Right after Memorial Day, every year, Ephraim Tuttle made his yearly concession to what he called the “summer trade.” At that time he brought brightly colored bolts of gingham and calico up from his cellar and lined them all in a neat row on the front counter as had his father and grandfather before him in the days before ready-made clothing. Once in a while, someone bought a few yards of material to make curtains for a summer camp, but otherwise the bolts of fabric stood on the counter until after Labor Day, when Ephraim sent them off to Ginny Stearns to be washed and ironed and then rewound to be stored in plastic coverings in Tuttle's cellar for another winter.
“Waste of space,” said Clayton Frazier, “settin’ all that cloth right up there on the front counter that way. Nobody ever buys nothin’ to speak of.”
“Lends the place a tone,” said Ephraim. “Summer folks like tone. What they call atmosphere.”
But with the coming of fall, Tuttle's reverted to what it had always been—a rather dusty, very old sort of general store where you could buy almost anything, if you were able to find it. This jungle of merchandise included magazines and cough drops and ear plugs and old sunglasses; tomatoes in a cellophane package and fish by the pound on Fridays only, eggs that you took from a carton yourself and put by the dozen into a paper bag; deerskin work gloves and pipe tobacco, Alka-Seltzer and lollipops and the Sunday papers. In the fall, Ephraim shut off the two circular ceiling fans that had whirred around slowly all summer and set up his potbellied wood and coal stove, but it was not until he took down and put away the awning, which shielded his front window all summer long, and began saving wooden packing crates suitable for sitting purposes, that the old men who occupied the benches in front of the courthouse knew it was time to move across the street to wait for winter.
“Gonna snow,” said Clayton Frazier. “Gonna snow sure'n hell.”
“’Bout time,” said one of the old men who sat with his feet up on the base of the stove. “November. And we all knew it was gonna come early this year.”
“Foolishness,” said Clayton, and sat down on the one wooden chair that was reserved for him. “I've seen it cold as this many a time and it never snowed ’til clear into January. But it's gonna snow today. Sure'n hell.”
“Don't snow in hell, Clayton,” said another man, and waited for a chuckle from his friends.
“How'd’you know, John?” asked Clayton Frazier. “Been there lately?”
And then the men around the stove did laugh, and Clayton leaned back happily and lit his pipe.
The front door of the store opened suddenly, letting in a sweep of cold air that immediately stifled all conversation around the stove. Clayton Frazier looked up at the stranger who had entered, and the only way that anyone could have known that Clayton was upset was that he kept his pipe out of his mouth when everyone around the stove could tell that he hadn't drawn on his pipe anywhere near long enough to be satisfied with its glow.
“Ephraim!” said the stranger.
Ephraim Tuttle looked up slowly.
“Ayeh,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“Ephraim,” said the stranger and laughed. “For God's sake, don't you remember me?”
Everyone around the stove knew who the stranger was, but not a man moved to make an acknowledging gesture.
“I'm Gerry Gage,” said the stranger, still laughing and now clapping Ephraim Tuttle on the shoulder. “S. S. Pierce Co., out of Boston. Don't you remember? It was me that remembered about bringing that Navy fellow back to town, the fellow that was murdered by his own daughter. Remember me now?”
“Stepdaughter,” said Clayton Frazier, and put the pipe into his mouth.
“Well, whatever she was,” said Gerry Gage. “Anyway, it was me that remembered.”
“Ayeh,” said Clayton.
There was a silence, and the stranger rubbed one of his gloved hands over the edge of his briefcase.
“Well,” he said at last. “What do you need, Ephraim? I've got your usual list here, and I could go by that.”
“The usual,” said Ephraim.
Gerry Gage was suddenly angry. “Listen here,” he said, “I only did what I thought was right. I never meant to do anything in the first place. I just happened to mention something about a fellow I let off here in Peyton Place. A hitchhiker. How did I know I was talking to the sheriff? It was him that started everything. All I did was what I thought was right. That's all.”
Sheriff Buck McCracken glanced at Gerry Gage. “Whyn't you do the business you come for,” he said, and he did not ask it as a question.
Gerry began to make check marks next to the items listed on a slip of paper in his hand.
“No need for any of you guys to hold a grudge against me,” he said. “A man doing what he thought was right.”
“Ain't nobody in Peyton Place holdin’ a grudge against you that I know of, Mr. Gage,” said Clayton Frazier. “It's just that some people talk a God-awful lot, and that does get tirin’.”
“Believe me,” said Gerry Gage, “I know exactly what you mean. Believe me, in my business I meet a lot of talkers. But then, it takes all kinds to make a world,” he added, as if he were the first man ever to have noticed this.
“Ayeh,” said Clayton.
“By the way,” said Gerry. “After all that murder business and all, I asked to be transferred off this route. And I was, too. The company understood. I mean, about all the notoriety and all. I haven't been back this way since the cops dragged me back to answer a lot of questions about Lucas Cross.”
Nobody said a word, and, as the seconds passed, Gerry Gage became more and more uncomfortable.
“Well, anyway,” he said, finally. “What's new in Peyton Place? I haven't heard much about this neck of the woods since all that stuff about the murder quieted down in the papers.”
“Nothin’,” said Clayton Frazier.
“What?” asked Gerry.
“Nothin’,” repeated Clayton. “There's nothin’ new in Peyton Place. Seldom is. Nothin's different at all.”
And to the uneducated eye of a stranger it would have appeared that Clayton Frazier's words were true. Peyton Place looked as it had always looked—pretty, quiet and untouched by turmoil. In the late winter afternoon the lighted windows of the shops and houses presented friendly, innocent faces to each other and to the rest of the world.
The war was over and the Harrington Mills no longer throbbed in twenty-four-hour shifts straining to fill the demands of Army contracts, but that was true of factories nearly everywhere. Leslie Harrington still lived alone in his big house on Chestnut Street, and while time and the loss of his only son, Rodney, had aged and gentled him a little, he was still Leslie Harrington, a fact of which everyone in town was still very much aware.
Down the street from Leslie, Dr. Matthew Swain still practiced medicine and his friend, Seth Buswell, still wrote editorials for the Peyton Place Times. The house of Charles Partridge was as empty as it had ever been, for neither time, nor acquisitions, nor the lawyer's wife, Marion, had been able to fill it with any degree of warmth or love. None of the old families had moved away, and no new people had moved into town, leastways, as Seth Buswell put it, not enough of them to shake things up or to amount to anything.
No, nothing much had changed in Peyton Place. At least, nothing that anyone was willing to pour into the ears of a stranger. And if there had been changes in private situations and in individuals, surely these changes were the concern of those to whom they had happened and, again, nothing for the ears of a stranger.
Nope, thought Gerry Gage, as he left Tuttle's Grocery Store and climbed into his car, nothing new in Peyton Place. Hell, that girl killing her old man was probably the only big thing that ever did or ever will happen here.
Gerry Gage drove his car down Elm Street toward the highway that led to White River and was, as he put it, damned glad to be heading for a town where there was a hotel with a bar, where other salesmen gathered and there was something to talk about, d
rinks to be bought, and jokes to be told.
In the Thrifty Corner Apparel Shoppe on Elm Street, Selena Cross finished covering a counter top full of blouses that were on sale. Then, looking up, she saw a flake of snow flatten itself and spread against the windowpane. She left the counter and walked toward the front window of the shop to make sure that what she had seen was really a snowflake, and as she looked she noticed a car with Massachusetts license plates heading toward the highway to White River. She wondered briefly, as people will in a town like Peyton Place, just who from out of state was visiting whom, but then Gerry Gage's car was out of sight and Selena thought no more about it.
It really is snowing, she thought. I'll have to hurry home to Joey.
She glanced up again as another snowflake fell against the window and saw two hurrying figures cross her line of vision. For just a second, her heart thumped hard and then she turned quickly away from the window.
Outside, the two figures turned quickly into Maple Street and were out of sight.
“Hurry, darling,” said Ted Carter to the girl whose arm he held. “I don't want my wife to freeze to death during her very first winter in Peyton Place.”
The girl laughed up at him. “Remind me to buy a pair of flat-heeled shoes tomorrow. I can't keep up with those long legs of yours when I'm wearing high heels. I saw a shop back there—Thrifty something—I'll go there tomorrow.”
Ted Carter did not laugh with his wife and his steps grew even more hurried.
“They don't sell shoes at the Thrifty Corner,” he said, and, holding tightly onto his wife's arm, he tried desperately not to think of Selena.
3
SELENE CROSS HAD JUST STARTED to turn off the lights in the store when the front door banged open and Michael Rossi came in.
“Hi, Selena,” he called. “In the words of us natives, ‘It's gonna snow, sure'n hell.’” He brushed at the shoulders of his overcoat where the snow had already left a fine, white dust and he stood there and grinned at her.
“Hi, Mike,” said Selena. “How's Connie?”
“Fine,” he answered, “and I have strict orders to bring you home with me. Connie always makes hot buttered rum for everyone on the day of the first snow. Come on, get your coat. The car's right outside.”
Selena turned her eyes away from his. “I can't,” she said. “I've got to get home to Joey. It's snowing.”
“Selena,” said Mike, and his voice was very gentle as he put his hand on her arm, “come with me. It'll be all right. When I saw that it was going to snow, I told Joey to go right to our house from school. He's there now, with Connie and Allison. Come on, Selena. It'll be all right.”
She looked up at him, her eyes darker than ever, dark with remembered fear and horror and pain.
Mike Rossi picked up her coat and helped her into it. There was in his way of doing this something of the bullying gentleness of a nurse with a convalescent patient.
“Come on,” he said. “You're staying for dinner, too. I'll drive you home, afterward, if you want to go.”
Selena's hands fumbled blindly with the buttons on her coat, and as they left the shop she tried the front door carefully before she followed Mike to the car.
Time had been good to Michael Rossi. His shoulders were still broad and straight under the dark cloth of his coat, and, if there was a slight thickening at his waistline, it was only his wife who knew of it and laughed at him in the privacy of their bedroom.
“Is my Greek God getting a little old and paunchy?” Constance teased, and smiled at him in a way she knew he found challenging.
He took her hands and pressed them against him. “Paunchy, eh?” he said, laughing. He smiled into her eyes, returning her challenge.
“Show-off,” she said. “Always strutting around like a bantam rooster.”
Constance broke loose from him and made a dash for the bathroom, but she was not fast enough. He grabbed her again and held her tightly while she struggled, laughing, against him.
“I don't strut,” he said. “Take it back or you'll rue the day.”
“Never, never, never,” cried Constance, and squealed and kicked when he began to tickle her, his hands moving all over her body.
Her struggles loosened the belt of her robe, and he stripped the garment from her.
“Stop it!” Constance yelled. “Stop it at once!” She tried to sound severe but did not succeed.
As Mike kissed her his fingers began to unbutton her pajama coat; then he slowly pushed the coat off her shoulders and she let it slide down her arms and fall to the floor. His hand found the tie of her pajama bottoms, he eased them over her hips until they slithered down around her ankles. Then he lifted her up and out of the crushed circle of pink silk and carried her to the bed.
“You are nothing but a big corny Greek, Mike,” she said, and was surprised to hear how her voice shook. I sound like a frightened bride, she thought.
His lips brushed against her nipples, his mouth caressed her. “And you,” he whispered, “are nothing but a pure and innocent Peyton Place housewife.”
“What are you going to do about it, Mike, an old man like you?” she said, her voice slow and teasing.
“I shall corrupt you,” he said, and when he bent toward her again her body twisted and she flung her arms over her head.
“Ask me for it,” he demanded, his voice harsh.
“Go to hell. I'll never ask you!”
“Yes, you will,” he said, “oh yes, you will.”
“Make me,” she cried. “Make me, darling, make me.” And then, quickly, “Now, darling. Now.”
“Say it, damn you. Say it to me now!”
Constance arched her body and twisted it in the effort to get even closer to him. Her hands clutched him and she threw her head back.
“Say it,” he repeated, his voice low and savage.
The words tore from her throat, anguished, as if they were the last words she would ever utter.
When it was over he held her in the curve of his arm, and she felt protected from the whole world and safe against all its dangers.
“You're never the one to go to sleep first,” she murmured drowsily against his shoulder.
“It's ungentlemanly,” he replied. He stroked her hair and smiled in the dark. “Besides, only old men go to sleep on their women.”
Constance sighed, and just before falling asleep she said, “Everybody knows Greek gods never grow old.”
Mike kissed her gently and thought, There is nothing in life that's better than this, lying beside the woman you love, in your own bed, in your own house.
The house was still the same white, green-shuttered house that it had always been, and, in spite of Mike's marriage to Constance, the townspeople still referred to it as “the MacKenzie Place.”
“Don't let that bother you, darling,” Constance had told Mike. “Long after everyone thought I'd become a MacKenzie, they still called this house ‘the Standish place.’ Don't worry. It'll happen. One day, everybody'll say ‘Rossi house.’”
“I should live so long,” said Mike ruefully.
Mike had gone to Leslie Harrington, who knew more about real estate than anyone in Peyton Place.
“Listen, Leslie,” he had asked, “what do you think Connie's house is worth?”
“Connie's house?” asked Harrington. “What the hell are you talking about, Mike. You and Connie and Allison aren't going to leave town, are you?”
“You ought to learn to mind your own business, Leslie,” said Mike. “But if it's any satisfaction to you—no, we aren't about to leave town. Now, how much is Connie's house worth?”
“Well,” Leslie hedged, “real estate values went up with the war and all. But Connie's house, well taken care of as that's always been—let's see. Hm-m, well, I'd say, off-hand, that I'd go eighteen five on it.”
“Jumping Jesus!” roared Mike. “Eighteen thousand five hundred dollars! Where the hell do you think you are? Downtown Dallas?”
Leslie Harrington l
eaned back and smiled. “Nope,” he said, “but if I was Connie, I'd never take a nickel less.”
Mike had gone back to Constance and said, “Darling, will you please sell me your house for, God help us all, eighteen thousand five hundred dollars?”
“What ever in the world for?” she asked, puzzled.
“Never mind why,” he told her. “Just will you?”
“Yes,” she said.
Mike took every cent he had managed to save and made a down payment on Constance's house. Then he borrowed the rest and finished paying for it. And when everything was done, he held the new deed, with his name on it, in his hand.
“Leslie,” he asked. “Is it my house now?”
Leslie Harrington leaned back and smiled. “Yes, Mike, it is. And Connie got a good price, too, even if I do say it myself.”
“Well, if it's really mine, I want to give it away as a gift,” said Mike.
The chair in which Leslie Harrington had been leaning back fell forward with a thump.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he asked.
“It's my house,” said Mike, “and I want to give it to Connie for her birthday.”
“Well, of all the goddamned foolishness I've ever heard of,” roared Leslie, “this beats it all. You didn't have to buy the goddamned thing. We could have changed the deed to read so that your name was on it. You didn't have to go through all this nonsense.”
“It wouldn't be the same,” said Mike.
So it was done, and Mike brought the new deed home to his wife and it read: KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS, That I, Michael Rossi of Peyton Place, State of New Hampshire, for the sum of one dollar and other good and valuable considerations to me in hand paid by Constance Standish MacKenzie Rossi of Peyton Place, State of New Hampshire, do hereby give, grant and convey to her, her heirs, successors and assigns forever, in fee simple, absolute, all that certain tract of land, with the buildings and improvements thereon, situate in Peyton Place, State of New Hampshire.
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