Return to Peyton Place

by Grace Metalious

  Roberta smiled to herself as she turned back the blankets on the big double bed in Ted's old room. She spread an extra quilt across the foot of the bed, and then she went very quietly to the room next door. It was a small room, containing a bed, dresser and one chair, and had originally been used as a maid's room when old Dr. Quimby, Roberta's first husband, had been alive. In later years, Roberta had used it as a place to store extra blankets and dishes and other odds and ends which a family accumulates over the years.

  Harmon Carter and Ted would have been surprised indeed to see the narrow bed freshly made up and to find the hot-air grate open. It was a good-sized grate, fully twelve inches square, and Roberta had examined it carefully from both rooms. When it was dark in the storage room, no one could possibly tell, without getting down on all fours under Ted's bed, that the lever had been moved and that the squares in the grate were now open. Roberta had occupied the bed in the storage room every time Jennifer and Ted came to Peyton Place to visit. In six months she had heard many things. She knew that Ted had nothing to say about the apartment that he and Jennifer rented in Cambridge. It was a lovely apartment, large and sunny. Roberta had seen it herself, but Ted was not comfortable there because Jennifer's father paid the rent.

  “Damn it, it makes me feel kept,” said Ted.

  “What would you have us do?” demanded Jennifer. “Would you move me into some furnished room and support me on what you could earn as a part-time soda jerk or gas station attendant?”

  “Lots of guys work their way through,” said Ted. “A little work never killed anybody. I've always worked.”

  “What if you fell down on your grades?” asked Jennifer. “Daddy's firm doesn't take in people who got bad grades at law school. Not that they object to a nice, gentlemanly ‘C’ once in a while, but they don't like men who make a habit of getting marks like that. Oh, darling,” she said, her voice dreamy and gentle now, “someday it's going to be Burbank, Burrell, Archibald and Carter. Won't that be wonderful? Won't it make a little pride swallowing now worth while?”

  “Burbank, Burrell, Archibald and Carter,” said Ted. “Yes, darling. It'll make everything worth while.”

  Roberta was pleased when she heard that from her side of the grate. Her Ted had never been a small thinker and he wasn't going to become one now. And it wasn't as if the Burbanks did everything for the children. She and Harmon sent them a nice check every week. There had been a few bad moments, too, during Roberta's eavesdropping. Once, Jennifer had questioned Ted about Selena Cross.

  “Were you in love with her?” asked Jennifer.

  Roberta held her breath as Ted hesitated. “No,” he said at last, and Roberta let out a silent sigh. “We went around together a few times, but that's all.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “She's all right.”

  “Is she prettier than I?”

  “Sweetheart, no one in the world is prettier than you.”

  Roberta had listened shamelessly as her son made love to his wife and once she had almost felt sorry for him. Jennifer seemed to be awfully wishy-washy about sex, and sometimes she had sounded frightened and it had taken Ted hours to calm her and then arouse her gently so that she let him take her. It hadn't been that way with Harmon and her, Roberta remembered, smiling in the dark. But then, too much sex wasn't good for a man who had to keep his mind on his books. Luckily, Harmon had never been a student. In six months Roberta had heard the children making love only three times, and after each time, Ted had been pale and shaky the next day. Yes, thought Roberta, it was a good thing that Jennifer was a little frigid.

  Never once, in all the time that Roberta Carter had spied on her son and his wife, did she feel shame or remorse. Ted was her son, her only son, and she had a right to see that everything went well for him. If he was disturbed about anything, she wanted to know. And if his wife should try to turn him away from his mother, she had a right to know that, too. It did not matter to Roberta that in six months’ time she had never heard Jennifer make a single derogatory remark about her. The girl might, in the future. Just because she hadn't until now was no reason to suppose that she never would.

  “My!” exclaimed Roberta, coming into the living room and giving an exaggerated shiver, “it's going to be another cold night. Still snowing, too. Our windows won't be open much tonight, I can tell you that.”

  “Ours will,” said Jennifer and laughed. “I'm married to the biggest fresh-air enthusiast in captivity.”

  Harmon yawned. “Warm or cold,” he said, “bed's going to feel good to me.”

  Roberta put up her cheek to be kissed. “I'll be up shortly, dear,” she said.

  When she did go upstairs it was ten o'clock and Ted and Jennifer were playing backgammon in front of the fire, and at ten-thirty, when she crept down the hall toward the storage room, she could hear their voices coming faintly up the stairwell. Roberta Carter locked the storage room door behind her and got silently under the warm blankets in the narrow bed. It was quarter to twelve when she heard Ted snap on the lights in the room next door.

  Jennifer Burbank Carter was twenty-two years old and never once, in the six months of her marriage, had she undressed in front of her husband.

  “It's not nice,” she had told him with finality.

  Jennifer had always lived in an environment where everything was Nice. There had been Burbanks in Boston for almost as long as there had been Cabots and Lowells, and the standards of behavior in Jennifer's family had not changed in over two hundred years. A lady did not make an exhibition of herself, ever.

  Once, when Jennifer was twelve, she had gone shopping with her mother and in one of the stores they had seen a girl with bright, blond hair and a swollen-looking, red mouth. The girl was chewing gum and looking at costume jewelry and she had a pair of enormous, hard-looking breasts under a very tight sweater. Jennifer had stopped and stared at the girl until her mother noticed. Mrs. Burbank's face got very red and she almost shook Jennifer when she took her arm.

  “I've never seen such a display of vulgarity in my life!” said Mrs. Burbank. “Remember, Jennifer. Women who have to use their bodies to create an impression are vulgarians of the cheapest, crudest sort.”

  “But, Mother—”

  “Don't argue, Jennifer. You know I'm right. As you grow older, you'll realize it even more.”

  For a long time after that, Jennifer thought of her body only as something to be kept clean, covered and hidden. As she grew older she was measured by her mother's dressmaker and in due time she found a dozen satin and lace brassières in a box on the foot of her bed. Later, there had been wispy panty girdles to be worn on dress-up occasions, but there had never been any discussion of any sort on the subject of underwear between Jennifer and her mother.

  When Jennifer was sixteen years old and in her last year at a very fine girls’ school just outside of Boston, she roomed with a girl named Anne Harvey. Anne was a year older than Jennifer, and her father was head of the largest brokerage house in the state of Massachusetts. Anne was a big, muscular girl but so full of good humor that the other girls at school never teased her about her looks. They admired her and made her captain of the volley-ball team and president of the student council, and every one of them wanted to be “Anne's best friend.” But Anne chose Jennifer Burbank.

  The two of them were inseparable. They went everywhere together and were thought of as a team, but Jennifer never could manage to feel secure in her relationship with Anne. There was too much competition, she thought, and was very, very careful never to offend Anne because Anne had a hundred little ways of letting her know that the school was full of girls who'd give their eye teeth to be in Jennifer's place.

  One spring afternoon, Jennifer was alone in the room she shared with Anne. She was changing her clothes, getting ready for a trip into town, when Anne came in quietly. Jennifer whirled around quickly and grabbed for her robe.

  “I didn't expect you,” she said, almost stammering with embarrassment.
/>   “Don't let me bother you,” said Anne. “I just came up for a book.”

  “If I'd known you were coming, I'd have used the bathroom but I—”

  “For Heaven's sake, Jennifer,” said Anne in good-natured exasperation, “it's not the end of the world. We're both girls, you know.”

  Jennifer turned away in confusion and as she did so she tripped over the edge of her robe, almost falling, and dropping the robe altogether.

  “Be careful!” cried Anne, running to her. Anne's hands were on Jennifer's waist. “Did you hurt yourself?”

  Jennifer could not move. “No,” she said. “I'm all right.”

  Anne did not take her hands away. “You scared me,” she said softly.

  Still Jennifer did not move, but kept her back turned as Anne's hands caressed her soft skin.

  “Such beautiful, lovely skin,” whispered Anne into Jennifer's ear. Suddenly her hands tightened hard enough to make Jennifer gasp.

  “Stop it,” said Jennifer. “You mustn't.”

  Anne's hands were gentle again, the fingers trailing softly. She heard Anne's breathing go ragged and felt Anne begin to tremble. But Jennifer stood as still as stone and without knowing how she knew, she knew that Anne was making a terrible, terrible effort to keep her hands light and soft.

  “You're so beautiful,” said Anne, and began to sob. “So lithe and perfectly made and beautiful.”

  And then Jennifer turned around. She moved away slowly from Anne's hands and went to lie down on her bed.

  Anne went on her knees next to the bed, her face wet with tears.

  “Oh, yes, my darling,” she said. “Yes, you are.”

  She kissed Jennifer on the mouth, a long kiss, and when she raised her head, Jennifer was looking straight into her eyes.

  “For Heaven's sake, Anne,” she said coldly. “Don't be so sloppy.”

  Anne rocked away from her as if she had been struck and Jennifer stood up slowly. She walked over and picked up her robe, but she did not put it on. She stood in front of Anne, nude.

  “Now, I'll have to bathe again,” she said and walked into the bathroom, her robe trailing from her hand.

  All the while she was in the tub, she could hear Anne crying. She walked back into the room, still drying herself, and watched Anne looking at her. She dressed slowly and carefully.

  “I'll be gone for a while,” she said when she was clothed. “Wait right here. Don't go down to dinner without me.”

  Anne waited. Not only that day, but every day after that whenever Jennifer felt like telling her to wait. She waited for the rare occasions when Jennifer allowed herself to be touched and she let her wretchedness show whenever Jennifer sat naked in front of the dressing table and said, “Brush my hair, will you, Anne?” She lavished gifts on Jennifer and dropped all her other friends, and whenever Jennifer snapped her fingers, there was Anne, waiting to do as she was told. Once in a great while, Anne rebelled.

  “I don't need you!” she shouted. “There are plenty of others who'd love to be in your place.”

  “Really?” asked Jennifer, raising her eyebrows. “Others? Right here at school?”

  “Right here at school,” said Anne.

  “Hm-m. I wonder if Miss Fenwick knows about that. Do you imagine so, Anne?”

  “Don't threaten me,” said Anne angrily. “You wouldn't dare go to her with anything like that.”

  “Maybe,” said Jennifer. “Maybe I would and maybe I wouldn't. I'm not like you and you know it. Go ahead and get yourself someone else. Boston is full of young men who, I'm sure, will find me just as attractive as you ever did.”

  Anne snorted. “I know your kind,” she said. “You'd never have anything to do with a man now. You put too high a value on your virginity to give it away for less than a wedding band.”

  “Darling, don't be naïve,” said Jennifer with a little laugh. “I've been doing a lot of reading since I found out about you. All kinds of reading. A man is the easiest creature in the world to fool. I'm not worried about my virginity or the lack of it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘lack of it’?” demanded Anne furiously. “Have you already been with a man?” She grabbed Jennifer's shoulder and shook her. “Have you?”

  “Take your hands off me, Anne,” said Jennifer coldly. “You have no need to be concerned about my affairs. You said yourself that you could find plenty of others to take my place. Well, go ahead.”

  “Oh, God,” cried Anne, “I didn't mean it, darling. Please forgive me. I didn't mean it. Tell me it isn't true about your being with men.”

  Jennifer pushed Anne's arms away.

  “Not yet, it isn't true. Not yet. But don't annoy me, Anne, or I might just have to go out to discover if I've been missing anything.”

  Anne Harvey and Jennifer Burbank were “best friends” all the rest of the school year and during the next summer. Jennifer dated frequently, but she had answers for every one of Anne's miserable questions.

  “I have to,” she told Anne. “What would my parents think if I never went out with men?”

  “I can't stand it!”

  “Oh, don't be so sloppy,” said Jennifer impatiently. “You bore me when you go all weepy like this. I go out with men because I have to. I'm afraid you'll just have to take my word for it, Anne.”

  When Jennifer denied intimate knowledge of men, Anne found it easy to believe. Not only because she wanted to, but because Jennifer's very appearance lent truth to her words. Anyone would have believed her. There was nothing of the voluptuary in Jennifer's appearance, none of those obvious points that men look for. She did not have the big breasts, the swinging hips, or the rich mouth that most men think adds up to a “good piece.”

  Like most frigid women, Jennifer needed men. It was not, on her part, lust but hatred that motivated her actions. To her, the sex act was not an act of shared communion; she shared nothing and only used men. When they were finished, she pushed them off with disgust. Not disgust with herself, but with them. She had her first man the summer she was seventeen. He was a Portuguese fisherman nearly forty years old with hard hands and a dark, sharp face. She met him on the beach every night for a week.

  After that there was a long series of college boys in the back seats of cars or at a motel. She never went with the same one twice, and after she had had a man she never spoke to him again. He ceased to exist.

  Even the college boys who had stroked her breasts and thighs, even they sometimes doubted, seeing her, that they had really succeeded. It was not that her manner was shy and virginal, she had too much style for that; it was that she looked unapproachable, like a girl one would hesitate even to kiss. She held her head high, her features were fine and revealed not a hint of coarseness; she had small breasts and hips. The boys who had known her in the back seats of their cars had a difficult time believing this was the same girl. This was Jennifer Burbank. The other was a brazen, shameless, coarse creature. The young men could see no connection between these two people, so utterly different one from the other.

  It was Jennifer's father who introduced her to Ted Carter. He had singled Ted out at the law school, he spotted him as one of the promising young men. Ted came to tea and Jennifer watched him, clinically observant. She saw how respectful he was to her parents, but she saw even more than that. Watching him, she became aware that Ted was the kind of man who would grovel and toady to gain the success he wanted. Jennifer smiled behind her teacup and said to herself, Well, Ted-boy, if that's what you want, that's what you are going to get. The thought of how much Ted would have to pay for his success gave her infinitely more satisfaction than any man ever had or ever would.

  Their wedding was announced a few weeks later. And on the first night of their honeymoon she tried out on Ted all the sadistic tricks she had used on Anne. She teased, she withheld herself from him, and only after she had exhausted him and reduced him to begging did she yield; and then it was as if she were conferring on him a priceless gift. Ted never doubted that she was a virgin.
Nor did he suspect that within a few days after the return from a honeymoon in the West Indies she began to be unfaithful to him. It was impossible for Ted to be suspicious of the daughter of Mr. Burbank. Jennifer had correctly judged him; he had married a law firm, she was only a means. He would take anything, would permit nothing to stop him short of his goal.

  “Let me get into bed before you open the windows, darling,” said Jennifer. “These Peyton Place winters are colder than anyone would ever believe.”

  “I'm not going to open them yet,” said Ted Carter. “I don't want you to catch cold.”

  “But it's late, darling. And you said you wanted to go skiing tomorrow.”

  Ted got into bed next to her. “Tomorrow I want to go skiing. Not tonight,” he said.

  “Sometimes I think that you're insatiable,” said Jennifer, laughing at him.

  “Open your mouth a little,” he said.

  “No.”

  “I'll make you.”

  “I don't like to be kissed wet.”

  “You'll learn.”

  “You'll have to teach me.”

  Every time Ted made love to his wife, he had to seduce her first, and while this excited him at times beyond endurance so that he climaxed before he could enter her, he often wondered, the next day, if Jennifer would ever welcome him freely so that he could feel as if she wanted his body as badly as he wanted hers. Sometimes, when he was not with Jennifer, he remembered the way Selena Cross had opened her arms to him and the way her mouth had been as eager as his.

  But when he was with Jennifer, he could think of no one but her. A few times, he had taken her by force, tearing her clothes off, slapping her until she lay still on the bed, naked and helpless under his eyes and hands. Afterward, he was overcome with shame and wept as he begged her forgiveness. But in some dark corner of his mind, he realized that the times when Jennifer goaded him into violence were the times she enjoyed the most. It was a silent, unspoken contest between them, with Ted determined to win her with gentleness and Jennifer equally as determined to turn him into a savage animal. She never hated him so much as when he begged forgiveness.