Pearl Buck - Time Is Noon

“My goodness, Joan, you can’t keep a child like that here!”

Joan picked him up and wiped his drooling mouth and made his garments neat. She bore the pain drearily. It must come again and again, David asking sharply, “Why can’t Paul walk?”—Mary snatching Paul’s toys, knowing already he was without defense. Only Frankie was never surprised. “Yes’m, there’s quite a lot of babies in Sound End slow like Paul.” He looked out for Paul, always. He took Paul’s toys gently away from Mary and gave them back to him.

She said quietly to Mrs. Winters, “I think it just as well that they grow used to children like Paul. They’re part of life.”

“If I’d had my health,” said Mrs. Winters, “you’d never have to. Mr. Winters used to be so delicate, and now he’s heavier than me.” She held up her arm. “Remember what round white arms I used to have, Joan?” She looked at her withered yellow arm sadly.

Joan forgot what she had said of Paul. “Have you seen Dr. Crabbe?” she asked.

“Him!” said Mrs. Winters. “I wouldn’t go to him — I don’t put confidence in him — never did. He’s always abetted Mr. Winters against his egg-nog, anyway. Says it doesn’t do any good if he doesn’t want it. It’s contrary to religion, if nothing else. We’ve all got to do what we don’t want to — it’s life.”

Joan smiled. Mrs. Winters was old now. There was no use contradicting the old, whose voices would so soon be stopped. But she knew life only began when one did what one wanted to do. She wanted to see Roger Bair — to speak to him. It was no longer enough to write.

“Well, I’ll be going,” said Mrs. Winters. “David looks peakedy to me. He’s too thin. I saw him on the street yesterday.”

“He’ll never be fat — he burns himself up,” she answered. “Look at Mary!”

They both looked at Mary. She was chewing a rubber doll and when she saw them looking at her she dimpled madly, murmuring. Mrs. Winters capitulated. “Yes, she’s real heavy. You’ve done well by her, Joan. Well, as I was saying — my Ellen was just as healthy and in a week she was dead — pneumonia. You can’t fix your heart, not on anything in this world.” She turned away from Mary.

Joan did not answer. “I will fix my heart,” she said silently. “What is the use of living if you do not fix your heart? It is not living, living only to avoid pain.” And always she waited for Mrs. Winters to complain because she had left Bart

But Mrs. Winters began, “I don’t go to church anymore. I can’t abide the minister’s wife — a cold driving woman, laying down the law, especially in the missionary society. I told her, “Haven’t I got a son that was a missionary and my own daughter-in-law, lying out there martyrs? These children wouldn’t have been motherless if I’d been listened to. Well”—she sighed—“you’d better start David in on cod-liver oil. And if I were you, and I don’t mean to hurt you, Joan, but I’d put that child away. It isn’t right. Now you listen to me.”

She held Paul to her closely for a long time after Mrs. Winters was gone. One could not put sorrow away and have done with it. It lived on as long as one’s heart could beat to feel it.

David burst into the room. “Hello, Joan!” he shouted, and darted toward the kitchen. In a moment Frank would be there. He came and followed David, smiling at her silently. Did he really look as much like his father as she thought? She was frightened sometimes lest someone in the village might see him and see how much he looked like Francis Richards. But who now would remember Francis? No one thought about Francis anymore, no one except herself.

Whether Roger reached her first or whether she saw the notice of Francis’ death first, hardly seemed important. The notice was only a small paragraph, a plane had been lost in a curious manner by a man who had, it seemed, meant to lose it — a man named Francis Richards. She stood holding the paper in her hand, staring at the name. But Francis Richards was not a very common name. Still, it was common enough so that she must keep her head. She must telegraph. But the doorbell had rung at that moment and without waiting there was such a knocking that she put the paper down and ran to the door. He had telegraphed her first, of course. Roger — but it was he himself! She knew him instantly. She had not forgotten a line of his face, his body.

“Am I in time?” he asked quickly. She stared at him. “I mean — have you seen the morning paper?”

Then it was Francis!

“Yes, I’ve seen it,” she answered. He came in as though the house were his own and sat down before her. He had come to tell her Francis was dead. After a while, very soon, it would matter that Francis was dead. But not yet.

“It is true?” He had put down his hat. Now he took off his coat. She had never seen him in ordinary clothes before. This was the sort of clothes he wore, this rough brownish stuff.

“I’ve got to tell you. I wish I had been there. He was such an odd fellow — never himself on the ground. People didn’t like him. But in the air he was quite different.” He was swallowing hard, wiping his forehead with a brownish linen handkerchief. “In the air something changed him. He was gay, you know — quite gay, as soon as we’d left the earth. I saw it happen again and again when we went up together.”

He was telling her about Francis and she must listen. It was not right now to look at his eyes, his mouth, his hands.

“He’d been getting on very well — only nobody liked him. I don’t think anybody ever had any proof that he had actually any part in the trouble we had over wages. But he was the sort you’d suspect of discontent. I hope I’m not hurting you?” He was looking at her kindly. She shook her head and he went on.

“I liked him — knowing how he was in the air, you know.”

But he was talking to her at a distance, as though they had never written to each other, as though letters had not come and gone a hundred times.

“Don’t — don’t be sad,” he begged her. He leaned forward and his face was near to hers — very near. She could see lines about his eyes. His skin was fine-grained, burned brown, his teeth strong and even. “No one will ever know exactly what happened. No one was near him — I mean he had no close friends. The men saw him coming to the field, walking along with a woman. She was telling him something, talking to him …

“Sweet boy, haven’t I told you I can’t get a job? Take me with you where you live. How did I find you? I have my ways. No, I’ll tell you the truth — I asked a farm fellow—”

“Let me go. Take your hand off my arm!”

But she would not loose him. She was there, still pretty. How did women like that stay pretty so long? God, if she’d only been fat — ugly — old! But she was pretty. Her breast was against his arm. He could feel it. No white woman had such lovely breasts. She had pulled back her coat on purpose. When he knew what she did on purpose why couldn’t he hate her? But it only made him want her again. And when he wanted her he thought of his mother, and he couldn’t take her — not to glut himself. If once he could glut himself, he might get it out of him forever.

He used to sit in church beside his mother. He could sit still a long time feeling her warmth, catching the smell of her, the organ, the sound of his father’s high intense voice, playing intensely upon him.

“Get away!” he shouted. He began to walk quickly, as fast as he could. But she was saying something, hanging to him, never letting him go. There was a smell about her, warm, close. He began to run. But she was saying something.

“And your boy, Frank — there’s Frankie —”