The Real Life Downton Abbey (7 page)

Essentially, the army of servants, the nannies, the governesses and the nurses are the ones whose lives revolve around the daily aspects of parenting. He’s far too busy with his important duties to spend time just being a dad…

Wives, in Edwardian times, are supposed to behave as obedient and compliant partners; equality in marriage doesn’t come into it. The aristocratic wife has a major role to play in the organisation of how the house is run, yet she is far too busy with her many and varied duties to have anything like what we’d recognise as a normal relationship with her children. Or her husband, come to that.

There is an allotted time each day to see her children – usually around tea time, for about an hour, and that’s it, though in some exceptions she could find more time for them during the day.

She has so many time-consuming functions, the first being to oversee and liaise with the upper servants – particularly the cook and the housekeeper – on the day-to-day running of the house. There will frequently be large numbers of people to entertain in the house, sometimes for several days at a time. So the organisation and forward planning of all this requires a lot of attention to detail.

Then there is the house itself, its décor and appearance. Overall responsibility for this is a crucial aspect of her role at all times; her husband won’t concern himself with any of this. Yet it is highly important: the family are judged and evaluated by the appearance of the house, the servants and its interior. If the curtains are tatty, it reflects on the entire family. If she notices that a servant looks less than clean, neat and tidy, a comment to the housekeeper can mean admonishment – or even the sack – for the girl. She has to be constantly alert to all the finer details. Yes, there is an army of servants to polish, clean, produce meals and ease the path at all times, but being bang up to date on the latest interior innovations is a must: as style and fashion conscious as she has to be when it comes to what she wears, so it follows that the home has to have the right ‘look’.

As well as her duties as a local Lady Bountiful, she is also, in some cases, a political hostess. So her judgements when entertaining the high and the mighty need to be fine-tuned; she needs to be up to date regarding what’s going on in the social world around her, though it’s not acceptable yet for aristocratic women to ‘meddle’ in politics. Her allies in this need for information might be relatives, particularly unmarried aunts or cousins, who can usually be relied upon to trade gossip when they’re visiting. Or she writes to them regularly, as well as corresponding with the other aristocratic wives in her circle: this kind of networking is also particularly useful when it comes to hiring new servants.

So there it is – a highly decorative hostess, interior decorator, Lady Bountiful dispensing charity to the poor and big-budget party planner. Throw in the travelling and the unending social pressure to behave in a certain way at all times and you can see that behind all the luxury and show, this is a complex role. And there is little real privacy. With so many people around at her beck and call, even her private life can be subject to intense scrutiny. Which might not be a problem if, like Cora, Duchess of Grantham, her marriage is a happy one, a fact well known and discussed below stairs. But if, like some aristocratic wives, her relationship with her husband is a starchy, formal affair, a merger purely for financial or status reasons and very ‘hands off’, (there’s no divorce, of which more later), rather than envy her elevated role you might wonder how she copes with it all.  

Each individual job in the pecking order is very clearly set out and compartmentalised. This way, the lower servants can hone their skills over time. Essentially, the older staff teach the younger ones – who have the most harsh, menial and unrelenting workload. In fact, the learning curve means the younger lower servants sometimes have to wait on their senior co-workers. It also means they can pick up the nuances of the household itself. They may not have face-to-face contact with the people they work for, but they still need to be familiar with their whims and fancies.  

Not everyone who goes into country house service sees it as ‘a job for life’. Here are the four different types:  

• The servant who spends their entire life in service.  
  
• The servant who wants the country-house lifestyle and regards it as a stage before marrying (on average, women in service marry at around the age of 25, and have worked for around l2 years in 3–5 different jobs).
  
• The impoverished, genteel, educated woman (think Jane Eyre), usually a governess or housekeeper, forced to find paid work because of a change of circumstance in her family’s fortunes.
  
• The local ‘casual’ worker or labourer.
  

The butler is the highest-ranking servant in the house. He has total responsibility for all the male staff in the house and is, effectively the ‘team leader’ of the servants – and the right-hand man of his master. He is respectful – but never subservient.

He’s in charge of the wine cellar, the arrangement of the dining table, the announcement of dinner and, with the footmen, the serving of all meals and wine. It is the butler’s job to carve the joint of meat and remove the silver covers from the dishes. It is also his job to check that lamps or candles are in working order and that the fires are glowing. At the day’s end he is the person who checks that all doors and windows in the house are locked.

He is responsible for all the family silver and all the arrangements for the reception of guests. Immaculate in appearance, discreet in the extreme, he is superbly well organised; his key priority in life is his boss and the family.

He is on call 24/7 and is the person who has most to do with the people ‘upstairs’. Usually a bachelor (his bosses prefer him not to be distracted by a life of his own), he has worked his way up the servant hierarchy over time, so the butler’s knowledgeable authority over his male underlings is never questioned.

He has his own suite of rooms, usually as near to the main living rooms, usually the dining room, as is practical. Being so close means that whenever he is summoned by a bell, he can reach his employer’s side as quickly as possible. His suite of rooms also includes a dining area for the upper servants, a butler’s pantry, where the silver plate is washed and polished and, nearby, a silver vault which stores the valuables; only the butler is permitted to have the key to this.

He is the ultimate ‘front of house’ man. He opens the front door to visitors – or accepts a calling card if the family is not available. If the family has a phone, he takes the phone calls and messages. Within his suite he also has an office where he interviews prospective employees, draws up timetables for male staff, works out the duties of the day for the footmen, pores over the seating plans for lunch and dinner and coordinates the plans for big social events like the weekend shooting parties.

His cellar duties include storing the wine bottles in their correct place, stocking up on the wines, champagne, port, sherry, brandy and liqueurs – and consulting with the master on which wines are to be served at mealtimes. (He might also be allowed to sell off the empty wine bottles as a little perk of the job.)

His manners must be impeccable at all times. He needs to know every single like and dislike of his employer – and those of the many guests. If his employer insists on having his newspapers perfectly flat before reading, it is the butler who instructs the footman to toast and iron them in readiness for the breakfast table. If he hands a guest a drink, it must be their preferred tipple – they do not need to ask. His calm demeanour and attention to detail are second to none: like everything else in the house, his comportment is a reflection of his employer’s status. Everything must be perfectly organised – right down to the last detail.

Next in rank to the butler, the housekeeper is the most senior female servant and effectively the second-in-command, the other essential link in the chain making up a well-run household.

In her stiff black dress, silk apron trimmed with beads, lace collar, small lace cap and belt jingling with keys (everything she is held accountable for, from spices to china and linen, must be locked up) she has a lot of responsibility. Though she must defer to the butler at all times.

Her duties include the supervising, engaging and dismissing of female staff (with the exception of the nanny, lady’s maid and cook who are hired personally by the mistress of the house). The discipline and behaviour of the female staff is part of the housekeeper’s remit.

She is called ‘Mrs’ even though she is usually unmarried, because the rank of a married woman is more important. She needs a good head for figures because her role involves keeping the accounts of the household expenditure, writing down all sums of money paid out, ordering goods from the tradesmen – perhaps getting a discount or ‘commission’ from regular suppliers – and, with the approval of her mistress, paying their bills as well as the accounts for all the other expenses of the house.

It is the housekeeper’s role to allocate all the duties to be carried out by the female staff – and to make sure that all the tasks, the cleaning, dusting and polishing of all the rooms, are carried out properly. She keeps a detailed inventory and ensures that both family and staff have a clean supply of linen and bedding. All the household necessities, things like soap, sugar, flour, spices and candles, must be accounted for in her paperwork. This, of course, is carefully checked with the mistress of the house on a regular basis.

The housekeeper’s quarters include a comfortable and
well-furnished
sitting room, where the lower servants sometimes wait on her. She has a bell pull which connects with one of the many bells located in the corridor outside to summon staff to her room. Her quarters are also used as a housekeeping storeroom, with huge tall cabinets containing the very finest china and porcelain. She’s responsible for checking all the washing and drying of the china following mealtimes: she must be on the lookout for any cracks or breakages. And she oversees and supervises everything in the still room – a place often used for making jams, homemade wines and distilled waters.

She also has her own medicine cabinet for the servants, which contains a number of herbal remedies and ointments to ease aches and pains.

The sitting room also has a large desk and this is where the housekeeper checks the accounts and does all her paperwork. Each day, she must meet with the mistress of the house to get her instructions and discuss all the items of expenditure.

If there are visitors due to stay, she will ensure that all the details are in order so that the smooth running of the house and comfort of the guests is not affected by the extra work such entertaining entails.

As a supervisor, she is not expected to do any rough, menial tasks. As long as her absence doesn’t create any problems in the way the house operates, she can arrange her own time off. If the family are away, visiting relatives or travelling, together with the butler and lady’s maid, she is in charge of the house in their absence – and has to make sure everything is ready for their return.

The cook of the house runs her own domain below stairs – and her status, in the wealthiest homes, is high: she has staff to carry out many tasks, kitchen and scullery maids at her behest: a senior kitchen maid, for instance, may be under Cook’s instructions to prepare the meals for the other servants while the cook occupies herself with the needs of the family. And under Cook’s rule, none of the other servants may enter the kitchen other than the kitchen staff.

Cook’s ingredients are prepared for her by the kitchen staff and the scullery maids are responsible for the cleanliness of the food preparation area. The cook is also responsible for the dining room and the areas around the kitchen.

She starts work at 6am and usually finishes around 10pm or later. Once dinner has been served at night, most of her day’s duties are over because the cleaning up chores are the remit of her kitchen staff (painfully labour-intensive work in a world without dishwashers when you consider that when guests were visiting, dinner for eighteen people might mean over 500 separate items of fine china, silver and valuable glassware and cutlery had to be cleaned).

She too has her own room and her main responsibility each morning is to meet with the mistress of the house to check and approve menus; often, a basic knowledge of French is required as the wealthy Edwardians love to gorge on French food when entertaining. (French male chefs were very much in vogue among the very wealthiest families wanting to impress their guests. But such chefs could be both temperamental and expensive: a top female country house cook would earn an average of £30–£60 a year, yet a top French chef could command as much as £500 a year.)

After the morning meeting with her mistress, the cook prepares soup for the next day. (The Edwardians prefer to drink soup the day after it is made.) Then she sets about creating the pastries, jellies, creams and entrées needed for the evening meal; then it’s time to supervise the family’s lunch. After that, if she’s lucky, there’s a brief lull in kitchen proceedings until the whole thing revs up again for that night’s dinner.

With one half day off a week (usually Sunday) and elaborate meals consisting of several courses, the cook’s world is hectic, hot, pressurised and unrelenting: everything has to be prepared and presented to perfection (the presentation of the food on display is just as important as the taste), so there is no room for cock-ups. Usually, she’s suspicious of change and any ‘new fangled’ devices in the kitchen – Cook likes things run her way and her way alone. With so much perfection at stake, can you blame her?