Miss Bolby considers herself “a gentlewoman” -- an English woman of good breeding -- whose life circumstances have unfortunately resulted in a need to work for a living. But she won’t work for just anybody; only the best families will do. When Miss Bolby is hired as a governess for Lady Rushford’s daughters, she finds the family’s idyllic country house lifestyle disrupted by World War II. Lord Rushford is away, the house is short staffed, and two Italian prisoners of war work as groundskeepers. Lady Rushford does her best, but is poorly equipped to manage it all.

Miss Bolby was born in India and, in her youth, was considered a beauty and a talented singer. Her parents discouraged a singing career, and she declined an early marriage proposal. When no further offers came, she was left to find her own way. Meanwhile, her sister Sita made a socially advantageous marriage and went to live in India with her husband. Miss Bolby constantly mentions her birthplace and her sister’s connections in a vain attempt to strengthen her own social status. The boarding house she previously lived in becomes her pied-à-terre, as if she could jaunt off for the weekend if she so chose. Sadly, no one cares, and Miss Bolby fails to command the respect she believes is her due. When Miss Pickford joins the household staff as a secretary, she unknowingly threatens Miss Bolby’s sense of identity and status.

Both Miss Bolby and Miss Pickford have been forced into lines of work they are poorly suited to, and are reliant on the upper classes for basic needs like food and shelter. While Miss Pickford seems to accept her lot in life, Miss Bolby strives to be seen as an equal with Lady Rushford and her contemporaries. Then Miss Bolby’s prized bracelets go missing and she begins to unravel, with consequences that ripple through everyone at Rushford. The Gentlewomen is brilliant satire, a moving character study, and a sad portrait of the single woman in wartime ( )

(review from 2010)

Governess Miss Bolby leaves her boarding house in Birmingham for Rushford where she will be teaching the daughters of Lady Rushford. Rushford is not all that Roona Bolby expects, there is a new house maid, who Miss Bolby doesn't think is up to to scratch, and two Italian prisoners work in the grounds. Miss Bolby is obsessed by her past, she constantly lives in the past, hanging on to the threads of her aristocratic connections. Her life has been a series of disappointments, and she is constantly aware of what might have been. She is a snob and a harsh critic of others, and therefore a not very sympathetic character, although she is fascinating and beautifully drawn. Miss Pickford is also a gentlewoman, an aging clergyman's daughter, seems to threaten Miss Bolby when she arrives at Rushford as the new secretary. Miss Pickford is not such a robust character as Miss Bolby, she's nervous and unassuming, and liked by the half sisters that Miss Bolby teaches, and who don't at all like Miss Bolby. There is an inevitability about the climax of this story – which was at the same time really unexpected. Runing alongside the story of Miss Bolby and the household at Rushford, we get small tantalising glimpses of the people she left behind at Hillstone House in Birmingham. These sketches reveal another world, of middle class boarding houses and the small lives lived within. Wonderful stuff. ( )

[The Gentlewomen] is not a comfortable read, Talbot takes a sharp instrument and pulls up the tattered moth-eaten fabric of 'big house' life in Britain during the war. Using everything at her disposal to make her points, the weather, the silver (who's polishing it), the mysterious and almost impenetrable rules of precedence of these households (does the secretary trump the governess socially?), the diminishing size of the coronet on the notepaper, to what exactly defines a 'gentlewoman'. Suddenly, as if it was a thing embalmed for so long that it has become dust, the wind blows and the whole structure seems to go pouf! In the center of this story, an aging woman Roona Bolby (what a ghastly name, btw), once a beauty, takes on a post as governess at Rushford a 'great house' in the midlands. Her charges, four girls from two previous marriages won't be trammeled, won't be obedient. From the start she is in conflict with all of them in different ways. (They call their parents by their first names, for example.) It truly is, in some ways, the story of Lily Bart had you set her in a different and more rigid context. Like Lily, she let various opportunities to marry go, because..... well, because a mix of hoping to 'do better' and real distaste for having marriage be her only resort. Roona herself, Miss Bolby, is tragic mainly because she can't change, she let her life be determined by these rules, forgoing a possible career as a singer (her voice is truly gorgeous) and without them she is nothing, no one. Inevitably she comes into conflict with the secretary of Lady Rushford, also an impoverished gentlewomen only slightly lower on the rungs than she, but close enough to threaten her own (perceived) delicate position. The new kitchen maid, Reena (I just noticed how close the names are) who arrives the same day she does, is an ordinary girl, with no sense of class distinctions, a hard worker and a truly nice person whom everyone likes -- Roona is the only person who doesn't appreciate her. She is the 'new' woman, for certain. Roona's treasured Indian bracelets (given to her mother by a Rajah) disappear the same day the new secretary turns up and things deteriorate for Roona from then on...... It's rare to read a novel that doesn't in some way romanticize the aristocracy or make subtle fun of the bewildering ins and outs of precedence and status; it's very hard for us to appreciate how intensely important all that was to many people then -- that Nanny was Becca and also Miss Stroud depending on your own status and relation to her -- sufficiently offended and she would be your enemy for good -- and that using the wrong word to say you'd had enough tea could doom you socially, put you outside the pale in an instant, even with people who didn't mean to be snobby. **** stars for tackling a hard topic head on, for being truly a serious 'domestic' novel, casting a very close eye on the closed world women lived in then..... but be cautioned, I found it a strangely stifling and painful read, as I was meant to, I think.

As mentioned in the excellent foreword, the dialogue is truly original and engaging, and I loved the four girls -- they are each very distinct and the way they interacted with each other and the adults is superbly done. **** ( )

The Gentlewomen is one of the first books I added to my TBR list when I first heard about Virago Modern Classics back in May (how come I’d never heard about them before then?). This particular VMS tells the tale of Roona Bolby, a middle-aged governess who styles herself as a “gentlewomen.” She gets a situation with the daughters of Lady Rushford. It’s wartime, but the old attitude towards governesses still stands. Miss Bolby places great stress upon her genteel connections and Indian background, but she can’t quite launch herself out of the in-between ground that governesses occupy.

Miss Bolby is perhaps one of the most detestable characters I’ve come across in a really long time. She is one of the most conceited, snobbish, and rude characters I’ve ever seen. The reader isn’t really supposed to like her; but oddly enough, towards the end of the book, you kind of feel the tragedy of Miss Bolby’s situation, especially since Miss Bolby constantly dwells on the past and what might have been. This feeling is enhanced by a series of flashbacks, which I thought kind of ruined the narrative but thankfully drop off as the narrative progresses. Miss Bolby takes herself completely seriously, but everyone else mocks her behind her back. I do wish, however, that there had been some comedy to Miss Bolby’s character.

Much more sympathetic, but definitely a lesser character, is Miss Bolby’s nemesis, the new secretary Miss Pickford. Miss Pickford is of a similar age to Miss Bolby, but they couldn’t be more different from one another, and this contrast is what makes the novel so interesting. There’s a whole lot of tension that builds and builds and builds until that perfect scene at the end. Inevitably, tragedy will happen—and all because of a relatively simple misunderstanding precipitated by one of Miss Bolby’s charges. This is an absolutely stunning novel, well worth a read. ( )

There are many gentlewomen in this novel set in England in WWII. The central character is Roona Bolby, an older woman earning her living as a governess in various stately homes. As the book begins, she is newly employed as governess to a blended family of girls in one of those gracious, moldering old houses.
Miss Bolby has been beautiful; she still has a beautiful voice both for speaking and singing, and her eyes are a rare and lovely violet. She is well-educated; she is a gentlewoman. Unfortunately, she is also a hollow person who values her birth and her connection with titled persons above her accomplishments. Her life has been a series of disappointments and unthinking patronage that she obsesses over when alone. To the world of Rushford she presents an aggressive, genteel front. Rushford doesn't care. In fact, Rushford doesn't care for her, and neither does the reader because Roona Bolby is a cruel woman, so damaged that she has nothing of love to give to anyone.
Lady Rushford is a gentlewoman, trying to manage the house and her five daughters while her husband is at war. When she considers Miss Bolby's gentility, it is as a problem which must be handled well to keep her employed. Miss Rose Pickford, Lady Rushford's new secretary, is a gentlewoman, but Miss Pickford has more modest expectations than Miss Bolby. Lady Archie, a neighbor, is a gentlewoman, but she has led a rather outré life and cares little for anybody. The children are becoming gentlewomen, but since they are still children, they speak the truth as they see it.
This is a novel about the heartlessness of the class system and to a lesser degree about its breakdown.
All of this is worked out through the loss of Miss Bolby's Indian bracelets and a Gymkhana in which the girls hope to ride, Lord Rushford's return and a Sunday visit to the neighbors. This is a book that will linger in the mind. ( )