Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

But Francis was staring directly at his father, his face a stone. He had put the ring back on his mother’s hand and he was staring at his father, hating him. What good did it do to go and preach to those people? Preaching was no good. If his father knew anything, any of the things other men knew, he’d see how silly it was to think preaching would save anybody in South End.

At last it was over. Joan lifted her head to breathe the old atmosphere of peace in the church. It was so pleasant to have peace in which to dream. Where was she? She was walking down the aisle, satin-clad, her long white train — But now her father broke ringingly into conclusion: “Let us live therefore victorious to the end, triumphant, knowing in whom we have believed. And now unto God who is abundantly able—”

The organ crashed joyfully into dismissal. The people rose eager and relieved, waiting to talk to each other, to saunter out into the sunshine, to make plans for meetings in the week. Her mother gathered the children together and led them down the aisle, her hand upon her son’s arm, and he straightened himself and dropped his childishness and took on the gravity of a young man, and she looked on him with pride shining on her face. She tried to cover her pride decently, but it shone out of her eyes and glittered in her smile and rang out of her voice. On the other side Joan walked, smiling, the sweetness of her dream still alive in her face. They all greeted her with love, with welcome. She was their child, too, the daughter of the village.

“Well, Joan, I see in the paper you took a lot of honors.” “Joan’ll be famous some day—” “Won’t we be proud to have known her—”

“Shucks,” said Mr. Billings loudly, “somebody’ll marry her long before that! She’ll have babies instead, and a sight better, too.”

Joan’s mother held her head a little higher. “Come, Joan,” she said coldly, because she thought Mr. Billings very coarse. He was after all nothing but the butcher and it was a common trade. Then she remembered he gave the parsonage every week a roast of lamb or beef and he was a member of the church and his profession made him coarse, doubtless, so she said, “Good morning, Mr. Billings. It’s a fine day.” But her voice was polite and ladylike, and she turned at once to Mrs. Winters, whose husband was an elder, besides being in the choir, and asked after her peonies. Joan smiled apologetically at Mr. Billings, but he did not mind at all. He winked one of his small merry black eyes at her and his big red face crinkled under his scattered eyebrows. “I sent a tenderloin this week,” he whispered loudly, “specially for you. I thought it would be more kind of suitable, you know, than a plain pot roast.”

“Thank you,” she said, dimpling at him. She accepted the gift, too, of the admiration in his eyes. He was an old fat man, coarse and ignorant, but even so it was worth taking his look which lingered a moment upon her face. Everything was worth having, every least bit of love, all admiration. She wanted flowers strewn to walk upon. She turned from one to the other, laughing, greeting, taking everything. It was all lovely. She lavished her promises richly. “Yes, of course I’ll come!” “Oh, picnics are fun — I’ll make a chocolate cake — I make grand cake!” She forgot her mother and Francis who was pulling them impatiently along. “Gee, I’m starved, Moms,” he was muttering behind his grave grown-up face. “Church always makes me hungry—” She forgot Rose stealing softly along behind them. She was full of herself, a queen returned to her kingdom, a woman returned lovely and young.

For it was excitement to see dreams and yearnings even in old faces. She knew she made them remember again, love again, because she was so living and so young. The few young people were timid of her, she was so confident and so gay. There was Netta Weeks, who hadn’t gone to college after all. “Father says he can’t spend the money now until the factory pays,” Netta had said everywhere. Now she clutched at Joan, and whispered; “I want to see you — I want to have a real old-fashioned talk like we used to have—” “Of course, Netta,” Joan answered quickly. Poor Netta — she understood her — she understood everybody — she pitied them all — she was full of richness for them all. A young man nearby looked at her covertly, a tall stolid young farmer, and instantly she knew it, though she did not look at him, for he was a stranger. But she lingered a moment, letting him look at her.

So at last they came out into the sunshine of the cloudless day and at once Francis broke away and strode whistling across the grass. He was glad to be out of the church. No use remembering things. Sometimes in the sunshine like this he felt maybe he had imagined he had seen the hanging Negro, or made it up from talk he heard around South End. The people talked about it still, some, on lazy afternoons around the streets there. But at night he knew he had seen.

“Hi there,” he shouted loudly to a boy across the street. “Meet you this afternoon!”

“I’ll go along and start the meat,” her mother said.

“I’m coming,” Joan answered. She looked about her. Everyone was scattering now, suddenly hungry and remembering their Sunday dinners.

“I’ll wait for Father,” said Rose.

“Then I’ll go and help Mother,” she replied.

But there was one more person to come out of the church. It was Martin Bradley. He came gracefully down the steps, his music rolled under his arm. He always waited and came out alone. Now he lifted his hat easily. “How do you do, Miss Richards?” he said. “It is nice to have you home — I hope, to stay?”

She was surprised. He had never spoken to her so directly before and never had he called her Miss Richards. She looked into his melancholy brown eyes. He was a little shorter than she, a very little — no, they were the same height. “Why — I don’t know — for a while, anyway,” she stammered, suddenly taken aback. He lifted his hat again and she saw his smooth dark hair, white at the sides. He smiled slightly and pleasantly, but only with his lips, and walked away. She strolled smiling across the lawn to the manse. It was strange how when one was grown up, people seemed different. She had known Martin for years, on Sundays a part of the organ, on weekdays a face in the village. Now suddenly he took on a shape for himself; he was even rather handsome in a quiet secret oldish way.

But what his shape was she did not know and the little wonder she had now faded, at least for the moment. It was driven away by the warm noon, by the peace of the shadowy lawn, by the roses hung upon the porch and now by the smell of broiling steak and spiced apple pie. She ran up the steps and into the house. There was food upon the table, hot and delicious, ready, waiting to be eaten. She was suddenly very hungry.

On weekdays the house became itself again. It no longer belonged to the red brick church and to the village — it belonged to them. It was theirs to live in as they chose and each of them lived his own intense life, intensely alone and yet always warmly, intensely together. There were the occasions of every day when they were drawn together by a need of each other, not so much by the need of any one of them as by the need of all of them together.

In the mornings Joan drowsed in the sweetness of half-waking sleep. Her body was at once heavy and light, her mind deeply slumberous, and yet on its surface awake to the sunshine, to the angles of familiar furniture, to the smoothness of the sheets against her limbs and to the softness beneath her. There was no need to rise. There was no urgency yet to work. Life was still waiting and still holiday. Each morning her body was appeased with sleep and she was not immediately hungry. She could sleep as long as she liked, she told herself, and eat when she liked. This was her home and she was free in it. She smiled, deeply free, deeply happy, and turned upon her pillows to sleep again.