Actually, I don't get the feeling that Miss Testvalley loved to teach at all. She did it because it was the only job she was qualified to do that was respectable and could earn her the money she needed to support herself and her family. The book makes it pretty clear that she regarded her job as dull drudgery most of the time, the exception being when she was teaching an intelligent, promising mind like Nan's.
Also, there is a big difference between a nanny and a governess. A nanny (in that era) was an uneducated babysitter who cared for babies and small children, changing nappies, bathing them, feeding them. She was a servant, drawn from the working classes, who would often spend her whole life in service to successive generations of the same family.
A governess was a teacher. She would arrive when the children were older -- say, six or seven, if not older -- and teach lessons like reading, writing, maths, history. She wouldn't provide child care; when lesson time was done she would hand her charges back to the nanny. By dint of her education she was probably from a higher class than a nanny; she was certainly far better educated.
And Miss Testvalley was even further away from nannying than an ordinary governess. She was a "finishing governess", one who specialised in preparing teenage girls for their social debut. Her lessons would concentrate on deportment, dancing and other social graces as much as academics, especially since the future career of her pupils was expected to be social, not scholarly.
But despite her learning and her cultured leanings, Miss Testvalley would never be thought of as "a lady", a member of the upper classes who employ her. She says as much to Nan early in the book and film.
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KayDrama
10 years ago
Did Ms. Testvalley have a backstory in the book? As I watched the mini-series, i couldn't help but wondering at the loves lost by her and by Ms. March. I assume Ms. March had married well and was a widow? My assumption being that she is accepted in society and it is often "forgotten" that she is American.
Ms. Testvalley seemed to have a knowing-ness that comes from past regrets. Can someone that read the book tell me if Ms. Testvalley's story was given?
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Virginiana
10 years ago
In the book, Laura Testvalley (real name Testavaglia) was the daughter of a family of cultured Italian emigres who settled in England in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. They were poets and musicians and artists -- one of her cousins is said to be the famous Romantic poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, I think -- but the men of the family were not well equipped to earn a living. It fell to dutiful daughter Laura to get work as a governess to keep a roof over their heads.
Jacky Marsh's backstory is even sadder. She apparently came to England as a young American and fell in love with heir to a marquess, the future Lord Brightlingsea. They became engaged and were planning their wedding when his parents intervened and put a stop to such an inappropriate match. "After the wedding dress had been ordered, too," says both the book and the film, emphasizing her heartbreak. Rather than retreat to America with her tail between her legs, Jacky determined to stay in England and gradually found a place on the edges of Society, befriending the great and, later, helping ambitious young American girls fit into society. She never married (She's "Miss March", not Mrs.) and supplements her meagre income by helping the socially ambitious when she can. We even see Lady Brightlingsea slip her a discreet wad of cash after she agrees to help find a suitable bridge for Lord Seadown. There really were women like her who help facilitate Anglo-American marriages; they were called "social godmothers" at the time and they helped the girls with deportment, clothing, presentation at court and so on.
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KayDrama
10 years ago
@Virginian. Thank so much for your answer. I love to read and, while I enjoyed this show, had no huge desire to read this story for my answers. Again, thanks for filing me in on these two women.
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