Finally the day arrived when Mrs Edwards had to accept that they could not afford servants, it was a blow to her pride more than anything else, she and her daughters could cook and clean and do everything the servants did but having servants meant you were rich, meant you could afford someone else to do the house work and you could, in theory, sit around doing embroidery all day.
Actually the servants were just a cook and a nanny but they were better than nothing.
But mostly Mrs Edwards had put off the day they had to fire the servants because they were like family, and telling family that you couldn't afford them anymore was not a pleasant task. But it had to be done, Martha and Rose were very understanding about it, they had known this would happen they said, and they even gave the girls a few cooking lessons before they left.