Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

“Hannah, see what I’ve done! Look at the roses!”

“They’ll be dropping before the day’s done — those red roses never have held together — quick to blow and soon to die, always.”

It was not enough to compel her father. “Father, the roses—” His pale eyes searched patiently. “Here, Father, by the mirror—”

“Yes, yes — they are very pretty,” his pale eyes drifting away again.

It was not enough.

To this newcomer she was saying eagerly, “The roses have been lovely, lovely — Only the rose beetles were so troublesome.” He listened, staring at her hard.

“I’ll spray them for you next spring,” he said.

He was staring at her hands, at her throat, her breasts. She felt his hot simple stare and pulled her skirt lower over her knees, not knowing she did, and folded her arms across her bosom.

How did one talk to an oaf? “Have we ever met?” she asked brightly. “Where do you live?”

“Up the road a-ways, west,” he answered. His voice was hard, brassy, and it seemed to come from him ungoverned. He paused between phrases, waiting for the next phrase to shape itself. His lips were stiff and hard, not used to forming words, dry and thick, except when he spoke and then moisture gathered at the corners slightly. He did not wipe it away. “We’ve not met — that is, not spoken. I come to church to see you, though. I’ve come a long time.” He paused, tried to thrust his hands into the pockets of his cheap dark Sunday suit and failed. His thick thighs strained at the seams of the cloth. “Folks go to church over to Chipping Corners. I changed after I seen you once — saw you once when I was driving through town to sell a yearling bull calf.”

“Did you?” She laughed, a little amused. Imagine his coming to church Sunday after Sunday to see her! A wisp of warmth curled into her amusement, a flicker of coquetry. This huge, simple creature was a man, after his sort. He caught the brief laugh and drew nearer to her upon the step where they sat. He fixed his small deep-set eyes upon her hands, clasped about her knees. He moved his own hand and let it lie, as if carelessly, upon the step between them. She could feel his thought — his simple, one thought. Soon he would lay his hand upon hers. Why would he have planned, come to see a girl, except for some simple and direct satisfaction? She warded him off. She did not move, but she threw gaiety into her voice, she let mockery fly into her eyes, bitterness in her laughter. “And I didn’t know! All that faithfulness — wasted!”

He waited, immovable while she laughed, and when she was silent, he said, “I figure it wasn’t wasted. It was only the beginning of something I’d set myself to do. I figured someday I’d sit on the porch like this with you. And here I am.”

He sat in vast waiting. She looked at him now, afraid. “I figured,” he went on in his slow stiff-lipped way, “the day would be when I’d lay my hand on your hands — like this.” She watched his enormous hand move and motionless she watched it descend and cover her two clasped hands. “Like this,” he said again.

She felt his hand hard and stiff against her tender flesh. She looked at his hand. It was broad and thick, the fingers thick to their tips, the palm meaty. The little finger was sharply bent as though it had been broken.

“Did you break your little finger?” she asked aloud. Why did she ask when she did not care? The hand filled her with repulsion.

“No,” he said. He did not remove his hand. He held it there, thickly covering her hands, heavy as a stone upon her two hands. “It’s work that’s done it — nothing but work. This other one’s the same.” He held up his other hand to show her and she saw it in its hugeness. She could see even in the dim light the large freckles upon the forearm, where his sleeve was too short, the rough red hair upon the flesh. Upon the back of his hand there was this wild red hair. She shrank under the cover of his hand and tried to shake it off. But there it clung, pressing down.

“Take your hand away,” she said violently. “I don’t like to be touched.” He waited an instant, and then he took it away without reply. She felt him waiting. He took it away, but he was waiting. He would surely put it there again. She stood up abruptly. “I must go in now,” she said quickly. “I have some things to do.”

He rose clumsily, his body huge and thick, taller even than she was. He stared at her stubbornly, and for a moment again she was afraid of him. But he said calmly enough, “Good night, then. I’ll come again — if you say so.”

“Good night,” she said, already at the door. “Good night—”

She ran to her room without looking back. She would never say he was to come back, never! It was good to be back in the house, in this lonely house. Where was her father? She ran downstairs again and knocked at his door.

“Yes?” he called. “Come in.”

She went in quickly. “Father?”

“Yes,” he replied. He was sitting in his old Morris chair by a small dying wood fire, his hands folded in his lap. He had on his old patched plum-colored study gown, and above his thin face his white hair stood a little disordered, so that she knew he had just finished his evening prayer. He turned his mystic eyes toward her.

“Father,” she said, “I just — I suddenly felt a little lonely.”

She had never said such a thing before and he looked at her uncomfortably. … She looked like her mother, he thought in alarm. Mary had been used, when she was younger, to come running into his study like this at night after he supposed she was in bed and asleep. “Paul, Paul — I’m so lonely.” “Lonely? But I am here, Mary.” “I can’t feel you near me, Paul. You seem somewhere else. You live away from me so.” “I must be about my Father’s business, Mary.” … He felt his daughter’s hand on his arm and he was very uncomfortable. It was a light touch, but it had the hot shaking quality that Mary’s had sometimes — especially when she was young.

“Are you ill, Joan?”

To his horror she fell upon her knees and placed her face upon his arm. He did not move. He felt her shake her head. “Lonely, lonely,” he heard her whisper. He must, he felt, do something. Diffidently he put up his other hand and touched her hair once. It sprang warm and curled about his fingers and he took his hand away quickly. He must think of something to say.

“Would you — do you think you’d like to help me at the mission? It would give you something to do.”

But who could ever understand women? She lifted her head sharply and gave him a long look, and then she began to laugh, so long, so loud, until tears were in her eyes. He waited, pained. He had wanted to help her. At last she stopped laughing and wiped her eyes.

“I’ll help you,” she said. “Yes, perhaps it will give me something to do. … Good night, poor dear.”

She bent and kissed him, a touch upon his pale high forehead, and went away. She was better, he felt happily. The laughter had done her good, though he could not understand it. But it had done her good — he believed he had once heard a doctor say that laughter was medicinal. But why “poor dear”?

What was it Martin had promised and never given, what had he touched in her and not taken from her, what stirred in her and was not completed? Something now bloomed in her, lonely as a vivid flower in a field, solitary of its kind. She came to a sort of maturity, and this man who beset her doggedly had no more to do with it than a bee, stumbling upon a vivid flower, forcing its petals into a troubled readiness, because the hour was come. For he made no secret of why he came. He came each Sunday, doggedly, now without asking. Each Sunday, she perceived, he came with his plan of one more step he would take toward her. Having touched her hands at first, he took her hand the next time and held it. This, his way said, he had a right to do. Having held her hand, the next time he put his hand upon her waist. She drew away, sick, yet stirred by each fresh movement.