Rude Awakenings
Lady Mary Crawley rolled over and reached for the cord to summon Anna Bates for her morning tea and toast in bed. After she rang the bell, as had been her habit for as long as she could remember, she came fully awake. Yesterday the last of the servants had left. The true meaning of her father loosing the family fortune finally hit home. There was no one to answer the bell. She would have to get up on her own, draw her own bath, dress herself and get her own breakfast. She pushed the pillows up on her bed and leaned back for a minute, deciding what to do first.
She was annoyed at her fiancé Matthew for not being more supportive of the position her family now found itself in. He just couldn't see why she was annoyed at loosing her lady's maid. He had told her outright that his mother had done this long without one. He had then proceeded to wave her younger sister's marriage to the chauffeur in her face by saying Sybil seemed to be getting along just fine without any servants. Mary was so irritated she hit the top of her mattress with her fist before she got out of bed.
The second the chill in the room hit her body she jumped back between the covers. There was no fire lit and the room was cold. She checked the floor and managed to reach out and pick up her housecoat from where it had fallen the night before. She pulled it on under the covers. She then leaned out of bed until she could see under the bed and grabbed her slippers so she could stuff them onto her feet before her feet hit the cold of the floor again.
"First order of business, build a fire," she said out loud. "How hard can this be?" After all she was Lady Mary Crawley and she was quite certain she could do anything lesser mortals were capable of doing.
A half basket full of wood was sitting by the fireplace. The hearth was covered in ash from the night before and there was at least three inches of ash in the grate. Mary took three pieces of wood from the basket and dropped them in the grate. As they landed the ash from the last fire puffed out at her making her choke and her eyes burn. She then got a match, lit it and held it to the wood. When nothing happened she got another match, lit it and still nothing. She put the box of matches back on the mantel in frustration and looked at the black smudges on her hands where they had contacted the grate.
"I don't really need a fire," she said with a sniff. She got a change of clothes and went into the bathroom. The ring around the bathtub was still there from the last bath she had taken as was the wet washcloth laying in the bottom of the tub. The towels were where she had dropped them on the floor and the sink. Well, the sink was another matter. She had forgotten to put the cap back on her toothpaste and it had oozed out into the sink and was now dried in a sticky gooey mess. The cake of soap wasn't fresh. She had been provided with a fresh cake of soap everyday since she had left the nursery and the worst of all there were dark hairs still in the sink from when she had brushed her hair out last night before bed.
Mary's aristocratic nose curled in disgust. She picked the soiled towels up off the floor and hung them up using only thumb and index finger on each hand. She retrieved the soaking washcloth from the tub holding it as gingerly as she could between two fingers and carried it towards the sink. The soaking cloth left a trail of water across the floor. When she got to the sink she swished the cloth every which way until she had some of the toothpaste and all of the hair wiped out of the sink. She looked around for somewhere to put the cloth and finding nowhere that seemed appropriate, threw it on the floor.
She had wanted to take a bath, but since there were no dry towels and she had no idea where to find the clean ones, she made do with a quick wash in the sink. She quickly got dressed and then sailed out of the room with her chin high. Her nightdress, housecoat and slippers forgotten and laying in the trail of water she had gotten on the floor earlier.
Mary headed for the dining room. Her footsteps seemed to echo through the quiet of the house. She had never noticed before how there was always a slight sound from the servants moving around. Today all that greeted her when she entered the dining room was the echo of her own footsteps. She decided to try the kitchen.
When Mary arrived in the kitchen the sight of her mother attempting to slice a loaf of bread greeted her. Lady Cora had to cut the first piece into something Mary had never seen at the breakfast table before. The bread was paper thin at one end and almost an inch thick at the other. Lady Cora had a look of determination on her face as she sawed away at the loaf of bread. She had the loaf in a death grip and was succeeding more at squashing the loaf than cutting another slice of bread.
"Mama, whatever are you doing?" Mary questioned.
"I'm attempting to cut some bread for our breakfast," Lady Cora said. She didn't bother with a polite greeting.
"It looks more like you are murdering that loaf than slicing it," Mary said with a snigger.
"If you think it looks so easy, you try," Lady Cora snapped back while slapping the knife on the table.
Mary gave her mother a slight smirk as she moved behind the table to pick up the knife. She placed it against the bread and nothing happened. She tried again pressing a little harder.
"The servants mustn't have sharpened the knife before they left," she said dismissively.
"You need to turn the knife over," her father said coming into the room with an armload of wood, followed by her sister, Edith who was carrying a basket with much smaller pieces of wood in it.
Mary straightened her back every so slightly before she replied. "I knew that. I just wanted to see if Mama did."
Her mother rolled her eyes. Mary turned the knife over and began to cut. The first slice was rather wavy. The second was no straighter than the first. By the time she got to the third slice she managed to get what she though looked like a regular slice off the loaf, until she realized the bottom corner was missing off the slice of bread completely.
"That should be enough," Mary said autocratically. "What else are we having?"
"There are some sausages and eggs," her mother replied. "We can cook them and make the toast once your father gets the stove going."
Robert and Edith Crawley were bent over the firebox on the stove busily feeding in wood. They hadn't had too much problems lighting a fire as Robert had done it many years before when he was a soldier.
"It is just like riding a horse," he declared rubbing his hands together. "Once you know how, you never forget."
"Papa," Edith said with a small frown. "I don't think it's supposed to do this. Something isn't right."
Smoke was starting to pour out of the seam on the stovepipe just before the pipe went into the wall. Robert tried adjusting the knob on the pipe. The smoke billowed out faster. The room was starting to fill with smoke. They all ran into the hallway choking and gasping for air.
"You ladies stay here," Robert declared, pulling his handkerchief out of his pocket and holding it over his mouth and nose. He ran back into the room and adjusted the knob of the damper, before he ran back out for a few breaths of air. A minute later he ran back in and opened the small windows that ran along the top of the kitchen. Slowly the smoke began to clear.
"Well, at least the stove should be hot," Lady Cora declared cheerfully. She got a frying pan and went to place it on the stove. She held her hand over the stovetop to find it was barely warm.
"What's wrong with it?" she questioned.
"I'm not entirely sure," her husband replied scratching his head. Robert Crawley got down and moved a few of the levers at the bottom of the stove. The stovetop got a bit warmer but still not warm enough to cook on. Finally he got the idea to take the burner off the stove and place the pan directly over the flame. He did the same with the kettle for some tea.
Lady Cora got the sausages and put them in the pan.
"Do you have any idea what you are doing," Mary questioned her mother.
"I believe you put the sausages in the pan and roll them around until they are cooked," her mother said. Just then the bell for the front door rang.
"I'll just go and see who that is," Lady Cora said. "Mary you cook the sausages."
"Me. Why do I have to do it?" Mary complained.
"Because your father is busy setting out the tea things and Edith is setting the table. Now don't let them burn."
Mary moved towards the stove and looked over her shoulder to see where her father and Edith were. Edith was busy setting the table in the servants' hall and her father was getting some cups ready for tea. Mary looked at the sausages. Nothing seemed to be happening yet. She lifted the lid on the kettle and realized it was empty. She reached to grab the handle on the kettle and stopped herself just in time when she realized how hot it was. She spotted a hot mitt on top of the stove and used it to set the kettle in the sink. She turned on the tap. Steam billowed out of the sink as the water hit the kettle and at the same time water sprayed everywhere.
Mary quickly shut off the tap and glanced at the stove. The now open burner had flames shooting out of it almost a foot high and the sausages were making a noise. She got the lifter for the burner with the hot mitt and with a series of pushes and lifts managed to get the burner back on the stove. She turned back to the sink, this time turning the water on slowly so she got it into the kettle. Mary was just lifting the kettle back onto the stove when her mother and Sir Anthony appeared in the doorway.
Mary gathered herself into her best aristocratic pose despite the water splashed all over her blouse and skirt when she saw their guest.
"Why Sir Anthony, how very nice to see you," Mary said smiling sweetly.
"Good morning Lady Mary, Lord Grantham, I've just come to invite Lady Edith for breakfast and a country drive. I do hope she's available," Sir Anthony said.
"Oh how lovely," Edith said coming in from the other room. "I'll just get my coat."
"Mary! The sausages!" Lady Cora cried. There was now a loud hissing coming from the pan accompanied by clouds of smoke. Lady Cora ran to the pan and flipped the sausages over.
"Yes, well, we best be off," Sir Anthony said as he almost ran up the stairs behind Edith.
Mary glanced in the pan to see the blackest breakfast sausages she had ever seen in her life. Her mother was pushing them around attempting to brown the other three sides and salvage something for their breakfast. She forked the sausages onto a plate. When the kettle started to boil, Lord Grantham lifted it off the stove to make the tea. Mary pushed the burner back onto its spot to prevent the flames from coming up again.
Lady Cora brought the bowl of eggs close to the pan and began cracking them into the left over grease. The fat crackled and spat as each egg hit the hot pan.
"Mary, get the bread and make the toast," her mother directed.
Mary had never made toast before in her life, neither had her father or mother.
"Try putting it in the oven," her father offered. "Its just heated up bread after all."
Mary laid the slices of toast out on the oven rack and closed the door. Once Lady Cora had the eggs cooked, she spooned them into a bowl.
"Bring the toast, Mary," she said. "Your father will bring the tea through, I have the sausages."
Mary opened the oven and retrieved the toast. It resembled dried out husks of bread with curled edges more than the golden brown slices of toast she was used to. Mary groaned, placed them on a plate and carried them through to the servant's hall.
They sat and ate their breakfast in silence. The sausages were black on one side and slightly undercooked on the other. The eggs had burned pieces of sausage stuck to them. Mary had felt the distinct crunch of shell in more than one bite. The "toast" was so far from toast you couldn't call it that, but they were all hungry enough they ate it anyway. The only thing normal in their entire breakfast was the tea.
As soon as they were finished eating Lord Grantham stood up.
"I think I'll walk down to the village," he said trying to look as composed as possible.
"Mary and I will do the dishes while you're out," Lady Cora replied.
"I believe I will send a telegram to Sybil and her husband to come for a visit. Perhaps they could give us a few pointers on how to get on."
Mary had stood and was collecting the plates. She turned back once she got to the door to the kitchen.
"Papa, please tell them to hurry."