The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era (12 page)

Martha
Nothing ever alters for you
people, does it? Revolutions erupt and
monarchies crash to the ground, and the
groom still cannot see the bride before
the wedding.

Americans were buoyed up by the knowledge that the European monarchies were falling. The Republican path seemed to be the modern, relevant choice. The Russian Revolution and the brutal killing of Tsar Nicholas II and his family had led to the emergence of a stronger Socialist movement well beyond Russia’s own borders. The Tsar had been a first cousin and good friend of King George V, but they had been forced apart by the war. Even when the King knew his dear relative and immediate family urgently needed shelter from the revolutionaries in 1917, he thought it wiser to withdraw the British Government’s offer of giving them asylum (the murders happened the following year). There was a very real fear that the same revolution could come to Britain. As a precaution, the King changed the name of the Royal House from the House of Saxe-Coburg to the House of Windsor, in an attempt to distance the family from its close Teutonic cousins. During the war and in the years after, the monarchies of Austria, Germany, Greece and Spain also fell; many of the ex-rulers of these countries were relatives of the King. Extraordinarily enough, thanks to the resilience and tactical moves of George V and Queen Mary (whose father was of German extraction), the British royal family’s popularity actually grew during this time. But it was touch and go. To the observing Americans, it must have seemed as if the British aristocracy was just one domino in the line, waiting for its turn to tumble.

Still, even at this time, many wealthy Americans had strong Anglophile tendencies, together with an admiration for the British upper classes and their way of life. After all, they married off many of their daughters into the British aristocracy. A few American families, most notably the Astors, actually settled in England, acquired land, were ennobled and became part of the British elite. Most, however, preferred to create something of the aristocratic way of life back home, hoping to import the class for themselves. Liveried footmen became a popular adornment at grand New York dinner parties, as the English servants were thought to bring tone and expertise, two things the newly rich lacked. They were, in the words of one American commentator, ‘the expensive, smooth-running, imported mechanism without which the social race could not be run’.

Amongst the Stateside millionaires there was a particular vogue for English butlers. What the East Coast rich really valued, according to P. G. Wodehouse, were ‘butlers who weighed 250 pounds on the hoof, butlers with three chins and bulging abdomens, butlers with large gooseberry eyes and that austere butlerine manner which has passed so completely away’. Carson must have been anxious that Martha might make a bid for him.

In fact, Martha is completely convinced by the American way, preferring to have her young lady’s maid, Reed, who she can train up to her requirements, rather than an old-fashioned English servant looking at her askance. Her attitude is unnerving to some, but it was just part of what the aristocracy thought of as the more generally unsettling Americanisation of British life. It was an almost constant theme in the press; during 1920
The Lady
magazine contained several articles about the arrival of American words (‘chore’ was singled out) and jazz.

Reed, too, unnerves the servants below stairs, particularly Alfred and Daisy. She takes a shine to Alfred, who is taken aback by her advances (no English girl would have even thought of making the first move), even if he does rather like it. Daisy is put out by Reed’s forward manner, but she is prompted to wonder if there’s something in this modern attitude that she should be adopting too. Even Daisy, deep in the bowels of the kitchen, would be feeling the increasing influence of Hollywood films and their romantic storylines, the starlets who came from nowhere (Clara Bow, the original ‘It Girl’, was born in a slum tenement) and the magazines that wrote endlessly of their love affairs and style.

Violet
It’s so encouraging to see the
future unfurl.

Martha
As long as you remember it
will bear no resemblance to the past.

It is not just Martha who
ruffles the feathers of the British
at Downton; her maid, Reed,
causes quite a stir amongst
the servants with her forward
American manner.

Naturally, Martha looks the part of an American millionaire. Caroline McCall flew out to Los Angeles to do the fitting with Shirley MacLaine. ‘Usually, when you are dressing someone of a certain age you backdate them,’ explains McCall. ‘Most people find a style in their forties and stick with it, but Martha is so wealthy she adopts new fashions as they come out.’ Unlike Violet, who still looks like Queen Alexandra in her S-bend corset, Martha has the new waistless shift shape, to show what a modern woman she is. ‘She’s very showy, happy to display her riches. There’s always a lot of big jewellery. She wears bandeau headdresses, or hats with expensive feathers – one of them has birds-of-paradise feathers in it. The American clothes of that period were much fussier in terms of decoration than European ones,’ says McCall. ‘They hadn’t worked out that less is more. Plus, we wanted Martha to look as if she had arrived from another planet.’

Despite her zeal, Martha will find that her mission to change the family’s attitudes and modernise their politics is not without its obstacles – not least because they are unaccustomed to the rather forthright manner she adopts in such discussions. The Crawleys are rather more used to tip-toeing their way around any issues that might cause upheaval, from sex to money and religion, but Martha will always wade right in.

Martha
Are there still forbidden
subjects? In 1920? I can’t believe it.

But as exhausting as some members of the household, such as Violet and Carson, find Martha’s determination to shake things up a bit, the others may reluctantly admit that there is something in what she says, after all. It remains to be seen whether her way will win out in the end.

From dieting to body building, Americans embraced
health and fitness fads after the First World War.
‘Reducing’ – or losing weight – became a major
concern, for both health and fashion reasons.
(The ‘smoking diet’ was one popular regime!)
Americans, along with the French, made ‘sunbathing’
fashionable. John Harvey Kellogg (the inventor
of Corn Flakes) was convinced of the healthful
properties of sunlight on skin and advocated the
‘healthy tan’. Expatriate Americans created a sensation
on the French Riviera by lying out on the beach.

Anna transcribed the names of friends of the original Mr and Mrs Bates from his
first wife’s address book, hoping to talk to them to garner evidence to support his
appeal. Often, attention to detail, and sifting through an apparently innocuous mass
of information, was the key to unlocking a mystery – a tactic Anna would have
discovered from the ever-growing selection of literature on crime and detection
available at the time, including Agatha Christie’s first Poirot novel,
The Mysterious
Affair at Styles
, published in 1920.