The Real Life Downton Abbey (8 page)

The valet is, like the lady’s maid, a personal servant, dedicated entirely to the personal appearance of his master. He waits on him when his master is dressing and undressing, brushing his master’s hair, cutting it if necessary and shaving him, too. He folds up all his master’s clothes, brushes them and lays them out in readiness for him to wear, according to custom and time of day, after making sure they have been suitably aired before wearing. (Since both aristocratic men and women change clothes frequently throughout the course of the day, his duties are as onerous as any other servant, especially when guests are in the house and the activities of the day involve outdoor pursuits.)

It is the valet’s responsibility to look after all clothing or footwear repairs if needed and to put the clothes away in the appropriate fitted cupboards or wardrobes.

His master’s clothes are always protected from dust or dirt with brown Holland (a heavy, plain linen unbleached cloth, also used for blinds) and other linen wrappers. On sunny days, wardrobes are left wide open in order to air them. One wardrobe contains just shirts and underclothes, other cupboards contain different types of outdoor clothing: some aristocrats might have more than 60 suits to be looked after so there is always plenty of room to store the clothes. Expensive silk pyjamas, often embroidered with the family crest, are perfectly folded and kept in a tallboy with several drawers. (The valet also needs to be an expert packer and folder of clothes; everything must be folded in perfect symmetry.)

The valet checks his master’s boots and shoes (usually cleaned by an under footman) before setting them out in the dressing room. While a housemaid cleans the grate, lights the fire and sweeps and dusts the room, the valet is busy preparing the washing-table, arranging the shaving apparatus, running his master’s bath (if the house is not plumbed for hot running water, a lower servant will bring up the hot water required for washing).

Then, after his boss has gone down to breakfast, he dries the razor, washes any hairbrushes or combs thoroughly in warm water, and empties and dries the hand basin. Because of the personal nature of his work, he sometimes has quite a close relationship with his boss. One rung above the head footman, one rung below the butler, he may well be a recipient of his master’s confidences; John Bates (played by Brendan Coyle in
Downton Abbey
) who had previously worked as the Earl of Grantham’s batman during the Boer War, is typical of a reliable valet’s diligence and loyalty, acquired over years of working his way up the servant hierarchy.

The lady’s maid is directly hired by the mistress of the house, and reports to her rather than the housekeeper. As a result, her position with the rest of the staff is somewhat tricky; many of the lower servants dislike her and worry that she will snoop around and tell tales on them. This can sometimes make her feel a bit isolated, and although she has some privileges the lowers never enjoy, at the end of the day she is very much a servant.

As a dresser, escort to her mistress and personal servant, a lady’s maid needs many skills, particularly sewing, because she is responsible for all the care of her mistress’s clothing, including all repairs of garments and hats; she can even be a substitute for the dressmaker or local seamstress at times. She also, like the valet, needs to be an expert packer because she accompanies her mistress on her travels.

A lady’s maid also needs to be able to read and write well, be very neat and clean in appearance, cheerful and pleasant in demeanour and, above all, honest: she has to handle and take care of all her mistress’s expensive clothes, her jewel box and many other valuable items. Like the butler and valet, she needs to be discreet about what she hears and sees around her. If she does indulge in gossip with the other servants about anything (and the temptation to do this is strong) she faces losing her job without any hope of a ‘character’, the reference required to move on to another job, if her disloyalty reaches the ears of her boss.

Though her career prospects are not very good because she doesn’t have the necessary kitchen experience to help her rise up to the role of housekeeper, she has her own room, usually cleaned for her by one of the lower housemaids, who also wakes her each day with a cuppa. She is allowed to bathe regularly in the female upper servants’ bathroom and, because she does not have to wear the pinafore assigned to those whose work is menial, she is often quite well dressed: her mistress’s expensive hand-me-downs are frequently given to her to use as she wishes. She is also expected to be knowledgeable about beauty aids and potions – and how to look after and clean her mistress’s expensive jewellery, the pearl necklaces and diamond earrings, heirlooms handed down through the generations.

Her working day starts by waking her mistress with tea and toast. Then they discuss the day ahead and the clothes her mistress wants to wear. Then she draws her mistress’s bath, lays out the clothes, including the underwear, and, once her mistress has washed, she helps her to dress. Given the amount of hooks on the corsets and dresses the wealthy women wear at the time, it is virtually impossible to get dressed without some help. Corsets have to be laced tightly, silk stockings rolled onto the feet and up the legs and corset suspenders fastened; the whole painstaking and slow process of dressing and undressing – sometimes several times a day – is one of the lady’s maids more repetitive tasks.

Once her mistress is seated at her dressing table – covered with beautiful and expensive silver brushes, large bottles of expensive French perfume and other costly toiletries – the lady’s maid tends to her mistress’s hair, brushing it and then piling it up into the elaborate upswept style of the day. Washing and dressing her mistress’s hair with combs and tiaras is another big part of the job. Her mistress’s hair is always long and piled high: loose hair is only for the boudoir.

As the mistress goes off to breakfast, the lady’s maid tidies up, collects dirty garments for washing, checks for any clothing that needs brushing or sponging. Then she goes back to her own room where she spends time sewing, mending or washing items like corsets or silk stockings. She often uses a sewing machine – introduced in the 1850s – and the alterations she makes, adding trims to garments, adding feathers to hats, often take up a lot of time. There’s also a great deal of ironing of the beautiful silks, chiffons, cotton and linen clothing her mistress wears. Then, summoned by a bell, she is back at her mistress’s side to help her change her clothes again, if the mistress is planning a visit or a riding session. Even the corset might also have to be changed again to suit the outfit. And hair might have to be redone, too.

It’s a non-stop job: when her mistress goes out, the lady’s maid accompanies her, helping her in and out of the carriage (or the car) arranging or removing her outerwear as needed, attending to her needs while she’s away from home. Later, she will be helping her mistress change and dress for dinner, then she must wait until her mistress is ready to retire, helping her undress, plaiting her hair, (a common custom in Edwardian times) and helping her to bed.

If there are guests, the lady’s maid will usually have spent the hours before she is summoned to help her mistress retire, sewing in her room, sometimes in the company of the other housemaids. Sometimes she doesn’t get to bed until midnight. She has the satisfaction of knowing that her mistress will sometimes confide in her, even ask her advice. But whatever the confidences, she can never make suggestions or offer her own ideas unless asked. She is treading a fine line; she cannot, for one minute, forget that she is only a servant.

These roles are very much about the care and education of the children in the family, so these people are, to an extent, less involved with the other staff. But the governess or tutor, because they are educators, are upper servants, often from better backgrounds than the lowers, perhaps coming from families of impoverished clergy or respectable traders that have fallen on hard times.

They are just as snobbish about their status as their employers. As a result, the governess is often resented by the lower staff, who dislike her airs and graces. Frequently they are required to travel with their bosses if the entire family goes abroad or visits relatives in the country. They never venture into the servants’ hall, where the lowers eat and socialise. Depending on the employer, they may be invited to dine with the family.

The big nursery area itself is very much a separate world in another part of the big house. Depending on the number of children in the house, any number of servants may be employed there.

If there are two small children in the house, for instance, this will usually involve a staff of four servants to look after them: a nanny and under nurse, a nursery maid and another maid to wait on them all. Their living/working quarters may consist of a day nursery, a night nursery, a lavatory, a room for the nanny (which she might be required to share with one other servant) and a small kitchen.

In the evening, the governess, like her employer, always changes clothes for dinner – if there are guests for this occasion this could mean evening dress – and if not dining with the family, she eats with the uppers. The nanny and other nursery staff do not mix with the other servants: they eat all their meals in the nursery. And they only speak to the downstairs servants if they run into them. Which isn’t very often.

The role of the chauffeur is new in the Edwardian era. Effectively, he replaces the coachman and what he can earn varies considerably; if he already has experience as a chauffeur with another big household, he can command more.

Like the governess, the chauffeur is often resented by certain other staff: people working in the stables, for instance, resent the idea of the ‘new fangled’ motorcar and the huge changes it ushers in. But he is a member of the household, nonetheless, usually with his own room – though sometimes he might have a cottage on the estate – and a schedule which means being available at all times to transport the family wherever they wish and maintaining the upkeep of the car, getting spare parts if needed; he must also ensure there’s enough petrol to drive the family around. He usually reports to the butler.

A successful footman can, with hard work, jump rank to a valeting or even a butler’s role, which is why Thomas (Rob James-Collier), the scheming first footman in
Downton Abbey,
reacts with anger when he doesn’t get the promotion to valet he’d hoped for.

Footmen have many duties and work long hours upstairs and downstairs, yet theirs is also an ornamental role: there’s a lot of standing around, looking good. Height is very important. A footman over five-foot, ten-inches can command more money than a shorter man of that rank.

Their uniforms, white tie, starched shirt front and tails with brass buttons, sometimes stamped with a family crest, are provided by their employer – unlike the maids who must pay for their own uniform. They may work as a team of three, (ranked First, Second and Third Footman, all in order of status) on a rota system, ‘close waiting’ (looking after family members) on one day, the next day ‘waiting’ (household duties) and a third day ‘carriage (or motorcar) waiting’ (out and about with the family).

Upstairs, they serve at table, announce visitors, assist the guests in their rooms, attend the gentlemen in the smoking room after dinner and work in the front hall as the dinner guests are leaving, helping them with their clothing and into their carriages.

Downstairs they look after all the silver, glass and china, polish all the mirrors and the silver plate, dust in high places, clean the downstairs furniture and outdoor clothing – including the muddy riding boots and walking shoes – even ironing the master’s newspaper (with a petrol-driven iron) to fix the ink. (Ironing newspapers is a fairly common duty because the toffs like everything to be flat as well as neat.)

The footman carries coal upstairs for the fires and lugs blocks of ice into the area where these are stored. In a country house where electricity has not yet been installed, they have the unenviable task of cleaning all the lamps, polishing the brass, de-griming the brass chimney, trimming the wicks, changing the oil regularly and checking, each night, that the lamps have gone out.

Footmen are exposed to guests and other people constantly, so they are expected to be the most presentable of all the servants; a good-looking, six-foot footman brings a touch of glamour to the proceedings. And although the days of highly costumed footmen, in powdered wigs and bright livery, are on the wane by the early 1900s, there are occasions when they may be required to don livery provided by their employers. They have more visibility than many of the other lowers, whose presence and work goes on unseen by those above stairs. As a consequence, they are often disliked within the servant hierarchy for giving themselves ‘airs above their station’.

Yet no matter how they are viewed, footmen are constantly on the go from dawn to dusk, sleep in shared accommodation, and the work itself is monotonous and exacting to the last detail: a footman must wear special white gloves so as not to mark the silver when he is laying the table.

It’s a toss-up between the housemaid and the scullery maid as to who has the worst deal: they both have a backbreaking, labour-intensive role to play – housemaids do nothing but clean, sweep, dust, make beds, polish, lug pails of water and generally do whatever the housekeeper orders, though there is usually a head housemaid to supervise them in a large household employing several of these servants.

As a group, housemaids are very much regarded collectively rather than as individuals: they must walk about the house together, in single file. Or sit together in the servants’ hall in the brief gaps between their duties, sewing.