“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.
♦ 3 ♦
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 enoug
h 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.”
“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.”
Matthew Swain, who had gone to answer the bell, re-entered the room followed by Charles Partridge, Jared Clarke and Dexter Humphrey.
“All of us in the same leaky boat,” said Seth, by way of greeting.
“What's the matter with him?” demanded Jared Clarke unnecessarily.
“He has found the solution to the world's problems,” said Dr. Swain.
“Humph,” said Dexter Humphrey, who was notoriously lacking in a sense of humor. “He was all right when I saw him this afternoon. Well, I came to play cards. Are we going to play?”
“Help yourselves, gentlemen,” said Seth, waving a generous hand. “Make yourselves at home. I, for one, shall sit here and meditate.”
“What the hell got into you, Seth, to make you start in so early on the bottle?” asked Partridge.
Seth eyed the lawyer. “Did it ever occur to you, Charlie, that tolerance can reach a point where it is no longer tolerance? When that happens, the noble-sounding attitude on which most of us pride ourselves degenerates into weakness and acquiescence.”
“Whew!” exclaimed Partridge, wiping exaggeratedly at his forehead. “You sound like somebody at a fraternity bull session. What're you trying to say?”
“I was referring,” said Seth with dignity, “to you and me and all of us, in conjunction with Leslie Harrington.”
There was an uncomfortable silence while Seth looked owlishly from one of his friends to the other. At last, Dexter Humphrey coughed.
“Let's play cards,” he said, and led the way to Seth's kitchen.
“All of us, every last, damned one of us hating Leslie because of our own inadequacies,” said Seth, and slumped back into his chair and drank slowly from his glass.
If Seth Buswell and Leslie Harrington had a trait in common, it was that Seth, like Leslie, was not a worrier. The difference between them, on this point, was that where Leslie had taught himself not to be, Seth had never had to be. George Buswell, Seth's father, had been as wealthy as Leslie Harrington's father, and much more prominent in the state, and he had cast a long shadow. But where Leslie had suffered from a compulsive need for success, Seth had abandoned all hope of making his own mark at an age so young that he could no longer remember when it had been, and this had saved him the worry of failure with which Leslie had had to learn to cope. Seth could not recall a conscious memory of his decision, for over the years it had faded into the vaguest of feelings.
No one will ever be able to say that I do not measure up to my father in spite of my efforts, for I shall never try to measure up to him.
This feeling in young Seth was the beginning of what his father was later to deplore as “Seth's laziness,” and his mother to label as “Seth's total lack of ambition.”
Whatever its name, the unremembered decision had resulted in Seth's calm drifting. He had drifted through his youth and through four years at Dartmouth in much the same way he had later drifted into the ownership of the Peyton Place Times. He had drifted, as if detached, through the death of his parents and the loss of his sweetheart, and soon after that Seth's detachment had become known in Peyton Place as Seth's tolerance.
“If you don't care a damn about anything, it is easy to be tolerant,” Seth had once said to his friend young Doc Swain. “Neither side of any picture disturbs you, which enables you to see both sides clearly and sensibly.”
Young Doc Swain, who had been married two weeks before to a girl by the name of Emily Gilbert, had said: “I'd rather be dead than not care a damn about anything.”
And since it is difficult, if not impossible, for a man to survive without loving something, Seth had turned his love to Peyton Place. His was a tolerant, unbiased love which neither demanded nor expected anything in return, so that to everyone else it seemed more like interest and civic pride than love.
“We ought to have a new high school,” Seth had written in an editorial, “but of course, it'll cost us something. Taxes will go up. On the other hand, we're not going to turn out many bright kids with the inadequate facilities which we now have. Looks to me like it's up to you folks with kids, and those of you who ever expect to have kids, to decide whether we'll pay $1.24 more per thousand in property taxes, or whether we'll settle for second-rate education.”
The people of northern New England were Seth's people, and he knew them well. His tolerance, his seeming indifference, succeeded with them where force and salesmanship would have failed. Everyone in Peyton Place said that Seth never u
sed the Times as a weapon, not even during political campaigns, and this was the truth. Seth published items of interest to the residents of his town and the surrounding towns. Whatever world news he printed came from the wires of the Associated Press, and Seth never commented or enlarged upon it in his editorials. “Social items and town gossip of a watered down nature, that's what you get in the Times,” other newspaper owners in other parts of the state were apt to say. Yet, during the first few years during which Seth had owned the paper, he had not only succeeded in getting a new high school built in his town, but also in getting Memorial Park built and funds appropriated for its care and maintenance. He had raised much of the money that went into the building of the Peyton Place hospital, and through the pages of the Times volunteers were recruited for the building of a new firehouse. For years, Seth, in his tolerant, unforceful fashion, saw to it that his town grew and improved, and then Leslie Harrington's son was born. It was as if Leslie, having succeeded in one field, turned now to new interests. In the year following Rodney's birth, voices were raised against Seth's for the first time at town meeting, and the voices raised were those of the mill hands. Year after year, when items dear to Seth's heart such as a new grade school and town zoning came up to a vote at the meeting, the newspaper owner was defeated by overwhelming numbers. Seth retired behind his tolerant detachment and allowed Leslie Harrington to assume a position in Peyton Place which had the dimensions of dictatorship, and he steadfastly refused to use the Times as an extension of his own voice. Seth shrugged and said that the people would soon tire of Leslie's dictatorial methods, but in this he was wrong for Leslie did not dictate, he bargained. When Seth realized this, he shrugged again, and everyone in Peyton Place said that his tolerance was of heroic proportions. Seth had believed it himself until one day in 1939 when Allison MacKenzie had come, white faced and with fists clenched, into his office.
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