"My family is full of gypsies. Don't you talk to me about not understanding about society."
"You're a gypsy? That explains so much."
Mabel Shelby got the job of a lifetime and she took it without a moment's hesitation. Girls from Birmingham don't ge...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Tommy's having a cow."
TWO MONTHS LATER
MABEL PRIDED IN BEING A FAST LEARNER AND A HARD WORKER. She needed to be if she wanted to survive in a big house like Downton Abbey. The first month had been tough but Anna, the head housemaid, told her that she had done really well for her first month. Whether Anna was just saying that to make her feel better or not, Mabel didn't know. She chose to believe Anna, for her own pride.
Pride. That was a tricky thing. It was important to have some self pride but too much was dangerous. Mabel believed that her family straddled the line of having enough pride and having too much. She believed her brother, Tommy, regularly stepped over the line and her aunt, Polly, was responsible for pulling him back. In fact, Polly regularly pulled all the Shelby siblings back over the line and put them in their place. Mabel didn't know what they would do without their aunt.
Pride could be a good thing too, Mabel knew. She saw this at Downton Abbey. The best example was Mr Carson, the butler of the big house. Mr Carson strived to operate the house to the highest standards as his pride would not allow anything else. This motivated the rest of the staff to work just as hard, so that they could meet Carson's standards. No one wanted to disappoint Mr Carson. Well, no one with their sanity firmly intact.
The staff of Downton Abbey was interesting. There was Mr Carson, the Butler, who ran the household with an iron grip. But he was a fair man and if you were brave enough, he offered the best advice. He was clearly a man with a lot of life experience and a man with a lot of respect for the people he worked for. He seemed to worship the Crawley family and having seen the Crawley children grow up, he had a soft spot for them - in particular Lady Mary Crawley.
Next was Mrs Hughes, the Housekeeper, who always knew when there was something wrong. She was a kindhearted woman but had no time for messing, which sometimes led her and Mabel to argue. But Mrs Hughes had a spot spot for Mabel, that was evident when she hired her with no previous work experience or references. Mrs Hughes didn't worship the Crawleys the same way Mr Carson did and that was something that made her more approachable for the staff.
Anna was the head housemaid and lady's maid to the daughters of the Earle of Grantham - Mary, Edith and Sybil Crawley. She was a sweet and gentle natured woman, who looked out for Mabel in the beginning. Anna showed Mabel all the ropes and secretly thought of her as her prodigy.
Thomas Barrow, one of the footmen, and O'Brien, the Countess' lady's maid, were an interesting duo. Constantly scheming between themselves, Mabel made a point in staying in their good books. This proved a little difficult at first when Thomas mocked her accent whenever she was around but eventually she won them both over when she offered to share her favourite brand of cigarettes with them. These were the same cigarettes that she had stolen from Tommy before she left.
