Read Online Peyton Place by Grace Metalious - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Grace Metalious
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you hope to give me an inferiority complex by impressing my laziness on me all the time, You'll drop dead of a heart attack one of these days, from your goddamned work, work, work. Just like one of those handsome, silver-haired doctors in the movies.”
“Crap,” said the doctor. “Heart attacks are so commonplace. Give me a nice troublesome ulcer any day.”
“On second thought,” said Seth, “you'll die of a bashed in skull administered by one of those nurses you're always tickling over at your hospital.”
The Peyton Place hospital was small, well equipped and Dr. Swain's pride and joy. He ran it efficiently and admired it with all the tenderness of a young lover, and the fact that it was often used by citizens of the surrounding towns in preference to other, larger hospitals was a source of unending satisfaction to him. The hospital belonged to the town, but everybody in Peyton Place referred to it as “Doc Swain's hospital,” and the girls who used its small but excellent training school for nurses referred to themselves as “The Doc's girls.”
Matthew Swain was a good and upright man, and a lover of life and humanity. If he had a fault, it was his careless, sometimes vitriolic tongue, but the town forgave him this for Matthew Swain was a good doctor, and if he spoke gruffly at times, he also always spoke the truth. He had a sense of humor which was sometimes loud, oftentimes lewd, but never deliberately unkind, and for this, too, the town forgave him, for The Doc could laugh longest and loudest at himself. Everyone loved Dr. Swain, with the possible exception of Charles Partridge's wife Marion, and her only reason for disliking him was that the doctor refused to be impressed with the picture she had created of herself.
“It don't pay to puff yourself up in front of The Doc,” said the town. “Surer than hell he'll have a pin to stick into you if you do!”
But Marion Partridge could not and would not believe this. She tried continually to make Matthew Swain see her as she was sure the rest of the town saw her, and because he would not, she often referred to him as “that impossible man.”
Marion was a medium-sized woman. Seth Buswell, whenever he looked at her, reflected that everything about Marion Partridge was medium.
“Rien de trop,” said Seth to himself and felt that these words described Marion perfectly, from her medium-brown hair and average figure to her mediocre mind.
She had been born Marion Saltmarsh, the daughter of an impecunious Baptist minister and his tired wife. She had one brother, John, who had decided early in life to follow in his father's religious footsteps and at the age of twenty one had been ordained as a minister. It was John's ambition to carry religion to “the savage peoples of the earth” and immediately after his ordination, he left America as a missionary. Marion, meanwhile, finished her schooling, graduating with average grades, and settled down to live in the parsonage with her parents, ready with them to offer succor to the poor and troubled, and happily rolling bandages for a local hospital every Wednesday afternoon.
In later years, Charles Partridge admitted to himself that he had met Marion by accident and married her in a moment of weakness. After passing his bar examinations, he had been taking a long summer vacation in the seaside town where the Reverend Saltmarsh lived with his family. Charles Partridge was a Congregationalist and had attended a Sunday service at the Reverend Salt-marsh's Baptist church more out of curiosity than from a desire for religious comfort, and there he had seen Marion singing in the choir. The girl had been standing in the front row of the group of singers, her face uplifted and shining with a look of ecstasy. Charles Partridge had caught his breath and believed that the girl looked like an angel. In this he was mistaken. It was neither rapture nor exultation which shone from Marion. She had much of this same look
“Crap,” said the doctor. “Heart attacks are so commonplace. Give me a nice troublesome ulcer any day.”
“On second thought,” said Seth, “you'll die of a bashed in skull administered by one of those nurses you're always tickling over at your hospital.”
The Peyton Place hospital was small, well equipped and Dr. Swain's pride and joy. He ran it efficiently and admired it with all the tenderness of a young lover, and the fact that it was often used by citizens of the surrounding towns in preference to other, larger hospitals was a source of unending satisfaction to him. The hospital belonged to the town, but everybody in Peyton Place referred to it as “Doc Swain's hospital,” and the girls who used its small but excellent training school for nurses referred to themselves as “The Doc's girls.”
Matthew Swain was a good and upright man, and a lover of life and humanity. If he had a fault, it was his careless, sometimes vitriolic tongue, but the town forgave him this for Matthew Swain was a good doctor, and if he spoke gruffly at times, he also always spoke the truth. He had a sense of humor which was sometimes loud, oftentimes lewd, but never deliberately unkind, and for this, too, the town forgave him, for The Doc could laugh longest and loudest at himself. Everyone loved Dr. Swain, with the possible exception of Charles Partridge's wife Marion, and her only reason for disliking him was that the doctor refused to be impressed with the picture she had created of herself.
“It don't pay to puff yourself up in front of The Doc,” said the town. “Surer than hell he'll have a pin to stick into you if you do!”
But Marion Partridge could not and would not believe this. She tried continually to make Matthew Swain see her as she was sure the rest of the town saw her, and because he would not, she often referred to him as “that impossible man.”
Marion was a medium-sized woman. Seth Buswell, whenever he looked at her, reflected that everything about Marion Partridge was medium.
“Rien de trop,” said Seth to himself and felt that these words described Marion perfectly, from her medium-brown hair and average figure to her mediocre mind.
She had been born Marion Saltmarsh, the daughter of an impecunious Baptist minister and his tired wife. She had one brother, John, who had decided early in life to follow in his father's religious footsteps and at the age of twenty one had been ordained as a minister. It was John's ambition to carry religion to “the savage peoples of the earth” and immediately after his ordination, he left America as a missionary. Marion, meanwhile, finished her schooling, graduating with average grades, and settled down to live in the parsonage with her parents, ready with them to offer succor to the poor and troubled, and happily rolling bandages for a local hospital every Wednesday afternoon.
In later years, Charles Partridge admitted to himself that he had met Marion by accident and married her in a moment of weakness. After passing his bar examinations, he had been taking a long summer vacation in the seaside town where the Reverend Saltmarsh lived with his family. Charles Partridge was a Congregationalist and had attended a Sunday service at the Reverend Salt-marsh's Baptist church more out of curiosity than from a desire for religious comfort, and there he had seen Marion singing in the choir. The girl had been standing in the front row of the group of singers, her face uplifted and shining with a look of ecstasy. Charles Partridge had caught his breath and believed that the girl looked like an angel. In this he was mistaken. It was neither rapture nor exultation which shone from Marion. She had much of this same look
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