Peyton Place (55 page)

As the two men walked down the hill, the lead for Delaney's next story formed itself in his mind.

“In the tragic shadow of Samuel Peyton's castle,” he would write, “another tragedy has taken place. On a cold, blizzard-whipped night in December, Selena Cross–”

Just before they reached Elm Street, Delaney turned to Clayton. “Listen,” he said, “you're a fairly tolerant man, for a northern New Englander. How come you always refer to Samuel Peyton as a ‘friggin’ nigger’?”

“Why?” demanded Clayton. “There's some say—and amongst ’em was my own father—that durin’ the Civil War, toward the end of it, Samuel Peyton was runnin’ boats out of Portsmouth carryin’ arms to the South. If that ain't the act of a sonofabitch, I never hope to hear of one. If Samuel's skin had been of a different color, I'd say he was a ‘friggin’ rebel.’ But Samuel was a nigger.”

There were, of course, those in Peyton Place who remained calm, as does the core of a hurricane, amidst the furor engendered by the coming trial of Selena Cross. Among these was Constance Makris who, after her first shock, started back to work at the Thrifty Corner. To all questions, and there were many, she replied:

“I'm only back temporarily. Selena will be in charge again as soon as this mess is cleared up.”

Toward the end of clearing up what she referred to as “the mess Selena is in,” Constance had offered to pay for any legal services which the girl might require.

“Although,” as she said to Tom, “why the child should need a lawyer is beyond me. If she killed Lucas, and I don't believe for a minute that she did, she had a good reason. Lucas was a brute and a beast. He always was. I can remember Nellie telling of how he used to beat her and the kids. He was a terrible man.”

“Maybe so,” replied Tom, “but Selena is doing herself more harm than good by keeping quiet at this time. She ought to unbend a little if only to her attorney, but Drake says that she won't say a word.”

This was true. Beyond saying that she had killed Lucas with a pair of fire tongs while the two of them were in the Cross living room and that, alone and unaided in spite of what Joey said, she had dragged him into the sheep pen and buried him, Selena refused to comment. She had made this statement on the day she was arrested and the efforts of Peter Drake to make her tell why she had done as she had were futile. Peyton Place talked of little else.

“I don't believe she killed him. She'd tell why, if she had.”

“If she didn't do it how come she knew right where he was buried?”

“How come they found blood stains on the floor in the house? All the scrubbin’ in the world won't take out blood if someone is really lookin’ for it.”

“Yep. If she didn't do it, where'd all the blood come from?”

“I thought it was funny the way Joey got rid of all his sheep back in January. January ain't no time to slaughter. I always thought that was mighty peculiar.”

“He done that so's nobody'd be tryin’ to get into the sheep pen to look around. Kinda foolish though. He'd a done better to leave them sheep right where they was.”

“Well, I wouldn't say that. There's always some Jeezless nosy sonofabitch ready to poke around somebody's animals. If it was me buried my old man in a sheep pen it'd make me feel mighty queer to have somebody pokin’ around, walkin’ right over his grave you might say.”

“Remember how Selena tried to squash the zonin’ at town meeting? I bet that was because she was scared somebody'd go out to her place and poke around.”

“Well, I don't give a goddam what none of you say. I don't believe she done it. She's shieldin’ somebody.”

“But who? Nobody'd want to kill Lucas.”

“No. That's true.”

“And how come she won't tell why?”

Why?
It was a question on the lips of practically everyone. Ted Carter had gone to Selena, after assuring Drake that she would tell him the real reason for what she had done.

“I did it. What else is there to say?” Selena said sullenly. “I killed him and that's the end of it.”

“Listen, Selena,” said Ted, a trifle impatiently, “Drake has to know why if he is to defend you. With a good reason he could plead temporary insanity and perhaps get you off the hook.”

“I was as sane as I am this minute when I killed him,” said Selena. “I knew what I was doing.”

“Selena, for God's sake, be sensible. Without a good reason you will be tried for murder in the first degree. Do you know what the penalty for that is in this state?”

“Hanging,” said Selena bluntly.

“Yes,” said Ted on an indrawn breath, “hanging. Now smarten up and tell me why you did it. Did Lucas threaten to beat you? To put you and Joey out of your home? Why did you do it?”

“I killed him,” said Selena in the flat voice which she had cultivated during the past few days. “And that's the end of it.”

“But you didn't mean to do it, did you? Perhaps you intended to frighten him and struck harder than you meant to do. Isn't that the way it was?”

For a moment Selena paused and tried to remember the way it had been. Did I really mean to kill him? she wondered dully. She tried to recall the moment of striking and the thought which must have been in her mind, but all that came to her was the remembrance of fear.

“I killed him,” she said. “When I swung at him I swung with everything I had. I'm not sorry he's dead.”

Ted stood up and looked at her coldly. “Listen, you'd better get smart in a hurry and change your tune if you expect to get out of this. Think about it for a while. I'll be back tomorrow.”

“No you won't,” said Selena as he walked away, but she said it so softly that he did not hear.

That night was one of sleepless indecision for Ted Carter. In less than two weeks he would be graduated from the university and be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army. If the war was still on, which seemed highly likely at this point, he would then be sent somewhere for additional training. But Ted's mind did not dwell upon these present realities. He thought of the future, of the day when he would graduate from law school and come home to practice. How far would a man get in the legal profession tied to a wife who was a murderess? he wondered. True, he loved Selena and probably always would, but how much chance did they have together now? Ted spent the long hours of the night going over his plan for the future, but nowhere could he find a loophole in his plan large enough to accommodate a wife with a cloud over her head. Even if Selena were found innocent—and how could that be since she had already confessed to her crime—would there not always be people who wondered? As for the plea of insanity, even temporary insanity, that was no kind of way out. Insanity was looked upon with disfavor and shame by Peyton Place. Selena would fare better in her town as a convicted murderess than she would as a victim of insanity, Ted knew. Justifiable homicide? In the dark of his room Ted shook his head. Lucas might have been a drunkard, a wife and child beater, the most irresponsible of fathers, but he had paid his bills and minded his own business. And the fact that he had not been Selena's own father would hurt her in Peyton Place, Ted knew. Had she been of Lucas’ flesh and blood she would fare better. As it was, Ted knew what the town would say. She wasn't even his own, Peyton Place would say. He married Nellie when Selena was just a newborn baby, but he provided for the child just as if she was his own. To the name of murderess would be added the tag of ingrate. Ted Carter bit the knuckle of his forefinger. He could well imagine the looks on the faces of the jury if Drake tried to plead justifiable homicide for Selena. If the lawyer tried that, Selena was as good as hanged right now. Ted sat up in his bed and put both hands to his head. With stiff fingers he tried to massage a scalp suddenly tight and prickly. And if, he thought, by some impossibly lucky chance, by some fluke of luck, Drake managed to get Selena off, what kind of life could the girl have in Peyton Place. Forever after people would remember. There goes the Cross girl. She did in her father. Well, he wasn't really her father. He was more than that. He provided for her all her life, and he didn't have to do it. She wasn't his own. There goes the Cross girl. Married that young lawyer named Carter. Better keep away from him, a feller that'd take up with a murderess. But Ted's mind was not filled only with thoughts of the future that night; it was plagued also with memories of the past. He remembered kisses, conversations, hopes and dreams shared. He pictured the hill that he and Selena had looked at, the one where they would build a house that was made up almost entirely of windows, and he recalled the arguments about the number of children a house of this type would hold adequately. He remembered all the years when it had been only Selena, when the thought of life without her had been like thinking of being dead.

“You and me and Joey,” Selena had said, laughing against him so that he could feel her breath against his cheek. “Just us, with no one else mattering at all.”

It was true that Selena had changed a little since the war. She was inclined to be a little sharp at times, a little unreasonable. But war affected many women in that fashion. She sometimes seemed to think ill of him because he was not off in a ditch somewhere, like her stepbrother Paul, fighting for his life. But Ted had not worried overmuch about that. It was a feeling in her which would pass when the war was over. Then she would be as she had been before.

“Theodore H. Carter, Esquire,” she had said, her eyes shining the way they always did when she was happy. “Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Carter, both esquires. Oh, Ted, how I love you.”

It was dawn when he turned his wet face into his pillow. But my plan, Selena, he thought. What about my plan? What chance would we have in Peyton Place? he asked silently, and all the while he knew the answer and knew what he must do. At last he slept, and he did not go to see Selena the next day. Shortly afterward, when her trial was in session, he wrote his mother that he was unable to get away from the university.

Selena had not waited for him the day after she had seen him for the last time. But still, a tight little smile twisted her lips that night.

I knew he wouldn't come, she thought. I'm not part of his plan any longer. He can't afford the luxury of not giving a damn what people say. By God, I can. If I have nothing else, I have that. I don't give a damn.

She reflected that not too long ago she would not have been able to stand it to think that Ted would desert her in a time of need, but in the early summer of 1944 it did not seem to matter at all. Nothing mattered except her constant, nagging worry over what was going to happen to Joey. That she would be convicted and hanged she had no doubt.

“If you'd just tell me why,” Peter Drake said to her, over and over. “Perhaps I could help you. This way, the very least you can hope to get is life. If we're that lucky. Help me to help you.”

But what shall I say? thought Selena. Shall I say that I killed Lucas because I was afraid he'd get me in trouble again? She thought of Matthew Swain to whom she had given a solemn promise of silence, and she thought also of the faces of her friends and neighbors if she ever told the truth about herself and Lucas. No one would believe her. Why should they? Why had she kept silent for years and years? Why had she not gone to the police if Lucas was molesting her? Because a shack dweller never goes to the law, thought Selena wryly. A good shack dweller minds his business and binds up his own wounds. She remembered a time when Buck McCracken, the sheriff, had come to the grade school to give a talk on safety.

“Now I want allaya to remember that the policeman is your friend,” he had concluded, and Selena recalled the look in the eyes of the shack-dwelling children.

Friend my arse,
said the look.
Busybody. Mindin’ everybody's business but his own.

I'll never tell, thought Selena desperately. Not even when they take me out to hang me. They'll never find out why from me. Let them ask. They'll never find out.

In the entire population of Peyton Place, there was one man who did not wonder why. This was Dr. Matthew Swain, who knew very well why. The doctor had not worked since the day of Selena's arrest. He pleaded sickness and directed his patients to Dr. Bixby at White River.

“He must be sick,” said Isobel Crosby to anyone who would listen. “He don't even bother to get dressed in the mornin’ and he just sets all day long. Just sets and stares and does nothin’.”

This was not quite true. Very often during the day, and always during the night, Matthew Swain bestirred himself enough to walk from his dining room sideboard where he kept his liquor and back to whichever chair he happened to be using at the time. He thought thoughts which he phrased in what he termed brilliant rhetoric and all the while he knew what he must do.

And now the destruction has come full circle, he told himself, staring down into his full glass. It began with Lucas and it has ended with Lucas. Almost, but not quite. In the beginning I destroyed life and now I must pay with my own.

At times, when he got really drunk during the night, he took a small photograph of his dead wife Emily from its hiding place.

Help me, Emily, he would plead, gazing into the kind, deep eyes in the picture. Help me.

There had been quite a fuss made about photographs right after Emily had died. He had insisted on having the large, silver-framed one of her which had stood in his office for years removed.

“I should think you'd want that picture to stay right where it is,” Isobel Crosby had said piously. “I should think you'd want her right there, so's you could be reminded of her.”

“Do you think I need photographs to be reminded?” the doctor had roared, sweeping the picture of Emily from his desk with a vicious swipe of his hand. “Do you think I need anything to be reminded?”

Roaring was an expedient cover up for tears, and the doctor had done a lot of roaring in the days after Emily had died. Isobel, of course, lost no time in spreading the word of his behavior all over town.

“Threw her picture right off his desk,” said Isobel. “Threw her picture down so's the glass smashed and the frame bent, and yelled at me. And her not in her grave a week yet, poor thing. You saw how he acted at the funeral, didn't you? Never shed a tear, or tried to throw himself into the open grave or anything. He didn't even kiss her poor dead cheek before the minister closed the coffin. Wait and see. He'll get married again before six months are gone.”