Less than an hour later, Daisy and Kate, hastily coiffed and dressed in a blue silk gingham frock, were driving along Bellevue Avenue on their way to the first of several morning calls. Four calls later, they were climbing back into the carriage.
"Three interested and one undecided," said Daisy. "But Adelaide Gibson never decides anything without picking it to death first. She'll come around. Shall we have lunch at Bailey's Beach?"
"Yes, indeed," Kate said enthusiastically.
The private beach club of the Newport elite was doing a robust noontime trade. And Daisy and Kate, who had gained enthusiasm with each stop, managed to snag two more society dames interested in hearing about the proposed club.
Appetites appeased and energy restored, they began a series of afternoon visits, and by the last call, Daisy had issued at least a dozen invitations to tea the following Thursday.
She dropped Kate off at Beaulieu and had the carriage return home.
"Not bad for a day's work," Daisy said, stripping off her gloves and depositing her hat with the waiting parlormaid, before striding into the parlor to find Bordie and Charles sitting in exactly the same places as she'd left them the night before.
"Back from the city already?" Bordie asked, not really thinking. It would have been nigh impossible to get to the city and back again in one day, much less accomplish errands while there.
For an intelligent man, he could sometimes...
"Yes, dear." Daisy left them to their papers and hurried to her office, where Miss Gleason was also seated in the same place where Daisy had left her that morning. However, unlike the men, Miss Gleason had organized Daisy's week, tallied the weekly expenses, and separated the mail into neat stacks to be perused, answered, or handed back to Miss Gleason for their reply.
And Daisy thought, as she had many times, that, underappreciated though they might be, women's efficiency and good sense was the glue that held a well-run organization together. It just made her more optimistic about the idea of a place where women could go to exchange ideas with like-minded women.
She'd barely sat down at her desk when the first RSVP arrived.
Dear Daisy, I'm sorry to have to decline your lovely invitation for tea. Mr. Starrett has put his foot down. He says that the place for a women's club is in her home. He was most adamant that I have nothing to do with such a venture. I wish you the best of luck with your club idea and I hope to see you at the Havemeyer soiree on Friday.
Well, she should have expected something like that. But no matter, there were plenty of society ladies who knew how to circumvent their husband's reactionary views about a woman's place in society.
She tossed the note into the trash basket. "Kate Brice and I made the rounds today. All in all, it was a fruitful enterprise, though we did receive several 'My husband wouldn't approve.' Lord, if we waited for our husbands to approve, we wouldn't even get dinner on the table. At least I have a slightly enlightened husband in Mr. Harriman."
Not being married herself, Miss Gleason wisely held her peace.
"And Eben Rollins Morse, who happened to be home at Villa Rosa, actually said, Women shouldn't have clubs—they'll only use them as addresses for clandestine letters. Which makes one wonder what actually goes on in men's clubs."
Daisy pushed away from her writing desk and walked over to the fireplace, its unused grate covered with a floral fire screen for the summer.
"It seems like for every woman who shows interest in a new idea, there are ten men telling us we can't or shouldn't, or ridiculing the very idea of women meeting on their own to carry on Conversations that aren't about fashion or children."
She adjusted a pair of Dresden swans on the mantel and turned back to Miss Gleason.
"Women have every right to a place of their own where they can relax and discuss whatever they care to. I have every hope of succeeding."
But by the time the first meeting of the women's club assembled in her parlor the following week, six ladies had found it necessary to beg off. Only two of them made the excuse of prior engagements. The others had been dissuaded from participating by their husbands.
Those who attended were quite enthusiastic and, over tea cakes and watercress sandwiches, they tossed around ideas as easily as a badminton cock on a sunny afternoon. Miss Gleason was enlisted to take minutes, and it quickly became evident to Daisy that it wouldn't be long before she would need to hire a separate secretary for "the club," as she'd begun to think of it.
