Return to Peyton Place by Grace Metalious Page B

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    Never once, in all the time that Roberta Carter had spied on her son and his wife, did she feel shame or remorse. Ted was her son, her only son, and she had a right to see that everything went well for him. If he was disturbed about anything, she wanted to know. And if his wife should try to turn him away from his mother, she had a right to know that, too. It did not matter to Roberta that in six months’ time she had never heard Jennifer make a single derogatory remark about her. The girl might, in the future. Just because she hadn't until now was no reason to suppose that she never would.
    â€œMy!” exclaimed Roberta, coming into the living room and giving an exaggerated shiver, “it's going to be another cold night. Still snowing, too. Our windows won't be open much tonight, I can tell you that.”
    â€œOurs will,” said Jennifer and laughed. “I'm married to the biggest fresh-air enthusiast in captivity.”
    Harmon yawned. “Warm or cold,” he said, “bed's going to feel good to me.”
    Roberta put up her cheek to be kissed. “I'll be up shortly, dear,” she said.
    When she did go upstairs it was ten o'clock and Ted and Jennifer were playing backgammon in front of the fire, and at ten-thirty, when she crept down the hall toward the storage room, she could hear their voices coming faintly up the stairwell. Roberta Carter locked the storage room door behind her and got silently under the warm blankets in the narrow bed. It was quarter to twelve when she heard Ted snap on the lights in the room next door.
    Jennifer Burbank Carter was twenty-two years old and never once, in the six months of her marriage, had she undressed in front of her husband.
    â€œIt's not nice,” she had told him with finality.
    Jennifer had always lived in an environment where everything was Nice. There had been Burbanks in Boston for almost as long as there had been Cabots and Lowells, and the standards of behavior in Jennifer's family had not changed in over two hundred years. A lady did not make an exhibition of herself, ever.
    Once, when Jennifer was twelve, she had gone shopping with her mother and in one of the stores they had seen a girl with bright, blond hair and a swollen-looking, red mouth. The girl was chewing gum and looking at costume jewelry and she had a pair of enormous, hard-looking breasts under a very tight sweater. Jennifer had stopped and stared at the girl until her mother noticed. Mrs. Burbank's face got very red and she almost shook Jennifer when she took her arm.
    â€œI've never seen such a display of vulgarity in my life!” said Mrs. Burbank. “Remember, Jennifer. Women who have to use their bodies to create an impression are vulgarians of the cheapest, crudest sort.”
    â€œBut, Mother—”
    â€œDon't argue, Jennifer. You know I'm right. As you grow older, you'll realize it even more.”
    For a long time after that, Jennifer thought of her body only as something to be kept clean, covered and hidden. As she grew older she was measured by her mother's dressmaker and in due time she found a dozen satin and lace brassières in a box on the foot of her bed. Later, there had been wispy panty girdles to be worn on dress-up occasions, but there had never been any discussion of any sort on the subject of underwear between Jennifer and her mother.
    When Jennifer was sixteen years old and in her last year at a very fine girls’ school just outside of Boston, she roomed with a girl named Anne Harvey. Anne was a year older than Jennifer, and her father was head of the largest brokerage house in the state of Massachusetts. Anne was a big, muscular girl but so full of good humor that the other girls at school never teased her about her looks. They admired her and made her captain of the volley-ball team and president of the student council, and every one of them wanted to be “Anne's best friend.” But Anne chose Jennifer