Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

“Guess you’re right,” said Francis. He turned. “Well—” he said, and sighed gustily and marched from the room. It was the first time she had ever heard him sigh. She smiled with a sad mature tenderness for him and went slowly upstairs. She climbed, gathering herself together for what was ahead of her, for all that she had never planned.

Now the mother drew her children’s lives into her. She drew them by her willful dominations and by her catastrophes of weakness and by her little cheerfulnesses. Joan never could know, though she opened the door a score of times a day, what woman she would find there in the bed. She came in when Francis was gone to find her mother washed and fresh and sitting in her bed, cleaned and freshened. While they were downstairs, while Dr. Crabbe was dooming her, she had risen in sudden willful strength and put the best linen on the bed and upon herself she put an orchid-colored bed-jacket which Joan had once given her at Christmas, which she had never worn because of its delicacy of silk and cream lace, but which she had cherished. For two years it had lain in her drawer, on top, hiding by its beauty the old and mended garments beneath. She kept it there for the pleasure of seeing it whenever she opened the drawer.

Today when Joan came in she lay propped up in her bed, faint but triumphant. She was panting a little. “I’ll be up tomorrow,” she said. “I’ll just take today to rest. Tell Dr. Crabbe. And Francis is to go to school. And you mustn’t write a word to Rose, because before the letter gets to her I’ll be up and around. Tell Hannah I’ll have my breakfast. Don’t I look lovely? It’s the first chance I’ve had to wear this.”

And Joan was gladly deceived. The orchid jacket, the bright, dark smiling eyes, the neatly piled white hair, the brown strong hands upon the counterpane, nearly deceived her. She ran down and called to Hannah and then she went out into the garden to gather a handful of short-stemmed violets to put upon the tray. She bore the tray herself, entering the room with a quick gaiety. After all, they might be wrong, all of them. She would not tell Rose yet.

Her mother’s eyes warmed at the violets. “You’re the only one who would think to do that,” she said. “Not many people know a flower on a tray seasons all the food. I never taught you, Joan. You’ve always known. Rose now, would be careful, but she’d forget the flowers — and of course men don’t think.”

She began to eat happily. “What did Dr. Crabbe say?” she asked. “Did he say I just needed a little rest? Sit down a minute, child. It’s so pleasant to talk.” The whole room was pleasant in the morning light, in the vigor of her mother’s voice.

But on the bed, very near her mother’s face, Joan was undeceived. The eyes, if they stopped their sparkle even for an instant, were sick and dulled. Her mother could made her eyes sparkle, but the impulse failed quickly and the eyes were veiled as a sick bird’s eyes are veiled. She cried out suddenly, “Why didn’t you tell us you were in pain? Why did you let us go on leaning on you?”

Her mother put down the bit of toast she held. “Did he say I had such pain?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“It is true,” her mother said slowly. “I have often such pain. I shall never be healed of it, and so I have learned to bear it.”

“But you may be healed of it,” Joan cried passionately, yearning over this woman, her mother. “He is going to bring a city doctor to see you this afternoon.”

Her mother stared at her, startled. She pushed the tray away. “I won’t see him,” she said suddenly and loudly. “Do you hear, Joan? I won’t have a stranger peering into me. Dr. Crabbe was with me when all the babies came. He’s different. Besides, I know myself. I know—” Her lower lip began to tremble and she looked piteously at Joan. Above the gay bed-jacket her face shrank into grayness. “Don’t let me die!” she begged, in a whisper.

“No — no — no” said Joan passionately behind her clenched teeth, tears hot under her eyelids.

But in the late afternoon her mother was willful again and stubborn against the new doctor. Joan, waiting beside her, saw her grow momentarily strong with her stubbornness. She sat braced by her pillows, her hair smoothed, her gaze upon the door. Her eyes met the doctor’s eyes, freshly and strongly with a shock of life.

“Mary, this is Dr. Beam — Mrs. Richards,” said Dr. Crabbe.

“How do you do?” said Dr. Beam languidly. He stared perseveringly at her face and hands.

“Patient has vitality,” the doctor murmured to Dr. Crabbe wearily. He was a tall drooping gentle figure, his hat and gloves still in his hand because no one had come forward to take them from him and put them down for him.

“Not physical vitality, though,” grunted Dr. Crabbe. “Sit down.”

“Will to live, perhaps,” hinted the doctor. He held his hat on his knee, dropped it, and set it at last upon the floor beside his chair. He fixed his large vacant eyes again upon her, without noticing Joan.

“There is nothing really wrong,” Joan heard her mother say, brightly. “I don’t know why they got you here.” She arranged the covers briskly. She looked suddenly well, her hands normal with vigor.

“Yes,” murmured Dr. Beam. He rose, unexpectedly alert. “Let me see your abdomen,” he demanded. His languor was gone. He was avid, keen for knowledge of her. No, not knowledge of her, for what was she to him? She was nothing. It was the thing in her body which interested him. Without it, with nothing but health, she would not have existed for him. She did not exist for him now, except as the possessor of this malignant life in her, this monster feeding upon her. He felt her abdomen with his long thin delicately probing fingers. His face grew sharper. His eyes were black and narrow and inquisitive and about his lips the skin was hard and white. He was excited by what he felt.

“Hm — hm—” he kept murmuring to himself. “Hm — hm—”

At last he knew everything. He covered her exhausted body quickly, and turned to Joan. “Where can I wash my hands?” At the door he commanded, “Fetch my hat and gloves along. I shan’t need to come back. Crabbe, I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Downstairs with Dr. Crabbe she waited. He rumbled along of other things. “Miss Kinney’s down with that queer fever she brought back with her from Africa — don’t believe she’ll ever get over it — old girl, her mother, sound as a dried hickory nut — never saw the beat of it — she’ll outlast us all — I don’t dare hope to be at her funeral myself. Mr. Parson’s got bronchitis — needs outdoor life instead of clerking in an office the way he does. Where’s your pa?” he asked abruptly.

“It’s his afternoon for the mission.”

Dr. Crabbe coughed suddenly and went out to the porch and spat in the yellow rosebush under the window.

“Well … yes,” he said, coming back and sitting down.

“Well, you can tell him when he gets in. Here’s Dr. Beam.”

Upon the threshold Dr. Beam stood in cultivated haste. “I need not stop, I think, Crabbe,” he said. “My car’s waiting. You’re quite right — no use — the whole organ’s hardened and everything is hopelessly involved — if you’ll come along I’ll talk as we go—”

“Back later, my dear,” said Dr. Crabbe.

Joan at the window watched them move down the walk to the street, the tall slender stooping figure and Dr. Crabbe, short and burly and rolling along like a sailor. They were talking excitedly. She could see Dr. Beam’s face now as he climbed into the motor. It was eager and animated. One long probing forefinger stabbed the air as he talked. Dr. Crabbe thrust out his square short hands. They were tossing her mother’s life back and forth between them. She sank suddenly into a chair and wept bitterly.