@gouf78 But it wasn’t widespread gossip. Anna doesn’t even know for positive sure that the baby is Edith’s. She and Mrs. Hughes found the photograph under the pillow when they were cleaning up after the fire, drew their own conclusions, and exchanged a look that said “This goes no further.” Discretion is the better part of valor. Anna knows this.
Edith went to Switzerland for something like nine months to “improve her French.” Can’t these people put two and two together??
AHA! That’s right! I had forgotten that. Thanks @Bestfriendsgirl
How is Edith’s french, now?
@skieurope your reference to Keats poem
La dame belle sans merci
"
Mary haters will like that
What would Mary do if she knew the truth about Marigold?
I think Mary would think Edith really was a twit for leaving her daughter with Mr. Drewes and his wife instead of taking responsibility from the beginning.
Edith had her suspicions about when Mary went away to go “sketching” with a friend. At the table she asked, “when can we see your sketches” and the conversation quickly shifted to something else!
I think Mary will figure it out about Marigold and she will do something very, very mean to Edith. The relationship between them reminds me of siblings where the oldest one feels displaced by the new baby and always resents her, is always trying to put her in her place. The new baby never feels that she can live up to the older one’s accomplishments - even thought the accomplishment is just that she, or her son, is the heir. They are still acting out this child dynamic.
That is true, but I find it slightly unrealistic that after losing Sybil, Mary is still so mean to Edith, her only remaining sibling.
@SouthJerseyChessMom -This dyed-in-the-wool Mary-hater does!
This whole “What if Mary finds out?” thing seems like fake drama to me. Mary already never passes up a chance to take a jab at Edith. What more can she do if she finds out about Marigold? Insult her even harder and louder? If I were Edith I’d just shrug at Mary’s complaints and walk away.
I got a kick out of Edith in the one minute preview of this Sunday’s episode that pushed out in my Facebook feed (Masterpiece/PBS). @Scipio, you probably will as well!
Anna would never report Upstairs to what was said Downstairs, no matter what rumors swirled around. She is much more discreet than that. (Nor would any servant worth his or her salt. The staff needs to be able to blow off steam - remember, they all live in the house, so they never have much privacy.)
Aside from room and board, I wonder how much the servants are paid.
If you continue down into the article, it talks about salary relative to other alternatives of the era.
I always thought Mary considered herself so above Edith that she wouldn’t pay her enough attention to analyze Edith’s Marigold fixation and that she couldn’t be bothered to wonder why Edith was gone with her aunt for such a long journey. She was probably glad not to have to see her whatever the reason.
I’m not going back through all these posts, so forgive me if this has been posted already.
There are a number of quick read books about life as a servant in Victorian and Edwardian England (as well as quite scholarly ones of life during those times.) My library had a bunch, I enjoyed “Life Below Stairs: True Lives of Edwardian Servants” by Alison Maloney most recently.
On the scholarship side, I tried “Poverty and Compassion: The Moral Imagination of the Late Victorians”
by Gertrude Himmelfarb (one of several of her books on the era). I did not have success with this volume.
I thought that Mary was too self-absorbed to be concerned or the least bit curious when Edith left to Switzerland with her aunt to improve her French. Cora did not seem at all curious or concerned one iota either.
I would hope that when Mary realizes the real story with Marigold it might actually bring the two of them closer together. Certainly they’ve both been through a lot and now with their concerns about Lord G’s health and well-being… it would be a positive storyline for both of them.
How are the dowager and Isobel related? They call each other cousin, and have the same last name. I’m assuming somehow it must be their deceased husbands who are the cousins?
“Aside from room and board, I wonder how much the servants are paid.”
As I recall from an old episode of “Upstairs Downstairs” a new footman or maid was paid about 30 pounds/year. Room and board was by far the major portion of their wages.
@conmama – your question got me curious, so I just looked up the family tree. (I’ve now seen the whole season so I don’t have to worry abt spoilers).
It appears that Violet’s and Isobel’s deceased husbands were second cousins once removed.