The Chronicles of Downton Abbey: A New Era (18 page)

There were some perks to this role, one of which was being able to sell the empty wine bottles and used corks that came down from the dining room – sometimes as part of an elaborate scam. One former hall boy remembered: ‘These had a second-hand value and every so often a man would call to collect them, giving me twopence or threepence a dozen for the bottles. Corks could bring in much more. All the wines we served were vintage and had the year and origin stamped on the corks. An exceptional year for Champagne, claret and port could fetch as much as five shillings, and a good year, one and six to two shillings. They were resold to villains, who put them into cheap bottles with forged labels, or to wine waiters at expensive hotels and restaurants. Wine waiters were expected to put the corks of the bottles at the side of the table for the host to see; so a tipsy host paid vintage prices for cheap wines.’

With the rules changing so rapidly above stairs and below, Alfred has a harder time than most to find his feet. Luckily for him, he is a straightforward kind of chap and he will be OK if he keeps his head down and gets on with the job. Alfred is being guided by an old hand, which helps, as is Milne himself. Milne admits: ‘Brian [Percival, the director] is brilliant. His notes are succinct but very useful. In one scene with Carson, he told me, “Talk to him as though he’s your commanding officer. That initially was their relationship.”’ After the horrors of war, a life of waiting at table and flirting with the maids may have seemed very pleasant indeed. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Young footmen learned about wine and how to serve it from the
butler, who was responsible for the cellars. The First World War
had played havoc with French wine production; many Champagne
vineyards had been destroyed by the conflict. In 1919, the French
Government introduced AOC (Appellation D’Origine Controlle)
to regulate the quality and integrity of the different wine regions.

Edith would have kept herself up to date with popular culture by reading
The Sketch
.
Together with
The
Tatler
, this was the illustrated weekly most favoured by the British
upper classes in the 1920s. Its extensive coverage and numerous photographs of
Society events made it the
Hello!
magazine of its day. It also included film reviews,
short stories (by Agatha Christie, amongst others) and cartoons by H. E. Bateman.

Cora
You are being tested. And you know
what they say, my darling? Being tested
only makes you stronger.

Edith
I don’t think it’s working with me.

E
dith Crawley, the middle daughter of the Granthams, sandwiched between her elder, beautiful and fiery sister Mary, and Sybil, the younger, worthy one, struggles to find her position in life. She is caught between acting tough and being on the defensive. ‘She’s vulnerable,’ says Laura Carmichael, who plays her. ‘She’s the disappointing daughter. And she feels that very keenly – she so wants to be loved and accepted, rather than rejected. And she throws herself into things to try and achieve that.’

For a long time, Edith believed her salvation would come in the form of a husband, but she gained no suitors as a debutante and afterwards those she liked were not available – whether Patrick Crawley, Mary’s first fiancé, or John Drake, the married farmer. It was only during the war that she discovered the possibility of another kind of independence, one which allowed her to feel better about herself. She learned to drive motor cars and a tractor and proved to be invaluable to the convalescing officers, getting singled out for praise by a visiting general. Edith surprised herself, certainly, but the rest of the family were also taken aback. They, too, had been guilty of pigeon-holing Edith as a likely spinster, someone who was a bit difficult, if understandably so. The war exposed Edith’s sensitive side, as Sybil tells her, ‘You’re far nicer than you were before the war, you know.’

But now the war is over, Edith’s sisters are either engaged or married, with Sybil expecting a baby, too. The feeling of having been put back on the shelf to gather dust is creeping up on Edith, and once again she believes that only a husband will give her purpose. Her attention fixes for a second time on Sir Anthony Strallan, now crippled by a lame arm – an injury he sustained during the war. He, at least, will need her, but more than that, Edith finds that she is genuinely fond of him. It’s hard to tell if she is really in love with him but, as Carmichael says, ‘He treats her like a grown-up. They can talk about books and things – and probably no one else has ever done that.’

Edith
Oh please understand! I don’t love
you in spite of your needing to be looked after. I love you because of it.
I want you to be my life’s work.

The pressure is on Edith. Not only must she defend what seems to her to be a perfectly reasonable marriage (Mary has her sordid past, Sybil has run off with the chauffeur, yet she must be denied a gentleman?), but all around her would be constant reminders that so long as she remained unmarried, she was just one amongst the ranks of the ‘surplus women’ in society.

It was clear to everybody after the war that women outnumbered men, but it was the 1921 Census that officially revealed that there were in fact over one and three-quarter million more women than men. That was nearly two million women who would never have the chance of romance, let alone of marriage and a family. What’s more, of the men who had survived the war,
1,663,000
were wounded; many of these injured soldiers would not be capable of work, marriage or fathering children. The press was quick to whip up the panic for single women, naming them as ‘surplus’ – with some editorials even suggesting that these women should emigrate to Canada and the Colonies in much the same way as convicts had been shipped to Australia. Edith, painted as the spinster sister, desperately seeking marriage and with no war duties to fulfil, could be left in no doubt that she was to be pitied, useful merely as a help to her parents.

Yet, much as it would be now, this was a deeply patronising and erroneous view. Yes, there were many women who wanted their own love story, and still others who were left heartbroken after their fiancés and husbands were killed in the war, but there were also others who saw that they had been freed from the potential tyranny of marriage. Not just women who had seen their mothers and sisters bound to controlling, even cruel, husbands, but those who had had a decent education and had enjoyed their first taste of freedom and independence during the war and now wanted to make a life of it. As Miss Florence Underwood, representing the view of the Women’s Freedom League, wrote to the
Daily Chronicle
: ‘Marriage is not the only profession which women want … To call any woman “surplus” because she is not married is sheer impertinence.’