This year, I thought I’d try to pop some novellas into my October reading so that I could participate in Novellas in November, hosted by Bookish Beck and Cathy of 746 Books. I actually read School for Love for my Century of Books project, but was delighted to see that at 191 pages, it qualified for this one, too.
Felix Latimer arrives during a snowstorm in Jerusalem from Baghdad. He is newly orphaned, his father having been killed during the war (WW II) and his mother having recently died from typhoid. So, he is being taken in by a family connection, a woman named Miss Bohun who runs a boarding house, until he can get on a boat to England. The war is winding down, but at this point places are reserved for soldiers and government personnel.
Felix is in his mid-teens, but for a long time I took him for much younger. He has been taught by his mother to look for the good side of people, and he is disposed to be grateful to Miss Bohun, but readers see her another way right from the beginning. Although she runs a fringe religious organization and talks about good works, early on she sits down with Felix to figure his share of expenses and while adding up her household expenses, includes some things twice, then remarks that they should divide the costs in half even though she has another boarder (although admittedly, he is very poor and we don’t know how much he pays). Even so, his half of £36 mysteriously ends up at £21, leaving him pocket money of only a few pounds a month. (Later, she tries to raise the rent to take the full amount.) She also feeds the boarders poor and scant food.
At first, Miss Bohun confides in him and he is confusedly willing to take her part in her concerns. Although we learn that she has stolen Frau Leszno’s house and furnishings from her by putting the house into her own name to “protect” it, and actually uses Frau Leszno as a servant, Felix is ready to take Miss Bohun’s part because Frau Leszno seems so unpleasant. He likes Mr. Jewel, the other tenant who lives in the attic, but he still takes Miss Bohun’s part when she tells him he has to leave the next day, even though he has nowhere to go. (He ends up in the hospital.)
Miss Bohun is scheming, we find, to oust Mr. Jewel and move up into his attic herself so that she can rent her room to Mrs. Ellis, a young widow. Once Mrs. Ellis appears, Felix is smitten, and he begins to see the other side of Miss Bohun after taking in Mrs. Ellis’s sarcastic remarks. We eventually learn that Miss Bohun has promised Mrs. Ellis the whole house in the fall, a promise she has no intention of keeping. In fact, we realize all along that she has been trying to replace her tenants with more wealthy or prestigious ones, with the idea of getting more rent.
Although there is some action, most of the novel is concerned with the interactions among these characters and a few more. Felix begins to wake up to some realities.
The portrayal of Miss Bohun is a masterly one as we note her constant hypocrisies. As for love, although Felix begins with a crush on young Mrs. Ellis, it’s only really between Felix and a little cat, Faro.
What? Me Read? 