School for Love

by Olivia Manning

  What Felix thought was too complicated to be conveyed to Mr Jewel. From the depths of his mystification, he simply said: ‘Did she know you were going to tell me this?’

  Mr Jewel suddenly sobered and looked away with a worried movement: ‘I forgot. She told me not to mention it. Now, young Felix, I look to you to keep it under your hat. You wouldn’t spoil my chances, would you?’

  ‘No,’ Felix reassured him, but felt forced to say, ‘as a matter of fact, she’s been up in the attic herself for a long time. Mrs Ellis has her room.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mr Jewel. ‘She said something about having a young woman in the house. She said this young woman was going off to have a baby and she wouldn’t be coming back, so the room would be free.’

  ‘I see,’ Felix said, and asked with a keen sense of his own practical coolness: ‘And will she want you to pay?’

  ‘That’s just it.’ Mr Jewel started to laugh again with a sort of sobbing excitement. ‘She knows I can’t pay for that room. She knows as well as I do. What’s she up to, eh?’

  That was something for which Felix had no answer, but he saw the mechanics of the plot easily enough. When Mrs Ellis went to the hospital to have her baby, Mr Jewel would be brought back to occupy her room. Felix could not see what Miss Bohun would gain by the change, but as he spent the evening wandering about the town, he was agitated by the equal claims to his support of Mr Jewel and Mrs Ellis. Mr Jewel had been an earlier lodger in the house: he was an old man, almost penniless, who, if he lost this opportunity to return, would stand little chance of finding another room. Mrs Ellis, on the other hand, would come out of the hospital with a baby and no home to which to take it. Her position would be bad enough, but, after all, she had some money to make things easier; Mr Jewel had none. But supposing Mr Jewel returned, how long after he had served his purpose would he be permitted to remain? Felix could only hope Miss Bohun would find it more difficult to turn the old man out a second time.

  After he had walked for an hour or two he realised there was only one thing he could do. He could warn Mrs Ellis. Warned, she would have time to find a pension willing to accept her with her baby – not an easy thing! – or perhaps if she could afford to pay enough key-money she might even find another house. He went to the Innsbruck. She was not there. Nikky and his friends had not arrived. Felix wandered round again looking into shop-windows. There were the funny notices Mrs Ellis had pointed out to him: the trousers marked, ‘Source of Trousers’; the notice of a sale in a back room ‘Sale only backwards through the Courtyard’, and the butcher who said ‘I slaughter myself twice daily’, but none of those things seemed as funny as they did when she pointed them out.

  Suddenly he had another idea and went off at a quick trot to the King David Hotel. He pushed in through the swing-door before he had time to feel afraid. He appeared so sure of himself that no one took any notice of him. He found Mrs Ellis in the conservatory, sitting under the gloom cast by the long, oily green leaves of giant plants. It was getting dark inside, but out through the glass he could see the reflection of the sunset and the green glimmer of the garden.

  Mrs Ellis was reading. She did not look up for some moments while he stood beside her: she was sprawling in one basket-chair, her feet on another. She had on high-heeled white shoes and a white linen coat that would not close round her now. Her whiteness flashed with a silken sheen through the half-light, but when she looked up and turned in her seat, she looked heavy and dull. She had stopped cutting her hair and, neither short nor long, it was lank and lifeless. All the dazzle had gone from her and Felix could feel for her only compassion.

  She looked cross when she saw him and said: ‘Well, what do you want?’

  He said: ‘I want to tell you something.’

  She said nothing at all when he told her his news. He thought perhaps she was completely indifferent to it and after a pause said:

  ‘But perhaps it won’t be so difficult to find something. You have a lot of friends.’

  She gave a slight, angry laugh and threw her book on to the table so that it slid across the glass to the other side. Felix thought how much she had changed. Her humour had gone: she seemed now to be shut away from him into a chilly irritation.

  ‘Friends!’ she echoed and smiled acidly: ‘what makes you think they are friends? I came up with some introductions. Each person invited me to a party. I met the same people at each – then things came to a standstill. They all knew instinctively that I wasn’t one of them. The Government people here are graded and each knows what he can and can’t do inside his grade – or, rather, his wife does – and who he can invite to his home, and who’s going to invite him. It makes things easy for them. You see, they’re all people from a small world and things have to be made easy for them – so they can’t afford to admit strangers, anyway not strangers who probably won’t follow the rules. It complicates things too much.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Felix, interested and impressed by this summing up of a situation about which he knew nothing, ‘do you mean they thought you wouldn’t follow the rules?’

  ‘They knew damned well I wouldn’t, especially the women, and how right they were! I go to the Innsbruck, for instance, and no nice English lady would do that. But apart from all that, they didn’t want to have me around.’

  ‘But why?’ Felix pursued. ‘Didn’t they like you? I don’t understand.’

  Mrs Ellis screwed up her mouth to one side, raised her eyebrows a little with one of her old comical movements: ‘No. Perhaps because I’m different – and because circumstances have made me different. They’ve got homes – nice houses, low rents, ordered lives. Here they were, all nicely settled when the war started and here they’ll stay till they’re blasted out of it. Nothing has happened to them, except food’s got a bit short and prices have gone up, but – and this is the funny thing – they seem annoyed about the things that have happened to other people. They seem jealous. One of them going home on leave said: “I wish I’d had a bit of excitement, too,” and then offered to rent me her house for twenty-five quid a month. She pays five. One of the old boys, a nice old boy, said: “I don’t know what’s happened to people these days. Before the war no one would have dreamt of trying to get a profit like that from a friend,” but that’s the trouble, of course, I’m not a friend. I’m not fixed anywhere in the hierarchy. I’m fair game.’

  ‘So it’s no easier for you than for Mr Jewel?’

  ‘Look,’ said Mrs Ellis, lighting a cigarette and throwing the match over her shoulder, ‘your Mr Jewel’s nice and snug in the hospital. No one’s going to throw him into the street. I’ll soon have a child to worry about.’

  ‘Well, perhaps if you tell Miss Bohun . . .’

  Mrs Ellis grunted and then said suddenly: ‘I’ll walk back with you.’ She got up with energy and decision. They walked together to Herod’s Gate in the quickly disappearing twilight. The sky, in which the stars were appearing, was a pure green and from behind the great Damascus Gate came a bloom of light as the flares were lit in the market. Felix thought how exciting it used to seem going out with Mrs Ellis. Now, returning home with her, he felt slightly sick with apprehension of the scene that might occur when they arrived. Miss Bohun would blame him of course – not without justice – and she would blame poor old Mr Jewel. He could not imagine why Mrs Ellis need come back now to speak to Miss Bohun. There was no question of her leaving for some weeks . . . Then, from her silence, the nervous restlessness of her hands and the quick movements with which she was smoking her cigarette, he realised she was so possessed by anger that she had to attack something straight away, and she was going to attack the obvious person, Miss Bohun.

  He said hopefully: ‘She may not be there. She may be at the “Ever-Readies”.’

  Mrs Ellis took no notice of him. She was walking quickly and breathing heavily, her high heels clicking like tric-trac ivories on the tarmac. Nikky passed them with one of the Arab boys on his way to the Innsbruck. The Arab called gaily:


  ‘Ah, Mrs Ellis, how you make haste!’ but she seemed neither to see nor hear.

  The light was on in the sitting-room: the table was set for supper. Miss Bohun was not yet down. Mrs Ellis gave the room a glance, swung round and went up the stairs without slackening her speed. Felix, helpless and miserable, followed her. As they ascended, Miss Bohun descended from her attic. They met on the landing.

  Mrs Ellis, breathless, her voice having about it a sort of glow and confidence of fury, said: ‘There you are, Miss Bohun! I hear you are plotting to let my room. I thought I’d let you know you are wasting your time. I have planned to have the baby here. Dr Klaus is coming to the house and I’m having a nurse in. We are going to fix up a camp-bed and the nurse will stay with me for a few nights. Then she’ll come in daily.’

  Mrs Ellis had to pause for breath, and in that instant Miss Bohun raised her eyelids and looked at Felix. He looked away, expecting her to accuse him of making trouble, but instead she said mildly and pleasantly:

  ‘Felix, go downstairs like a good boy and ring the bell for supper.’

  As Felix went slowly down he could hear Mrs Ellis repeating, breathlessly and angrily, what she had said before.

  ‘I thought I’d let you know you’re not getting rid of me so easily.’

  Felix lifted the bell, but held the clapper in his hand. He felt that to ring it would be an insult to Mrs Ellis, a sort of demonstration of fidelity to Miss Bohun.

  Miss Bohun’s voice was still mild, but her pleasantness had about it a quiet venom: ‘I thought when I saw you there was something about you . . . something vulgar and immoral . . .’

  Mrs Ellis broke in furiously: ‘I wouldn’t bring up morality or immorality, if I were you, Miss Bohun. What about you? A hypocrite, a liar, a cheat, a dirty-minded old maid . . .’

  There was a sound of a slap, though who hit who Felix never discovered. He saw Mrs Ellis’s heels slip off the edge of the stairs, then she tottered backwards into his view. She never actually fell, but somehow came from top to bottom of the stairs in a series of distorted movements, reeling from one side to the other, struggling to keep her balance, her face strained with astonishment. At the bottom she fell against the fumed oak dresser. Felix expected her at once to swing round in a rage, perhaps run upstairs again and accuse Miss Bohun of whatever had happened at the top. Instead she clung to the dresser, looking blind and completely defeated, then, slowly, she bent double and pressed her arm across her waist. She stared at Felix, tears in her eyes, opened her mouth as though to speak, but, instead, groaned and fell to the ground.

  Miss Bohun came running down.

  Felix, in horror and panic, shouted: ‘You’ve killed her!’ and he thrust furiously past Miss Bohun to kneel down beside Mrs Ellis. Her face was pressed to the floor, turned sideways so he could see the greenish-white of her cheek; he could not move her. Tears ran down her face, but she did not make any noise. He held to her shoulder but could do nothing. She moved up one of her knees as though attempting to crawl somewhere. The red polish had come off one of her nails and lay like a complete finger-nail on the floor beside her hand. Felix picked it up as though that, anyway, were something he could do. He kept saying foolishly:

  ‘Mrs Ellis, what’s the matter? What can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Miss Bohun crossed to her desk and lifted the telephone receiver. While she was dialling a number, she spoke calmly, but she looked pale: ‘It’s probably nothing serious. I expect her baby is coming – they often come early. Nothing to be afraid of. It’s quite a natural process. I’ll ring the hospital.’

  Felix, looking at Mrs Ellis, could not believe there was nothing to be afraid of. Her very slow movements frightened him. She looked like an animal that had fallen from a height and, shattered and in agony, was writhing in spite of the pain it must cause itself.

  ‘She’s dying,’ he said.

  ‘Nonsense!’ Miss Bohun, having dialled the number, began rattling the receiver in a nervous way. At last someone answered and she spoke, firmly and sensibly: ‘This is Miss Bohun. I want you to send an ambulance for Mrs Ellis. There’s been a slight accident. Yes, I’m afraid her baby is being born prematurely. You’ve got a bed ready? That’s splendid.’

  Mrs Ellis moved with a sudden spasm and caught at a rag rug which lay near her face. As she raised her knee again Felix noticed a trickle of blood running down the inside of her leg.

  ‘She’s bleeding,’ he said.

  Miss Bohun came over and looked at the blood as though she disapproved of it, but said nothing.

  ‘Can’t we lift her up between us?’ said Felix wretchedly.

  ‘No, no,’ Mrs Ellis gasped, her voice very hoarse. ‘Don’t touch me.’

  ‘Better leave her,’ said Miss Bohun, in control of the situation. ‘You can’t do any good down there, Felix. . . . You’d better . . . I know,’ she suddenly sounded quite cheerful, ‘you go and fetch Dr Klaus. He’s Mrs Ellis’s own doctor. I’m sure he’ll want to know about this. Get a taxi and bring Dr Klaus straight back in it.’

  ‘But where does he live?’

  ‘Wait,’ Miss Bohun ran rapidly through the K’s in the telephone book: ‘Dr Emil Klaus, 60 Queen Melisande Way . . . Here, I’ll write it down.’ She pulled open the writing-desk drawer and snatched up an envelope; it was a new one. ‘Not a new one – an old one will do.’ She put back the new envelope and took a used one from among the chaos of old letters. Felix watched her as he might watch these movements in a film. ‘Here,’ she scribbled on the back of the envelope and held it to him. He took it but did not move. As he stood stupidly, staring at Mrs Ellis, Miss Bohun crossed over and, putting an arm round his shoulder, pushed him to the door.

  ‘Hurry,’ she said, ‘or the ambulance will be here before you get back. They said twenty minutes.’

  Her voice, bright, confident, almost happy, went on repeating itself in his head as he stumbled into the courtyard and ran to Herod’s Gate where the taxis stood. He held the envelope in his hand. When he found a taxi he read out the address loudly and clearly. The house was not far. A maid said Dr Klaus was at supper and she left Felix for a while in a small front room that was oppressively crowded with furniture. He sat staring at Dr Klaus’s address on the back of the envelope and then, as time passed, he turned the envelope over and stared at the address on the front. He read:

  ‘To “X”,

  c/o Miss Bohun, Herod’s Gate,

  Jerusalem, Palestine.’

  It was several minutes before he realised what he was reading. . . . But he was the ‘X’ to whom the letter was addressed. He had a right to read it. He took it out and read:

  ‘Sir or Madam,

  We were glad to receive your communication of February 9th which will, we hope, put us at last into touch with Mr Alfred Mordecai Jewel. His brother, Alderman Samson Jewel, died four years ago leaving the whole of his estate of some ten thousand pounds to his brother Alfred Mordecai. Many attempts have been made to trace Mr Jewel . . .’

  As Dr Klaus, putting his coat on, threw open the door and said: ‘Come along now,’ Felix thrust the letter back into its envelope.

  In the car Dr Klaus said: ‘What is this so unfortunate accident that has occurred?’

  ‘Mrs Ellis fell down the stairs.’

  ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘I don’t know. I think Miss Bohun hit her.’

  ‘Did you see such a thing?’

  ‘No, I was downstairs.’

  ‘Ah, then it is as well to speak with caution.’

  When they reached the house the ambulance was at the gate. The men were putting the stretcher inside. Mrs Ellis, wrapped in dark blankets, had her eyes closed. Miss Bohun, coming through the courtyard with a young nurse, was saying:

  ‘. . . a slight argument about a trivial matter, but she was not herself. She got worked up and . . . well, I hardly like to tell you, but she made to strike out at me. We were at the top of the stairs and she stumbled backwards. I made
an effort to catch her . . .’

  ‘It’s terrible,’ said the nurse, a break in her voice. ‘Mrs Ellis was always so nice.’

  ‘I hope you’ll save the child.’

  The nurse gave her head a distracted shake. Dr Klaus called from the ambulance: ‘Come; come at once,’ and the nurse and the men jumped in, the doors were shut and the ambulance drove away.

  ‘Come in, Felix,’ said Miss Bohun cheerfully, touching his shoulder as he went in through the gate, ‘we’ve done all we can; and I think we’ve earned our supper.’

  Felix never saw Mrs Ellis again. The day after the accident he was called to the Transport Office. A passage had suddenly fallen vacant and he was given two days in which to pack and catch a boat at Port Said. The first thing he did was to buy from a shop in Princess Mary’s Avenue a tin tray for sand, a cat basket, a lead and a small collar. These were, in Palestine at this time, articles of supreme luxury, and he had never spent so much money in his life before. Then he went to Madame Sarkis’s house: Madame Sarkis was out. Felix left a note for her and returned to Herod’s Gate with Faro on his shoulder. He had behaved all the time with deliberation and complete confidence of success. It was as though he had suddenly grown in stature and strength. He knew no one could prevent his taking Faro with him when he went, but from politeness he decided to ask Miss Bohun’s permission first.

  She was talking on the telephone when he went into the room. She turned and made a slight movement with her brows as she noticed Faro on Felix’s shoulder, but when she finished her conversation and put down the receiver, she spoke to Felix as though prepared to overlook the fact that her cat had been brought back without her permission.

  ‘You’ll be sorry to hear, I’m sure, that poor Mrs Ellis has lost her baby. Such a tragedy. She’ll pull through, they think. She’s young, after all. She’s really rather lucky as I hear they’re flying her back to England as soon as she’s well enough. Only the most privileged people get air passages. Unfortunately you won’t see her before you go. She can’t be visited yet.’ Miss Bohun moved to face Felix squarely and she gave him a serene smile. He did not return her smile. He said: ‘Miss Bohun, I want to take Faro back to England with me.’