A/N: You people, you're all just so...lovely. I thought you deserved another chapter, before I take my little nagging labrador out for a walk.
I'm not sure if Mrs Hughes actually has a settee in her parlour, but I wanted her to have something a little more comfortable than her desk chair to sit in, in this one, so if she doesn't let's file this under poetic licence, please.
_left behind_
She has taken to filling his log books herself. It should fall to Mr Bates as his other duties have, but she has been checking Mr Carson's work for more than one decade now. She is familiar with his methods, the quirks in his recordings that she has told him time and again make little sense to anyone outside of his own head. And she can read his handwriting, which seems to be what has Mr Bates handing the books over to her with thanks.
They are all of them working harder than they have before. For every man missing from the family, there is two or three gone from the staff, the suppliers and the delivery boys.
Continued rationing keeps her up late as she and Mrs Patmore work on menus that have little resemblance to anything they served before.
The house's finances send her to bed with warm milk and a headache powder more often than she cares to admit.
Tonight the books are balanced, the menus decided and the food ordered. She settles on her settee with his ledgers and a tray on her lap. It has been several weeks since his last letter and she tells herself and the others that it means nothing, that the post is unreliable here these days and heaven knows what it's like where he is.
She runs her fingers across the names and numbers written in his familiar hand, the tips coming away slightly blackened. Prays that she is correct and that he has written to her and will do so again.
Her door flies open as she inks the pen and she looks up into Anna's reddened face. "Sorry, Mrs Hughes but the paperboy is here about payment and Mr Bates is still not back from Ripon."
"Not to worry Anna. I dare say these books will still be here when I get back."
She leaves the tray on her seat, follows the ladies maid out to the back door.
The lines between roles are becoming more blurred each day. With the London season cancelled again, Her Ladyship is considering a dinner party before the month is out. The maids will have to serve.
Mr Carson will hate that, when she tells him.