Portrait of a Marriage by Pearl S. Buck

Author:Pearl S. Buck [Buck, Pearl S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-2113-4
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-04-04T14:54:00+00:00

PART III

“WILLIAM, I HAVEN’T HARDLY asked anything for myself all these years,” Ruth said.

“But our golden wedding, my dear, belongs to us both—or does it?”

William added the last three words when he saw her rosy, stubborn face. They were sitting together in the living room, in the middle of a summer’s morning. Ruth as an old lady was going to be still beautiful. Her soft, curly white hair framed her fresh face. She had put on enough weight so that she had none of the wrinkles of age. He looked at his own thin, dark face in the mirror every morning and saw a mapwork of wrinkles. He looked twenty years older than she. One of his brown wool socks was spread over her hand and she was weaving in a new heel. Her blue eyes were as clear as ever and she wore no spectacles.

He went on when she did not speak. “But weddings always belong to women, from the first one to the last one.”

She answered out of her own thoughts, without heed to him. “I’ll have everything yellow—tablecloth and all. We’ll have yellow roses by then.”

“Do by all means have everything yellow,” he said with impatience, “but can’t we have yellow things without inviting the countryside in?”

“Folk in the neighborhood expect to come to a golden wedding,” she replied. “A golden wedding isn’t common.”

She went on darning, but he saw sudden tears hang on her lashes and he leaned from where he sat beside her on the old sofa and took her hands, sock and all. “My dear, do you really want this—this party?”

“’Tisn’t I want a party, William—it’s our golden wedding.”

“But Ruth, why should we share our wedding with all the neighbors?”

“It’s a thing to be proud of, William—a golden wedding.”

He laughed, dropped her hands, and got up. “Oh, all right, my dear. I yield! I’ll try to go through with it for you, Ruth.”

“William, I don’t think you ought to laugh at the folks. They all look up to you so.”

“I, laugh? I assure you I hadn’t thought of laughter.”

He stood before her, restless and vaguely irritable as he often was these days. Perhaps this was old age, this restlessness to get on to whatever came next, impatience with what had continued for so long.

“I think I’ll go now, Ruth.”

“You still goin’ to climb the hill? In all this sun?”

“The sun is good for me. It’ll warm me.”

She looked up instantly anxious. “You feel chilly, William?”

“No, no—don’t fuss over me!”

“I don’t see what you want to climb that hill for, yet,” she said sharply. “You ain’t fit for it.”

“I’ll never be more fit for it,” he replied.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t tell you,” she called after him as he left her. That was like William, she thought. When he didn’t like something he just went away.

“William!” she raised her voice.

Out in the entry he stopped. “Well?” he called back.

“You ain’t takin’ your paintbox!”

“Maybe!”

“You’d better not lug that heavy thing up to the top of the hill—your heart won’t stand it!”

He did not answer this.

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