, I believe; the lady of honour, the Queen's tirewoman, and the ladies of the bedchamber, were behind the Queen. I was near the throne, with the two women on duty. All was right, at least I thought so. Suddenly I perceived the eyes of Madame de Noailles fixed on mine.
She cared more for dogs and horses than for finery, and when she was not in the humour to be made a puppet of, neither tirewoman nor devil could put her into her brocades; but she liked the excitement of the dining-room, and, as time went on, would be dressed in her flowered petticoats in a passion of eagerness to go and show herself, and coquet in her lace and gewgaws with men old enough to be her father, and loose enough to find her premature airs and graces a fine joke indeed.
In the earlier years of the reign the first part of the dressing was performed in the bedchamber and according to the laws of etiquette; that is to say, the lady of honour put on the chemise and poured out the water for the hands, the tirewoman put on the skirt of the gown or full dress, adjusted the handkerchief, and tied on the necklace.
The chief women were charged with the care and examination of the diamonds; this important duty was formerly confided to the tirewoman, but for many years had been included in the business of the first femmes de chambre. The public toilet took place at noon. The toilet-table was drawn forward into the middle of the room.
Henry VI. might have contemplated with holy pleasure its matronly decorum; the jewelled gorget ascended to the rounded and dimpled chin; the arms were bare only at the wrists, where the blue veins were seen through a skin of snow; the dark glossy locks, which her tirewoman boasted, when released, swept the ground, were gathered into a modest and simple braid, surmounted by the beseeming coronet that proclaimed her rank.
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