“Do you not see? In my country, white men take our women whenever they want. We have come to accept this, because in our country love is freely given. In your country all is tied up, and ashamed, and nobody may speak. You say slavery is wrong, but black people serve you all the same. So really, yes, Mr. Beecher and others do not want us to feel inferior, so long as we do not act like we are their equal. Can you understand this?”
Clarity felt the years of her friendship with Henry weighing on her like chain mail now that she understood the weight he had carried. “Thomas, do you know the meaning of the word ‘hypocrisy’?”
“Oh, yes, we know it very well.”
“I will not deny that some of our care of you and your friends has had an element of hypocrisy about it. But we did not mean for it to be so.”
“I believe that.”
The chill of sitting close above the water was dispelled momentarily by a breath of warmth that issued from the valley. “Thomas, let us say that you found a girl in America. Let us say that you married her. Do you really believe that now—now that you have come home—that she could ever really be happy so far from her home, so far from everything she has ever known?”
“I do not know,” he whispered. “And yet, you came here.”
“Yes, but when my husband goes home, so shall I. You know, when I got married, I left a life in which I had everything money could buy to one where I had to take a share in cooking and cleaning and doing for myself. That was a very hard change, and I moved only a mile away. But to the other side of the world?”
“And yet, you came here because you love your husband.”
“That is true.”
“Can not a woman love me so much?” Involuntarily he sobbed.
“Oh, yes, Thomas. A woman could love you, but it would be much, much easier if she shared a similar life, perhaps if she were Hawaiian, like you. May I tell you a secret?”
“Yes, I shall keep it faithfully.”
She leaned forward, shaking her head as she whispered, “We did not like your poi very much.”
Hopu’s belly shook as he wheezed, then harder, until he bellowed in laughter that reverberated around the bay. “Very well, now I can marry a woman who likes poi!”
“And now you are home again.” She squeezed his shoulder. “You will find that wife, and you will be a splendid husband and father. And with this great difference, too: you are making your country a better place. The old religion—what do you call it?”
“Kapu.”
“Kapu is gone, and you are bringing the love of God to your people. You and your friends have been highly blessed among all the people of these islands. Try to not forget that.”
* * *
* * *
AS THE SUN rose, the trade wind resumed its natural course, and within an hour of Blanchard giving the order to weigh anchor they were abreast of the northern tip of Kohala. There the full press of the trade wind took them, and all felt their westward surge until he turned south down the western side of the island. By degrees the coastal jungle diminished to groves of palm trees on the shoreline, but with the uplands beyond them remarkably parched, dominated by an almost desert scrubland.
The whole company was gathered on deck, watching the coast as it slid by, crescents of forested beach separated by the rocky headlands of lava flows that had reached the sea, and behind them the gray-brown brush streaked with green about the hollows and stream beds, where, they surmised, there was at least occasional water. “This is as if we are in a different country than the one we woke up in,” said Bingham.
“That is the trade winds, Reverend,” said Blanchard from the wheel. “When they hit the mountains it makes rain, but the mountains take all the rain, and there is not much left for this side of the island. All the islands have a wet side and a dry side.”
“Indeed, I never imagined.”
Jerusha Chamberlain left her children in a clot at the port rail except for the baby, whom she cradled in her arms. She rarely spoke at all; thus Blanchard was attentive to her as soon as she approached. “Captain, may I ask you a question and be frankly answered?”
“Of course, ma’am.”
“Can you assure us without doubt that there is not some kind of trick behind all this? How can we know that we will not all be killed once we get ashore?”
“Oh, ma’am, this is not so primitive a place as you imagine. The upper class, the lords, have been getting rich for years on foreign trade. They would never do such a stupid thing. Moreover, I know of my own experience that the Hawaiians have a peaceable and loving nature. Common crime is low where nature supplies food and shelter, where love is free, and ambition is thus quenched.”
Her eyes proclaimed her doubts. “But have we not been told that they spend most of the year at war with each other?”
“Yes, but they fought only because the chiefs forced them to. But once the old king conquered everybody, there has been no war, and that was ten years ago. Common murder would hardly occur to them, except on one small point.” Blanchard’s eyes twinkled. “It is said that they have an uncommon skill with poisons. They are not a violent-natured people at all, but if they were sufficiently provoked, that is how they would do it.”
Jerusha stared hard at him, clutching her baby tighter.
“I am sorry, ma’am, you asked for a frank answer.” She made no reply but stalked back over to her family.
“Captain, how do you know where we are going?” asked Muriel Albright. “Are you guided by latitude, or landmarks, or do you know the place?”
“Oh, I know the place very well, ma’am. But you shall know it, too, for there is a sizable village, because it is the royal pleasure resort. There is a little harbor where you shall see many canoes; most of all there is a hill behind the town on which is a great hulking fortress temple of red stone. Only a blind man could miss it.”
In three hours more they raised the place. Blanchard shortened to a single topsail and the spanker, gliding forward until Hunwell called out ten fathoms beneath them, some hundred yards from the beach. “Drop your sails! Let go your anchor! Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived, and I hope you hold that our charter is fulfilled.”
Bingham advanced and shook hands with him. “Captain, you have been all that we were assured you would be.”
Those of the company who brought telescopes raised them to their eyes to survey the town, but their attention was arrested where, on the nearest part of the beach by a promontory of lava boulders, they saw a large native woman sunning herself, as naked as the day she was born. She was of middle age, with a large belly, her pendulous breasts falling to the sides. She was attended by two men, both as naked as she, who were anointing alternately her and themselves with some kind of unguent. They studied the three not in lust but a kind of morbid fascination. “Children!” snapped Jerusha. “Go wait in your cabin! Go quickly!” She scooted them inside.
“You can’t protect them forever, ma’am,” said Blanchard with evident sympathy. “What does your own Bible say? ‘What came ye into the wilderness to see, a man clothed in fine raiment?’”
“Well said, Captain,” announced Bingham. Then he smiled sardonically. “You have shown no evidence that you know the Bible. Brothers and sisters, it is well that we see the scope of the labor before us.” The offshore wind brought the sound of splashing and laughing, as they saw the beach, alternately hidden and revealed by the surf, thronged with people reveling in the sun and spray, most as naked as Eden.
Dr. Holman raised his arm. “Look! Here comes someone to meet us.”
The saw a high-prowed canoe knifing toward them, rowed by a dozen men, with three more standing in its waist. Hunwell helped them tie up alongside as Blanchard and the missionaries came down the ladder to the well deck to receive them. Two young men came up and through the boarding gate, followed by a middle-aged man of stunning self-possession.
He was at least six and a half feet tall, tremendously broad and powerful, with voluminous, curly black hair that fell to the middle of his back. His eyes and ears were remarkably small, his nose tiny and pugged, but his lips full-fleshed, with a distinct downward turn at their corners. His chest and back were covered in tattoos, his feet large and calloused, and wrapped about his waist was a stenciled cloth garment of a kind Clarity had never seen before but took to be the native cloth that Henry had told her was pounded from the bark of mulberry trees.
From such a fierce appearance they were astonished at his perfect English. “You are the brig Thaddeus?”
“We are, sir,” answered Blanchard.
The imposing figure raised his hands. “Aloha! In the names of His Majesty the King, Reho-Reho, now reigning as Ta-meha-meha the Second; of his royal wife, the queen Kamamalu; of their sacred mother, the queen Kepurani; and of the kuhina nui, the queen Kahumanu, I bid you welcome. I am Karaimoku, advisor and first minister to the royal family.”
“I have heard of you, sir.” Blanchard advanced, saluted smartly, and they shook hands. “Welcome aboard. Are you not he who the English call William Pitt, in honor after their own first minister?”
“I am the same. When you first arrived on the windward shore, we were surprised that you brought some of our native people home to us. They informed us that you did not come to trade but to share knowledge of your religion. Is this true?”
“It is,” said Blanchard. “May I present the Reverend Bingham, who is the leader of the company of missionaries?”
Karaimoku nodded at him and Bingham nodded back. “We know of your religion. I am myself a Christian.” A murmur of surprise and approval moved through the company. “I was received into the Holy Catholic Church last year, on board the French man-of-war Uranie, Captain Freycinet.”
Clarity watched Bingham intently lest he launch immediately into a doctrinal dispute at this first exchange, and made up her mind to faint if he did so to disrupt the conversation. Instead he said, “We are very glad to hear it, sir,” and she felt much relieved.
“You have brought women, and children.”
“Yes, sir, for it is our intention to live among you and teach you what we know, as in return we learn about your life.”
Karaimoku’s eyes widened. “White sailors come here to get drunk and ravish our women, and they bring rum and whiskey for the king. Have you brought rum and whiskey?”
“Sir,” said Bingham, “we have brought the word of the living God, and gifts for your people, and tools to help them build better lives. We have no part of whiskey.”
“Wherein do you make a profit?”
“We do that which is pleasing to our God. That is our reward.”
“No money?”
“Our church will give us enough money to buy what we need, so that we do not burden you.”
“But why would you do this when you get nothing out of it?”
“Because, sir, our holy book says, ‘Go and preach the word of God to all nations.’”
“And you have brought your ohana here to live?”
No one made a response, but Clarity knew the word from Henry. “Our families, yes.”
“Well!” It was apparent that Karaimoku was equally flummoxed for a reply. “That is a horse of a different color. You may not land without an invitation from the king, but I will tell him of your intentions straightaway. I must tell you, he was expecting rum and whiskey, but I will do what I can for you.”
“We are most grateful, Mr. Karaimoku.”
“Now, then”—he recovered his bearing—“it pleases Her Majesty, the kuhina nui, to say that she wishes to visit you upon your ship on this evening. Can you be prepared to receive her suitably?”
“Our cabin is very small,” said Blanchard, “but we can bring chairs and lanterns on deck and spread a sail over the hatch cover to set food upon.”
Karaimoku nodded slowly. “You have had a long journey. I shall send food out to you, that you may receive her properly.”
“Most kind, sir.”
“One thing more. There is no dignity for the queen to come up your ladder. Have you a bosun’s chair to lift her aboard?”
“Indeed we do, sir.”
“It is well. Now I will take with me Tamoree, who is prince and alii to his people, for Their Majesties are most anxious to greet him. And the one called Hopu, who came ashore earlier and can answer their questions as to his life in America, and why you have come.”
* * *
* * *
AS THE CANOE diminished in sight, Muriel leaned over to Clarity. “Well, they do seem to have queens all over the place, don’t they?”
“Yes, now we’re up to three, and we had better get busy if we want to make any impression at all.” The men of the company formed a chain to pass chairs from the great cabin down to the well deck as Blanchard sent a man below to return with a clean sail that they spread over the hatch as a great tablecloth. The women descended to the galley, set water to heating to boil kalo, and to make coals in which to roast sweet potatoes. In thirty minutes Karaimoku’s canoe returned and his men handed up fish, vegetables, fruit, a huge, beautifully worked wooden bowl of the mauve-colored poi, and finally, cradled in an enormous basket, an entire pig roasted through and of such an aroma that they could not forbear sampling it and pronounced it the finest pork that any had ever tasted.
As the light faded, Blanchard had his crew round up all the lanterns on the ship, light them, and string them on a line that they ran between the main and mizzen, about ten feet above the well deck.
The canoe that they saw sweeping toward them was in essence an enormous barge consisting of two canoes each as large as Karaimoku’s with a deck lashed between them, decorated with palm fronds, proceeding in such state that it made Clarity think of Jesus entering Jerusalem. At last they could make out Hopu and Tamoree standing with Karaimoku on either side of a huge woman in early middle age, attended by four pages in English officers’ coats, and four ladies-in-waiting. All the women wore dresses in the old directorate style, the one they took for the queen in pink silk tied and trimmed in dark green, her attendants in white.
Hopu and Tamoree were first up the ladder, followed by the pages, who spread lengths of the native tapa cloth along one side of the well deck. It took six of Blanchard’s crew to hoist the queen up and onboard. She took Clarity’s breath away: she was much over six feet tall, and massively huge; she could not have weighed less than five hundred pounds. Yet she stood easily, almost gracefully, from the bosun’s chair. She extended both her hands to the captain. “Aloha, Andy Blanchard, you have come back to us. It is good to see you.”
Blanchard stepped toward her but stopped and bowed before he took her hands. “Aloha, my queen, thank you. You are looking very well.”
“How is your pretty wife?”
“Ma’am, we came straight to answer your call. I have not yet been home to see her.”
“Heh! Then you are a better subject than husband, it seems. And these are the gentlemen who are bringing us the word of God?”
The men followed Bingham’s lead in bowing as he recited, “Ka mea Kamahao, ka moi wahine.”
Kahumanu nodded. “Well, we shall discuss it and see about it. And these are your ladies?”
They curtsied in unison.
“What are these dresses that they wear? Is this a new fashion?” She strode over among them, taking each by the hand until she had greeted them all. “Your dresses are very pretty, and more modest.” She circulated among them, noting accurately the lower waistlines, more ample sleeves, the addition of rustling petticoats, and other changes since the last time she had examined Western clothing. “Oh, I wish I had such dresses.”
“In that case, ma’am,” said Clarity, “may we show you?” She raised the lid of a sea trunk to reveal bolts of bright print cloth in a rainbow of colors. �
��We have brought this material for Your Majesty, if you would be pleased to accept our gift.”
“Oh! You can make me dresses of this cloth?”
“We would be honored to do so, ma’am.”
“Oh! Heh! Oh! Ladies, you will understand that because of my station, I must restrain my emotions, but you have pleased me very well. Now, then, let us eat the food before it gets cold, this food that”—she pointed to herself—“you have provided me, which”—she pointed around the deck—“I have provided you, to provide me—but never mind! Heh!”
They gathered around the hatch cover, but before they could sit, Bingham said loudly, “And now let us give thanks to the Lord for his bounty.” Kahumanu and her suite looked on curiously as the company bowed their heads during the brief grace, which ended as Bingham commended the queen to God’s mercy.
They ate in the style of the luau, with everyone reaching freely for what they wanted.
“Captain Blanchard, I am surprised,” said Clarity. “You never mentioned that you had a wife.”
“Mrs. Putnam, you never asked.”
“Where does she live?”
“When we rounded Kohala, you saw an island on the northern horizon. That is Maui. The next island beyond that is Molokai, and that is my home.”
“How charming! What is her name?”
“Ha! Her name has about thirty-five syllables, and I cannot pronounce it, so I call her Lucy.”
“You have a native wife, then?” A glance across the cargo hatch revealed Hopu eavesdropping with a look of something like vindication.
“I do. I hope that does not bring down your New Englandish disapproval.”
“On the contrary, my only thought is to wish you great happiness.”
After half an hour the gathering fell silent at the issue of a scorching eruption from the queen, directed at Karaimoku, who was seated by her. He seemed to shrink within himself, and Clarity was dumbfounded by the change that came over the queen. Where all had been perfect amiability there sat a quarter ton of immovable, implacable harpy pouring out a torrent of invective in the native language, too fast for them to catch, on her first minister, who answered softly and in few words.
The Devil in Paradise--Captain Putnam in Hawaii Page 17
