***Broken Hearts***

Dear Diary

I cried myself to sleep last night when Lizzie was snoring. I told her I was fine but I don't think she believed me. I am not fine. I am going to die of a broken heart.

I would like a poet to write about me being all pale and sad and beautiful when I am gone and Bill sobbing because he realised he loved me after all but by then it will be too late. I might have to write it myself, though, as I don't know any poets personally. I was very surprised when I woke up this morning, but perhaps dying of a broken heart takes a week or two.

Bill is sweet on Katy, who is a parlourmaid here and has long red hair tied in a bun like a toff. They went to the pictures tonight and everybody was talking about how they've been walking out for quite a while now and will get married one day. The footman who is very tall and skinny and has a big nose – I forget his name - said Bill is already a groom in the stables so he is halfway there and might as well. I don't think they will get married in the stables so I don't know why he thinks they will and why everybody thought it was funny and laughed when he said it.

I had even been practising writing Mrs Daisy Bill Clarke because I didn't want to be just plain old Mrs Bill Clarke and I read in a book once that if you don't want to take all your husband's name when you get married you can use half your own name and join it together with a dash, which is a great idea, although I don't see why you have to write it in a hurry.*

I am not practising writing Mrs Daisy Bill Clarke any more. Anyway, I like Thomas better now. He is another footman here and very handsome and can dance. I am practising writing Mrs Daisy Thomas Barrow as his name is Thomas Barrow and I am writing it very quickly like the book said. Mrs Patmore said he is not a lady's man but I don't mind, I already knew he was not called Lord Thomas so I wouldn't be a proper lady. Besides if he was Lord Thomas he'd be living upstairs with Lordships and Ladyships.

I have already started a poem about my broken heart in case I don't meet any poets. I think I need to do some more work on it, though.

Here lies Daisy

white and still

she was crazy

with love for Bill

whose heart he did kill

but she bears him no ill will

ps I have just found out Anna who gave me the cream for my hands being red is not a lady's maid, she is only a head housemaid. I got mixed up because Mrs Hughes sends her to help when Miss Carlisle can't do lady's maiding so she just goes to help Lady Mary sometimes when she gets stuck.

I don't mean Her Ladyship gets stuck in a doorway or anything like that. She is not fat despite all the food they eat upstairs. Sometimes they send the food they don't eat downstairs for the servants or the pigs on the Downton farms, Mrs Patmore decides which. Thomas said the food goes to the pigs UPSTAIRS and thought it was very funny and everybody was shocked and Mr Carson told him off and Thomas was in a bad mood all day.

Mrs Patmore is not very happy when any food is sent back and thinks the Lordships and Ladyships might not have liked her cooking, but I think they are probably just worried about getting fat.

A/N: *Daisy is confusing the practice couples sometimes use of joining their two surnames together in marriage (eg Carruthers-Smythe) and unaware a dash is a hyphen.