Peyton Place (57 page)

I'll kill her myself, thought Marion, and the resolve calmed her. The hot flash passed, and she sat back in her seat, her eyes boring like needles dipped in poison into the back of Selena's neck.

Later, when the trial was over and Thomas Delaney said that there was not a single person in the Peyton Place courthouse who wanted to see Selena found guilty, he did not know about Marion. Delaney thought that he had found a place where there was no one eager to cast stones at the fallen, and he did not see Marion, who could not forgive a deviation from a norm set up by herself. Delaney was city bred, and did not realize that in very small towns malice is more often shown toward an individual than toward a group, a nation or a country. He was not unfamiliar with prejudice and intolerance, having been called a Mick an extraordinary number of times himself, but name calling and viciousness had always seemed, to him, to be directed more at his ancestors than at him as an individual. Clayton Frazier had attempted to explain something of the way of it to him, but Delaney was a realist. He wanted to see Clayton's examples in the flesh, to hear maliciousness with his own ears, and to see the results of it with his own eyes.

“I told you about Samuel Peyton, didn't I?” demanded Clayton Frazier. “Times and folks don't change much. Didn't you ever notice how it's always people who wish they had somethin’ or had done somethin’ that hate the hardest?”

“I don't know what you mean exactly,” Delaney had replied.

“Well, I know what I mean,” said Clayton testily. “I can't help it if I can't phrase it fancy. I don't work for Hearst.”

Delaney laughed. “Tell me what you mean in unfancy talk, then.”

“Didja ever notice what woman it is who has the most fault to find with a young, pretty girl who runs around havin’ a swell time for herself? It's the woman who is too old, too fat and ugly, to be doin’ the same thing herself. And when somebody kicks over the traces in a big way, who is it that hollers loudest? The one who always wanted to do the same thing but didn't have the nerve. Had a feller lived here, years ago, got fed up with his wife and his job and his debts. Run off, he did. Just upped and beat it, and the only one I ever heard holler about it, for any length of time, was Leslie Harrington. Another time, we had this widder woman got her a house down by the railroad tracks. Nice-lookin’ woman. She had just about every man in town keepin’ his hands in his pockets. She wa'nt a tramp, like Ginny Stearns used to be. She had class, this widder did. I read in a book once about one of them French courtesans. That's what the widder was like. A courtesan. Grand and proud and beautiful as a satin sheet. None of the women in town liked havin’ her around much, but the one hollered the loudest, and finally made poor Buck McCracken run her out of town, was Marion Partridge. Old Charlie's wife.”

“I've been working for Hearst too long,” said Delaney. “These parables of yours are over my head. What are you trying to tell me?”

Clayton Frazier spat. “That if Selena Cross is found innocent, there's gonna be some that'll squawk about it. It'll be interestin’ to see which ones holler the loudest and the longest.”

Charles knows better than this, thought Marion Partridge. Honor thy father and thy mother. That's as plain as anything and no argument about it. If he thinks that there is a reason good enough to excuse a girl murdering her father, even a stepfather, he must be tottering on the verge of senility and assume that the rest of us are, too.

Marion acknowledged coldly that she would rather have Charles slobbering at the mouth and wetting the bed than to have him infatuated with Selena. Folks could feel sorry for a woman with a sick husband, but a woman with a husband who ran after young girls automatically became a laughingstock.

“There is no need to clear the court,” Charles protested, and Marion raised furious eyes to look at him. “This girl is among her friends and neighbors.”

And if her friends and neighbors don't hear every word of the evidence, Seth Buswell was thinking from his front-row seat, there will always be a shadow of doubt in their minds if Selena is found innocent. Smart old Charlie. I wish to hell I knew what he's talking about. When I talked to Drake yesterday, things looked pretty black to him.

Allison MacKenzie, who was sitting halfway back in the courtroom, between her mother and Tomas Makris, put her finger tips to her lips when Charles Partridge uttered the word friends.

Friends! she thought, shocked, and immediately began to try to send warning thought waves in the direction of Selena Cross.

Don't let them fool you, Selena, she thought, concentrating with all her mind. Don't be fooled and taken in by their pretty words.

You haven't a friend in this room. Quick! Stand up and tell them so. I know. They tried to tell me that I was among friends, right in this same room, once. But I wasn't. I stood up and told the truth, and those whom I had called my friends laughed and said that I was a liar. Even those who didn't know me well enough to call me a liar to my face did it when they robbed Kathy to save Leslie Harrington. Look at Leslie Harrington now, Selena. He is on the jury that is going to play with your life. He's no friend of yours, no matter how you may think he has changed. He called me a liar, right in this room, and I've known him ever since I can remember. Don't trust Charles Partridge. He called me a liar, and he'll do the same for you. Stand up, Selena! Tell them that you would rather be tried by your enemies than by your friends in Peyton Place.

“Call Matthew Swain,” said a voice, and Allison knew that it was too late. Selena had put her trust in her friends, as Allison had once done herself, and her friends would turn on her and tell her she lied. Allison felt the weak tears that came so easily since her return to Peyton Place, and Tom reached out and put a gentle hand on her arm as Matthew Swain was sworn in.

The doctor told his story in a voice familiar to everyone in Peyton Place. He did not attempt to tidy up his English for the benefit of the court.

“Lucas Cross was crazy,” began the doctor bluntly. “And he was crazy in the worst way that it's possible for a man to be crazy. There's not one of you here today, except a few out-of-towners, who don't know some of the things Lucas did in his lifetime. He was a drunkard, and a wife beater, and a child abuser. Now, when I say child abuser, I mean that in the worst way any of you can think of. Lucas began to abuse Selena sexually when she was a child of fourteen, and he kept her quiet by threatening to kill her and her little brother if she went to the law. Well, Selena didn't go to Buck McCracken. When it was too late, and she was in trouble, she came to me. I took care of her trouble in the way I thought best. I fixed her so that she wouldn't have Lucas’ child.”

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.”

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.”