Damson welcomed the attention as she didn’t have anything much else to do apart from stand around in her blue taffeta waiting to be asked to dance. She had wanted so much to fit in to the Season as the twins did so effortlessly and at least to meet boys and have fun but sometimes it felt more like hard work. The Season was decidedly separate from her ambitions to be a doctor. Secretly she wanted to reconnect with her ancestors, cut off from her by the random way in which her father had come into his inheritance. So she stubbornly persisted with the parties, however uncomfortable, as it felt important to do what vanished generations of Hayes women had done before her, even if she knew nothing whatever about them. She loved to please her grandmother too, who thoroughly approved, and enjoyed making her dresses and hearing about the people she met. She had a vague idea that her mother hadn’t taken to being a deb, and had disappointed Granny, although of course she had met Munty.
