Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

Suddenly the summer ended. Her mother said one day, “It is Rose’s turn now. I must see Rose through four years of college. When Rose is through and Francis, when you are all ready to begin your own lives, then I will rest — not just rest a little of an afternoon, but a long rest. I’m going to be selfish then for a long while.” She smiled over a heap of flowered summery lawn she had in her lap and threaded her needle again with pink silk.

“As if you could be selfish!” Joan cried. She was still not dressed for the day, though it was nearly noon. The morning had turned gray and soft with rain and she had danced late at a party the night before and then slept far into the morning and waking very hungry had gone to find food. Now she sat in her yellow silk pajamas upon her mother’s bed, a slice of bread and apple butter in her hand — she was always hungry — and her mind full of sweet leisure. But her mother was unexpectedly grave. “I could do with a rest,” she said, sighing. Then she made haste to amend it. “Oh, I don’t mean I don’t want to work. I’ve always enjoyed every kind of work. When I was a girl I used to think I didn’t like sweeping. But I’ve learned to like it, too, now, through having to do it so much. One might as well enjoy what one has to do. I like now to feel a room grow clean under a strong broom. … There comes Mrs. Billings. I daresay she wants me to tell her what to talk about at Ladies’ Aid tomorrow. She is a good soul — but stupid. Darling, would you mind calling Rose and having her slip this dress on? You have such a good eye for style, and I want her dresses to look right when she goes away. I’ll try to get rid of Mrs. Billings, quickly.” Her mother was up swiftly and with energy, calling as she went, “Rose — Rose, come and try on your dress—”

Joan, shaking out the flowery folds, waited while Rose took off her dress. Then she dropped down the fluffy stuff over Rose’s head and over the smooth round shoulders and met Rose’s eyes in the mirror. “Oh, Rose, you’re pretty,” she cried in honest praise. “I’m glad it’s your turn for the new things.”

The small multicolored flowers upon the pink background suited the round pale face, the dark eyes. But Rose was composed. She smiled a little and said nothing. Joan cried at her again. “Don’t you care, Rose? Don’t you want to be pretty? When I was your age I was so frightened I’d never be pretty. You’re so much prettier than I was then. I’m too big — bony big — and my mouth is awful. I try to think it isn’t, but I know it is.”

Rose hesitated. “I don’t want to think of such things,” she replied.

“But you are really pretty,” Joan said laughing. “Silly little saint!” She shook the pretty shoulders lightly. Funny Rose, always afraid of sin! She began to sing carelessly, her mouth full of pins, fitting the dress here and there, letting it into a little more fullness at the breast — Rose’s breasts were rounder than her own — tightening it at the waist. She felt her sister’s body soft and warm under the lawn, a girlish shape. Here and there her fingers touched the fine skin. She saw the little yellow-brown curls soft upon the bent white neck. Tenderness flowed up in her for her sister. She did not often feel near to Rose like this. The touch of Rose’s flesh brought her near, the service she did her brought her near. She felt warm toward the young girl, warm as a mother might, full of generous love for her.

“Little, little saint,” she murmured and smiled intimately and kindly into Rose’s eyes in the mirror. She was so much bigger than Rose. She would always take care of Rose.

Then abruptly one day the house was empty without Rose. Until now when each summer ended it had been she, Joan, who had gone away to fresh faces and new life; she who when she came back again made complete the family. Now she stood with her father and her mother and watched Rose’s face at the train window with secret dismay. Her own safe years, years when she knew clearly what to do, were now so quickly gone. Slow in passing, now that they were gone, they were so swiftly gone.

When they walked home together in the early sunlight of a September morning she felt very grave. Her holiday was over. Even though she walked to her home and between these two who had always given her shelter, she was no longer sheltered. She must push out from between them, go out from her home. She must begin something for herself if she were to live at the pitch of delight. But she wanted and feared this independence. She wanted to live for herself, and yet she wanted this warm home about her at night.

Her mother looked at her and smiled. “I felt lost when you went away as Rose is doing today. I never get used to any of you going away. The first time you went away I went home and cried.”

“Did you, Mother?” said Joan, astonished, staring. Such a thing had not occurred to her. She had gone away that first morning four years ago filled with herself and with her wonder at what was about to happen to her, and her strong cheerful mother went home and cried because the house was empty without her! She was immeasurably touched and comforted. It was lovely to be loved. Wherever she went there would be this love to which to return. She put out her hand and patted her mother’s gray hair under the small brown homemade velvet toque. Her mother smiled back to her and the moment was warm and close until in mutual shyness they looked away from each other’s eyes.

“I hope,” said her father gently out of his own silence, “that Rose will not lose her faith, even as you did not, Joan. But I never saw a young soul with clearer conviction than hers.”

A guiltiness fell upon Joan. She ought to tell her father she didn’t really know what she believed. But she shrank from hurting him.

“I hope Rose has a good time,” her mother said with energy and then went swiftly on. “Joan, I’ve been thinking that old gold-brown cashmere of mine could make Rose a pretty jumper dress, and the color would be becoming to her. The skirt’s old-fashioned and it has a lot of cloth in the gathers. I believe I’ll set to work on it. It helps to get to work on something.”

Incredibly soon they were home and soon the house was still except for the sounds of the morning. Hannah polishing the stairs, the whir of the sewing machine from the attic where her mother sewed, her father’s slippered footfall in his study. So it might have been if Rose were there. Rose who in her quietness seemed to add nothing to the noise of the house, and yet now the house seemed empty. But it was not that Rose was gone, not that Francis was in school again. It was that she, Joan, was still there, idle, when the others were busy. She must think what to do next. She must of course earn her bread. Her mother had said many times, “Stay at home a year, darling. Take your time.” But she was restless now that the summer was over. It was time to work, to do something else. She wanted the next thing. The house was suddenly too small, the furniture worn and old and tiresome to her sight.

She went to her own room and closed the door and sat down by the window. Where was the mood of the summer gone? Why was she discontented? But the village was absurdly small, a crisscross of half-a-dozen streets, a little nest of poor houses, a few dull folk. She brought to her memory one after another of the houses whose interiors she knew completely, where not a chair or table had been moved since she could remember. She was weary of them. They stood dingy in the sunshine of this day. It was not enough.

I want something more, she thought resolutely. I must find the thing I can do really well. … Maybe music …

But she knew in her secret heart what she wanted to do, and what she could do well. She could love a man well and keep his house clean and make it beautiful and bear his children. It was all she secretly asked of life, that she might follow this old beaten path. But how could love find her, hidden away in a little country manse?