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“Listen, is Peyton Place at all like the town in the book?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. Except that it must be one hell of a snake pit.”

“Peyton Place is no different from any other small town, Brad, and neither is the town in the book. They're all alike.”

“Keep your fingers crossed, baby,” said Brad. “You'll be hearing from me!”

And every day since, Allison had awakened with the same first thought:
Maybe it will happen today.

“I've got to get at that living room today,” said Constance when she and Allison had finished the breakfast dishes. “It looks like a pigpen.”

The living room did not look like a pigpen, but Constance was a meticulous housekeeper and the least sign of dust was enough to send her scurrying for the vacuum cleaner.

“You just went over that room with a fine-toothed comb the day before yesterday,” said Allison.

“Nevertheless,” said Constance, “I can't go around giving champagne parties for authoresses in dirty rooms.”

“I'm going out to shovel the front walk,” said Allison, “and get the cobwebs off my brain. It must be cobwebs that make me have such impossible ideas the first thing in the morning.”

She bent to the task. Holding the shovel with its familiar, worn handle in her mittened hands, she hoped that work as mechanical as removing snow would deaden her too active mind, would stop the endless brooding on the novel and its fate. Allison had finally to admit to herself that the novel was more than a book, more than a job of work— her whole life depended on it. She could imagine herself only as the author of
Samuel's Castle.
If she was not that, she was not anything.

It was eleven-thirty in the morning when Allison came in from outside. She was stamping snow from her boots when she heard the phone ring, and picked up the extension in the kitchen.

“Hello, Allison?” It was Bradley Holmes.

It can't be. It can't be, Allison said over and over in her head. Wishes don't come true just like this. “Yes, Brad,” she said into the receiver, trying not to reveal her intense excitement.

“Sit down, darling,” he said. “I've got wonderful news for you!”

It can't be. It can't be. Please, God, let it be.

“Allison? Allison, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Brad, I can hear you. Don't shout.”

“I've sold your book!” he shouted.

Constance was making Allison's bed when she heard her daughter shout.

“Mother! Come quick!”

Dear God, thought Constance, and ran for the stairs. She's hurt herself.

Allison was crying into the telephone. “Yes,” she was sobbing. “I can hear you, Brad. I can hear you.”

“It can't be,” cried Constance, and grabbed for the phone.

“This is Constance Rossi,” she said. “What happened?”

“I sold Allison's book to Jackman,” said Brad. “She'll have to come to New York on Monday.”

“Jackman,” repeated Constance stupidly. “Monday.”

“Tell her to call me and let me know what train or plane she's coming on. I'll meet her. And tell her I'll make reservations for her at the Plaza. Jackman, I think, is going to put everything behind this book. I have the feeling Allison will soon be able to afford the best hotels and she ought to start getting used to them.”

“Yes, Mr. Holmes. Good-by, Mr. Holmes,” said Constance.

C
HESTNUT
S
TREET WAS
a wide, tree-shaded avenue which ran parallel to Elm Street, one block south of the main thoroughfare. Chestnut Street had always been, and still was, considered to be the “best” street in Peyton Place. Every town has its Chestnut Street. On the hottest summer day, the Chestnut Streets are cooler than all the others. The houses that line these streets always indicate, unmistakably, that they were built at a time when servants were cheap and plentiful, and that the owners could afford them. To the people who live on the other streets, those houses are always mysterious. One thinks of secret rooms and hidden staircases.

There had never been any danger that anyone undesirable would find his way to Chestnut Street, for each great house was surrounded on all sides by the land of the individual owner. The land was “Old Land,” acres of ground that had belonged to the families who had come to live in the shadow of Samuel Peyton's castle when the castle was new.

The men who lived on Chestnut Street were the life's blood of Peyton Place. They were the men with money and position and, therefore, the men who were in control.

“Takes more than money to run a town,” said Dr. Matthew Swain to his friend Seth Buswell. “Folks'll take just so much of cottoning down to money and then they say to hell with it.”

“Then the ungrateful bastards unionize,” said Leslie Harrington before Seth could answer. “I can't open.”

The men of Chestnut Street were gathered at the home of Matthew Swain for one of their Friday night poker games. These games had become legend in Peyton Place.

“Age cannot wither him, nor custom stay his lousy, two-edged tongue,” said Seth, looking at Harrington.

“I 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.

“He 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.

“Yep. 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.

“Mebbe. But I'll wager there's some that ain't as sorry as others that Leslie Harrington got his at last.”

“Oh, yeah? Like who?”

“Like John and Berit Anderson over on Ash Street.”

“Yep. Run that girl of theirs right out of town, Leslie did. Can't blame the Andersons if they ain't sorry for Leslie now.”

“Wonder what happened to Betty Anderson. John never says a word about her. Like she was dead.”

“Well, I guess when she went and got herself knocked up by Rodney Harrington it was the same to John as if she
was
dead.”

“Yep. Them Swedes got their pride just like anybody else.”

“Mebbe she's livin' over to Rutland. Didn't she have an aunt over there?”

“Nah. 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.

“I raised, Leslie,” said Matthew Swain. “Are you playing cards or daydreaming about chorus girls?”

“I'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.”

“Can't,” said Matthew Swain disgustedly. “You always did have the goddamnedest luck, Leslie.”

Not always, thought Leslie. Not quite always.

“Saw Ted Carter today,” said Charles Partridge. “Had his wife with him. Nice-looking girl.”

“Humph,” said the doctor.

“Now hold on, Matt,” said Leslie. “You can't hold it against Carter forever just because he didn't stick by Selena Cross. After all.”

“After all, my ass,” said Dr. Swain. “None of my business anyhow. Come on, deal.”

“A young feller like that, trying to make something of himself and get ahead in the world. You can't blame him,” continued Leslie, as if Matt had not spoken. “It'd be all right if he was going to stay right here in Peyton Place, but it wouldn't do for him to have a wife like that anywhere else. People got long memories, most of 'em.”

“Yes, they do,” said Seth Buswell. “And not only about murder. There's other things folks remember.”

“What the hell are you trying to say, Seth?” demanded Leslie. “Come on, spit it out. Better to say it than sit there thinking it all evening.”

Seth threw his cards down on the table. “About Betty Anderson and her kid, for one thing,” he said angrily.

Leslie looked as if Seth had slapped him across the mouth.

“Now, now,” said Charles Partridge. “All that's over and done with. Water over the dam. Doesn't do any good at all to keep bringing it up. Let's play cards.”

“Who brought anything up?” demanded Seth. “Did I start anything? It just seems to me that before Leslie starts in talking about anybody else in town, he ought to look after his own fences.”

Leslie put his cards down very quietly and looked Seth straight in the eye.

“I've been trying to find that girl for two years,” he said quietly.

His three friends stared at him in disbelief, but there was no mistaking the truth etched in the suddenly obvious lines in Leslie's face.

“Why?” asked Matthew Swain gently.

“Goddamn it,” cried Leslie, “because of my grandson. That's why. He's the last of the Harringtons, and I don't know where he is.”

“Why didn't you let us help you, Leslie?” asked Charles. “We didn't know.”

“Well, I'd never lift a goddamned finger to help you, Leslie,” said Seth angrily. “What're you trying to pull anyway? You want to find the girl so that you can get her baby away from her, is that it?”

“Seth,” said Matt Swain. “Be quiet a minute.”

“I never said I wanted to take the boy away from his mother,” said Leslie defensively. “If I found them, naturally I'd take them both in. If she wanted to come, I mean.”

“Yeah, and you'd make damn sure she didn't want to, wouldn't you?” said Seth bitterly. “Christ, but you are a son-of-a-bitch, Harrington. You always were, but I was dumb enough to think you'd changed with age.”

“Seth!” shouted Dr. Swain. “Shut up!” He turned back to Leslie Harrington.

“Would you, Leslie?” he asked. “Take them both in, I mean?”

Leslie looked at his hands. “Yes,” he said at last. “I would. I want to. But I've done everything I know how, and I still can't find her.”

“What have you tried, Leslie?” asked Charles.

“Christ, I even went to that goddamned family of hers. If they knew anything, they weren't telling, and, as for the girl, she never did have an aunt over to Rutland.”

“Anything else?” asked Seth, still not convinced of Leslie's motives.

“Well, what the hell else could I do?” demanded Leslie. “Listen, Seth, I know how it sounds. But, Jesus, I couldn't go to Buck McCracken. And as for that Missing Persons outfit, they'd have had cops all over town asking questions. I even thought of hiring a private detective, but they'd have been the same way. I tell you, I was afraid.”

It was a word that Seth had never thought he'd hear from Leslie Harrington. Afraid. And he began to understand, a little, the emptiness that filled Leslie's life.

“We could help you,” said Seth finally.

“How? What can we do?” asked Leslie.

“We can put advertisements in the personal columns of the newspapers,” said Seth.

“Ah-h,” said Leslie disgustedly. “That was one of the first things I tried. I had ads in every paper in towns from the Canadian border clear down to Boston.”

Seth leaned back in his chair. “Leslie,” he said, “go into any house on Ash Street, or into the home of any of your mill hands, for that matter, and look at the newspapers they read. They don't buy the Boston
Herald
or the Concord
Monitor.
They buy tabloids. Either the Boston
Record
or the New York
Daily News
or other newspapers like them. Those are the papers with all the stories about knife killings in Harlem and rapes in the Back Bay, the gossip columns about people in New York and Hollywood. I'll bet anything that wherever Betty Anderson is, if she buys a newspaper at all, she buys one of those.”

“What if she doesn't read the personal columns?” said Dr. Swain. “I imagine that there are a lot of folks who don't.”

“Maybe not,” said Seth. “But she reads Winchell, I'm sure of it. Leslie, you could buy an inch of space on the same page as Winchell's column in every newspaper in the country that publishes him.”