Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

“Thank you,” she said with ardor, and he smiled again quickly and then she was shy and began to gather her music together.

“Don’t go,” he said.

“I must,” she answered, and then wondered at her urgency. She did not need to go. She might linger here as long as she liked and no one would miss her. But still she was urgent to go away. What should she talk about to him? For now she did not see him at all as Mrs. Bradley’s son, for whom the old woman searched out tidbits. He was a man, mysterious and able, who made his own life in a great city, and only slept in this village. Doubtless he knew many women, beautiful and clever, and she was only a girl out of school. Beside his finished slightness she felt herself too hearty and too big and hopelessly young. Then she found herself looking down into his smiling steady eyes, and she saw he thought she was pretty. She was relieved and at ease, and mischief rose in her. She smiled back at him.

“I must go and help my mother. She’s making a dress for Rose.”

“You look like a tall pretty boy. A boy doesn’t sew!”

He was teasing her and she laughed with pleasure. “I can cook and sew and sweep and make beds and lead missionary meetings and dance and swim—”

“Surely out of so much there is something we can do together?”

She felt a heat run into all her veins. It was the first time a man had ever asked her — she dismissed with huge momentary scorn all the boys she had ever known, and looked at him, shy again. “Do you sometimes walk — on a Sunday afternoon?” he continued.

“I can,” she said with gravity.

“Then Sunday — about four? If I let you go now?”

“At four,” she promised, very gay.

He turned again to the organ, smiled at her, nodded, and began to play long smooth rills of notes. She walked softly away and the music followed her across the lawn and into the house. She went to her own room and opened a window and the music mounted and climbed in, muted but still clear. He was playing gloriously now, swiftly and triumphantly, clear, climactic chords. She sat down to listen, and leaned upon the window.

Strange how she had forgotten they were in the church! Something had begun for her, though she did not know what it was. But she knew that now the house was empty no more and now she had plenty to do. There were a hundred things she could do, wanted to do. Why had she felt so empty yesterday? Life was rushing again and full and deep with promise. Anything might happen to her any day now in Middlehope. She laughed and turned contentedly to her desk, and opened the pages of her music score. She would write in the notes he had given her, that muted varying fifth which introduced early the minor theme. Sunday afternoon would be here before she knew it.

“But I can’t see what you find in that old man!” her mother was crying at her.

“He isn’t old!” she cried back hotly.

They were in her mother’s bedroom, and her mother had shut the door so that she might say what she had to say. She sat down in the rocking chair and began to rock frantically back and forth, her arms folded tightly across her bosom in the way she had when she was beside herself. Joan stood by the window, rebellious, determined, furious that her mother made her still a child.

“He’s forty-five if he’s a day! You’re twenty-two! Why, he’s old enough to be your father! You’re Ned Parsons’ generation!”

“Ned Parsons bores me,” she answered shortly.

“I thought this summer you liked him—”

“Only to play with—”

“You’ll break my heart — every one of you children seem to have your own special way to break your mother’s heart—”

“It’s not fair for you to try to force me by making me sorry for you,” she answered hardly, shocked at her hardness.

There was silence except for the creak of the rockers. Now she remembered that sometimes in the night, when she heard the subdued quarreling voices, she heard also this same swift loud creak. But she said nothing. She stared steadily out into the gray November afternoon. The leaves were gone already from the trees and the red brick church stood tall and bare and angular, immovably large in the landscape. But it was all nothing to her. In less than ten minutes Martin would be home and the telephone would ring. She would hear his voice. She had been waiting for it all day.

“Has he proposed to you?” her mother asked in a dry voice.

“No,” she replied coldly.

“He’ll never marry you, that’s one comfort,” her mother said bitterly. “He’s philandered with one girl after another. It’s a joke in the village, Martin’s girls. And no one knows what goes on in the city. But he’ll never marry anybody — his mother wouldn’t let him even if he wanted to. But he’ll never want to. There’s talk about him — I can’t tell you—” She paused a moment and went on with difficulty. “There’s something downright queer about him. I feel it.”

She would not answer. What did she care what this foolish, little village thought? They did not know Martin. Besides, he had been honest with her. Only yesterday he had said to her, “I won’t pretend never to have loved anyone before. But, darling child, you came when I thought it was all finished. You’ve come like a lovely late spring into my life. And there’s never been anyone like you. You’re everything I’ve wanted — you are a sweet boy, you’re a pretty lady, you—”

“I know all about him,” she said to her mother, her voice very even and clear.

“Joan — Joan — Joan—” her mother cried helplessly. “You’re nothing but a silly child. Don’t you see what you’re doing? Everybody’s talking about you. And your father’s the minister! Why, even Mrs. Winters—”

“Don’t tell me!” she broke in, turning furiously on her mother. “I don’t care — what’s Mrs. Winters?”

Her mother was silent before her fury, but she did not turn away her eyes. She swallowed hard and began again, looking at her steadily, making herself calm and reasonable. “Let’s talk gently, Joan. Every young girl falls in love once with an older man—”

“Listen!” she cried. The telephone rang loudly in the hall and she ran to it. There was his voice at her ear, warm and ardent and rich. He had a beautiful tender voice, not deep, but light and tender as a woman’s.

“Joan?”

“Martin — Martin—”

“Meet me in ten minutes, sweet — in the same spot?”

“Yes.”

She hung the receiver up softly and flung herself into her coat and ran bareheaded from the house into the dusk.

But her mother was in her still. However she might answer rebelliously, however she might run, however she might cry aloud to herself in the dusk that now she would choose her own way and have her own life, her mother had carried her in herself, now she seemed in some strange like way to be sharing her body with her mother. Once she had lain, small and curled, a stubborn part of her mother’s larger being. Now in her own large strong young being her mother held a small dark stubborn part. She could not be free of her mother.

She strode on through the cold darkness and met Martin outside the station and threw herself passionately into the darkness to find his arms and lips. But though it was dark he drew back.

“Wait,” he whispered. “Wait. Someone else got off the train behind me.”

He stood away from her a moment and they waited in the silence. A girl’s figure came by and passed at a little distance.

“Do you recognize her?” he asked in a whisper.

“No,” she replied, shortly and aloud. Her mother in her made her answer shortly. Her mother in her made her go on against her will. “Why should we care? I hate sneaking about.”