Return to Peyton Place by Grace Metalious Read Free Book Online

in Peyton Place.
    â€œAge cannot wither him, nor custom stay his lousy, two-edged tongue,” said Seth, looking at Harrington.
    â€œI can open,” said Charles Partridge. “And I will.”
    Charles Partridge still jumped into a conversation, as he had always done, when words between people threatened to become unfriendly; but he needn't have bothered to play the role of pacifist between Leslie and Seth, for those two hurled insults at each other only from habit now. The animosity that had motivated them in earlier years had been forgotten at last.
    After the death of Rodney Harrington, Leslie's only son, his friends on Chestnut Street had been worried about the wealthy millowner. Overnight, Leslie Harrington had changed from the hard, pushing businessman he had always been to a blurred imitation of himself. Even those who had always hated Leslie began to feel sorry for him.
    â€œHe got his comeuppance at last,” said a great many people in Peyton Place. Some said it with complacent pride, as if Leslie Harrington's comeuppance had been the result of their efforts.
    â€œYep. But it don't seem's though he should have got it so hard, all at once like that,” said others.
    If Leslie Harrington could have heard the voices, he would have felt that fate was words, that his life was nothing except as it was described by others. Gossip brought back to Peyton Place the dead and the missing. Rodney's and Betty's names were spoken more often now than when they had lived in Peyton Place. The rusty voices of old men and women were like a litany.
    â€œMebbe. But I'll wager there's some that ain't as sorry as others that Leslie Harrington got his at last.”
    â€œOh, yeah? Like who?”
    â€œLike John and Berit Anderson over on Ash Street.”
    â€œYep. Run that girl of theirs right out of town, Leslie did. Can't blame the Andersons if they ain't sorry for Leslie now.”
    â€œWonder what happened to Betty Anderson. John never says a word about her. Like she was dead.”
    â€œWell, I guess when she went and got herself knocked up by Rodney Harrington it was the same to John as if she was dead.”
    â€œYep. Them Swedes got their pride just like anybody else.”
    â€œMebbe she's livin’ over to Rutland. Didn't she have an aunt over there?”
    â€œNah. Jared Clarke's been over to Rutland a million times, and you can trust Jared to know if Betty was living there and to tell everyone here about it.”
    There had been plenty of speculation in Peyton Place about what had happened to Betty Anderson, just as there always was about a girl who left town the way Betty had. But what no one in town knew, not even the men on Chestnut Street who usually knew everything that happened in Peyton Place, was that Leslie Harrington had made a quiet search of his own for the girl he had tried to destroy. He had not gone to Buck McCracken because Peyton Place's sheriff was a notoriously slow mover and, besides, he had a big mouth. If he contacted a nearby branch of the Missing Persons Bureau they would send people to town to ask questions, and this, above all, Leslie did not want. There were no private detectives in Peyton Place, nor in the whole state, for that matter, and they would have been impossible anyway. They, too, asked questions.
    And so it appeared that Leslie Harrington had failed, but failure was a luxury that Leslie had never permitted himself and he did not intend to start now. He'd find a way, he was sure. It might take time, but he'd find a way.
    â€œI raised, Leslie,” said Matthew Swain. “Are you playing cards or daydreaming about chorus girls?”
    â€œI'll see you, Matt,” said Leslie, and shoved coins into the middle of the table. “Straight as a string with a black queen high, Matt. Beat me.”
    â€œCan't,” said Matthew Swain disgustedly. “You always did have the goddamnedest luck, Leslie.”
    Not always, thought Leslie. Not quite