The Real Life Downton Abbey (23 page)

But what happens if one of these covert relationships results in pregnancy, you wonder? Scandal and rejection by society? Not always. Some high-born marriages just carry on regardless. One of the Edwardian era’s most beautiful young aristocrats, Lady Diana Manners, is the youngest daughter of the 8th Duke of Rutland and his wife Violet. But society gossips swear that she is the illegitimate offspring of the writer, MP and womanising politician Henry Cust.

Whatever the gossips say, this does not faze Lady Diana, whose parents, at one point, pin their hopes on her marrying Edward VII’s second son George (who becomes George V after the death of his father in 1910; Edward and Alexandra’s first born, Albert, died of pneumonia in 1892). Eventually, Lady Diana marries another aristocrat, Duff Cooper in 1919. Celebrated as the most beautiful woman in England, such is the passion that Lady Diana inspires that her husband-to-be writes to her during their courtship: ‘I hope everyone you like better than me will die very soon.’

Yet servants’ unique access to upstairs’ private lives can lead to temptation, too. In 1911,
The Times
newspaper reports a potential trade between an English servant and an American newspaper. An English butler, advertising for a new position, is approached by an American female journalist. She offers him monthly sums of money in exchange for gossip and tittle-tattle about leading British socialites: American readers are eager to read stories about the English aristocracy, especially anything remotely scandalous about their financial or marital woes. The butler and
The Times
’ readers are shocked. But a seed is sown for less loyal servants hoping to make a quick buck. Cold cash for celebrity scandal: sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

However this moral code where adultery is discreetly condoned is just one side of the dualistic nature of toff morality. Because many of these aristocratic women, whether they play around or not, have their other obligations: their involvement with charities and helping the less fortunate. And it is the same society ladies who sit on the committees that run the charities, oversee the fund-raising local bazaars, dinners and balls, the church sales, helping raise the money to fund cottage hospitals, that may be indulging in this extra-marital, secret, but not secret, world.

Charity work is part of the rules that surround their lives, of course, but a different side of the coin: helping the needy at a time when the State has yet to take responsibility for the less fortunate. Many middle-class women too are heavily involved, of course. Yet the big country house, with all its political social networking, is still at the heart of much charity, alongside the frivolity and double standards of the times. Some
country-house
wives are involved with organisations like the
anti-alcohol
movement, the Temperance Society, since alcohol is very much viewed as a social evil, especially among the poor. And, of course, it is sometimes the wife who encourages her husband to make much-needed improvements to the homes on the estate, to ease the living conditions of their tenants. Over 1,000 different charities are being run in the UK in the early 1900s, mostly headed by wealthy or middle-class women – and over half of these charities exist to help women in need.

But what of the aristocratic daughter? If she has brothers, their path in life is set in stone: Harrow, Eton, an inherited seat in the House of Lords and eventually the cares of the family estate. But as an unmarried young woman, she can have neither affairs nor a career. Educated at home by a governess, fluent in French and German, she plays the piano beautifully and is an excellent horsewoman. But essentially, all her ‘training’ is for marriage, her presentation at Court during her first Season, her introduction to the rules of society.

In the meantime, there are all the customs and manners of polite society to take her into adulthood: even if she does become engaged, she is not expected to travel unaccompanied with her fiancé, for example – and such is the morality of the times, once she is ‘out’ in society, there are many lines she cannot cross if she wishes to be accepted by her peers. Even her hairdo plays a part. A lady may only be seen in public with upswept hair. Loose hair is regarded as a symbol of immorality, or promiscuity: a lady only permits herself to be seen this way by her spouse. Or her lady’s maid.

And there are other small but important social niceties that must be followed, now that the world is changing. Young women, just like the Earl of Grantham’s daughters in
Downton Abbey,
are becoming preoccupied with ‘new’ ideas and social etiquette, which their elders would never have permitted. Etiquette itself changes to adapt to the new ways…

• Smoking:
  Previously a male habit, smoking is gradually becoming socially acceptable for women – though some still find it deplorable. The new etiquette says that a lady should take her present company’s inclination into consideration before indulging.
  
• Motoring:
  In the motorcar, ladies must carry hairpins and a hand mirror. These are seen as indispensible aids to attractive travelling.
  
• Make-up:
  Advice for those considering painting their face states that there is a right way and a wrong way of doing it. The art of concealing is very important. Anyone powdering and painting in imitation of singers and actresses must remember that these women are usually seen at a distance.
  

Because the toffs are so determined to keep their world intact and keep everyone beneath them at a distance, there is a very strict code of manners to be followed when it comes to paying calls on each other: all must follow the etiquette of the calling card.

Essentially, this system enables the upper crust to maintain formal relationships with those in the same group – and keeps out the unwanted or the social pariahs who fall from grace.

The traditional etiquette of early twentieth-century
card-calling
in London makes emailing seem positively blissful. A lady cannot call on another person without first presenting her calling card, via a servant. And so she may go out and about in her carriage, passing a footman her calling card to be presented at a certain grand address. (Sometimes she might keep the appropriate distance between them by telling him the address via a speaking tube.) On reaching the address, the footman rings the doorbell and the door is opened by a butler or maid. The card is then handed over with the compliments of the lady, the footman enquiring if the other lady is ‘at home’ today. The front door is then closed. Inside the house, staff check whether their boss is ‘at home’. If she is, the footman then helps his lady out of the carriage, into the house – and must remain standing outside until the visit is over. (If she’s out, the card is then kept on a silver tray in the hallway so it can be seen when she returns.)

At times, this process is accelerated by the footman being dispatched to travel around the city alone, taking calling cards from house to house, in order to demonstrate that their boss is in town.

Even the calling cards themselves follow strict etiquette. They must be plain with the gentleman’s name smaller than the lady’s, with the name and address printed in an ordinary typeface. Married couples have their names together on one card. Unmarried daughters have their names placed beneath their mother’s.

And typically, once an introduction has been made through a mutual friend, a formal call must be returned within three to four days. After a dinner or a ball, it is necessary for a guest to call or leave their card at the host’s house within the next few days. Calling hours are strictly between 3–6pm. To call before luncheon is socially unacceptable. (‘A call’ is not the same as ‘a visit’; a visit means spending at least one night away from home.)

Once these rituals have been observed, there are other rules to observe:

• The first call should be short, about 15 minutes. Conversationally, topics may only be light and superficial. No talk of politics, religion or anything remotely controversial. Nor should dogs or children accompany the visitor.
  
• For the afternoon call, a coat or cloak may be taken off. But a lady must keep her hat on (this is probably more to do with the fact that the hats are so enormous and hairdos are so elaborate, it requires careful help from a lady’s maid to take it on and off). A gentleman is permitted to bring his hat and stick into the room and keep it in his hands or on the floor. Only after this first call – and provided it has gone well – can a dinner invitation be issued.
  
• When country house families travel to London for the Season, their cards are marked PPC (
  Pour Prendre Congé,
  translated from French and meaning ‘to say goodbye’). And when they are back in their country estate, the same rituals must be observed when making social calls in the area. A few aristocrats ignore all this, mainly because they are so grand, they don’t need to bother, yet even by 1911, the etiquette manual,
  Etiquette of Good Society,
  written by Lady Colin Campbell, tells calling card dissenters: ‘Visits of form of which most people complain and yet to which most people submit, are absolutely necessary – being in fact the basis on which that great structure, society, mainly rests. You cannot invite people into your house, however often you may have met them elsewhere, until you have first called upon them in a formal manner and they have returned the visit. It is a kind of safeguard against any acquaintances which are thought to be undesirable.’
  

‘Undesirable acquaintances’ in their social clique may be avoided by a strict code of manners, yet the morals of the upper crust remain silently tolerant of other sexual habits.

Given the prevailing Christian ethos of the times, prostitution is still very much frowned upon. In the Victorian years, religious reformers, backed by the Church of England, sponsor many groups to help ‘fallen women’ into situations where they might be reformed, but these are mostly unsuccessful: at the start of the Edwardian era in London alone an estimated 80,000 prostitutes are walking the streets.

Various attempts to close down brothels also fail. And in one notorious episode in 1889, the Cleveland Street scandal, a homosexual male brothel offering rent boys for hire is discovered by police – and the investigation reveals that one of its key clients is Lord Arthur Somerset, an equerry to the Prince of Wales and son of the 8th Duke of Beaufort. (Lord Arthur is never charged and spends the rest of his life abroad.)

Yet the ‘invisible’ but very real trade of sex for cash or a visit to a brothel remains a huge draw for the privileged and moneyed classes. It’s the place where younger men pay to learn about love – and older men get their particular tastes or whims serviced. Wives often understand this, and look away. Discretion is more or less assured when travelling, so the more popular brothels with the English toffs tend to be in Paris, the city of love. A big favourite with the Prince of Wales – in his party years before he takes the throne – is Le Chabanais, a luxurious, lavishly decorated house of pleasure near the Louvre where the Prince’s own room (decorated with his own coat of arms) includes a copper bathtub, decorated with a half-swan, half-woman figure, where he reputedly soaks in champagne with one or two girls. The room also has an interesting chair, called a
siege d’amour
(a love seat). Here, the Prince cavorts to his heart’s content with his favourite party girls. Yet again, those in his elite circle take their lead from ‘Bertie’ – and continue, through the Edwardian years, to pursue their own pleasures with those of the world’s oldest profession.

The servants, of course, don’t have the luxury of the hypocritical double-standard morality of their masters. After all, they’re on the premises, all the time, to pick up the evidence of their employers’ bed-hopping – and they may even wind up helping to bring up the illegitimate offspring of their bosses, passed off as one of the family. So some cynicism, particularly among the uppers, is understandable.

But it’s the younger female servants who have the most to lose if they don’t follow all the rules, given the sexual segregation of the house – and the concerns around ‘followers’ and pregnancy, though some bosses profess not to want servants to get pregnant out of pure self interest but out of deep concern for their moral welfare. They dress it up that way, of course, especially in a country house with its own chapel and prayers twice a day. But the truth is, some people upstairs just don’t want their servants to have any life of their own – it might get in the way of having them at their beck and call.

As for the girls entering service at 13 or 14, they are often innocent. For some, the Bible may be the only book they’ve ever read; their religious beliefs are quite strong. Yet despite much debate in the early twentieth century about introducing sex education to address ignorance, it remains very much an unresolved issue. Nor is there any contraception – and sexually transmitted diseases are a real problem (see Chapter 12). So the girls, largely ignorant of such things, work for employers who are usually happy to keep them in ignorance. A pregnant servant is an unwanted commodity. And it would not be unknown for an observant housekeeper, concerned about one-too-many pairs of male eyes lingering over a pretty young housemaid, to demand to check the housemaid’s washable sanitary wear, just to make sure she’s not pregnant. If she is, she’s more likely to want to keep it secret as long as possible – or try to do something about it herself.