The Last Vanity by Hartley Howard

Author:Hartley Howard
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448204922
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVII

IT WAS a nice quiet house in a nice quiet street—the kind of street where everybody minds his own business, except for a discreet peep out of a side window to see who’s calling on the folks next door. It looked the type of place where kids wouldn’t be too popular, and a major scandal would develop if the man at No. 14 took forty winks during the sermon. In this haven of rectitude, sex would be a grim necessity, like the daily dose of salts ; more than two babies in a family, clear signs of licentious debauchery.

Every house had its neat rustic trellis, its concrete path and its square-clipped privet flanking the sidewalk. Every pocket handkerchief lawn had received its regular crew cut, and there wasn’t a weed to be seen. To a guy like me, there’d have been more freedom and excitement doing a stretch in the state penitentiary.

A slim pole, with wrought iron feet, stood on the corner of the lawn, just inside the gate. It was topped with a white glass ball, bearing in black letters: “Dr. Warren Raymond, M.D.—Consulting Hours : 9–10.30 a.m. 4–6.00 p.m.”

When I rang the bell, the door was opened by a flat-chested girl with piano legs and a face like an underdone pudding. Dr. Raymond evidently took care that no one could make allegations about his private life.

“The doctor hasn’t finished with his patients yet, sir.” She looked at me stolidly out of her little blackcurrant eyes. “Would you like to go into the waiting-room?” I said I’d like nothing better. She switched on an absent sort of smile and gave me five seconds to enjoy it. Then she switched it off again.

The room she ushered me into had a row of chairs against two walls, a table with a year-old copy of the Saturday Evening Post, some shelves with rows of encyclopædias standing as stiffly as a West Point graduation class, and a mingled odour of antiseptic and floor polish.

Three people were waiting to see the doctor, and they shuffled closer together when I came in. I said, “Good afternoon.”

The middle-aged stringy man with scared, watery eyes, nodded, let out a lush sneeze, and said almost proudly :

“Hay fever.”

The stout woman with the small orchard on her hat, eyed me suspiciously. What she saw evidently didn’t please her. She pressed her lips firmly together, tucked her feet under her chair, and pulled her skirt down ostentatiously.

Her companion was a bulky young woman with a puffy, tired face. Her summer coat had given up trying to conceal her figure, and only the top button was fastened. When she caught my eye she blushed faintly and looked away. She seemed a pleasant creature, and must have been quite pretty at one time. I hoped she was married.

We were a cosy company. Every half-minute, Henpecked Harry sneezed and apologised. The rest of the time he sat snuffling and wiping his eyes. Grandma-to-be carried on a low-voiced monologue, only stopping now and again to ask, “Are you listening, Clara? You know your mother is only anxious for your good.

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