Cara/Andrea, Today I'm delighted to welcome back my good friend Tracy Grant, who has come to give us a little historical backstory to the latest book in her marvelous Susanna and Malcolm Rannoch historical mystery series. For those of you who have not yet read Tracy's books, well, you're in for a treat! Set in the late Regency, they feature wonderfully nuanced, complex stories involving the world of espionage—where personal and professional loyalties are often tangled, and moral choices test the concepts of love, family and friendship. Her characters are beautifully rendered and her research of all aspects of the era is impeccable. I've been lucky enough to read an ARC, but rather than say any more, I'll now hand the pen over to Tracy and let her tell you more! Welcome, Tracy!
The Mayfair Affair is a book I looked forward to writing for a long time. I knew that one of the longtime characters in the series was going to step from the shadows and assume a central role in this book. Laura Dudley is governess to the two children of Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch, the central spy couple in the series. Laura has been in the background of the series for some time, just as governesses tended to dwell in a sort of twilight zone between the family and the servants.
Governesses needed to be educated. They were expected to instruct their charges in reading, writing, mathematics, probably French and perhaps Italian as German as well, not to mention embroidery, painting (most likely water colors), music (singing and playing the pianoforte), and deportment. Governesses were often impoverished gentlewomen who had to make their own way in the world - no easy thing for a single woman in the nineteenth century. In the complex social strata of Regency Britain, a governess might come from a family considered not so very far “beneath” her employers. Jane Fairfax in Jane Austen’s Emma moves in the came social circles in their small village as the heiress Emma Woodhouse, but lacking a dowry, Jane expects to have to make her way as a governess. Emma’s former governess, Miss Taylor, leaves the Woodhouse household at the start of the novel to marry their neighbor Mr. Weston.
A governess would considered of a higher social status than the other servants in the household and so was not really part of their world yet she was still a paid employee. She would probably take her meals with the children or alone in her room on a tray. She might bring the children in to the drawing room after dinner and to parties when the parents' entertained. Depending on how understanding her employers were she might socialize with the guests. More than one governess became entangled with an elder brother down from Oxford or a family a friend or even the father of her charges. But, Jane Eyre not withstanding, such entanglements were unlikely to lead to marriage. Ironically, while marriage was the main way a governess could escape her life of tutelage, the nature of her employment made marriage difficult. Her position made flirting dangerous. A governess's reputation was a fragile thing. Even a rumor could lead to her being dismissed without a reference. So governesses tended to remain in the background partly for self-preservation.
On the other hand, governesses could come to seem like one of the family. In Emma, Miss Taylor has taken the place of a mother for motherless Emma and dines and socializes with the family now that Emma is grown. The real life Selina Trimmer, daughter of the writer and educational reformer Sarah Trimmer, was very close to her charges, Harriet and Georgiana Cavendish, the daughters of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, as well as the duke’s illegitimate daughter Caroline St. Jules and Lady Caroline Lamb, the Cavendish girls’ cousin. In her letters, the young Lady Harriet Cavenidsh calls her governess “Selina” rather than “Miss Trimmer.” When Harriet, by that time motherless herself, accepted a proposal from Granville Leveson-Gower, her aunt’s former lover, she poured her feelings into a letter to Selina, expressing the doubts and qualms she could probably not put into words to anyone else (the marriage proved to be remarkably happy).
Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch in my series are enlightened employers and treat Laura Dudley as one of the family, yet they are also careful not to intrude on her privacy. And so when she is accused of murder at the start of The Mayfair Affair, they realize in many ways they don't know her. And yet they are convinced she has to be innocent. Because, as Suzanne tells Malcolm, she can't accept that someone she trusted with her children could be capable of such an act. When I wrote that scene, I realized that Laura Dudley's story, which is many ways is very much rooted in the plight of governesses in the early nineteenth century, also has very contemporary implications. I face those implications every time I leave my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Mélanie with a new nanny. I'm really fortunate to be able to be with Mélanie a lot myself and to have wonderful nannies and babysitters for her when I need to be away. But it's always a little bit nerve wracking every time I leave her with someone new. I tell myself I have good instincts, that I would know if I couldn't trust this person, just as Suzanne and Malcolm do. But I think the fear that one could be wrong is always there. At the same time it's amazing how quickly you can bond with someone who is helping look after your children. Even if you don't spend a lot of time with that person yourself, there's something very intimate in sharing the care of children. And there's nothing like the gratitude you can feel for someone who bonds with your children and makes them happy and secure. Suzanne and Malcolm feel that gratitude toward Laura and that shared bond with her, while at the same time the fear that they might be wrong about her lurks underneath.
Do you have a favorite book that centers around a governess? Do you see parallels between historical governesses and childcare workers today? I'll be giving away an e-book copy of The Mayfair Affair to one lucky reader, chosen at random, who leaves a comment here between now and Wednesday morning. from
