Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

Staring up at the blank ceiling, in the blank silence of the house, she felt her body strain against her. It clamored against her, hot with lonely desire.

I’d marry, she thought desperately, I believe I’d marry almost anybody — except Ned Parsons. I want my children.

Now the silent and empty house became full with her own longing and restlessness. It was no longer important to her that a curtain was blown askew or that flowers faded in a certain bowl. Who saw these things except herself, and what activity was this for her clamoring body? She was burned by a hundred small irritations.

“I don’t care what we eat, Hannah!” she cried into Hannah’s astonished face.

“You needn’t bite my head off,” Hannah said coldly.

“Oh, Hannah, I’m sorry!” she begged wildly. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me these days!”

“Well, I’m sure—” muttered Hannah, stabbing a hairpin through the knot on top of her head. “You never did have Rose’s disposition,” she added.

“Father, let’s go somewhere — let’s take a vacation!” she begged.

He was walking quietly up and down the porch. On rainy days like this, when it was not parish day, he walked up and down sixty times for exercise. He disliked the rain as intensely as a cat. He disliked to feel the soles of his feet damp. If it were his day for chapel, he went steadfastly out, carrying his large black umbrella. It was his duty. But it was pleasant if the rain did not fall on such a day. He mentioned it with gratitude in his solitary morning prayer if God sent rain on a home day.

Joan was sitting on the balustrade under the deep eaves, staring into the rain. He paused at her cry and noted mentally that he was on twenty-three. “A vacation?” he repeated. “I’ve never had a vacation.”

“I know,” she said, “so let’s have one.”

Twenty-three — twenty-three … “From what?” he asked.

“Work,” she answered gaily.

“What would I do?” he asked.

“Oh, walk, talk, see something different!”

He began on twenty-four. “I’d have to pay for a supply,” he said when he passed her again. “Besides, I feel no need for change. My work provides me with all I need.” He began twenty-five. When he passed again she was gone.

She was gone, and when she came down she had on her mackintosh and her old blue hat. She strode off into the rain. It was raining so hard that in a moment she was sheeted with silver and the water ran into her shoes and little separate streams beat against her face. She pressed her body against the rain steadily, lifting her face against it. It tingled upon her lips, stinging like a kiss hard upon them. She fought against wind and rain gladly, wearing her body out, wild with restlessness. She was too restless to think. She could not think. She could only feel. Striding through the rain, her feet upon the wet grass of the fields, upon the moss under the trees shining in rain, her mind was full of pictures. Francis and that girl — Martin meeting her in the dell — the shapes of love. She drove herself until in fatigue her mind grew empty and then in the wet twilight she turned toward home.

When she came in, her father was waiting for her in the dining room. The night had turned cool and Hannah had built a fire and set the table. He sat by the fire, his large pale hands held to the warmth, transparent in the blaze. He looked up at her solemnly.

“You’re very wet,” he said.

“Yes — I’ll only take a moment to change. Don’t wait.”

She was so tired she could be patient with him again. For of course he would wait without a word, inexorably, stubbornly gentle, until she was in her place. He held her by his uncomprehending gentleness. When she was in her place, when everything was as usual, he would be satisfied. Then he would bow his head and give his usual thanks to God.

Oh, but there was nothing now anywhere, she cried in her fresh impatience. For weariness would not last in her great strong body. Sleep came, deep, healthy, and she was hungry and ate heartily and her body was restless again and her mind hot with restlessness.

In the church on Sunday morning she held herself desperately in her seat. But she wanted to spring up, to dance, to sing, to run, to be mad and foolish, to rush down the road and find a companion, to cry to any strange man she saw, “It’s a heavenly day, the trees are gold, the air is wine — come, come with me!” They’d run, they’d walk, they’d shout. She tent her head over her folded hands and smiled. Her father was praying, “Descend upon Thy people, God.” She smiled, flaunting God — not God, not God this morning! She stood quickly when the hymn was announced, leaping to her feet.

“There is a fountain filled with blood,” she sang carelessly, letting her big voice ring out, hurrying them all a little, hurrying Martin Bradley. She could see him glance at her in the mirror above his head. He clung with steadiness to the tempo, annoyed with her. But she was full of wild mischief. She wanted to burst from her skin, she wanted to tease, to harass, to be madly willful. She let out her voice with laughter, hurrying him, throwing them all a little askew between the organ and her rollicking voice. They sang bewildered, not knowing exactly what was wrong. She sat down and shut the book quickly and bowed her head for the benediction, her heart dancing down a sunny road. Oh, something must happen, she’d make something happen! She rose from the pew and turned about and stood waiting, smiling a little, staring at them all as they gathered their books, their coats. She’d make something happen.

Across the aisle her eyes fell upon a thick, tall young man. It was the oafish young farmer she had seen at Rose’s wedding. She smiled at him suddenly, brilliantly, wickedly, straight into his small hot brown eyes. He flushed red under his red hair. His huge hands twisted his stiff straw hat around and around upon his bosom. His mouth hung a little open. He moved toward her.

“I’ve wanted to speak to you,” he said. He had a slow thick voice and the words came quickly from his big mouth. His lips were stiff and thick and pale.

“Why don’t you then?” she said willfully. Oh, she wanted to tease, to harass, to vent herself upon someone!

“I didn’t know if you wanted it,” he answered after a moment, staring at her.

“I don’t seem to mind,” she replied, still smiling. At once she hated his thickness, she immediately disliked the raw redness of his skin. But she went on smiling recklessly into his hot brown eyes. She wanted something, anything, to happen.

He took another step toward her. He muttered at her, “If I should come to your house tonight after milking, would you sit a while with me out on the porch?”

“I might,” she replied, laughing.

He nodded and stalked into the aisle. She watched his broad back, his thick upper arms bursting out of the cheap blue suit. Above a stiff white collar his neck was red as beef and his head was straight and unshaped, like a block upon his square huge shoulders. His ears were close to his head. They were thick and rather small. She felt a little sick. But she thought rebelliously, Oh, well — it will be something to do tonight, at least. She was full of willfulness against everything as it was.

To this empty ordered house Bart Pounder brought himself solidly.

She had, without knowing it, come to live in the smoldering stillness, in feeling thought, in long hours alone when she sat with a book in her hands, not reading. The old man lived his angelic, attenuated life alone and she lived her life alone in aborted moods. She lived out of one mood into another, none fully understood. She was not discontented so much as stopped in herself. There was no completion in her. Nothing seemed worth doing for its own sake. Surely everything she had to do ought to lead into some larger reason. But nothing led on. Even though she swept the house and filled the vases, though she filled the old silver sugar bowl with the late red roses and set it upon the hall table before the long mirror, for whom was it done? She had her own instant of ecstasy, cut off and unfulfilled. It was not enough. It was not enough to compel Hannah.