Episode 253, scene 1. 9:00 Ann Howard confronts Hannah Cord. AH: I have to talk to you. HC: Sorry, but Mr. Peyton . . . AH: You have to talk to me. You're going to answer some questions, because I know the truth. Both Steven and I know the truth. [Ann goes in the front door and Hannah closes it.] HC: If you know the truth, as you call it, then what more do you want from me? AH: I know the facts. I want to know the reasons. All the reasons. AH: Mother. AH: Did you hate me when I was born? HC: Yes. AH: But not Steven? HC: I hated you both, from the beginning. From the moment you were born, I despised both of you. AH: What could we have done to you? HC: I'm trying to tell you that I didn't want either one of you. Now, isn't that enough? AH: It's not possible. How can one hate one's won children from the time they were born? HC: It's possible. It was necessary. AH: Necessary? HC: Yes, necessary. I had to get rid of your father. Not caring anything about you, made it that much simpler. We made an agreement your father and I. He took you, I kept Steven. AH: I was rejected, as part of a bargain like a business deal? HC: You can call it that, if you like. AH: Why me, and not Steven? HC: Because your father wanted Steven. His son. So I wouldn't let him have him. I forced him to take you and I kept Steven. He didn't deserve to have a son. He destroyed our marriage. I threw him out. AH: But he wouldn't leave here without taking one of the children. HC: That's right. The children gave us both something to bargain with. AH: What had my father done? Tell me. HC: He's dead. What does it matter? AH: It's got to matter. It's to be something so enormous to deny dteven and me your not caring about what sort of person I turned out to be your own daughter. It had better matter. HC: Your father was a disreputable, dishonest man. Totally worthless. AH: Disreputable, worthless? Justify that. HC: All right? How did he get his money? How many paintings did he finish in a year. How many paintings would you say he sold in five years. One, if he was lucky. AH: I'm not sure. HC: All right. A ghreat dea. You if you HC: All right. All right. Your father took a mistress. AH: And what else? You mean you threw him out over an affair. A simple affair. You must have know what sort of man before you married him. How easily before and very spoiled. She always got her own way. Whatever she wanted HC: you see. He was teaching painting in a girl's school. And she was one of his students. Just one of his students until she got an very clever idea. HC: She commissioned him to paint her portrait. A Christmas present for her father. She was in and out of his studio, day in and day out. All that fall. All that fall. on the back stairs laughing AH: He painted only one portrait of a girl. He kept his sketches in the trunk all those years. everything I was not. Everything I had been tautht was bad and shameful. She was so young. Dreadfully young. I hated her. AH: Catherine Peyton. HC: Yes, Catherine . . . Peyton. AH: My father's painting. You destroyed it. HC: It should have been destroyed years ago. HC: She never even loved Brian. He was nothing but a toy. Just a forbidden toy. A married man. impossible someone to hurt her father with and Brian and you say it was a simple affair. It was a vicious diabolical . . . HC: She knew her father would never stand for it. She knew that I would never take Brian back. She knew her father would protect his daughter's name. And that's why you never starved. protect his daughter's name. No matter what the price. You can thank Catherine Peyton for that. Bribe money. A payoff from Martin Peyton. AH: How could you stay here after that? HC: Because Mr. Peyton asked me to. AH: For a price. AH: So you stayed at the old man's elboy, all these years. to To greedy and too selfish to care for our own children. HC: I told you you wouldn't want to know the truth. I was right, wasn't I? HC: But you insisted. Satisfied? AH: I came back to Peyton Place to prove that I hadn't hurt Chris Webber because I knew I thought I knew I couldn't possibley have done it. it was too cruel, too visious. And my father never believed in my innocence. Now I understand why. He knew what I was capable of AH: I forced Chris to admit I didn't do it. That's a kind of madness. He could have said it just to get me off his back. And now I don't understand it. I can't understand. [Ann leaves. Engine starting is heard.] [Peyton appears.] MP: Hannah, what did you tell her? What did you tell her? HC: I don't know, Martin. I don't know. But I'm afraid she's going to Steven. [Rodney appears at the top of the stairs.] MP: Rodney. MP: I'm tired, Hannah. I'll have my dinner upstairs. Episode 253, scene1 HOME NEXT