Traditionally (and for far too long), to work in service meant submitting to interpersonal protocols that were at once inappropriate and frankly, inhuman. Names were changed, ignored, or dropped altogether. Titles were tied to location (upstairs girl, downstairs girl), to position (first footman, under butler) or tethered to a task. (Cook. Nanny. Yard Man.)

For generations, it was also the custom in large houses for servants to hide their faces when their employers entered the room—as though labor itself was shameful. 

The idea conjures a preternatural stillness, bodies hovering in doorways, invisible and inert. You played your role by playing along. 

Obedience, observed one chambermaid, is rooted in my character.