This episode introduces the son of the house, James Bellamy. He's just twenty-two years old and proves himself quite immature and petty when he plays a game with the servants in order to avenge himself for being stood up by a girl.
He comes home alone to find the servants (who are on 'Board Wages' whilst the main household are away) having a party all over the house - particularly in the Morning Room where the family tend to live for most of the time. Instead of showing his authority, he goes along with their 'play', but takes things too far and ends up embarrassing, both himself, and the servants. The shame of this affects Sarah deeply, already feeling dissatisfied with her lot in life, this only serves to emphasise the lack of self-worth at being a servant. On the verge of something happening between she and James; this causes her to leave Eaton Place for the first time, to the heartbreak of Rose, who's come to depend upon her emotionally.
This is a very good episode that makes great effort to show just how 'close' maids who lived, worked and indeed slept together, not exactly became lesbians (though I should imagine that these types of circumstances helped nurture those tendencies wherever they lay dormant) but developed an innocent and pure love that was built on need and survival, in really what was a life with a pretty sure 'dead end'.
Sarah returns later in the series.
He comes home alone to find the servants (who are on 'Board Wages' whilst the main household are away) having a party all over the house - particularly in the Morning Room where the family tend to live for most of the time. Instead of showing his authority, he goes along with their 'play', but takes things too far and ends up embarrassing, both himself, and the servants. The shame of this affects Sarah deeply, already feeling dissatisfied with her lot in life, this only serves to emphasise the lack of self-worth at being a servant. On the verge of something happening between she and James; this causes her to leave Eaton Place for the first time, to the heartbreak of Rose, who's come to depend upon her emotionally.
This is a very good episode that makes great effort to show just how 'close' maids who lived, worked and indeed slept together, not exactly became lesbians (though I should imagine that these types of circumstances helped nurture those tendencies wherever they lay dormant) but developed an innocent and pure love that was built on need and survival, in really what was a life with a pretty sure 'dead end'.
Sarah returns later in the series.
