by Bodie Thoene
He murmured, “And what’s behind the glorious golden face of an island maiden? What secret thoughts course through her?”
She stepped away from him. “This is what London society longs to know?”
He frowned and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Yes. But I must experience the truth of the natives of the South Seas before I write about them.”
“You intend to enlighten London about the gentle people of Hawaii Nei. Why?”
“It would establish my career.”
“So nothing noble in your desire to discover the heart of nobility?” Kaiulani moved out of his reach.
“Hannah, I confess, after seeing you the first time beside the princess, it is not the royal family that most fascinates me. I can’t know the heart of Kaiulani, but perhaps you, Hannah…I am—forgive me—I find myself drawn to you.”
Andrew’s stammering confession warmed Kaiulani. She did not dare look at him. What had begun as a prank seemed suddenly dangerous. “My heart and the heart of Kaiulani are one. We care only about fulfilling our destiny for the Kingdom of Hawaii. Love has no place. We are all kapu—forbidden. You stand on dangerous ground. Kaiulani would not be pleased.”
“I think I can handle myself quite well in the presence of a barbarian princess.”
The tender moment passed. The wind stung Kaiulani’s cheeks.
“Barbarian?” Kaiulani was not offended, but neither was she impressed by Andrew’s high opinion of himself.
“So she is. A barbarian on her mother’s side. A few generations removed from human sacrifice.”
Kaiulani raised her chin and glared at him. “I was tempted to pity you, but you deserve what comes your way. We’ll see how well you fare when we match wits.”
“The three little maids from school.” He smirked. “I’m not intimidated.”
“You should be. We are all three half-barbarians, as you say. All hapa-haole. And half Scots, at that! A fierce and bloody people, the Highlanders.”
“I am entirely Scot. And I fear not what fate a barbarian princess may devise for me.” He bowed deeply. The wind howled, snapping his deerstalker cap from his head. It tumbled across the deck. “I am, perhaps, too outspoken. But I like you very much, Hannah.”
“Sure you do.” She closed her eyes briefly and drew on her memory of The Mikado. “It was Ko-Ko who was condemned to death for flirting.”
He snatched his hat from the deck and shoved it into his pocket. “He escaped death by his charms. But say, I’m not so charming that I don’t need your help getting a word with your friend, the princess. An interview, Hannah.”
“It can be arranged.” Her voice was clipped.
“Have I offended?”
“Yes.”
“Unintentional.”
“Nonetheless.”
“But you will help me, Hannah?”
Kaiulani’s lips curved slightly. “I am your only hope if you wish to speak with the Princess Kaiulani face to face.”
“So all along, you are the gatekeeper, it seems. You hold the key to access to Her Highness.”
“So it seems. Andrew, you must justify your request to me. Why do you care? Or do you care at all?”
“There is turmoil in the Islands, and I long to write about it before the Hawaiian monarchy vanishes with the wind.”
Andrew Adams had stepped too far over the line. Kaiulani flared. “You know so much about our Islands and the life of the royal princess. Some say she is the hope of the future.”
“It depends on whose future.” His grin faltered. He seemed to understand that he had gone too far.
“Why bother to ask her questions if you think you already know the answers? Why should I help you?” Without waiting for his reply, Kaiulani stormed away, back to her stateroom.
* * * *
Viewed through the porthole of the darkened stateroom, a canopy of stars arched over the vast Pacific. To Kaiulani’s forbears, the night sky had been a roadmap from Tahiti to the islands of Hawaii.
As Hannah and Annie slept, Kaiulani searched the heavens and replayed her conversation with Andrew. His accusation stung her. Child of a double race, could she be ashamed of her mother’s people?
Barbarian princess? What was it you told me, Mama? What? I am a child of the King who made all things. I am His… .
Kaiulani whispered the verses of Psalm 19 her mother had taught her as a toddler. Mother and daughter had sat beneath the dark night sky and recited:
“The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
Day unto day uttereth speech,
And night unto night sheweth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language,
Where their voice is not heard.” 2
Had the ancient Hawaiians understood the voice of the Lord when they looked into the arch of the heavens above their island home?
“Their line is gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.” 3
Kaiulani knew the hearts of her mother’s race had heard the voice in the heavens before they knew God’s name. Her legendary grandmother had torn down the idols and embraced the gospel eagerly when the first missionaries came to the Islands.
Only two generations later the grandchildren of those same missionaries had set aside God’s love. The whites despised the descendants of the Christian converts as “barbarians.” For sugar and for gold the haoles sacrificed the very people with whom their fathers had shared God’s love.
Kaiulani said aloud, “Ke Akua Mana E! You are great, Lord. Though the children of Your servants would steal our kingdom, Your kingdom will come.”
Perhaps there was more to be ashamed of in the heritage of her white father. Who were the true barbarians?
How quickly the children of the missionaries had betrayed the faith of their fathers. And in so doing, they had betrayed the Christian people who first looked to them for truth.
The careless accusation of Andrew Adams had only illuminated a sad reality Kaiulani knew in her heart: Child of a double race…and yet, I am a true child of the God who made the stars.
Chapter Four
Convincing Andrew to participate in the last night celebration took a relay of Hawaiians. Annie was first to broach the subject, just after breakfast on the last full day of sailing: “You know, Captain Samuels says we will arrive off Golden Gate in the middle of the night, tonight. He says the pilot boat won’t come out until tomorrow morning to lead us into harbor.”
Andrew looked up from the copy of Little Women he held. As ardently as he professed to be enjoying Miss Alcott’s work, Annie noted with amusement that his thumb had not advanced from the mark it last held. “Ah, yes?”
“So we must have a last night luau. It is a tradition, Captain Samuels says.”
“That sounds—interesting.”
“Of course, there must be entertainment.”
“Naturally.”
“At first we thought Hannah would play her ukulele and sing.”
“Charming.”
“But then we thought, we can do much better than that. We are enough to actually put on a show. Even the princess might condescend to join us.”
Andrew’s face glowed with sudden interest. Clearly the notion of a royal princess performing for his benefit was much to be preferred over spending his last night afloat reading Little Women.
“Excellent idea,” Andrew said.
Annie had been well coached. She knew not to push too hard. “I must go,” she said, leaving Andrew to his thoughts.
Kaiulani was next to appear. As “Hannah,” it was perfectly proper for her to sit in a deck chair beside Andrew. She did not speak but peered intently at a flock of seabirds diving on a school of baitfish.
Andrew glanced at her. He tried valiantly to re-devote his attention to Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, but failed miserably. “Annie—Miss Cleghorn—tells me you are planning a last night entertainment?”
Kaiulani s
hook her head sadly. “It was a wonderful idea. Gilbert and Sullivan. But the princess has decided against it.”
“Oh? Did she give a reason?”
“Of course the princess cannot perform any physical labor. Such a thing is not to be thought of; it is kapu in our culture. And what a shame! We have practiced the music of Mister Gilbert and Mister Sullivan. Annie plays piano very well too.”
“I still don’t see—”
“Moving the piano, rearranging the salon, setting the stage. Annie and I cannot do all that by ourselves.” Her face was a mask of disappointment, though Andrew failed to see how she studied him out of the corner of one eye.
“But there’s me!” he declared. “I can help.”
“Would you?” Kaiulani said. “We don’t want to impose.”
“Nonsense, Hannah! Tell the princess I’d be happy to oblige.”
Kaiulani smiled. “I’ll tell her so at once.” She departed briskly.
Out at sea a pack of ravening dolphins prodded the school of sardines into a boiling, frightened mass that kept pace with the lumbering freighter. Andrew stared at the spectacle, but it seemed only an instant before he was confronted by three Hawaiian females.
Jumping to his feet, Andrew bowed to the princess—Hannah.
In a regal tone Hannah inquired, “Is it true you have agreed to help us stage our production?”
“Of course,” Andrew agreed. “Anything to assist Your Highness.”
“You understand that I must be able to rely on you completely. We cannot tell Papa Archie and the others about our plan and then fail to deliver.” Hannah drew herself up proudly. “The word of a princess is a sacred trust.”
“You may count on me completely, Highness,” Andrew declared. “For anything.”
Hannah regarded him coolly. “I believe you are a man of your word, sir. Annie,” she added, “go tell the captain that there will be a performance from The Mikado tonight.”
Annie’s smile was as wide as a dolphin’s as she hurried away.
Hannah called after her: “And tell the captain that Mister Andrew Adams has agreed to perform the role of Nanki-Poo.”
Andrew was so stricken, his face so frozen, that he failed to see a dolphin leap out of Umatilla’s bow wave, a struggling mackerel clasped firmly in its grinning jaws.
* * * *
Kaiulani, Hannah, and Annie were costumed in their best long gowns, combined with floral print muumuus, all drawn out of the depths of their trunks. The effect, if not strictly accurate, was oddly suitable for a musical set in Japan.
The trunks themselves had been retrieved from the hold of the ship on the back of Nanki-Poo—Andrew Adams. He had also spent the afternoon dragging the piano and the salon furniture into position.
But Andrew’s main concern was not trunks, chairs, or musical instruments.
Nor was he more than dimly aware of his own costuming. Somehow the girls had managed to stitch together a suit of motley for him. He wore a white-and-black checkerboard tunic with a cone-shaped, pointed hat of matching fabric.
Andrew had requested a mask, but this suggestion had been denied on the grounds it would muffle his singing.
Throughout the day Kaiulani had presented him just enough encouragement to keep him from pretending a sudden attack of tuberculosis. She reminded him he was the only male voice they had; that Nanki-Poo was the hero of the tale; that the role had been sung to great acclaim from London to New York to Honolulu.
Now the fatal hour had arrived. Despite Andrew’s prayer for a severe storm that would prevent the planned festivity, the fog-shrouded ocean was flat calm. At sunset Andrew thought briefly of jumping overboard and swimming ashore but discarded it after seeing Captain Samuels point out a passing white shark as big as a longboat.
Annie at the piano, Kaiulani gestured encouragement from the sidelines. With Hannah staring at him coolly, Andrew nodded and the accompaniment began. In a clear but uncertain tenor he sang:
“A wand’ring minstrel I
A thing of shreds and patches,
Of ballads, songs and snatches,
And dreamy lullaby!
And dreamy lullaby!”
Seeing his father eyeing him curiously as if viewing a complete stranger, Andrew hastily redirected his attention elsewhere.
“Are you in sentimental mood?
I’ll sigh with you,
Oh, sorrow, sorrow!
On maiden’s coldness do you brood?
I’ll do so too—”
Hannah stared at him. Her expression registered more the disapproval of an Eskimo queen than the encouraging warmth of a tropical princess. Swallowing hard, Andrew lost his place and bobbled the next line. Annie let the melody die, then brought him back to attention with a crashing chord.
“To lay aloft in a howling breeze
May tickle a landsman’s taste,
But the happiest hour a sailor sees
Is when he’s down
At an inland town,
With his Nancy on his knees, yeo ho!
And his arm around her waist!” 4
A burst of laughter greeted these lyrics. The off-watch sailors had been invited to attend the performance and heartily approved from where they crowded around the open hatches and outside the portholes.
William Adams looked scandalized.
The only relief, and it was very slight, was that both Archie Cleghorn and Captain Samuels seemed merely mildly amused. Andrew had been afraid that the one graybeard would demand, and the other agree, that Andrew should be fed to the trailing white shark!
Andrew’s agony subsided with the end of his number. There was polite applause from the Hawaiians, raucous support from the crew.
Because the evening was not a performance of the play but merely a selection of its musical numbers, the order of the songs had been chosen by Hannah and Kaiulani for purposes of their own.
In a beautiful, sweet harmony the girls delivered:
“Braid the raven hair
Weave the supple tress
Deck the maiden fair
In her loveliness
Art and nature, thus allied,
Go to make a pretty bride.” 5
Hannah and Kaiulani matched the lyrics with a set of hula movements illustrating each step of the bride’s preparation.
They looked so sweet, so demure, so harmless. How could Andrew have believed that anything they did was born of cruelty? Reaching this conclusion gave him little comfort. His worst nightmare still lay ahead.
The evening’s entertainment continued through more musical offerings from the girls, leaving Andrew plenty of time for his tension to build still further.
And then he was up again.
“The flowers that bloom in the spring,
Tra la,
Breathe promise of merry sunshine—
As we merrily dance and we sing,
Tra la,
We welcome the hope that they bring,
Tra la…Tra la…Tra la.” 6
There could have been twenty or forty choruses of Tra-la-la, but it didn’t matter. Andrew could not be more humiliated than he already was. His father looked mortified. More than one pair of sailors had exchanged gestures signifying some doubt as to Andrew’s masculinity.
Sinking into a chair on the sidelines, Andrew believed his disgrace could not be more complete. He was scarcely paying attention when Kaiulani announced that the following number would be the last: “Three Little Maids from School Are We.”
“Three little maids from school are we,
Pert as a schoolgirl well can be
Filled to the brim with girlish glee
Three little maids from school!”
The rendition continued to the delighted approbation of the audience. The fragment of Andrew’s brain still able to focus was mildly surprised at the roles. Why wasn’t the princess singing the lead?
“One little maid is a bride, Yum-Yum
Two little maids in attendance come
&nb
sp; Three little maids is the total sum.
Three little maids from school!” 7
The performance concluded to thunderous clapping and the stomping of feet that set the deck planks ringing.