Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

“Father,” she cried, “Father, Mother is really ill this morning — you must go for Dr. Crabbe!”

He stared at her bewildered. The change was too swift for him. He had been drenched in the radiance of God, and now he was back in this drab room. “She seemed to sleep quietly all night,” he protested mildly. “She scarcely moved, although sometimes I have been disturbed by her tossing. I left her still sleeping quietly this morning.” He was so bewildered he forgot to rise from his knees.

Joan’s eyes upon him sharply saw him absurd, upon his knees, his pale blue eyes looking up at her childish and absurd. She repeated harshly, “She’s very ill now — you or Francis must go for Dr. Crabbe. … Francis — I’ll send Francis,” she went on quickly. Of course Francis would be quicker than this old man. It was the first time she had known he was really old.

“Frank — Frank!” she called, leaping up the stairs. “Frank!” She burst into his room. He was sleeping vigorously. The sun was streaming across his bed and over his face and in his sleep he was scowling a little against the strong light, his black brows drawn and his mouth pouted in determination to sleep. He was beautiful in his sleep, in the sun. Even in her haste she caught the moment of his beauty, full of youth and wildness though in sleep. She shook his shoulder.

“Frank, get up! Get dressed quickly and get Dr. Crabbe. Take the car and bring him back with you.”

In the strong sun close to him she saw the faint first stubble upon his lips and his chin. They had been shaved — Francis shaving! He had said nothing. Unknown to them all he had been growing into a man. He had gone and bought a razor and secretly he had shaved. None of them knew, unless perhaps their mother.

“What?” he cried. His eyes flew open and he looked up at her, instantly clear and comprehending.

“It’s Mother,” she said.

“Get out of here!” he roared at her, leaping out of bed. “How can I put on my clothes unless you get out?”

She went away comforted. It was strength to feel his impatience and his haste. She had always thought of him as a boy, a child, a younger child. She remembered him as a strong impetuous baby, a frowning red-cheeked little boy. For years he had been this hobbledehoy, tumbling down the stairs, eating voraciously, demanding loudly his freedoms, absorbed in his next good time. Now he was none of these. He was the one person to whom she could turn. He had leaped from his bed, tall and a man. He was strong. Their blood was the same. …

Upstairs at her mother’s door she listened. She heard his clattering footsteps and a moment later she heard the roar of the engine. She looked out of the end window of the hall. He was gone in a whirl of smoke and scattered gravel.

Downstairs in the sitting room Dr. Crabbe laid upon her shoulders the burden of her mother’s life. The uneaten breakfast was cold in the dining room and Hannah stood sniffling and listening at the door. Her father was there, his face solemn, the eyes grave and pure and exalted. Upon his lips was the stern peace of his continuous prayer, “Is this Thy will, O God? Thy will be done.” Francis stood by the window, staring out into the winter sunshine, his face turned away from them all. His hands were thrust furiously deep into his pockets. But it was to Joan Dr. Crabbe spoke, his loud voice sharp and each word a thrust of emphasis. “She should have told me long ago, Joan. I can’t take the responsibility now — you’ll have to get somebody in on consultation. The idea of her dragging on and on in mortal pain!”

In mortal pain! The words were an accusing sword to cut her heart in two. While she had been absorbed in her foolish love, while she had heard no voice but Martin’s, seen no face but Martin’s, dreamed of nothing else, and lived for nothing else, her mother had gone in mortal pain. She pushed Martin away and turned passionately to cry out, her heart strangling in her throat. “How long do you think she’s been suffering?”

“Months — maybe even a year—” he answered shortly. “I can’t get the truth out of her — her damned cheerfulness. She always was that way. You hadn’t been born an hour until she was chirruping, ‘I must get up soon, Doctor, as soon as I can. Paul’s got to go to the presbytery.’ And though she nearly died the last time with that great feller there by the window, it was the same thing. ‘I’ve got to get up as soon as I can’—for something or other. Well, Joan, it’ll be a long day now before she gets up, in my opinion. The thing we have to find out is whether or not she can stand the operation or whether it’s too late whatever we do.”

Out of the silence of doom Francis’ voice came shrill and breaking. “Get the other doctor here, can’t you? What are you all sitting here like this for? Just sitting and sitting—” He turned his face toward them, his face a grimace against weeping. He looked away again quickly.

Dr. Crabbe went on as though he had not heard or seen and Joan received steadily his commands upon her life. “I’ll get the specialist up from the city right away — this afternoon or tomorrow. But it means days and days — maybe even years of nursing. This kind of thing goes on and on even if it’s hopeless — she has a strong constitution — a lot of life — unless they decide to operate and something goes wrong.”

Days and years, days and years — She gazed at Dr. Crabbe’s hairy old face and did not see him. She saw her life passing steadily by — days and years — years and years made of day after day after day. She gave them up in an instant’s foresight. “I will take care of her myself,” she said.

Dr. Crabbe rose. “Good thing you’re home, my girl — good thing you’re big and strong!” he said, brusquely cheerful. “I’ll be getting on after that other chap. Now brace up, the three of you. We’re going to do all we can.”

He was gone in a gust, slapping his thick knee, touching Joan’s cheek delicately with his stubby forefinger, clapping Francis’ hunched shoulders and throwing a short nod at the man.

Then they were alone, the three of them. They were alone and separate because the mother who had bound them together was not there. The mother had bound them together, pouring into each of them a part of herself and gathering them into one whole by the parts of herself. Now she had left them. She was fighting for herself alone, and only as they poured themselves into her could they be united. Each must think of something to do for her. Joan saw her father put his hand to his head in his gesture of bewilderment. His eyes were vague and fixed upon the ground. “Yes … yes …” he whispered, forgetting them. “Yes, O God!” He rose abruptly, and left the room. They heard the door of his study shut. He was in his refuge.

Francis said, “I can’t go to school — I can’t sit there — like any other day—” He stood as he had stood, his back to her, his sharp young shoulder blades drooping through his old coat, his hands jammed in his pockets above the wrists.

But in Joan there was a large sorrowful tranquillity. She looked at Francis’ discontented face and her mother in her spoke to comfort him.

“There will be so many times I’ll need you, just as I needed you to fetch Dr. Crabbe. But just now I have things to do for her that you can’t do. We each have a special thing to do for her. She will want everything to go on in the house as it always has.”

She looked about the room. On the wall opposite hung the Hope drooping over a gray and barren world. She had so hated it. Only yesterday she had planned secretly to take it down to make the house hers. Now she knew she would never take it down. For this house would never be hers. It was her mother’s house and it would always be so. She could live in it only insofar as she took upon herself her mother’s function, her mother’s being.