“You sell my bicycle,” he said suddenly. “Jack Weeks wants it. He’ll give you fifteen dollars for it, maybe. But be sure you have the money before you give it to him. He’ll cheat you if he can.”
“I’ll sell it and send you the money,” she said steadily.
“If I don’t get the job—” he said.
“If you don’t get one job, you’ll get another,” she replied in the same even tone. “You don’t come back—you’ll get the job, though—I feel you will.”
He looked at her deeply from under his black brows, questioning her. Did she know something? Who could know when he told nothing? Even at the store when other fellows boasted of the girls they knew, he was silent. No one ever saw him with any girl. He was never with any girl. He never walked with any girl. He and Fanny met and parted in the darkness of the wood beyond old Mrs. Mark’s house. Fanny went south and he went north. He withdrew into deeper silence. Silence was safe—never tell, and no one could know.
“Supper’s ready, and your pa’s waiting,” Hannah’s voice shouted from downstairs.
“I’ll go and tell him,” said Joan. “He won’t understand, but he’ll have to be told.”
She went downstairs to the dining room. The table was set for three. Soon it would be set for only two. She had an instant of terror. How swift was change, how insecure was life! This home had seemed for many years as permanent as her own body. Her mother, her father, Rose, Frank, herself, these five, had seemed as safe as the setting and rising of the sun. Her father came in at Hannah’s call and she saw him freshly, sharply, in the power of the moment. He was a frail old man, and he was all that was left to her of what was the safety of her childhood.
He looked vaguely about. “Where’s Francis? I’ll sit down. I’m tired today.” He took his seat at the head of the table, clinging to the sides of the chair as he sat.
“He’s coming,” she replied, and sat down. She would tell him quickly, now, before Frank came down. “Father,” she said, “Frank’s got a job. At least, probably, and he’s going to New York.”
He had begun to dip up the thick soup in the bowl before him in haste for its heat and warmth. When she said this he looked up at her, the spoon poised above the bowl.
“A job?” he repeated. “He isn’t finished school. What’s it mean? Isn’t he going to college? It’s strange if my son doesn’t go to college. And I thought he’d begun to give weight to God. He’s been so regular in his attendance at church I thought he was—”
“He has a job,” said Joan, raising her voice and shaping each word plainly. “He wants to go. He’s going tonight.”
“Tonight!” the old man repeated, astonished. He paused and said at last, “I wasn’t told.”
“He didn’t know until tonight,” said Joan. “You have to take a job when you get it.”
“What job?” he asked.
“Martin Bradley’s helping him,” she answered.
He went on with his soup in silence. He would talk to Francis, he thought to himself. He would not talk to Joan. Women knew very little. Francis would not tell her, but he would tell his father. He waited until Francis came in, and looking up saw his son unwontedly. The boy’s cheeks were very red and his eyes looked like Mary’s eyes. He came in quickly, and sat down quickly and began to eat, and he said nothing, after all, to his father.
The old man felt cut off from these two young creatures. They told him nothing. They were full of plans of which they said nothing to him. He wiped his mouth and began, gently, “Joan tells me you are going away.”
“Tonight,” said Francis. “Hannah, bring me some raisin bread.” He was in sudden high excitement. “Hurry, old girl! It’s your last chance—I’m going away.”
“You’re not!” she retorted, pausing at the door, and disappearing.
But he shouted after her. “I’m going away this very night—going to get a job in the big town!”
“No such thing—who’d have you?” she replied amiably, bringing in the raisin bread and plumping it down before him.
“He really is, Hannah,” said Joan.
“Not to New York!” said Hannah. Her scraggy face puckered as though a thread had been suddenly drawn about the lips.
“Yes,” said Joan.
“Your ma,” said Hannah mournfully, “wouldn’t have heard to it. She said Frank was to go to school till he was twenty-two. I mind, because she was counting the years until you’d be through, the three of you.”
“I’m going to be an aviator,” Francis boasted, his cheeks full of raisin bread.
“You’ll break your neck,” replied Hannah, unbelieving. “You can’t walk downstairs without a tumble.”
“An aviator!” said the old man suddenly. “I wasn’t told.” It came to him vaguely that they even told the servant more than they told him. Yet he had always done his best for them. He had prayed for them greatly. He had gone into deep agonies of prayer for their souls. “O, God, my Father, save my children’s souls and bring them into the knowledge of Thee.” They sat there, young and intolerably hard, not knowing of his yearning after them. They were always making jokes about things he did not understand. There was Francis now, his thumb to his nose, grimacing absurdly at the servant. He was not answered and he sighed. “I suppose,” he said patiently, “you must do as you think best.”
For the first time he definitely missed Mary. Mary would have spoken to Francis. But he could not think of anything to say. He sat over his tea until Francis had finished his dessert and rushed to his room for his things. When he saw him carrying his suitcase, he half rose from the table to help him, to show his son that he felt his going. But Hannah was ahead of him. She had perceived that this was no joke, and had rushed to pack some sandwiches.
“Give me that bag,” she said sharply. “You’ll be hungry riding. It always makes you hungry to ride on the train. But your ma wouldn’t have let this be. There’s been no managing you since your ma went. There now—get away. I’ll carry it myself. I’ve carried Joan’s bag to go to college, and Rose’s bag to go to heathendom—I’ll carry it myself—”
“Father,” said Joan, tucking on her hat, “don’t hurry. Sit and finish your tea. I’ll drive him to the train and be back—After all, it’s only New York—it’s not far.”
“New York’s only the place I hop off from,” laughed Francis. He was free, he was free! Fanny maybe was waiting this very moment in the wood, down by the brook in the warm dark summer night, but he was escaping her. He need not come back. He would never come back.
“Good-bye, Hannah—send me cookies once in a while.” He gave her a great kiss.
She was crying a little, but she retorted in pretense of anger, “And where I’ll send them to you, I’d like to know, and New York as big as all get out?”
“I’d smell ’em coming,” he replied gaily. “Good-bye, Dad.” He felt the cool dry old hand cling for a moment in his own hot palm and he dropped it quickly. “I’ll write.”
The old man rose and followed them wistfully to the door.
“You’ll go to church, won’t you?” he begged. “You’ve been so steady in attendance.”
“Good-bye—good-bye,” cried Francis.
The old man heard the flying gravel in the darkness and they were gone.
… “Good-bye, Frank,” Joan said brusquely. The train stood ready to move. The steam blew back out of the darkness, white in the night. She looked at him, his eyes level with hers. He was as tall as she now, and his shoulders were broad as a man’s. His face was a man’s face in the shadows, angular, dark. There was knowledge in his eyes. She shrank away from the knowledge in his eyes. She did not want to kiss him. But suddenly he changed. There in a moment he changed. He threw his arm about her and put his head upon her shoulder and she could feel his cheek against her bare neck.
“Joan—” he said in a small voice. Why, he was afraid, she felt him afraid! How foolish she was to think he was grown up! He was only a little boy. Whatever he had done, he was
only a little boy. She put her arm about his big young body and held him hard. But in a moment he had straightened himself and smiled, his eyes wet.
“It’s very—it’s funny to be leaving home.”
“I know,” she said, releasing him. She must always know exactly when to release him, that he might not feel he had given away anything of himself and so suffer.
“I’m glad to go, really,” he said.
“I know,” she said steadily.
The train whistle blew and he stepped upon the first step.
“All aboard,” said the conductor.
“Remember,” she whispered, longing to do everything for him, “remember—I’m here—always—like—like Mother was—”
For a second his face stared hard at her, then the train tore him away before she heard his answer.
Now she must find some sort of life in this empty house. It had seemed so small and crowded when they were all there. She had been used to going to her room that she might be alone to dream, to read, to write her music. It used to be so noisy a house. Her mother liked noise and took no pains for quiet. “I like to hear footsteps,” she used to say. “I like to hear your footsteps everywhere—I like to think, that’s Joan—there’s Rose—here’s my boy coming.” She had complained against the father. “Why do you creep up the stairs, Paul? Why do you wear those slippers all the time? I like to hear a man’s step ring hard and clear!” Once she said to Joan, out of a long silence as she sewed, “Your father’s a good man, but I wish he would whistle or sing. I like to hear a man. I’m glad Frank’s always making a noise in the house.”
But now there was no need to go to her own room for solitude. In any room she could sit down and be alone. No one would come in, no voice call, unless it were Hannah’s voice from the kitchen. “I declare, Joan, we’d better tell Mr. Billings not to send so much meat, even if he does give it. It’s tedious eating at one hunk o’ beef or pork the whole week long!”
“Yes, it is,” she called back. Their voices echoed through the silent house.
There were fewer people from the church who came to see them. She seemed to remember that when her mother was there people were always coming, people asking her mother questions, running in and out. “Oh, Mrs. Richards, I did just want to ask you one more thing—would you have strawberry ice cream at the supper, or apple pie? I think men like pie, but—” “Mrs. Richards, Mother says could you come over a minute and look at Danny’s throat and see if you think she’d ought to send for the doctor?” “Mrs. Richards, can you remember if the choir sang ‘Lift up your heads, ye gates’ last Easter or the time before?”
But few came in now. Sometimes if she were in the garden cutting flowers, one would stop. Mrs. Winters might say, “Did you hear from them this week, Joan? I had a letter last week. They’ve reached their station. I can’t pronounce it. Rob says it’s awful hot and lots of flies and mosquitoes. He’s all worked up over the blind people. What does Rose say?” And she would answer, “I haven’t heard lately from Rose, Mrs. Winters. Rose never was good at writing letters.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Winters, “I don’t know, I’m sure.” She sighed, hesitated, and then said sharply, “Those lemon lilies’d ought to been cut before they seed like that, Joan. It uses up the bulbs to let them seed.”
“I’ll cut them,” Joan promised.
She watched Mrs. Winters down the street. Mrs. Winters had resigned from the missionary society. She did not even come to meetings. To Joan she said privately, “What I have to give’ll go to Rob straight. I can’t afford to drop my money for everybody anymore. We’ve got to do what we can for our own.” Sometimes she worried. “I don’t know, but I’ve a notion Rob isn’t using what we send for himself. He keeps writing about the poor. I’ve said to him that the poor we have always with us, and what I send is for him. But nobody listens to me. What does Rose say?”
What did Rose say, indeed? There was so little in her letters. Her large even handwriting covered the pages and left them almost as empty as before. “The Lord blessed us this morning in the baptism of seven more, four women and three men. The work is prospering in spite of the opposition of many against us. But we remember ‘Blessed are ye when men shall persecute you and—’”
She cried to Rose across the sea, “Rose, where is your home, and how does it look? Did you wear the satin gown? Are you and Rob in love with each other? Do you walk in your garden in the evening hand in hand, do you eat together and make little jokes together and forget sometimes the blind, the maimed, the poor?” But there was nothing in Rose’s letters which could not be read aloud in the missionary meetings. They listened seriously, politely, at last indifferently. They were not real people, the converts. She could not see their faces. Still they were doubtless saved, those distant brown creatures.
“Things seem to be going so well,” Mrs. Parsons said kindly. She was the president now, but they had always to prod her and correct her. They called out half-a-dozen times in the meeting. “We can’t pass a motion without a second, Mrs. Parsons—Madame President, I mean—” “Oh, yes,” murmured Mrs. Parsons, blushing, recalling her wandering thought. She had been happily dreaming while they were talking, dreaming about the story she was writing, a dear story about a young girl and a man—perhaps this time, surely this time … When Rose’s letters were read she thought to herself that it would make a sweet story, the two brave young missionaries—her mind was full of their images, going hither and thither, two white and cloudlike shapes, blessing the dark, bound multitudes bending in devotion before them. Maybe if she could write it just as she saw it, this time somebody would want to publish it.
There was a murmur of assent over the little roomful of women, knitting, sewing, crocheting. Mrs. Billings always darned. “I’ve got such a’ lot of boys,” she said with laughter. “They’ve got legs like centipedes, I think. I call ’em my thousand-leggers.” Their minds were full of their handiwork. “Knit one—purl two—turn and knit two, purl one—” Mrs. Weeks whispered steadily to herself. “It’s nice they’re so ready to hear the Gospel,” she called aloud. “Knit one, purl two—and turn—” Only Miss Kinney had no handiwork. She sat, smiling, her eyes large and shining, plucking at her lips with one hand.
“When I was in Africa,” she would often begin, but almost immediately one of the women would interrupt vigorously, “Madame President, don’t you think we ought to take up the matter of the next bazaar? Our budget—” To a neighbor she would whisper, “You’ve got to shut Sarah Kinney off, or we’d never get through.”
And on the old, comfortable, married faces there was the same expression, “Poor thing—but you’ve got to shut her off—she’s getting so queer!”
Yes, Rose’s letters read beautifully at the missionary meetings. But they broke no silence, in the house. Francis had scrawled his first letter.
DEAR JOAN.
I got a job, but no flying yet. I’m an errand boy and I have to do anything they tell me, but yesterday they let me help clean a plane. If I keep on right I’ll maybe learn to fly some day. They tell me everybody starts like this at the bottom. Send the bicycle money to me here. I have a room across the street with a fellow I know here. I am okay.
The silence in the house grew deeper. What was there now for her to do in this house? She polished the tables and the chairs and changed the flowers every day, and learned to be troubled by the shadow of dust. It became important to her if a curtain hung awry or if a book were not straightly placed. But no hand except the wind’s displaced a curtain, and no hand except her own touched anything. Her father moved from study to dining room and thence to sleep. If he went for an instant into the parlor, it was never to remain. It was to wait while she found his hat, to rest a moment when he returned, and his coming and going left nothing.
Once or twice Ned Parsons called. “Joan, want to go to the picnic Thursday?” Did she want to go? That first summer she had gone to everything. So she went once. But they were all younger than she, they seemed
far, far younger. In this short time new boys and girls had grown up and she was too old for them. She felt very old. They came to her politely. “Miss Richards, will you have potato salad?” “Miss Richards, do you mind if we climb the mountain?” She might have cried back at them, “But I’ll go with you—I love climbing.” But there was Netta Weeks to warn her, poor ghastly Netta Weeks, trying to be one of them, trying to be noisy and gay, refusing to sit among the older folks, insisting on playing games and following the young couples about. Joan, watching, was stabbed with their contempt, their helpless toleration. Behind their cold tolerating young faces they were gnashing their teeth to cry to each other, “The silly old maid—why doesn’t she leave us alone?”
“No, of course I don’t mind,” said Joan smoothly. “I’d rather stay and talk to your mothers anyway.”
She would not walk with Ned Parsons. Ned would not do—not any longer. She wanted now to hear the authentic voice of love. His pale knobby clerk’s face, his protruding eyes and weak romantic gaze—no, not Ned—not Ned, who barely reached her shoulder.
“I’m tired, Ned,” she said quietly. “Why don’t you ask Netta? Netta!” she called with determination. Let her deliver the children at least, “Netta, come and walk with Ned for me! I’m tired.”
Netta came instantly, her round foolish spectacled face coy with smiles and seeming reluctance.
“Oh, I don’t want to take your young man, I’m sure,” she cried, laughing loudly.
She had been shy of Joan ever since that night in the darkness. Now they called often to each other at a distance: “Hello, Netta!” “Oh, hello, Joan—come and see me sometime.” And Joan said, “You come over, too!” But they had never come to any meeting. She looked at Netta quietly and gravely as she laughed her foolish laughter.
Time Is Noon Page 17
