Suffragette in the City Read Online Free Page A

not?”
    I searched the rather dusty hallways of my memory. “A poet? A woman poet? Greek, I think?”
    “Yes, she was, amongst other things, a poet.” Caroline smiled gently at me. “Your friend is a follower, I believe.”
    “Oh, I have no doubt about that,” I said, sitting back. At last it had dawned on me what Caroline was so carefully alluding to. “You need not fear that I am offended by that.”
    “You’re not?” Her eyebrows rose a smidgen.
    “No, not in the least.”
    “You’re not…like her, are you?” Freddy asked, still peering over the newspaper.
    “You know full well I’m not,” I answered.
    His eyes widened, and I could swear he blushed as he stammered a protestation to our aunt. “I know nothing of the sort!”
    “Yes, you do. I’ve never been to university, while Emma spent several years there. Frankly, given Father’s opinion on education for women, I’m lucky I can read and write. I will never be a great scholar as she is.”
    “Who is a great scholar?” the woman in question asked as she reentered the room and accepted a cup of tea.
    “You are,” I answered.
    Emma Debenham, whom I had known for some twenty years, looked surprised by the word, but made no comment.
    “I was explaining that you are my oldest friend,” I added.
    “It has been many a year since I saw the little red-headed girl peeping out at me from behind the hedgerow. I used to see Cassandra when I walked to the village,” she told my aunt.
    “Emma was the only one who defied Father’s order that no one speak to me,” I said, a lump in my throat when I thought of all she had gone through to befriend me. “I believed that earned her more than one whipping from her father.”
    She shrugged. “I was forever getting into trouble because of one interest or another. I wasn’t about to let your despotic father rule my life, as well. Besides,” she touched my hair with a gentle hand. “I’ve always had a weakness for redheads. There’s no way I could resist you.”
    Freddy choked on the sip of tea he’d taken, spewing it all over the newspaper.
    “Freddy, really!” I gave him a stern look. “If you’re going to behave like an animal, you may take your tea outside!”
    He coughed in an attempt to get the tea out of his lungs, glaring first at me, then at Emma.
    “I just wish I could convince you to stay with me while you’re in London, Emma.”
    “You know how much I appreciate that offer, but I am quite comfortable in my rooms, I assure you.”
    “I’ve sworn that I wouldn’t interfere in your studies. Emma has recently taken up sketching,” I told my aunt. “Right now she’s focusing on the human form.”
    “Female?” Freddy asked in a peculiar choked voice.
    “Yes,” I said, frowning at him. “She’s done some lovely drawings. I only hope that one day, she’ll find me worthy to be a subject.”
    Caroline, still not moving, looked at Emma.
    Emma beamed me. “Perhaps some day. I’m still…er…experimenting. With my style, that is.”
    I nodded. My father had felt art was too godless a subject to be taught to his daughters, so I contented myself to admiring those who had skills in that area.
    “It’s been some weeks since you’ve been here,” Caroline said, clearly feeling a change of conversation was needed. “I’ve redecorated.”
    “Yes, indeed you have!” I caught Emma’s eye, and had to dab at my lips with a napkin to keep from giggling.
    Her shoulders shook as she, too, held in her laughter.
    “I can’t say when I’ve seen mauve and wine put to such an interesting use,” I added.
    “And the puce touches? Do they soothe your eye?” my aunt asked.
    Puce, wine, and mauve, the unholy trinity of colors. I smiled. “So much so that I hesitate to look at them for very long, lest my eyes be soothed into a stupor. Now, tell me, how was Boston? Did Uncle Henry enjoy the visit to his brother?”
    Caroline’s pale blue eyes—almost identical to Freddy’s—sparkled with