It was Saturday; the first Saturday in December, so there were to be no lessons today. Mary was woken by the sound of Martha drawing back the curtains.
‘Martha?’ she asked, noticing the little table in the window where she would usually eat her breakfast was empty. ‘Where is my porridge?’
‘I’m to tell you,’ Martha turned to face her, ‘that when you’re up and doing, Miss, you’re to take breakfast in the dining room with Master Colin. I’m to wait on you there.’
‘But no-one takes meals in the dining room. It’s cold and Mr. Craven won’t eat in there.’
Martha shrugged miserably. ‘I only know what I’ve been told, Miss.’
The dining room was on the north side of the house and the sunlight didn’t often reach it, especially on a winter’s day like today when the sun would barely peep over the top of the moors. The floor-to-ceiling windows were grand but draughty, and the ice-blue walls decorated with ornate white plaster friezes made the room feel chilly even in summer. The long table was covered with a stiff white linen tablecloth, and at one end of the table was laid a place for Mary, at the other, one for Colin.
‘We can’t even talk to each other. That won’t do! I shall sit at the head of the table, and I shall have Martha move your plates from the foot so that we can sit together.’ He turned to Martha who stood awkwardly inside the doorway. ‘Martha, move Miss Mary’s place so that it is beside mine. We wish to talk.’
Martha bobbed a curtsey and picked up the cutlery, just as Miss Crichton had swept into the room, and held up a hand to stop her.
‘What are you doing, Martha? It was my instruction that the table be laid properly, and so it will stay. The man at the head of the table, the woman at the foot. As it should be.’
Martha glanced at Colin, but she put the cutlery back in its place and stepped away from the table, giving a bob curtsey to Colin and another to Miss Crichton, as if she couldn’t decide who was deserving of greater respect – or whose anger she feared the most.
Miss Crichton turned to Colin and Mary. ‘Medlock tells me that you have a slovenly habit of eating meals in your bedrooms. From now on, all meals will be taken here in the dining room. Your father wishes you to be instructed like young gentlefolk, and young gentlemen and ladies do not eat from trays like invalids.’
Mary and Colin took their places, the huge expanse of starched, white linen between them like a snow-covered field.
‘What are we to eat?’ asked Mary. ‘Cook usually makes us porridge. My uncle says it is good for us, and builds us up.’
‘Your uncle is a man, and therefore knows little about such things,’ said Miss Crichton. ‘I have asked Cook to prepare you a breakfast of kedgeree today.’
‘Kedgeree?’ said Colin. ‘What’s that?’
Mary pulled a face. ‘It’s a nasty dish from India,’ she said. ‘My Ayah tried to make me eat it. It tastes of nothing but spices and salt. I despise it.’
‘Then I shall despise it too,’ Colin declared. ‘Martha, take away the kedgeree and bring us some porridge. It is what my father would want.’
‘Martha, you will do nothing of the kind!’ Miss Crichton snapped her fingers towards the poor, bemused servant who didn’t know whether to come or go, to fetch or carry. ‘You will eat the meals that I decree, and you will sit here in silence until you do.’
An hour and a half later, Mary and Colin were still sitting at the table, and Miss Crichton paced up and down along the length of the room. Poor Martha was still standing in her place, waiting for permission to leave that was not forthcoming.
‘We will not eat your breakfast,’ Colin said. ‘I think that much is clear. It is pointless to make Martha stand there any longer.’
‘Very well,’ Miss Crichton said. ‘Martha, clear away the food. You two may leave the table, but as you have refused a good breakfast, I don’t see why the servants should waste their time preparing more food that is not to be eaten. You shall go without luncheon.’
‘No lunch!’ Colin exclaimed.
‘No lunch.’ Miss Crichton replied. ‘Now go!’
‘Come on Colin, let’s go outside for a walk around the garden,’ Mary suggested as they stood up from the high-backed rigid oak mahogany dining chairs and they stretched their cramped limbs. ‘I want to try and find the robin.’
‘Outside?’ Miss Crichton repeated. ‘I don’t think so. If you cannot obey a simple instruction to eat your breakfast, then I think some time to reflect on your behaviour is necessary. You will return to your rooms and the doors will be locked.’
‘But we have to go outside to our garden!’ Mary protested. ‘We’re supposed to have plenty of fresh air and exercise to keep us healthy.’
‘Fresh air? Exercise? I’ve never heard such nonsense. All that will happen if you go outside on such a dark, wet day is that the pair of you will catch colds and I will have a pair of ungrateful, ailing children on my hands. No, you shall go to your rooms, and there you will stay until I say otherwise. I shall tell Martha to lock both your doors.’
Liz Taylorson 