CLAIRE

England at the time of William IV and Victoria provides a credible background for a story in which virtue has a kind of twisted triumph at the end. For Claire Fleury, a governess in the Wichinhood family at fourteen, has a pretty thin time of it, and a brief tryout at the oldest profession seems to have done little to mar her natural goodness, and she succeeds in escaping before it is too late, and returning to her role as governess. An early, hopeless love for Charles Wichinhood, who had done nothing to prevent her unfair dismissal when suspected of intriguing with his brother, continued to dominate her emotional life. She thought that love had turned to hate, and when opportunity fell into her hands to make or break his life, she chose what she thought provided the answer, only to find the end quite other than she planned. This is the old familiar Jane Eyre plot, without the sinister aspects- and with a Cinderella ending. A better book than Pame la Foxe (Prentice-Hall, 1947) -- but still at the upper rental level.