Brightwood Read Online Free

Daisy could tell she didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
    She decided to get on with her schoolwork until her mum came back. Daisy wriggled and climbed her way across the Marble Hall and went into the ballroom. It was the second largest room in Brightwood Hall, and it was crammed wall to wall with furniture that had been removed from the rest of the house to make space. Ornate plaster decorations covered the ceiling, and the sunlight fell in stripes through tall windows. You could see most of the eastern side of the grounds of Brightwood Hall from here: the walled gardens, the topiary, and a stretch of the Wilderness.
    The furniture in the ballroom was covered with white dustcovers. Daisy thought the covers made everything look like a picture she had once seen of the Arctic. If she squinted, she could imagine that the tables and chairs were snowy peaks with long valleys, full of shadow.
    The only thing not covered was a desk by the window. Daisy sat down and gathered up her books.
    It was Monday, which meant she had history and then math, followed by English. Her mum taught her all the subjects and was very organized about it. They used books from the house’s huge library. At the moment, they were learning about the Romans. Daisy liked the Romans. Their buildings reminded her of Brightwood Hall, with its four great columns at the entrance and the triangular pediment set high up on the front. She turned to the next chapter, which was all about gladiators, and spent half an hour reading and taking notes.
    She wasn’t nearly so interested in math. She opened the textbook unwillingly and forced herself to concentrate. It was algebra. Her mum said most kids didn’t study that until they were twelve or older, although that didn’t mean much to Daisy. The whole idea of kids her age was a bit like algebra itself: hard to keep straight because there was nothing real attached to it. She sighed and tapped her pencil against the page.
    Her mum usually helped her with the harder problems. Daisy glanced at her watch. It was nearly one o’clock.
    Maybe she got a flat tire and had to wait for it to be fixed.
    Daisy abandoned the last few problems and moved on to English. They were reading
Macbeth
by somebody named William Shakespeare. The words were hard and Daisy often felt confused. Normally, her mum spoke the lines out loud, explaining what the words meant as she went along. Sometimes she got up from her chair on the other side of the desk and paced slowly among the white shrouded furniture, her hands gesturing and her voice full of feeling.
    But her mum wasn’t here. Daisy stared hard at the page.
    â€œ
Confusion now hath made his . . . masterpiece,
” she ventured, her voice coming out in a whisper.
“Most sac . . . sac . . . sacrilegious . . .
”
    The clock in the distant drawing room chimed. It was half past one already. She had heard the sound ten thousand times, but it had a different voice today. As if it were calling to remind her of the quietness of the house and how alone she was.
    She considered going into the kitchen to see if Tar was around. He had been particularly talky that morning. That was because her mum wasn’t there. Her mum didn’t like it when she talked to animals and objects, although she had liked it when Daisy was small.
    â€œWhat an imagination you have!” she used to say when Daisy gave the hedgehogs names or had a long conversation with a tree or with one of the many statues that dotted the grounds of Brightwood Hall. Daisy preferred talking to these things rather than to her dolls, all of whom were rather dull.
    â€œAll they do is drink tea and argue about who has the nicest hair,” she complained. “And the biggest one, Janice, is so bossy. She thinks she’s better than the others because she’s the only one who’s still got her knickers.”
    Her mum had laughed out loud. “It’s amazing how you bring things to