Chapter 6
23rd March 2020
There was no good and no sense in lying about it. Cora felt safe when she woke up, even if she did so on her own. She was at Downton and she had her girls with her. This was what she had wanted ever since all this had begun.
She was a mama bear and she liked to know that her little ones were safe, even if they were not so little anymore. She did not think she was going to get that with Sybil entirely whilst this pandemic was going on but at least - at the very least – she was going to get to see her every day. And if she could see her with her own eyes on a daily basis, then maybe that was going to be enough.
She got up, dressed in jeans and a light blue cashmere jumper and made her way downstairs. It was a bright and beautiful spring morning and as she walked down the stairs, light flooded into the abbey. She had text her husband to say good morning and to check what train he was getting in on so that she knew when to go and collect him. When he got home it was going to be perfect.
She walked down into the breakfast room to see that Matthew was the only one who was there. She had thought they were going to be quite the family party that day.
"No girls?" she asked surprised.
"Sybil was gone by half seven, Mary has gone for a run and I think Edith is already looking out her spot for her working from home in the library."
"She is an eager beaver."
"No doubt she knows we are all going to be looking for our own spot before the end of the day."
It would be like Edith to try and get in early to get the best desk and Cora did not blame her for that. She would have to grab a desk at some time that day.
"Bright girl," said Cora as she reminded her self she was going to have to get to the bottom of what was going on with her at some point. That was very much on her to do list.
"At least we should all know how long this is going to go on for by the end of the day." Said Matthew as Cora put the kettle on to re-boil the water. They were due a chat from the PM that very evening.
The thought crossed Cora's mind that she wasn't sure if you could put a time limit on the pandemic… but she was not going to share those concerns, not that day. They were at the very start and everyone had to take what was ahead day by day.
She turned her mind back to the moment at hand.
When she had first got to England she had been a coffee devotee and she had thought she would be her whole life long. But the older she had got the more she had begun to realise that there was not a lot in the world that could beat a good tea in the morning.
"Yes we should – and just for that I will be glad for." It would be good to feel as if they could plan a little. They all needed to know where they were and she was sure when they did they were going to be able to settle a little more.
She sat down opposite her son in law.
"Is Robert going to be coming up today?" She nodded.
"I am just waiting find out when I am going to go and pick him up," she said with a grin as she looked at her phone as if she was checking to see if the text had come.
Nothing as of yet.
"Do let me know if you would like me to go and pick him up," he offered.
"Thank you Matthew, but I think I will go and collect him myself," she said to him with appreciation.
"Getting out the house whilst we can?" he asked.
Cora nodded. He had her number.
X x x
Anna sat out in the garden. Thank god for the weather. At least she had that on her side.
She had decided she was going to spend her last days as – well, not someone's mum – in the sun. She had taken up crocheting in her pregnancy already to pass the time, which was what she was doing right then. The idea had been she was going to be able to make something for her new arrival but in the end she had been happy to make square after square. it was easy, simple and did indeed pass the time.
"I wish they would just come now," she said to John, who was currently pruning their roses. All she wanted was to go to the hospital, have her baby safely and come home to be with her family.
"Either way it is not going to be long now, my darling." He said as he went over to her and kissed the top of her head.
"We thought it would have happened by now – I am well passed my due date."
In fact, she was only a couple of days over but that was how it felt.
John looked at his wife with sympathy. It was true it was beginning to look as if she would end up being induced though he knew that was something Anna did not want to occur. It felt to him as if life, to some degree, was entirely out of their hands right then. In fact he knew it was almost entirely the case. He could not say he liked that powerlessness.
"Well the one thing we do know is it will happen soon and the wait will be over."
Anna nodded. Everyone was giving her good advice – to move around, to get on her pregnancy ball. Any of that might get things going but she just wanted to punch anyone sending a well meaning message to tell her to relax. She was about to be a new mother in the middle of a global pandemic. Overall, it was the least relaxing situation she had ever been in.
"We are going to get to the hospital," he reassured her. "you are going to have the baby. I –" he wanted to say it was all ok but he wanted to be sure of that himself but promising her that.
She looked up at him with bright eyes.
"I will look less like a whale at some point?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.
"You're beautiful," he said without missing a beat.
She was his best friend, wife, mother of his child. She would always be beautiful to him.
"Can I hear the kettle boiling?" she asked with a sigh.
Taking the hint, he dropped another kiss into her hair and went to brew up.
The baby coming couldn't be long away now. It just couldn't be.
X x x
"Listen, Beryl, I think if you are going to move you need to make your mind up now," they were the words that Elsie had said down the phone to her friend. Beryl had taken them to heart. "If Charles and I feel we need a bit more space then you and the girls must do." All of what Elsie had said to Beryl at the time had made a lot of sense to her so she had made the call to move.
Now she felt as if she had rushed the decision.
Once she had unpacked herself she went down to the room her daughters was going to be sharing as long as they were here. She poked her head round the door. Ivy seemed as if she was happy enough but the same she knew could not be said for Daisy. Nothing appeared to have changed since they had got there.
Her younger daughter was looking around the room she was going to be sharing with her sister.
So if the two of them had been in service one hundred years ago, then this was the sort of room the two of them would have had - it was interesting she thought.
"I think this is going to be great." She said to her big sister.
The look on her face was not missed by her mother. Nor was the one on Daisy's face.
"I would have rather just stayed at home," said Daisy. She knew people were not going to get that but at least they had been at home she had had her own room. It seemed crazy to her giving the size of the abbey the two of them could not have a room each but these were the only rooms ready for now.
Maybe she was going to have her own once more in time but it did not felt as if it was or could ever be home.
"But mums right - we have more space here."
"I don't care about all of that. I just want to be at home."
There were reasons for that that Ivy and her mother knew only too well.
Beryl cleared her throat pulling the girls attention to her. It would not be good to let Daisy dwell.
"I know this is not ideal, my ducks. But it is not going to be forever."
She wanted them to treat this as an adventure. The look on Daisy's face told her still that was rather unlikely.
Beryl ignored that and continued. "Still we should know what we are dealing with tonight. And it is only what we are dealing with for now remember: Thing will get better, be better than this again."
X x x
Mary felt good when she got back to the abbey. A run always cleared her mind and that morning was no different. She felt as if she was ready to get on with the rest of her day then and perhaps begin to get used to what was going to be her new normal.
Normally, when she came up north she always had to set a return date to London, and she always had to ring in to work or book annual leave. For the first time since she was at school she did not know when she was going to be going back to the city and she – well, she felt ok with that. But only ok.
Even then there was a small voice within in her that said she did not want it to be too long. She knew what she was like. It was not going to be so long until she wanted her heals clinking against the pavements of the west end once more, that was for sure.
However, this trip would be what it would be and she would take it as it came. That surely had to be the best way to handle this.
To enjoy it for what it was.
Yet it was not a holiday and on her way to take a shower, she headed into the old library, soon to be as busy as any communal office she was sure.
As she did so, she looked about the room in admiration, as she always did. Normally, it was a room open to the public. Thousands of people traipsed through it a year. Mary had always had this fantasy that it was going to be just them – just for the family as it would have been if they had lived 100 years ago. They had had that once or twice in their childhoods, when the house had been shut for one reason or another. But now it had come to fruition.
She looked about and was shaken out of her thoughts by sight of her sister on her laptop at table positioned closest to the window for the best light.
"Gosh, I rather feel as if the two of us are preparing for school examinations once more." said Mary as she chose a desk, claiming it with her iPod, a short way from Edith's.
That was the last time the two of them had worked in that room together.
"Indeed. That was a very different working from home," Edith replied.
Mary nodded. In her job as a buyer she had worked at home, in the office and abroad. But never from home for long. Not like this.
"It is going to be a new way of working generally for sure. Has your company set up teams?" Edith enquired.
"They have – and if someone has got a better back ground than the two of us then I am going to eat my hat," Mary said with a smile.
"And if this lasts more than a month, I'll eat mine."
Mary remembered her sister was going through – well, something - and bite her tongue. She simply hoped she was hungry.
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