The courtroom began to buzz. Virginia Voorhees scribbled furiously.
“Abortion!” she whispered to Thomas Delaney. “This doctor has ruined himself!”
But what a magnificent old gentleman, thought Delaney, ignoring his colleague. White suit, white hair and those bright blue eyes. What a gentleman!
“Now, I reckon there's going to be some questions asked as to how I know it was Lucas’ baby that Selena carried,” said the doctor, and the buzzing courtroom quieted as if everyone had been struck dead but Matthew Swain. “I know it because Lucas admitted it to me. There's no one here who doesn't remember when Lucas left town. Well, he left because I told him he had to go. I told him that the men of this town would lynch him if he stayed In short, I scared the piss out of him and he went. There's no question about how I should have gone to Buck McCracken when I first found out about Lucas. It was a wrong thing that I didn't go, but I didn't and I'm not the one on trial here today. I should be. Had I done what I should have done, Lucas would not be dead today. He would be alive and in jail. He would never have left town with an opportunity to come and go as he pleased, especially with the opportunity to molest a child again. When he did return and attempted to do what he had done with her in years past, she killed him. I don't blame her. Lucas Cross needed killing.” The doctor raised his head only a shade over the normally high angle at which he always held it. “If my words need corroboration in the mind of anyone here, I have it.” He slipped his hand into the inside pocket of his suit coat and brought forth a folded sheet of paper which he passed to Charles Partridge. “That paper is a signed confession,” he said. “I wrote it up the night I took care of Selena, and Lucas signed it. That is all I have to say.”
Matthew Swain stepped down from the stand and life returned to the courtroom. In the back row, Miss Elsie Thornton pressed the black-gloved fingers of one hand to her eyes and encircled Joey Cross with her free arm. Joey was quivering, his fatless body as tight as a wound-up toy against Miss Thornton's side.
In the front row, Seth Buswell lowered his head against the shame he was afraid would show in his eyes. Oh, Matt, he thought, I would never have had the courage.
In the second row, Marion Partridge shook with rage. I might have known, she thought. Matt Swain's doing, all of it. A criminal and a murderer himself, and everyone listens to his words as if he were God. He'll pay for this, ruining Charles's big chance. He and the girl were in it together, to make a fool of Charles.
The main reason why Virginia Voorhees later described the trial of Selena Cross as “a fiasco” was that the court looked no farther than Matthew Swain for an excuse for the girl. The confession which the old doctor claimed to have obtained from Selena's stepfather was marked and admitted as evidence. It was passed to the jury for examination but, Virginia noticed, not one man of the twelve looked down at the paper as it went from hand to hand. The judge's words to the jury were words which Virginia had never heard uttered in a court of law.
“There's not one of you on the jury who don't know Matt Swain,” said the judge. “I've known him all my life, same as you, and I say that Matt Swain is no liar. Go into the other room and make up your minds.”
The jury returned in less than ten minutes. “Not guilty,” said Leslie Harrington, who had been acting as foreman, and the trial of Selena Cross was over.
“It may have started off with a bang,” said Virginia Voorhees to Thomas Delaney, “but it certainly ended with a sound most generally associated with wet firecrackers!”
Thomas Delaney was watching Dr. Matthew Swain as the old man made his way out of the courtroom. A few minutes later, the reporter noticed that the doctor was being escorted outside by five men. Seth Buswell held loosely to one of his arms, while Charles Partridge walked at the doctor's opposite side. Jared Clarke and Dexter Humphrey walked slightly behind him, and Leslie Harrington walked ahead to open the door of the doctor's car. The six men got into the car and drove away, and Delaney turned to find Cayton Frazier at his side.
“Nice-lookin’ bunch of old bastards, ain't they?” said Clayton affectionately, and Delaney realized that this was the greatest compliment Clayton felt that he could pay anyone.
“Yeah,” he said, and fought his way through the crowd to the side of Peter Drake.
“Congratulations,” he said to Selena's attorney.
“What for?” demanded Drake.
“Why, you've just won a big case,” said Delaney.
“Listen,” said Drake sharply, “I don't know where you come from, but if you couldn't see that this was Charlie Partridge's big case from beginning to end, you've got a lot to learn about Peyton Place.”
“What will happen to the doctor?” asked Delaney.
Drake shrugged. “Nothing much.”
“I realize that I have a lot to learn about Peyton Place,” said Delaney sarcastically, “but I do think that I know enough about this state to realize that abortion is against the law.”
“Who's going to charge Matt Swain with abortion?” asked Drake. “You?”
“No one has to. The minute the state hears of this, they'll lift his license to practice.”
Drake shrugged again. “Come back in a year,” he said, “to see if Matt Swain is still in business. I'll bet you a solid gold key to Peyton Place that he'll still be living on Chestnut Street and going out on night calls.”
“What about the girl?” asked Delaney, nodding in the direction where Selena Cross stood, surrounded by a large segment of the town's population. “Has she any plans? Where will she go?”
“Listen,” said Drake wearily, “why don't you ask her? I'm going home.”
♦ 13 ♦
The summer passed slowly for Allison MacKenzie. She spent much of it in sitting alone in her room and in walking the streets of Peyton Place. She went to bed early and arose late, but the lethargic weariness which weighed heavily on her would not leave her. Sometimes she visited with Kathy Welles, but she could not find comfort on these occasions. It was as if a wall existed between the two friends, and it did not lessen Allison's sense of loss to know that it was a wall, not of unfriendliness or lack of understanding, but a wall made by Kathy's happiness.
A wall of happiness, thought Allison. What a wonderful thing to live behind.
Kathy held her baby with her left arm and rested the child against her hip. The empty right sleeve of her cotton dress was neatly pinned back, and Allison wondered how Kathy dressed herself every morning.
“Happiness,” said Kathy, “is in finding a place you love and staying there. That's the big reason why I was never sorry about not getting a lot of money after the accident. If Lew and I had had money, we might have been tempted to travel and look around, but we would never have found a place like this one.”
“You always were infatuated with Peyton Place,” said Allison. “I don't know why. It is one of the worst examples of small towns that I can think of.”
Kathy smiled. “No, it's not,” she said.
“Talk, talk, talk,” said Allison impatiently. “Peyton Place is famous for its talk. Talk about everybody.”
“Crap,” said Kathy inelegantly. “Everyone talks all over the world, about everybody else. Even in your precious New York. Walter Winchell is the biggest old gossip of all. He's worse than Clayton Frazier and the Page Girls and Roberta Harmon all put together.”
Allison laughed. “It's different with Winchell,” she said. “He gets paid to gossip.”
“I don't care,” said Kathy. “If I ever saw a back fence, I see one when I look at his column. At least, we don't put our dirty wash into the newspapers in Peyton Place.”
Allison shrugged. “The papers confine themselves to big names anyway,” she said. “In Peyton Place, anybody is fair game.”
“Selena Cross is a sort of celebrity up here,” said Kathy shrewdly. “And Selena in relation to Peyton Place is what is bothering you, isn't it?”
“Yes,” admitted Allison. “I think Selena was a fool to stay her
e. She could have gone out to Los Angeles with Joey and lived with Gladys, where no one knew about her. She's behaving like an ostrich by staying here, as if nothing had happened. Right or wrong, it happened, and it was only a matter of time before people would start to talk. All the fine friends who didn't want to see her hang for murder are hanging her themselves with their vicious talk.”
“And this too shall pass away,” quoted Kathy. “It always does, Allison.”
“After about a hundred years of being talked about and hashed over,” said Allison, and rose to leave. “You'll see. In the end, Selena will have to leave.”
“She doesn't act as if she is going to run away,” said Kathy. “I was in your mother's store yesterday and Selena was having a very friendly talk with Peter Drake. She won't leave.”
“You always were one to see a prospective love match in every casual conversation,” said Allison crossly. “Don't worry. Drake isn't about to jeopardize himself by taking up with Selena. Ted Carter didn't do it and neither will Drake. Men are all alike.”
“For Heaven's sake,” exclaimed Kathy. “What ever happened to you in New York? You never used to have such an attitude as that before you went away.”
“I got smart,” said Allison.
“Nuts,” said Kathy. “What you need to do is to find a nice fellow and get married and settle down.”
“No thanks,” said Allison. “Love and I don't mix well.”
She said this flippantly, but too often, during that long summer and she not only thought about the words but believed them. For love had caused the pain which had not come before she left New York but had waited until she reached Peyton Place to overwhelm her. And when it had finally come to her she had thought she would die of it. It was pain of such power that it left her gasping, and pain of such sharpness that it stripped her nerves bare and left them rawly exposed to more pain.
She relived every childhood experience of rejection and wept in an ecstasy of sorrow for herself: I lost Rodney Harrington to Betty Anderson, and Norman Page to his mother, and my mother to Tomas Makris. But I thought it would be different in New York. Where did I go wrong? What's the matter with me?
It had been September, three months to the day after her graduation from high school, when she had arrived in New York. Constance had insisted that she stay in one of those depressing hotels for women, but Allison had wasted no time in asserting her newfound independence and had set about scanning the want ads in the New York Times within fifteen minutes of stepping off the train at Grand Central. She had seen one notice which attracted her at once.
GIRL WHO LIKES TO MIND HER OWN BUSINESS INTERESTED IN SHARING STUDIO APARTMENT WITH CONGENIAL FEMALE WHO ENJOYS DOING SAME.
Allison made a careful note of the address and within the hour she had met, decided she liked, and moved in with a girl of twenty who called herself Steve Wallace.
“Don't call me Stephanie,” Steve had said. “I don't know why it should, but being called Stephanie always makes me feel like something pale and dull out of Jane Austen.”
Steve was wearing a pair of leopard-spotted slacks and a bright yellow shirt. Her hair was a rich auburn-brown and she wore a pair of enormous gold hoops in her ears.
“Are you an actress?” Allison asked.
“Not yet,” said Steve in her husky voice. “Not yet. All I do now is run around to the casting offices, but I model to pay the rent and feed myself. What do you do?”
“Write,” Allison said, not without fear for she had been laughed at too many times in Peyton Place to say the word now without a quiver.
“But that's wonderful!” cried Steve, and Allison began to be very fond of her in that moment.
But writing stories and selling them were two very different things, as Allison soon discovered. She began to realize that she had been unbelievably lucky to sell her first story at all, and that the road to her next sale was going to be a rocky one indeed.
“Oh, for an editor like the one who bought ‘Lisa's Cat,’” she said often and fervently, particularly on the day of every week when she received a generous check from Constance.
Allison had hung the full-page color illustration which the magazine had run with “Lisa's Cat” on the wall of Steve's living room. During that first year in New York she had glanced at the picture often and had even drawn encouragement from it, for there had been times when she was afraid that she would never be able to support herself with her writing. But then she met Bradley Holmes, an author's agent, and new doors began to swing open for her. She would never have begun to be successful without Holmes, but the thought of him as she sat in her bedroom in Peyton Place on this hot summer afternoon was so painful that she turned her face into her pillow and wept.
Oh, I love you, I love you, she wept, and then she remembered the touch of his hands on her and shame added itself to her grief. The more tightly she closed her eyes, the sharper his image became behind her clenched lids.
Bradley Holmes was forty years old, dark haired and powerfully built although he was not much taller than Allison. He had a sharp, discerning eye and a tongue which could be both cruel and kind.
“It's easier to sell directly to a publisher,” a friend of Steve's had told Allison, “than it is to sell a good agent on your work.”
And after a series of rebuffs from agents’ secretaries and agents’ receptionists, Allison thought that this was probably true. It was after one particularly crushing experience, when she had almost decided that it was not so much a matter of selling an agent on her work as it was a problem of getting past the desk in his reception room, that Allison had sought refuge in the New York Public Library. The book she chose was a current best seller and the author had dedicated it to his “friend and agent, Bradley Holmes” who, according to the author, was a true friend, a genius with the soul of Christ and the patience of Job in addition to being the finest agent in New York.
Allison went directly to a pay station where she looked up the address of Bradley Holmes in a telephone directory. He had an office on Fifth Avenue and late that same afternoon she sat down at her typewriter and wrote a long hysterical letter to Mr. Bradley Holmes. She wrote that she had been laboring under a misapprehension, for she had always thought that the function of a literary agent was to read manuscripts brought to him by authors. If she was right, how was it that she, a prize-winning writer, was unable to meet an agent face to face? And if she was wrong, what on earth were literary agents for anyway? There were eight pages more, in the same vein, and Allison had mailed them to the Fifth Avenue address without rereading them, for she was afraid that she might change her mind if she paused to think about what she had written.
A few days later, she had received a note from Bradley Holmes. It was typewritten on exquisitely heavy, cream-colored paper, and his name was engraved in black at the top of the sheet. The note was short and invited Miss MacKenzie to his office to meet him and to leave her manuscripts which Mr. Holmes would read.
Bradley Holmes's office was full of light and warmth the morning when Allison went there for the first time, and it smelled of expensive carpeting, and crushed cigarette ends, and of books in leather bindings.
“Sit down, Miss MacKenzie,” said Bradley Holmes. “I must confess that I am rather surprised. I hadn't expected someone so young.”
Young was a word which Brad used often, in one form or another, in all his conversations with Allison.
“I am so much older,” he would say.
Or: “I've lived so much longer.”
Or: “You have a surprisingly discerning eye, for one so young.”
And many, many times, he said: “Here is a charming young man whom I think you will enjoy.”
Allison had spent perhaps fifteen minutes with him, and then he had led her politely to the elevator in the hall.
“I'll read your stories as soon as I can,” he told her. “I'll get in touch with you.”
“Humph,” said Steve Wallace later. “The old casting director's lin
e. Don't call us, we'll call you. Fortunately, I've never run into it in modeling, but the theatrical offices I've been ushered out of with those words! Nothing will come of Mr. Bradley Holmes, though. You'd better try someone else.”
Three days later, Bradley Holmes had telephoned Allison.
“There are a few things I'd like to discuss with you,” he said. “Could you come down to the office today?”
“You have a great deal of talent with words,” he told her, and in that moment, Allison would have died for him. “Also,” he said, “you have a clever little knack with the slick type of short story. I think we ought to concentrate on that for the time being. Save the real talent for later, for a novel perhaps. Unfortunately, I don't know of a place where your best short stories would fit. The slick magazines, the only ones which pay enough for you to five on, aren't particularly partial to stories full of old maids, and cats, and sex. Here.”
He handed Allison a stack of manuscripts which represented her better stories.
“We'll work on these others,” he said.
Within two weeks, Allison had come to regard Bradley Holmes as a genius of the highest order. Within a month he had sold two of her stories and she had begun to think of doing a novel.
“You have plenty of time,” he told her. “You are so young. But still, once you begin to make a respectable amount of money with the magazines you may never decide to try a book. Go ahead, if you like, and see what you can do.”
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