Peyton Place (46 page)

“Only rarely,” he said, “when the truth would have done more harm than good, and I have seldom gone so far as to lie to myself. Moreover, Constance, I have never lied to you. There can be neither beauty, nor trust, nor security between a man and a woman if there is not truth.”

“All
right,”
said Constance angrily. “If it's truth you want, come into the house and I'll give you truth. Every last damned word of it. Come on.”

He followed her into the house, locking the door behind him, and she led the way into the living room. He drew the drapes together at the windows and closed the door leading into the front hall while she sat stiffly on the couch and watched him.

“Would you like a drink?” she asked timidly, her anger suddenly gone.

“No,” he replied from where he stood leaning against the closed door which led into the hall. “And neither do you. Let's get this over with. Start, and start from the beginning and for God's sake try to be honest with the two of us for once.”

He had the air of a jailer as he stood waiting for her to speak and his features had a quality of hardness which she had never seen before. Nor did he soften when she began the hesitating recital of facts about herself. Several times he paced away from the door to light a cigarette but he did not offer her one, and several times, in a voice which she did not recognize as his, he picked her up on the loose ends in her stories.

“That's a lie,” he said once, and Constance, caught in a web of her own making, began the retelling of a particular incident.

“What are you leaving out?” he demanded, and she put in a fact about herself which she had always considered shameful.

“Go back over that one again,” he said. “Let's see if you can tell it the same way twice.”

It was a night that Constance never forgot and when it was over Tom leaned against the closed door, white faced and haggard.

“Is that everything?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, and he believed her.

It was not until much later that Constance realized fully what Tom had done for her. In the weeks which followed it was as if she were a new and different person who walked freely and unafraid for the first time. It was never again necessary for her to take refuge in lies and pretenses, and it was only when she finally realized this that she knew what Tom meant when he had spoken of the dead weight of the shell she had always carried. But that night there was no realization. There was nothing but a terrible need, a hunger that caused her to reach forward for the first time in her life.

“Please,” she whispered, and before he could move toward her she ran to him. “Please,” she cried. “Please. Please.”

And then he was holding her and his lips were against her cheek, at the corners of her eyes, soft against her ear as he murmured, “Darling, darling, darling,” while Constance wept. His fingers were firm against her back, rubbing away the tenseness between her shoulder blades, until at last she quieted and then they were gentle and caressing at the nape of her neck. He sat down without releasing her and held her on his lap, his arms cradling her, and she put her head against his shoulder, warming herself in her own desire to give and give and give. Her finger tips traced a pattern down the side of his face, and with her mouth almost against his she whispered, “I didn't know it could be like this, so comforting, with nothing to fear.”

“It can be a lot of different things—even fun.”

She gave him the soft nibbling kisses of love not in a hurry, and soon their words were almost indistinguishable to themselves and each other.

For the first time in their relationship she undressed herself and let him watch her, and still there was this joy of giving in her. She could not lie still under his hands.

“Anything,” she said. “Anything. Anything.”

“I love this fire in you. I love it when you have to move.”

“Don't stop.”

“Here? And here? And here?”

“Yes. Oh, yes. Yes.”

“Your nipples are as hard as diamonds.”

“Again, darling. Again.”

“Your legs are absolutely wanton, do you know it?”

“Am I good for you, darling?”

“Good! Christ!”

“Do it to me then.”

He raised his head and smiled down into her face. “Do what?” he teased. “Tell me.”

“You know.”

“No, tell me. What do you want me to do to you?”

She looked up at him appealingly.

“Say it,” he said. “Say it.”

She whispered the words in his ear and his fingers dug into her shoulders.

“Like this?”

“Please,” she said. “Please.” And then, “Yes! Yes, yes, yes.”

Later she lay with her head on his shoulder and one hand flat against his chest.

“For the first time in my life I'm not ashamed afterward,” she said.

“Shall I be revolting and say 1 told you so’?”

“If you like.”

“I told you so.”

She moved her head a little and bit his shoulder.

“Ouch!”

“Take it back!”

“All right! All right! Turn loose.”

“Sure?”

“Yes, for Christ's sake!”

“Promise?”

“You cannibal! Yes.”

She put her lips against the spot where her teeth had been. “Love me?”

He raised himself up on one elbow and put a hand gently on her throat so that she could feel her pulse against his finger tips. For a long moment he looked down into her eyes until she could feel desire begin again, thick within her.

“Can't stand the sight of you,” he said huskily.

“You just stick around me for sex, do you?”

“I don't know. I'd have to try you out again first.”

“That'll be two dollars, please.”

“Be good and I may tip you.”

“Oh, darling,” she said suddenly. “Darling, I'm not afraid any more,” and her voice throbbed with happiness and relief.

“I know,” he said. “I know.”

A few weeks after that, when Tom asked her to marry him, she gave him a simple, straightforward “Yes” and went home to tell Allison.

“Tom and I are going to be married, Allison,” she said.

“Oh?” said the child who was no longer a child. “When?”

“As soon as possible. Next week end, if we can.”

“Why the big rush all of a sudden?”

“I love him and I have waited long enough,” said Constance.

Constance Makris finished wiping the silverware and put it away. It was not, she thought, in marrying Tom that she had failed Allison. It had been during the long talk which the two of them had had about Allison's father that Constance had failed. Yet, she had tried faithfully to reply with only the most truthful of answers to her daughter's questions.

“Did you love my father?” Allison had asked.

“I don't think so,” Constance had answered frankly. “Not the way I love Tom.”

“I see,” Allison had said. “Are you sure he was my father?”

She hates me, Constance had thought, and tried to be gentle with her daughter.

“I shan't make excuses for myself,” she had said, “but what happened between your father and me could happen to anyone. I was lonely. I needed someone and he was there.”

“Was he married?”

“Yes,” Constance had replied in a low voice. “He was married and had two children.”

“I see,” Allison had said and later Constance was sure that this had been the moment when Allison had begun to think of leaving Peyton Place.

The Ellsworth affair, when Allison had been made to feel that there was no one in Peyton Place who was her friend, was secondary.

Constance hung the dish towel on a line out on the back porch and breathed deeply of the October evening air. Allison, she remembered, had always loved October in Peyton Place.

Oh, my dear, thought Constance, try to be a little gentle. Try to forgive me a little, to understand a little. Come home, Allison, where you belong.

Constance went back into the kitchen slowly. She ought to drive down to see Selena Cross. It was terrible the way she had paid absolutely no attention to business since Selena had begun to manage the Thrifty Corner. But Constance didn't have to worry with Selena in charge. The girl could run the place as well as Constance herself had ever done. Constance smiled as she paused to listen to Tom's whistle. She was, of course, making excuses. She would much rather spend the evening at home than at Selena's going over accounts and receipts.

“Hey,” she called down the cellar stairs. “Are you going to stay down there all night?”

Tom shut off the buzz saw. “Not if you're free and willing,” he said, and Constance laughed.

On this same Friday in October, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, Seth Buswell met Leslie Harrington on Elm Street. They exchanged greetings for they were, after all, civilized men who had been born on the same street in the same town, and had attended school together as boys.

In fact, reflected Seth wryly, he and Leslie had quite a lot in common if one really stopped to think about it.

“You fellows still playing cards Friday nights?” asked Leslie.

Seth could hardly conceal his surprise, for this was the closest that he had ever come to hearing Leslie make what amounted to a request.

“Yes,” Seth replied, and an awkward pause followed the single word. Each man waited for the other to speak, but Seth did not proffer the expected invitation, and Leslie did not ask for it again. The men parted casually, but the same thought was in both their minds. Leslie Harrington had not played poker with the men of Chestnut Street since 1939, and if Seth had his way, he never would again.

For years, there had been an understanding between the Friday night poker players, that if one of them was unable to attend the weekly card game, he would telephone Seth to inform him as soon as possible after supper on the evening of the gathering. One night, four years before, Leslie had telephoned him. It was the evening of the day when the jury had reached a decision in the case of Ellsworth
vs.
Harrington.

“Seth,” Leslie had said, “I'm pooped from being in court all day. Count me out of the game for tonight.”

“I'll count you out, Leslie,” Seth had said, with his rage of the afternoon still a pain within him. “Tonight and every other Friday night from now on. I don't want you in my house again.”

“Now don't go off half-cocked, Seth,” Leslie had cautioned. “After all, we've been friends for years.”

“Not friends,” Seth had replied. “By coincidence, we happen to have been born on the same street in the same town. By an unhappy coincidence, I might add,” and with that, he had hung up on Leslie.

Yes, indeed, thought Seth, as he mounted the wide steps in front of his house, Leslie and I really have quite a lot in common. The same town, street and friends. Even the same woman, once. How easy it is, how dangerously easy it is to hate a man for one's own inadequacies.

This last thought caused an uncoiling of self-loathing in Seth to a point where he fancied that he tasted bile, and as soon as he had entered his house he poured himself a drink large enough to kill the most disagreeable of flavors. By the time Matthew Swain arrived, a few minutes before the others, the newspaper owner was quite drunk.

“For Christ's sake!” exclaimed the doctor, stepping over Seth's outstretched legs to reach the table where the bottle stood. “What brought this on?”

“I have been thinking, dear friend,” said Seth, drunk enough to pronounce been as bean, a thing he would never have done when sober, “of the ease with which one man blames another for his own inadequacies. And that, old friend,” Seth closed one eye and wiggled a forefinger at the doctor, “is a thought of some scope. To use an idiom on your level, I might even say that it is a pregnant thought.”

The doctor poured himself a drink and sat down. “I can see that it's not going to be hard to take your money tonight,” he said.

“Ah, Matthew, where is your soul that you can talk of cards when I have found the solution to the world's problems.”

“Excuse me, Napoleon,” said the doctor. “The doorbell is ringing.”

“If every man,” declared Seth, ignoring the doctor's remark, “ceased to hate and blame every other man for his own failures and shortcomings, we would see the end of every evil in the world, from war to backbiting.”

“Seth,” Leslie had said, “I'm pooped from being in court all day. Count me out of the game for tonight.”

“I'll count you out, Leslie,” Seth had said, with his rage of the afternoon still a pain within him. “Tonight and every other Friday night from now on. I don't want you in my house again.”

“Now don't go off half-cocked, Seth,” Leslie had cautioned. “After all, we've been friends for years.”

“Not friends,” Seth had replied. “By coincidence, we happen to have been born on the same street in the same town. By an unhappy coincidence, I might add,” and with that, he had hung up on Leslie.

Yes, indeed, thought Seth, as he mounted the wide steps in front of his house, Leslie and I really have quite a lot in common. The same town, street and friends. Even the same woman, once. How easy it is, how dangerously easy it is to hate a man for one's own inadequacies.

This last thought caused an uncoiling of self-loathing in Seth to a point where he fancied that he tasted bile, and as soon as he had entered his house he poured himself a drink large enough to kill the most disagreeable of flavors. By the time Matthew Swain arrived, a few minutes before the others, the newspaper owner was quite drunk.

“For Christ's sake!” exclaimed the doctor, stepping over Seth's outstretched legs to reach the table where the bottle stood. “What brought this on?”

“I have been thinking, dear friend,” said Seth, drunk enough to pronounce been as bean, a thing he would never have done when sober, “of the ease with which one man blames another for his own inadequacies. And that, old friend,” Seth closed one eye and wiggled a forefinger at the doctor, “is a thought of some scope. To use an idiom on your level, I might even say that it is a pregnant thought.”

The doctor poured himself a drink and sat down. “I can see that it's not going to be hard to take your money tonight,” he said.

“Ah, Matthew, where is your soul that you can talk of cards when I have found the solution to the world's problems.”