The Best of Daughters Read Free Page A

Daisy rose to her feet. ‘Actually I have an awful headache. Would you mind if I went to my room, Mother?’
    â€˜Poor dear.’ Lady Pendleton smiled up at her. ‘Too much excitement is bad for one. You should lie down and rest.’
    Mrs Harper-Colton nodded wisely. ‘And a cold compress is always efficacious.’
    â€˜A cup of camomile tea always helps to soothe my nerves,’ Miss Spruce added eagerly. ‘Especially when taken at bedtime.’
    â€˜Go then,’ Gwendoline said with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘Do what you always do and leave me to make all the arrangements.’
    Daisy did not try to defend herself. By this time her head really had started to ache miserably, and she was certain that she had an enormous bruise on her shin where someone had accidentally kicked her during their rush to escape arrest. She hurried from the room and went upstairs to lie on her bed until the dinner gong sounded.
    She was half asleep when it summoned the family to dinner. She roused herself with difficulty and rose from her bed. She was stiff and sore, but at least her head had stopped aching. She filled the willow-patternbowl on the washstand and splashed her face with cold water. Feeling slightly more alert, she changed her dress for the third time that day before taking a seat at the dressing table. She tidied her hair and added a dab of face powder and just a hint of rouge to complete her toilette. Satisfied that she looked reasonably presentable she stood up, shaking out the creases in her blue crêpe de Chine dinner gown.
    She made her way downstairs, but just as she was about to enter the dining room she was startled by the jangling of the doorbell. She hesitated, waiting for Betsy to come rushing up from the basement kitchen, but the bell rang again and there was no sign of the maid. Thinking that it was probably Teddy, who was always losing his key, Daisy went to open the door. But it was not her brother who stood on the step; it was one of the suffragettes, a young girl from south of the river. Daisy had met her when they had been put in charge of the tea urn at one of the Women’s Social and Political Union meetings, and she had seen her earlier that day in Oxford Street. ‘Hello, Ruby. What can I do for you?’
    â€˜I come to ask you a favour, miss.’
    â€˜You came all this way to see me? It must be something very important.’ Daisy glanced over her shoulder as she heard footsteps behind her, but it was only the parlour maid, who had come to a halt outside the dining room with a large soup tureen clutched in her hands.
    â€˜Sorry, Miss Daisy. I couldn’t see to the door and fetch the soup at the same time.’
    â€˜It’s all right,’ Daisy said calmly. ‘I’ll deal with this, Betsy.’ She turned back to Ruby. ‘What do you want?I’m afraid I can’t ask you in. As you can see, we’re about to dine.’
    â€˜I can see that, miss. It’s just that I got instructions to do something.’ She winked and tapped the side of her nose. ‘It’s top secret, but after what happened today I don’t feel as how I can face it on me own. They’re going to do something really shocking. We might get locked up in the Tower for it.’
    Daisy stared at her, trying to decide whether this was some elaborate joke, but then the suffragists were always deadly serious, and she could see that Ruby was in earnest. ‘Why me, Ruby?’
    â€˜Because you’ve got a kind face, miss. You talk to me like I was your equal. Some of them what demand equality with men don’t seem to think it applies to us poor working girls.’
    â€˜I’m sure that’s not true,’ Daisy said, although she knew that it was. The class system was rigid, even in a movement dedicated to women’s rights. ‘What is it that we have to do?’
    Ruby glanced round nervously as if expecting to see a