When I read your post, I had just finished an article in the NYT (link below) called "British Noses, Firmly in the Air". The line about the servants in your post got my attention because the NYT article is about class in the UK. For example:

"Together, the three episodes of nastiness, accelerated by social media, sparked one of those very British immersions in the hot tub of the nation’s own insecurities about snobbery and class. Of course all nations have their sore points and their obsessions — race, weight, accent, gender — but the persistence of class markers and the exigencies of etiquette seem ingrained here.

The more unequal Britain becomes, he said, “the less we want to talk about it.” Britain is a nation of “inverted snobs,” because to claim one cares about class “is, in itself, a low-class indicator.”