Hair of the Dog by John Norman Harris

Author:John Norman Harris
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781631941238
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem Press
Published: 2018-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

Eleven

THEY RETURNED TO THE living room to drink coffee and brandy, and June, playing Gerald like a rather large trout on a light line, kept him in the mood to tell all about Martha. As she said later to Sidney, Gerald could be talked into doing almost anything, provided he didn’t think it involved Letting the Side Down.

She got him started with the help of Herr H. Upmann, of Hamburg and Havana, one of whose fine English Market Selection Panatelas was placed in his mouth.

He explained that in recent years Martha had become extremely sensitive about her unhappy loves. She was afraid that people were gossiping and laughing. So she became furtive and secretive, and her friends did not hear about the new admirer until close to the break-up of each romance. This tended to aggravate the problem, because she saw the man always alone and could not get the reaction of others to the charm that had captivated her.

Since early spring Martha had showed symptoms of being in love again, but Gerald had heard nothing official for some weeks. Then the name “George” had begun to crop up, and he caught echoes of quarrels between Martha and her mother about George.

According to Gerald, old Mrs. Thurston had a large share of responsibility for her daughter’s unhappy love life. She herself had always behaved with a touch of coquetry. She had been fond of expensive dresses and jewels and furs (for which she had been duly punished), and she had been outrageous in her encouragement of male flattery. This had turned Martha a little sour on coquetry and flattery and the language of gallantry. The mother had goaded her and jibed at her for her lack of charm, but Martha’s reaction had been towards tweeds and flat heels.

Through many of the unhappy romances Mrs. Thurston had carried on a campaign of raillery and derision, and had never failed to say “I told you so” when things turned out badly. Under it all, Gerald thought, there had been a desire on the part of the old lady to maintain her domination over the girl—and woman. It was a form of emotional slavery.

George, from the scraps that Gerald gleaned, was English, a retired colonel living on a small British Army pension, and writing an obscure volume of military history. He had a certain capital, but it was tied up in England, and it would take some time to get it free.

The question of marriage arose, which detonated a large-scale quarrel between mother and daughter. At that point Gerald became mildly involved. Gerald, at the time, was trying to persuade his mother to lend him money for his business battles. Martha, working at cross purposes, was trying to get some sort of allowance that would permit her to marry George and live in comfort. Martha had a job with a welfare agency connected with the church. The salary was adequate as pocket money, but even added to the alleged army pension it would scarcely have made a subsistence for a married couple.

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