The House at Sandalwood (18 page)

“I’m sorry. It must have been difficult for you. He is a very overbearing man, and then, for you to be on such a mission.” He said something, but I didn’t hear it. As I looked up I saw Stephen Giles crossing the terrace toward us. He was looking angry. I supposed his strike negotiations must have fallen through. But I was so very glad to see him! My smile of greeting must have been bigger than I had meant it to be because his glowering look suddenly thawed into his warm, answering smile. This was only one of the qualities that made it perfectly understandable why Deirdre and Ingrid and now Judith Cameron had fallen in love with him. I pulled myself together, and reminded myself of my position here. I could not even afford to think of Stephen Giles if it was going to affect me this way.

Stephen’s glance went back to the table where my fingers tried again, more or less on their own volition, to creep out of William Pelhitt’s moist grip. I could hardly believe this sight had caused Stephen’s frown but as he came up to us, the welcoming smile was gone again.

“You two seem to be enjoying our tourist delights. Have the others been by yet?”

“Not yet,” I said with what I hoped was a very casual friendliness. “I hope you’ve had better luck than we have.” Bill Pelhitt seemed moderately glad to see him and pulled out a chair for him. I took this opportunity to recover my hand. I felt even more self-conscious when I realized that Stephen had noted this movement as well.

“I’m afraid our news isn’t encouraging,” Bill said. “We visited a woman who told us about a quarrel between Ingrid and a Hawaiian fellow. Or—as I understood it, a fellow of mixed blood. Probably Oriental and Hawaiian.”

I watched Stephen while appearing to have my attention fixed on a greedy young dove strutting across the terrace. Stephen seemed unaffected by the results of our visit. Perhaps he believed Bill Pelhitt’s description was correct.

Offhandedly, he remarked, “I imagine we will find Miss Berringer really did go off on her own, or with company, on some private yacht perhaps. Her father seems to hear from her only when she needs money, so she may be supported at the moment.” He saw Bill Pelhitt staring at him and colored suddenly. I had never seen him embarrassed before. “I beg your pardon. I forgot for a minute ... Actually, I had no right to think or to suggest...”

Bill sighed heavily and went back to his drink. “Oh, well, it could be true. But somehow, I don’t think so. I’ve got my eye on that half-breed guy, whatever he was called. Judith, what did Mrs. Asami say the guy was?”

Stephen’s eyelids flickered at Mrs. Asami’s name. Otherwise, he looked at both of us with simple interest.

I said quickly, “
Hapa-haole
? Wasn’t that it?”

“Almost. I guess it was.”

I tried not to let him see any relief in my manner at his acceptance of an entirely different description. A
hapa-haole
was usually half-Caucasian. A
kamaiana
was not necessarily the same thing. I felt that I was doing something misleading in persuading William Pelhitt he had heard other words, but although I was sorry for the necessity to lie, I was not sorry I had lied.

Bill Pelhitt tossed a chunk of pineapple from his drink to one of the doves strutting about the terrace, but the independent birds weren’t interested. He looked around guiltily, then got up and went across the terrace to pick up the fruit.

Stephen looked at me. “He seems to be a very kind sort of person.”

“Seems to be, and is.”

“You like him?”

I said lightly, “I like everything in Hawaii.” I avoided his gaze, glanced beyond him, and saw Deirdre and Michiko Nagata loaded down with packages heading toward the table. I felt absurdly uneasy as Deirdre looked from her husband’s back to me. She was obviously under the impression that we were alone. The girls reached the table just as William Pelhitt came back. It was perfect if accidental timing. He still carried the piece of pineapple and we all laughed as he held it out with the sad complaint: “Nobody wanted it. Even the birds turned me down.”

Stephen drew his wife to him, kissed her on the forehead and then groaned at the number of her parcels. She was delighted by his teasing and grinned at me. I had the chilling notion that her grin for me was one of triumph.

Michiko broke up the awkward moment by telling me about the purchases she had made.

“And the prices! Judith, you wouldn’t believe the fantastic prices these days. I haven’t bought any clothes here since last winter and everything has skyrocketed. Look at this swim suit. Ito is going to say I paid for it by the inch.”

I thanked heaven for Michiko’s calm good sense and for the suggestion she made that we have an early dinner and call it a day.

Stephen looked at his wife. “What do you say, darling? Shall we eat earlier and then go home? Not stop at the Kaiana hotel tonight?”

But Deirdre was in one of those contrary moods I recognized from her childhood.

“I haven’t done half the shops. Please, Stephen, you promised.”

In the end, because Deirdre had always gotten her way, we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping. I thought William Pelhitt would make an excuse and leave the party, but when we went on to that apartment high above the Waikiki surf where I had met Stephen Giles, Bill was still with us. Stephen had ordered a number of dishes popular at luaus.

“Complete with sand in the taro leaves,” he explained and Deirdre added, clapping her hands, “Darling, I was so sick of those luaus where everyone sits on grass and gets beetles in their sandals.”

Michiko whispered to me while the great helpings of food piled on our plates, “What I wouldn’t give about now for a burger and corn on the cob.”

Ito Nagata arrived late but joined us during the meal and remarked to Michiko and me in a quiet aside that Deirdre was looking very tired, but she seemed happy—nervously, excitedly happy, I said.

“Make her rest tomorrow.” Ito said to me. “I’ll try and get over in the evening if I can. They are expecting a baby among Queen Ilima’s family, so you may see me.”

“Deirdre is just tired, as you said. I mean, it isn’t anything more serious.” I began to feel frightened, the way we all felt when her illness as a child was diagnosed as rheumatic fever and was followed by so many other childhood ailments that might have killed her. Was she never to have a decent, happy, untroubled life?

We managed to persuade Deirdre that we should return to Kaiana by the early evening plane. We would still have the rest of the trip to make by boat. She asked Stephen, “Can we come back again? Soon?”

He drew her to him tenderly. “Whatever you like, darling, but you are looking awfully sleepy; so what do you say we call it quits?”

Bill Pelhitt volunteered to drive us to the airport where he would turn in his rented car. The Nagatas left us in Waikiki and drove across the island to their home in Haleiwa on the north coast. I was more than a little sorry to be separated from them. I felt that my presence in Sandalwood was the last thing that would help Deirdre. I remembered Michiko’s final words to me and I might even act on them.

As everyone was saying good night, Michiko had said to me in her matter-of-fact, unemotional voice, “I want you to promise me something, Judy. If things get sticky on Ili-Ahi, I want you to come to us. We both want you. I don’t like the situation on that island, and neither does Ito. Stephen should never have married her, but since he did, she’s his responsibility.”

“But why do you say that? Did something happen when you were shopping today?”

“No, no. It’s simply that the poor dear is much too changeful, too childish. And rather secretive. I always wonder if that childishness is a put-on. It’s not a healthy situation. In fact—I don’t think it is safe for anyone close to her.”

We separated then, waved good night and I got into Bill Pelhitt’s rented car with a great deal to think about, none of it happy except Michiko Nagata’s unmistakably sincere invitation. Stephen sat in the front seat with Bill, and after Deirdre’s odd behavior during the day I wondered what my reception would be when I joined my niece in the back seat. Deirdre was sleepy and yawned in my face but made up for that in her endearing way by holding out a hand and welcoming me.

“Come in, come in. Wise old auntie. Honey, have I told you how glad I am to have you here in the Islands? Let’s get cozy. There’s a breeze tonight. Notice?”

I hadn’t noticed, but Deirdre’s bare arms showed goose-bumps, and she was wearing very little above the waist. Too bad we couldn’t get at some of the clothes she had bought. Then I thought of the fringed sash I wore around my waist and which could also be worn as a thin stole. I was untying the knot when Stephen took off his zippered jacket and sent it back to her. Deirdre was delighted as a child, huddling into the warmth that had touched her husband’s flesh. Deirdre was the only one who did much talking on the way to the airport. I was worried about many things: Deirdre’s health, her real feelings toward me, the awkwardness of my own situation at Sandalwood, and Stephen Giles’s unfortunate—to say the least!—visit to Ingrid Berringer, which the Asamis had observed. I only hoped that Victor Berringer with his sharp mind would not hear the full details of Bill’s and my visit.

Stephen said nothing except to ask twice how Deirdre was feeling. “Warm enough, darling?” he repeated as we all filed out at the airport. I noticed when we moved to the interisland plane that Stephen was looking strained and seemed older than he had appeared when we had first met just a few days before. He had his arm around his wife now as we hurried along. We were barely in time to catch the flight.

Bill Pelhitt turned to me and indicated the loving couple in front of us. “It’s a beautiful thing, if it’s genuine.”

Startled, I glanced at him.

“You have reason to think it isn’t?”

“I didn’t say so. But she seems so young for that fellow.”

“She isn’t, though,” I told him. “And you can see they are very much in love.”

We were at the plane now as I caught his last whispered remark, “Lucky devils!” He always managed to make me sorry for him when my real fears made me much sorrier for Deirdre and Stephen.

It was just as we were getting into the plane that I saw a small, neat Oriental man, in a light silk suit. Our Mr. Moto. He was standing apart from the few passengers hurrying to join us. I couldn’t ignore the fact now; he was watching us, certainly either William Pelhitt or me, and perhaps all of us. When we were taking off I could still see the little figure, straight as a doll, with that imperturbable face turned in our direction.

Deirdre and William Pelhitt chattered during the entire short flight to Kaiana. Both of them may have been simply nervous and could relieve their tension by talk, but I couldn’t do so. Nor could Stephen, apparently. In any case, we four were glad to reach the tiny Kaiana airport and take the jeep to Stephen’s speedboat where it rocked gently, pulling at its mooring ropes outside an old boathouse.

As Deirdre and all her parcels were lifted down into the boat I looked off across the bay, I thought I could make out very faintly, the Ili-Ahi light on the little point where the boats docked. Then it disappeared in thick mist that came and went in little patches shrouding whole areas of the bay and channel beyond for minutes at a time.

“I hope there won’t be any difficulty crossing.” Bill Pelhitt expressed my fears aloud. Deirdre clutched Stephen’s arm anxiously.

“We’re all right? We are perfectly safe; aren’t we?”

With the gentle patience I admired in a man of his naturally spirited temperament, Stephen promised her, “We’ll take it slowly. Don’t worry, darling.” He squeezed her hand, got her comfortably seated to avoid most of the spray and reached up to help me into the boat. William Pelhitt was behind me and luckily extended his hand at the same time. I pretended not to see Stephen and let Pelhitt help me instead. We took off too fast and went into a thick patch of misty fog, but as Deirdre cringed beside me, Stephen reduced the speed, and we saw behind us the faint clusters of lights on Kaiana twinkling in a friendly way between vast regions of jungle vegetation. Deirdre had begun to think about her purchases and started to describe slacks, bikinis, jackets, and dresses to me in detail.

We must have been nearly at mid-channel when we heard another motor approaching from Ili-Ahi. The boat came on at great speed and seemed to be on our course. Stephen called across the black waters: “Who’s there? This is Giles, Ahoy! Do you hear us?” He asked Bill Pelhitt to readjust our lights. The one at the bow suddenly cut a path over the surface of the water as far as the coral reefs off the southeast shore of Ili-Ahi. The boat heading toward us at high speed gleamed in our light and we saw its single occupant, Victor Berringer, a powerful and oddly sinister figure, tall and lean, all in gray, almost becoming part of the mist that curtained the channel.

Stephen swung off course to avoid this gray demon, throwing us all against each other and causing Deirdre to shriek, but it was soon evident that Berringer knew exactly what he was doing. The boats missed each other by several yards. We got the heavy backwash from the other boat, and as we managed to get our equilibrium again I felt Deirdre swaying against me. I cried out, and Stephen cut the motor. Bill Pelhitt and I caught Deirdre as she collapsed. Her face was blue-white in the stark running lights of the two boats. She crushed her cold hands against her breastbone and gasped in pain.

“It hurts! It hurts so. Must have—eaten too fast...”

Her heart! I thought, dreading the knowledge. It was as if she were the small child all over again. Wayne’s child in pain and danger.

Victor Berringer had come about and cut his motor. He moved alongside. “Damn lights on this tub! Couldn’t see a thing. That mist swallowed you up. Can I help you? Anything I can do?”

Stephen and I were too frantic, too anxious over Deirdre to answer him immediately. I had never felt so lost and helpless. We seemed to be floating in eternity, holding Deirdre’s fragile life between us.

Thirteen