'Belgravia' Episode 3: Servants, privy to fights and bedroom exchanges, hoard secrets for future betrayals
In the last two episodes, the focus was on the dramas and heartaches of the "upstairs" denizens. The servants seemed to be lumped together with no clear personalities. In Episode 3, the politics the servants play comes into focus.
During key fights and bedroom exchanges, the servants seem constantly underfoot be it at the Trenchards household or the Earl of Brockenhurst's establishment. Right after the return from the party, Oliver bursts into Susan's room to complain about the "damnable evening" in general and about Susan getting her flirt on with John Bellasis. He doesn't notice Susan's "lady's maid", Speer, making the bed. Even though Susan asks her to leave, Speer hears just enough of Oliver's rant to question Susan later about "the man" Susan liked at the party.
At first, Susan puts her down subtly for her curiosity but when she decides that she is going to be John's mistress, she draws Speer into her plans, essentially trusting her with her secret. Speer is not especially fond of "Mrs. Oliver" as Susan is called by the servants at the Trenchards house. But she sees an opportunity to curry favor because she knows that it might pay off in the long run if Susan catches the eye of someone aristocratic.
She is not wrong. Toward the end of the episode, John Bellasis approaches her to get information about the Trenchards and specifically which servants to target to get more information about the Trenchards and their connection to Charles Pope.
John pays her for her troubles and tells her not to mention this to Susan. In a most telling comment, she tells John, "I am a servant, sir. We don't tell them anything they don't need to know." In short, even though Speer is Susan's enabler and confidante, her loyalty is for sale to the highest bidder.
She points John towards Turton, the butler, who has been shown in previous episodes to not be above pilfering from the larder for private gains, and Ellis, Anne Trenchard's "lady's maid". In a conversation in this episode, Ellis has already revealed to Speer that she is unhappy with "being in service" but of all the very limited opportunities available to her, she would rather have this job rather than be a nurse in a hospital. Like Speer, she too has no special emotional attachment to Anne. When Speer asks her if she likes the mistress, she says, "I work for her, that's all."
But whether she will spy for John is another matter since she seems the sort to keep her nose clean and out of other people's business. But Ellis too is privy to a bedroom outburst when James storms into Anne's room after a particularly disastrous luncheon at the gentleman's club with Charles that ends with him fighting with an insecure Oliver, who spots them together when he comes to give his father some papers. He is about to reveal what is on his mind when Anne tells Ellis to leave.
Similarly, Lady Brockenhurst's maid, Dawson, is in the room when the Earl questions her about how she knows Charles Pope. Lady Brockenhurst too sidesteps the question to talk about Lady Maria Grey and tells Dawson to leave. What is significant about all these encounters is that those "at the bottom" are always a hair's breadth away from those "at the top" in private spaces, where secrets are spilled and marital fights occur.
It is an uneasy closeness because there is no emotional attachment or even the semblance of friendship from either side of the class divide. The employer-employee relationship means that the servants, as Ellis puts it, have "to lie and act grateful for allowed the chance to be a dogsbody".
It is an unequal relationship and no one is happy about being trapped downstairs while the "upstairs" people are always wary and distrustful of their staff who serve them. They may be invisible but they are always there, witnesses in the background, who will spill their secrets for the right price.
'Belgravia' airs on Sundays at 9/8c on Epix.
