I believe the Queen’s undies are referred to as her “smalls.”
From the Urban dictionary:
Breakfast on a tray was the privilege of married women (including widows) and invalids; everyone else was expected to come down for breakfast. It was mandatory; Cora’s been downstairs for breakfast. I’m not a fan of breakfast in bed either. Then again I don’t keep a chamber pot under my bed.
Yeah, motherhood for women of Edith’s class wasn’t exactly time consuming. On an average day you saw the kid for about 20 minutes in afternoon, and maybe you popped in for a quick peek when nanny was putting them to bed.
In Manchester her & Mathew maid do with a cook and maid; they hired Mosley as a butler-valet when they moved to Crawley House. Then Mosley followed Matthew to the big house, Isobel hired Ethel as a new maid (which drove Mrs Bird to quit), then Ethel got a new job because she was sick of being shunned by the villagers. IIRC Isobel’s down to a single cook-housekeeper now.
I am sure Spratt felt that something so personal should be tended to by her Ladyships personal servant. Remember the whole thing with using a piece of tissue to pick them up, because they are too personal to be touched by anyone but the owner?
Edith is the personification of the plight of so many single women of the time, though. She has no training and no opportunity to make herself useful. There are few husbands available (“wife” having been her intended role) and she is struggling to build a new sort of life for herself, against the tide of disapproval and societal constriction.
The decision to face single motherhood is quite a brave one, actually. I like her.
Imagine having to get dressed for a friend’s wedding and then walk two blocks to a restaurant before you got the first bite of food or sip of coffee every morning. That’s what it’s like staying in a great house. The few times I did it I kept power bars and caffeine pills in my bedside table to get started in the morning. (Water being always on the table.)
Breakfast in one’s room for a married woman might be taken at a small table or in bed, and certainly didn’t preclude using the bathroom first, although one had to be dressed as this is an old private home and there’s likely no ensuite.
I imagine it was the privilege of married women because they had a personal maid to bring it up to them. the young single ladies were expected to play hostess at breakfast.
Which is itself a shortening of “smallclothes,” an archaic word for small personal items of clothing such as underwear, handkerchiefs, and so on.
<musing…>
I think I’ll name my next cat “Smallclothes.”
Heh. One of my son’s friends is affectionately called “Smalls” by his mother.
I’m guessing that’s a reference to a quote from the movie The Sandlot.
But I could be wrong. Plus, now I want to call my six-year-old “Underpants.”
And then there’s Biggie Smalls. But I don’t think he ever stayed at Downton Abbey.
Rose would’ve been all over him.
Speaking of whom – I’m just guessing (no spoilers) but Atticus’s parents didn’t seem overly thrilled by their invitation to DA. I bet the roadblock to their true love will be *his *parents, not her family. They hope he’ll meet some nice Jewish girl.
I thought the Dowager was putting up with far more than she should have. She has eighty years of practice in putting the servants firmly in their places, after all.
I was looking forward to her genteely dressing down both of them - “If you should like to keep your position, you will not disturb me at my luncheon. Or at any other time. If there are any more disturbances, I will get rid of the cause, or the causes. Do I make myself clear?”
Regards,
Shodan
Fellowes can’t bring any of his favorite characters to say anything anti-Semitic. He turns the lower class Miss Bunting into an utter fool but god forbid his beloved aristocrats should be anything but perfect.
I felt deeply sorry for Edith. She’s trapped between wanting her child and fearing the social ostracism she knows might be hers. At least she’s being sort of realistic in her conflicting emotions.
They need to bring in Mabel Lane Fox as often as possible. Her icy acid is what this show needs.
Yes but Cora is half Jewish by ancestry which means Edith and Mary have Jewish blood as well.
Although there will certainly be ostracism, would Edith even notice? After all, she spends her time cooped up at the Abbey. She rarely goes to town and doesn’t seem to have much of a social life. She doesn’t even go out and try to do good works, like Rose and her Russians.
StG
Yes but I’m still surprised they haven’t tried to cover that up somewhat and that the Crawleys haven’t gotten more grief over it from others. I love Maggie Smith as much as anyone else but it would make sense for character to at least her to show some kind of vaguely anti-Semitic sentiments. No one said boo to the elder Mrs. Levinson or her son when they came to the UK, something I find hard to believe.
Felllowes is in love with his aristocrats. The only kind of bigotry they’re allowed is towards Irish Tom, sentiments that sound vaguely ludicrous today so we can pretty much forgive them. Rose dated a black guy last season and his characters were barely allowed to suggest anything reeking of the bigotry that would have been as common as rain back then.
He has no problem making someone like Bunting looking like an utterly contemptible idiot but he can’t do that for his aristos. It is a major flaw of this show. He’s whitewashing history and the result is bit of a joke sometimes, especially after the pains he goes through to show how fearful Lady Edith is of violating any kind of social norm. I like the show but it is actions that that grate on my nerves and why watching Call the Midwife is often a much better experience in my opinion. Fellowes should take some writing lessons from the people who write that one.
Robert is not just anti-Irish, he’s openly anti-Catholic; which only came out when it was time to baptize Sybbie.
He’s turned her into the most conventional of the sisters in some ways so I’m not surprised at her fear. I just wish he would give the poor woman some backbone. But Fellowes has not done right by her at all. She fell in love with Strellan when so many of her contemporaries had been killed off. I still think the way the family reacted to her love affair and the age difference was silly. I was reading a book called The Fishing Fleet: Husband Hunting in the Raj by Anne de Coucy. In that book, the author makes it clear that many women of that generation had no problem marrying a much older man. The men who ran the raj were really not allowed to marry before thirty while a woman was considered “on the shelf” if she was not married by the time she was about 22. So the notion of Edith being yelped at because she fell in love and wanted to marry an older man, especially a suitable older man, does not ring true to me for her parents or anyone else around her.
IMO, he should have just allowed her to marry Strellan and then needle Mary from a nearby estate. I think that would have been more realistic.
Yeah but even then he had to have Violet talk about her close friendship with a Catholic duchess. It just strikes me as so ridiculous to have Bunting be such an idiot and a bigot in her own way but not allow anyone else upper class to look quite so dumb or callous or bigoted, especially Lord Robert or even Mary who shares much of her dad’s outlook. I liked Thomas the footman a bit better when he was at least realistic with William in the first season about the relationship the Crawleys have with their staff and how little they really care about them. That was better and more realistic than Bunting’s apparent total cluelessness. I’m glad he’s at least allowing Daisy some growth. She’s rapidly turning into my favorite character.
Oh yeah. I think you’re right.
Indeed he is; and a lucrative pursuit it is, too! :dubious: