They were so eerie. They reminded me of all the insect and bird life around us. During the next minute or two when I looked into that foliage in a gingerly way, it seemed that all the little creatures hidden in the midnight dark were softly rustling and moving through plant life that was entirely strange to me.
I was relieved when Victor Berringer joined us and we started up the path together. I felt that although he probably did not constitute a danger himself, he certainly was a formidable obstacle to any other dangers.
He asked me suddenly, “Will you be staying at Sandalwood alone tonight?”
“The servants will be there.” I wondered at his question. His manner did not suggest an interest or sympathy with my welfare.
“Then the servants do sleep at the main house?”
“Some do. Others, as you know, Mr. Berringer, go home to Kaiana or to the village across the island.”
We had passed beyond the tiny creek that crawled away through the jungle toward the thunderous gulch, and were climbing the last yards of the path with Sandalwood House above us. I was anxious to reach the privacy of my own room. At the same time I couldn’t help feeling some gratitude toward William Pelhitt and Berringer. Their presence was preferable to finding myself alone on the path at this hour.
The door beside the ground floor lanai was locked when Berringer tried it, but the front door opened easily under his hand. I ducked beneath his outstretched arm, thanked him and waved good night to William Pelhitt who had followed us up on the veranda. He gave me a half-hearted little salute. Berringer glanced from me to Bill Pelhitt, his pale eyebrows raised, then said brusquely to Pelhitt, “Well, come along. It’s an Olympic marathon to the local Hawaiian paradise.”
I locked the door as they stepped off the veranda and onto the grass before the emu, but I watched them until they were actually on the path to the Hawaiian village. I pitied William Pelhitt and disliked Berringer, and I supposed that was the extent of my feelings. But I was suspicious of them too. The only odd thing they did in those minutes after they left me was to start on a short-cut through the Sandalwood heiau with its unfinished bungalows. At the last second they swerved, turned and went the long way around the grove. Finally, their figures vanished in the foliage that threaded itself over their heads on the village path.
The hall lights were on downstairs. I was grateful for that, but with the electric situation what it was on Ili-Ahi, these lights were dim enough to conjure up shadows in every corner out of all proportion. I was ashamed of my own cowardice as I hurried past the empty, darkened living room. Hearing nothing that suggested anyone else might be present in the house, I began to wish I had gone back to Oahu with the plane that carried Deirdre and Stephen. Maybe I could then have gone out to stay with the Nagatas.
I started up the stairs, heard soft steps behind me, and nearly screamed as I grabbed at the bannister and swung around. Mr. Yee, Michiko’s uncle, stood on the bottom step, wrapped in a flannel bathrobe, yet managing to give an appearance of majestic disapproval.
“When it passed midnight, miss, it was thought you would all remain in Honolulu. May I ask—will Mr. Stephen and Mrs. Stephen be here for breakfast?”
“No,” I said. “I’m afraid not.” I took a long, uneven breath, wanting to laugh hysterically at the scare he had given me. I explained that Deirdre was ill in Honolulu.
He received the news as I might have expected, with complete equanimity.
“Very well.”
I said “good night” but he did not reply. He simply padded off to some room on the ground floor. Greatly relieved at the presence of another human being in the big house, I went on up past Stephen’s and Deirdre’s rooms to my own. When I had gone in, snapped on the light and locked my door, I became aware of just how tired I was.
Deirdre had looked so pale, so helpless and young, as Stephen said. And she had looked that way once before, the morning of her mother’s death...
I won’t think of that, I told myself, angrily pushing away the memory. I’ll go to bed, get a good night’s sleep, and things will look more cheerful in the morning.
When I got into bed I lay there almost too tired, too drained to sleep for a little while. By lying there absolutely still, with the window open above the steepest sector of the path, which lay below me now bright in the moonlight, I could almost block out the distant roar of the falls into the Ili-Ali gulch and imagine I heard twitterings and rustling somewhere. The world might be asleep, but the denizens of the thick foliage out there were disturbed. Inside the house a light snapped off somewhere downstairs. Probably Mr. Yee’s light, I decided, as one particular glimmer outside had flickered and vanished, leaving another patch of darkness.
I lay there stupidly worrying, first about Deirdre’s health and then about her future. I hoped when she recovered, she would have grown up enough emotionally to want to establish a full relationship with her husband. But that was their affair, after all. Another worry was my own future. I would have to leave here as soon as Deirdre recovered from her present attack. There were complications in that, too. A condition of my parole had been my employment with Stephen Giles, and I knew for a certainty when I saw Deirdre’s eyes tonight that I must not have any further connection with her husband in any way.
If the red tape about my freedom could be cleared away, I wanted to go to some area where I was totally unknown. I hadn’t found myself yet, or found the life to which I wanted to devote my future. All I had thought of during the months they were working on my freedom was the post as “housekeeper” at Sandalwood. I had pictured myself keeping busy, accomplishing something so that my freedom would be worthwhile, but I had never seen myself as interfering in Deirdre’s life. Now, all that had changed. I had done considerable secretarial work during my imprisonment and this was a field I might pursue. I had taken most of the “super’s” dictation in prison. She had been a hard, wise, toughened woman with a streak of understanding that made me think of the women in pioneer days.
While the surface of my mind planned my future and the rest of it kept praying for Deirdre’s recovery, I went to sleep.
It was only afterward that I remembered being disturbed once, just at that time of sleepy confusion shortly after I had dozed off in the first hour of my sleep. I heard what appeared to be the shrill cry of a tropical night bird. Startled, I listened and several seconds later there were sharp, crackling noises, as of branches breaking. I wondered whether the sudden flight of the bird had been precipitated by the breaking of the branches, or whether the bird’s sudden flight had caused the breakage. It must have been a very large bird, I thought. Unable just to lie there imagining things, I got up and went to the window. Even the breeze had died down. The scene reminded me of some primeval glade, absolutely still in the unearthly golden light of the moon.
I stood there long enough to find myself chilled. Then I got into bed, still listening, still half asleep, but I heard nothing else except the distant roar of the creek pouring down into the gulch. I drifted off again and slept soundly until my doorknob was tried several times and I awoke to find it was ten o’clock on a muggy, sunny morning. Someone, having failed to get into my room because the door was locked, rapped a couple of times. Then Nelia Perez’s cheerful voice called out, “Breakfast tray, Miss Cameron.”
I hurried to the door, unlocked it, and the girl came in with her tray. She seemed surprised at the locked door.
“You are afraid of burglars, Miss Cameron? You needn’t be, here on Ili-Ahi.”
“Sorry. I must have done it automatically.”
“Oh, sure. I guess you—” she blinked, looking just a little uncomfortable. “Hope you like your eggs three minutes. Mr. Yee says no civilized human being could possibly want his eggs any other way.”
“Just right. But really, I don’t expect to be served in bed every day. I’ll be leaving as soon as Mrs. Stephen is well.”
“Poor little Mrs. Stephen. You know,” Nelia Perez leaned toward me confidentially. “It’
s funny about her.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, she locked her door too.” She giggled. “Not much of a marriage when a bride locks her door every night.” I must have frowned because she added in a hurry, “Of course, she might not be locking the door against Mr. Stephen. I sure wouldn’t. But what other reason could she have?”
I drank my coffee absently while I considered this idea, which I realized now was not new to me.
“Nelia, do you think Deirdre is afraid of someone?”
“Or something. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s it.”
“But what then?”
“Ghosts, maybe. Imaginary things.”
I said after a minute, “I have learned to believe in very few things, and ghosts are certainly not among those few.”
She cocked her head on one side and studied me. I turned and almost involuntarily looked toward the unfinished cottages of the Sandalwood grove. She noted this.
“All I can say, Miss Cameron, is there’s been something wrong about that grove ever since Mr. Stephen’s father started to build in it. I don’t say I believe in ghosts and that stuff, but I’m not about to tangle with Mistress Pele, or Lono, or the ancient kahunas who laid down the curse on anybody who— what’s the word?”
“Defiled it?” I asked ironically. It was a very bad thing the way this superstition was spreading; Whether it might be a good or bad idea to bring tourism to Ili-Ahi was not my business. But I felt there was endless harm in this spreading superstition.
I got up and went to the window and tried to make out the grove. I saw the cabin corners, roofs, and through the clumps of trees with their undergrowth daily growing thicker, I saw the roof with the dry rushes torn and littered. A man had died there, falling from that roof only days ago.
“I’d better be going,” Nelia reminded me, backing away to the door while she kept an eye on me interestedly. She knew what I was thinking about. “Mr. Yee is pretty burned this morning anyway, what with the household being shorthanded.”
Not thinking much about it, I said, “Too bad. Maybe I can help in some way. Is it Mrs. Mitsushima’s day off?”
“No. She’s here. It’s Kekua Moku who’s taken off. She usually helps with the laundry once a week. Sheets and napkins and all that. Little Mitsu does the ironing of anything that isn’t permanent press.”
“Do you have a washing machine?”
“Oh, sure. But with our power what it is, it’d probably be quicker if we beat our sheets against the rocks in the gulch!”
I laughed and promised as I returned to my breakfast tray, “I’ll go down and see what I can do.”
As she reached the door she thanked me. “But all the same,” she said, “Kekua’s going to catch it, even if she does have Queen Ilima for a mother. She only works here part time and keeps demanding a better job, but last week she didn’t come to work because she was breezing around in a catamaran. And the way she’s been living it up lately, she’ll get the —” Nelia Perez pantomimed a slash across her throat. She went out into the hall and closed the door.
I felt guilty at having awakened so late and by having allowed my breakfast to be served here, but when I glanced at my bedside clock again, I had a fresh worry. Surely, Stephen might have called to tell me how Deirdre was this morning. I hadn’t even asked for the phone number where I could reach anyone on Oahu. As I showered, I remembered that Ito Nagata was the Giles’s physician. They must have called him in, at least for a consultation. Having taken the tray down to the kitchen, I went into the hall, found a list of emergency numbers typed on a leather-framed card and called the Nagatas on Oahu.
Michiko answered after several rings. She sounded either impatient or uneasy until she heard my voice.
“Oh, it’s you, Judy. You must be frantic. I’ve heard about Deirdre. They’ve called here several times trying to get Ito. He’s still not back.”
“How is she? Nobody has told me a thing.”
With her usual common sense, Michiko assured me at once, ‘She is doing very well. So you may as well calm down. It was just palpitations. Nothing serious.”
“Thank God!” I leaned against the little wicker telephone stand, so relieved my knees felt weak. “But you said Ito isn’t at the hospital?”
“No. They called here only minutes after Ito left late last evening. He took the last flight to Kaiana and was to be brought across the bay by two of the Hawaiians from the Ili-Ahi village. There was a woman in labor—Ilima Moku’s sister. Very important in their hierarchy.”
“I had no idea. That must be why Kekua didn’t show up today. Is Ito still here on Ili-Ahi?”
“Probably on his way home soon. He said he’d call me from your place or when he reaches Kaiana. Incidentally, if the child is a boy the poor kid is to be called Kamehameha!”
“Not another K. I can’t keep them all straight as it is.”
She laughed and then asked me if I was staying alone at Sandalwood. I understood her meaning, or perhaps I was just hypersensitive.
“So far. But I won’t be staying here after Stephen returns.”
“Don’t be silly. I can’t see you going all out with Deirdre’s husband. Although I think a nice, exciting love affair is just what you need.”
Too late, I thought. Once again I have fallen in love with the wrong man. But the first time my disastrous choice only affected me. The second would destroy the person I loved best in the world. It was not going further.
“Anyway, remember our invitation. It’s genuine. Besides—”
I could almost see her frank smile as she added, “if you’ve got the guest room, Ito’s two aunts from Osaka can’t pile in on us, as they show signs of doing.”
I was amused at Michiko’s honesty and promised I would give her invitation some thought. Then we said good-bye and I went into the laundry to sort out the linens for the washing machine. Little Mrs. Mitsushima was upset at seeing me there and assured me that she intended to do the wash as well as the ironing. I pointed out that we would finish more quickly if I helped, and Kekua Moku would have the advantage of being present at home when her little cousin was born.
But Mrs. Mitsushima said this was not so and begged my pardon profusely for contradicting me.
“Kekua is not with the family, please. They call two times. Not here.”
“You mean her family called Sandalwood about Kekua? What did they say? She stayed at home last night, didn’t she?”
“No, miss.”
She walked away and I hardly knew what to say. There were a dozen reasons why the girl might not have stayed at home, especially at a time like this when relatives and doctors and anxious fathers would be all over the place. Still, I wished we could all be sure about her whereabouts. For all her self-confidence she did not seem old enough to be spending her nights quite so casually.
Meanwhile, I had work to do and was glad to be accomplishing something physical, even if it was only the household washing.
When the first load was through its cycle, I asked Mrs. Mitsushima where these linens were dried, since she insisted politely that the small electric dryer would not do for some of the special linens.
“When no guests come, miss, the sheets dry on the lanai. Little things—hooks—the cord hangs on the hooks. There is much room—three lines there, three on the lanai above.”
She went out with me and we fastened the cords the length of the two lanais. A slight breeze rustled over the treetops of the gulch but otherwise the day was still hot and sticky. We took the first sheets to the upper lanai and pinned the first doubled sheet along the line. Mrs. Mitsushima was exceedingly careful and I found that I too was soon preoccupied with matching the hems so that they would meet. It was a pity, I thought, that we couldn’t study all that fantastic array of tropic beauty so close below us. But I knew that if I stopped to look down I would be captivated and unable to go on working. As we started to hang the second sheet closest to the low rail, Mrs. Mitsushima took a clothespin off the top
of the rail and pinned it as I did at my corners of the sheet.
She reached for another wooden pin and her oblique dark eyes looked over the rail. The most horrifying thing happened to her face as I glanced at her. Her face appeared to spread, especially about the mouth, until she seemed to be shrieking madly, yet not a sound came from her throat. The pin fell over the rail. Then the end of the sheet trailed and before I could reach her, she crumpled to the floor of the lanai in a faint.
It was not until I had lifted her head and shoulders up and was yelling like an idiot, “What is it? What is the matter?” that I thought to look over the rail into the gulch, where the fall of the Ili-Ahi river collected in flowery, rocky pools. What appeared to be a life-sized doll in a miniskirt and halter lay within one of those pools. The water bubbled and foamed around the golden arms and legs.
Fourteen
I must have stared at the little pool far below for several minutes. I felt stupefied. All I could think of as Mrs. Mitsushima began to moan was that Ingrid Berringer had been found at last. But Mrs. Mitsushima gave me my second shock of those terrible few minutes.
“Kekua down there. She falls, you think?”
I didn’t know what to do first... Kekua? Logically, it would have been Ingrid Berringer—she was the missing girl. But, of course, Kekua had been missing since yesterday. Young, vital Kekua, so used to this island and Sandalwood’s dangers, was much too sure-footed to slip and fall in that way. Yet she had done so. It was an appalling accident. Even from this height it seemed evident that she was dead. No living person could lie in that unnatural, twisted position.
The House at Sandalwood Page 17