Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

He had never said so much to them before. They did not know what to answer. Francis, looking up from his book, closed it suddenly. “Going to bed,” he said gruffly, and slammed the door behind him. They did not notice him. Joan was sewing, mending the pile in her mother’s basket, and Rose was sitting, half dreaming, in the shadow, near the fire. Ah, but Joan must speak for her mother. “I suppose she thought of me — of us,” she began. But her father did not hear. He stared into the coals.

“God has punished me,” he said somberly. “I have labored here in this one small place all my years. Where I might have harvested my thousands, I have only a few score of souls saved. That is why now I turn so eagerly to the mission at South End. I did not heed God’s call, and he punished me. But now he has relented. Within these last few years people have come to me, unsaved and ignorant of God’s love. God is kind.”

His voice quieted. In their silence he went on a little more, revealing himself wistfully to them, compelled by a lifetime’s compulsion.

“All these years I have been waked in the night by the groans of those across the sea whom I never went to save. I should have gone. I have lain awake in the night, hearing them call.”

Joan looked up at him across her mending. This, then, was what he thought about when she saw him lying solitary upon his bed, his hands crossed upon his breast. He was listening to voices calling to him. All these years, when they had seen him lift his head and stare away from them, it had been to listen not to them, but to those others whom they had never seen. He had moved among ghosts.

Rose was already gone. Though she moved about the house during the spring, though her hands helped here and there, pretty hands, so strangely clumsy for all their shape and smoothness, though her soft voice made its even replies—“Yes, thank you, Joan, a little more bread — the white bread, please,” “The white meat, please, Father,” “I’ll dust the parlor clean, Hannah”—Rose was gone. She had withdrawn her life from this house, withdrawn it into waiting, into the years to come, into a life Joan could not imagine.

She could not imagine Rose’s life away from Middlehope, far from everyone they had known. Together they planned Rose’s clothes, the things she would need for her marriage. They said, looking at each other in sisterly, practical fashion, “There must be this, and this—” “Surely a white satin wedding dress?” said Joan, pleading. But Rose shook her head. “What would white satin be afterwards? Brown, a brown crepe—” So Joan let it be brown crepe, though how could it be a real marriage without white satin? … “Miss Joan Richards was married today to — to — her gown was white satin with a train—” … “A thin dark dress for travel,” said Rose, with pencil and paper, “a voile or two for the heat—”

But then it was not so much getting ready for a wedding as getting ready for what was after it. That Rob and Rose were to be married seemed nothing but a convenience before they went away together to be missionaries. What were missionaries? … Joan, standing tall and irresolute beside Rose in Mr. Winters’ general store, let Rose choose the plain striped voile, the dark brown silk crepe. These were not chosen for Rose the bride. They were chosen for someone else, for Rose the helpmeet, neat, subdued, standing beside the young missionary.

Mr. Winters waited on them fussily, urging one thing and another. “Here’s some pretty newfangled things,” he said, hurrying from one cardboard box to another. “Doggone, where are they? I had my hand right on ’em a minute ago — costoom jewelry they call it. It looks almost real.”

“No, thank you, Mr. Winters,” said Rose. She did not call Rob’s parents Mother and Father. She was no warmer to them than she ever had been.

They cut and sewed the stuffs together, quiet plodding sewing. It was like sewing under a gray sky. Her mother would have hated these dull colors. “Where is that flowered lawn Mother made you?” Joan asked suddenly. That day it had slipped over Rose’s head like a shower of plucked flowers.

“I still have it,” said Rose. “I haven’t really worn it much. It wasn’t a very practical dress,” she added after a moment.

Joan did not answer. Rebellion against this sewing, against this marriage, this life Rob had chosen, rushed up, a heat in her body. Her hands felt stiff with unwillingness. She stood up suddenly and the stuff and the spool and the scissors fell to the floor.

“I’ve just remembered something I forgot,” she said abruptly to Rose’s calm, upturned eyes, and whirled out of the room in long-legged haste. But before she could get to her own room she heard the front door downstairs open and a voice shot clearly up to her ears. “Where’s Rose? Rose — Rose!” it called loudly.

It was Mrs. Winters. But when Rose came out of her room, she cried at Joan, leaning over the balustrade, looking down. Mrs. Winters was slapping a letter she held in her right hand with her plump left hand. It was so plump her gold wedding ring was deeply imbedded in her finger. “Joan, what’s this about Rob and Rose? I don’t say anything about their marrying and I didn’t say a word about Rob’s being a minister — he’ll always be poor, and I’ve nothing to leave him — Mr. Winters and I — but to go to China’s something else! I don’t believe Rob’d have thought of it by himself — it’s Rose—” Her voice filled the hall, strident, sharp, rising up the stairs. In the kitchen the dishes Hannah was washing stopped rattling. Then the door of the study opened and the priest of God stayed her angry voice. He stood, sudden and tall, his hand uplifted against her to silence her. “Do you mean you are not willing for your son to follow his call?” he asked.

Across the strident heat of her voice, his voice fell like a sword of ice, silencing her. But she was not used to silence. “You’re a good man,” she retorted, “but you don’t understand. Rob’s my only boy. Rob’s always been too enthusiastic — emotional — his father’s emotional. If it hadn’t been for me, Mr. Winters would have been here, there and everywhere. He wanted to go out on a gold rush once when he was a boy not any older than Rob is now — Why, once he wanted to throw up his good general store and go into automobiles! Rob’s just like him. They hate to listen.”

“Take care that you are not a hypocrite,” said the priest of God with slow, deadly coldness. “You lead the missionary meetings in the church but you will not give your own son to God.”

“Oh, Father, don’t,” cried Joan. “Please come in, Mrs. Winters — Oh, Rose, I didn’t know Rob hadn’t told her—”

“He’s afraid of her,” Rose said breathlessly. “He’s always been afraid of her.”

She threw reproach at Rose in a look, then ran down the stairs, trembling in her large young haste. How she hated to see people hurt, even Mrs. Winters! She seized Mrs. Winters’ plump arm and drew her eagerly into the empty parlor and pushed her into a seat and closed the door. “Sit down — sit down — there — we can talk about it — not quarreling — I hate quarreling—”

She forgot how strong she was until Mrs. Winters fell into a chair under her strength. “Joan — I do declare,” she exclaimed breathlessly. Then she saw Joan’s moved, troubled face, and her lips trembled. “It’s awfully hard,” she whispered hoarsely, pulling her handkerchief from her belt. “Of course I believe in missions — I’ve been brought up to — I’ve been brought up a Christian — I can’t remember when I wasn’t a member of the Church. But I never thought it would happen to me. It was hard enough for my son to want to be a preacher — so poor preachers always are, and no help in the store — and Rob’s a sensible boy at heart. But he doesn’t listen to me — Still, I just don’t believe he’d have thought of such a thing himself. Rose’s always been a little queer. She’s had such an influence on him.” Her full purplish lips quivered beyond control and she put her handkerchief to them.