Wednesday 21st May 1808

Dear Diary,
Yesterday dawned with all the promise of splendid day; the sunshine, the bird song, the gentle lowing of cattle and then I heard a dreadful clatter and crying out and rushed out of my room to discover Father had tumbled down the stairs. He was lying quite motionless at the bottom and I rushed down to him as others came running out of the parlour. He looked so peaceful, almost as if he were sleeping. I bent down close to feel for breath upon my cheek when Mother appeared upon the landing, above to see what all the commotion was about and seeing us gathered about her unconscious husband let out a dreadful scream and promptly fainted. As she fell to the floor she banged her head upon a small table on the landing sending the vase upon it crashing to the the floor. The noise roused Father and he blinked open his eyes. Fanny rushed up the stairs to Mother's aid and our hearts leapt as she knelt beside her and let out an anguished cry. She had knelt upon a shard of the broken vase and badly cut her knee.
What a miserable scene was the breakfast table; Father looking pale and drawn and a little bruised but luckily in one piece, Mother holding a cold cloth to a nasty lump upon her head, and Fanny wincing as Jane tended the wound upon her knee. It was then that we heard the shout from the Scullery and Titty rushed in with tears in her eyes, crying "It's Mrs Crutchlow! Come quick! there has been a dreadful accident."
Later, that morning we all waited, anxiously, once again around the table and then Doctor Proctor entered with his head bowed. He approached the table and rested his hands upon it and slowly lifted his face fixing us with a grim stare. "The scalding is quite bad," he said, "but I am sure she will be kneading her baps happily in a few days." We all sighed with relief and I gazed out of the window at the glorious day outside, just in time to see Ned tumble past the window to the ground followed by the ladder he had been up cleaning the upstairs windows. We rushed outside and found him entangled and moaning in a rose bush. Luckily, he only had a few cuts and needed a number of thorns removing from sensitive and delicate parts.
The rest of the afternoon passed without incident and just before dinner, we heard a barouche approaching up the driveway and we all walked, limped and staggered to the front door to see who it could be. It pulled up at the foot of the steps and Mrs Norris stood up and flung open her arms, crying "My Darlings, I have come!" The dogs barked and rushed down the steps and we all moved down after them to greet her as if summoned by her promised embrace. The coachman opened the door and held up his hand to assist her dismount. She gazed upon us over her expansive bosom and smiled as she stepped heavily down from the coach straight onto Father's Willie and with a sickening crack, broke his neck.
We mourn.