Return to Peyton Place by Grace Metalious

aisle that separated her bed from Harmon's and saw that he was well covered and sleeping soundly. In the dark, she stood up and fixed her pillows under her blankets so that if Harmon awoke and looked across to her bed it would appear that she was there, asleep. She left her slippers on the rug, just as they had been when she had taken them off, and she was very careful not to disturb the folds of her robe at the foot of the bed. Then she tiptoed across the room and out the door. The rest of her plans had been carefully made earlier in the evening and she had smiled to herself as she carried them out right under the very noses of the people concerned.
    It had been a very good dinner that evening, she congratulated herself. Heavy enough to make Harmon feel full and rather logy afterward, but not heavy enough to make Ted and Jennifer feel anything but contented and well fed. Then there had been the sedative in Harmon's coffee, not enough to hurt him, of course, but just enough to make him say that he couldn't keep his eyes open a minute longer by nine o'clock.
    â€œWell, now, dear,” Roberta had told him. “You just sit still one more minute and I'll go up and turn down the beds.”
    â€œOh, please let me help you, Mother,” said Jennifer, jumping up.
    Roberta put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “Now, you just sit down and finish your coffee, dear,” she said. “I won't be a minute.”
    â€œBut I'd like to help you,” protested Jennifer.
    Roberta was hard put to keep annoyance from showing on her face and in her voice. That was just one more thing about Jennifer, she thought. Always arguing over the simplest things. Ted had never been like that. The only time her boy had ever been pigheaded about anything was when he was younger and had a crush on Selena Cross. But he'd got over that and he'd never dug his heels in about anything since. Now it appeared that Jennifer, who had seemed so sweet and tractable when Ted had been courting her, had a little stubborn streak that could prove to be very annoying if it weren't curbed. But right now was not the time to be annoyed.
    â€œAll right, then.” Roberta smiled. “Why don't you and Ted go into the kitchen and make a pot of coffee? I'd love a fresh cup when I come down.”
    Roberta went upstairs, humming to herself, and turned down the beds in her room. Then she went down the long hall to the room that had always been Ted's and which he now shared with Jennifer whenever the two of them came to Peyton Place for the weekend. That had been another of Jennifer's ideas. Roberta had wanted “the children,” as she called Ted and Jennifer, to use the large guest room next to her room, but Jennifer had turned stubborn again.
    â€œBut, dear,” Roberta had said, “that old room of Ted's is way down at the end of the hall, and the bathroom is at this end. It just won't do, dear. You'll be much more comfortable right here next to me.”
    â€œThat's sweet of you, Mother,” said Jennifer, “but really, we'd rather use Ted's old room. Wouldn't we, Ted?”
    â€œDoesn't matter to me,” said Ted.
    He did not see the sudden glare that his wife gave him, but Roberta did.
    â€œWell, it matters to me,” said Jennifer with a pretty pout. “I like your old room. It has so much of you in it, and I like to think of you as a little boy, sleeping there.”
    Ted put his arm around her. “Anything you say, darling.” He smiled.
    Roberta had made up the bed in Ted's old room, but right then she had begun to wonder just what it was that Jennifer had to hide that she wanted to be stuck off in a corner somewhere in a house with her own inlaws.
    She's talking about me! The thought had come to Roberta in a flash, like a divine sign from Heaven. She's talking about me! Trying to turn my boy against me!
    Well, as Roberta put it to herself, she'd never been one to let herself be undermined without fighting