Silversword

by Phyllis A. Whitney

  The helicopter circled not far away, and I waved my arms frantically. Beside me, Noelle stood staring upward, and I knew she didn’t want this rescue—if that was what it was.

  Someone in the helicopter saw us, and it came hovering down, to light a little way off from where we stood, sending up gusts of stinging sand. As the blades chattered to a stop, steps were lowered, and David came down, helping Joanna after him. I was relieved to see that Marla wasn’t aboard. The pilot, Frank Wilkie, stayed in his seat while David followed Joanna as she came toward us. She looked more frightened than I’d ever seen her, and the moment she reached us she put her arms around her daughter.

  “Are you all right, Noelle? You gave us a terrible fright! Melly got up in the night for milk and found your note in the kitchen. So she phoned me. I called David, and he asked Frank to bring us here.” She turned to me in reproach. “Why didn’t you stop her, Caroline?”

  “No one could stop me,” Noelle said. “I had to come back to find the place. That’s what I must still do.”

  “No!” Joanna cried. “It’s a long way from here that it happened. We’ll take you home now, dear.”

  Noelle seemed not to hear her. “Look!” she cried, waving the tapa beater. “Over there—the silverswords.”

  I saw them then—a number of silvery-green mounds, not yet in bloom. Noelle pushed aside her mother’s hand, and I went with her toward the plants. I knew what she wanted, but perhaps there was another way.

  “You don’t have to go back to where it happened!” I cried. “You can remember right here. Hold that tapa beater with both hands and let it tell you. Tell yourself!”

  Joanna heard, but she made no further effort to stop whatever was about to happen.

  Noelle reached the first of the silverswords and dropped to her knees before it. She reached out to touch the leaves and then looked at me as I came to kneel beside her. Something in her eyes seemed to come into sharp new focus, but whatever it was brought her no joy, no relief. Tearing sobs seemed to dredge up all the grief she had run from over the years. A grief none of us could deal with. I dared not offer the comfort of my arm around her. Joanna came to sink down on the sand on the other side of her daughter. She didn’t touch her now, but spoke to her gently, softly.

  “It’s all right, darling. You can tell us what you remember. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Noelle’s sobs died away, and she began to speak quietly. “Marla wanted me to believe I killed Keith. She told me so over and over. She said if I tried to bring everything back, that’s what I would remember. So I shut it all away.”

  Joanna shook her head in despair. “That was wicked! Marla knew very well what happened.”

  “She hated me,” Noelle said, perfectly calm now—accepting. “Marla would have liked to be me—the way everything was before. But you’re right, Mother, and it doesn’t matter now, because I do remember—and I didn’t kill him. Do you want me to go on?”

  Joanna nodded mutely.

  “All right. Keith wanted me to fall that day. I think he wanted me to die. I loved him and he tried to kill me. I’d told him I would never give him a divorce. I said I’d never let him marry Ailina or anyone else. All because I was jealous and angry.”

  Again she looked searchingly at her mother.

  “You know what happened. Must I go on?”

  “It’s time, darling,” Joanna assured her. “And this is the place. You needn’t hold anything back.”

  Noelle stared at the tapa beater in her hands. “We were quarreling up there where the trail winds along. Marla was with us and she saw what happened. When Keith rode toward me I knew I was in danger, and I had this in my hand. Remember, Mother—you put the tapa beater in my saddlebag. I tried to strike Keith with it to save myself. But I wasn’t strong enough. You were the one who saved me.”

  Joanna closed her eyes and Noelle went on.

  “You’d ridden back to us and you saw what he was trying to do. You snatched this thing out of my hand and you struck him with it. So he fell. But then all the horses except yours spooked. I can’t remember the rest because I was thrown too, and when I came around I was someplace else in my head. I couldn’t bear it that my husband had tried to kill me, and that I’d wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill him! And I couldn’t face that, Mother. So I ran away to where nothing could hurt me anymore. I tried to keep everything the way it was—before.”

  Joanna held her tightly. “No one blames you. At first I wanted to go to the police and tell them everything. But you were off in your own world, so I waited. If there was a trial and I was convicted, who would take care of you? I believed that Marla wouldn’t. From the time when she was little she was jealous of you, yet she would never let anyone love her. God knows, I tried. If I wasn’t there you would have been put into an institution, where you might never get well. I didn’t care what happened to me, but I had to protect you, darling. If you can understand—”

  Noelle rose from her knees and pulled Joanna up with her. With a strong gesture she threw the tapa beater far away. It fell into loose sand, and I watched it disappear of its own weight.

  Then she put her arms about her mother and they held each other for a long, loving moment. When Noelle held out her hand to me, I couldn’t speak—I just hugged them both, and perhaps all three of us began to mend.

  David stood back a little, waiting, and Noelle smiled as we reached him.

  “Thank you for calling Frank,” she said, “and for bringing my mother here. I think everything will work out now—except for Marla.”

  Joanna said, “She knew we were coming after you. She was up and awake, but she wouldn’t come with us. She said it was all over and she must go back through the windows. I don’t know what she was talking about. She did change, you know, after you were hurt, and she took care of you and loved you.”

  I knew better. Marla had managed first of all to fool her mother—at the same time that she was doing everything she could to keep Noelle from recovering.

  Joanna and Noelle climbed into the helicopter, while David waited for me. “Are you all right, Caro? You scared Joanna badly.”

  “I had no other choice. I had to come with her.”

  “Yes—you were the one she needed. I had a feeling you’d manage, but Joanna had a bad time when she knew Noelle was gone.”

  “I don’t think I’ve grasped everything yet,” I told him.

  One of the awful things I still had to face and accept was that my father—that hero Grandmother Elizabeth had wanted me to love—had tried to kill my mother. Though all this happened so long ago, for me the revelations were now.

  “What do you think they’ll do?” I asked.

  “Joanna can handle it, and I hope Noelle can too. About Marla, I’m not sure. Shall we get aboard, Caro—we’ll talk more later.”

  Whirling blades carried us out of the crater, and I looked down into that landscape that would haunt me forever.

  The flight down the mountain took only moments. Frank landed us on the wide lawn at Manaolana, accepted our thanks, and took off again. Tom came running from the stables, his main concern for Joanna.

  “It’s all right, Tom,” she assured him. “Noelle has remembered everything. So now I’ll do what I should have done all those years ago.”

  Tom spoke impatiently. “Come off it, Joanna. We don’t need any more martyrs. Why should you take the blame for what was Keith’s fault? You couldn’t do anything else but save Noelle. Besides, it was probably the fall that really killed Keith. Nobody knows for sure, not even you.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Joanna said. “Where is Marla?”

  “That’s what I want to talk to you about. You know how crazy-envious Marla’s always been of Noelle. She’s pretended she wanted to protect you—so she didn’t want Noelle to remember. But what she was really bent on—and I’ve tried to tell you this a couple of times—was to keep Noelle a victim. Now she knows that if Noelle’s recovered, everything she’s done to her sister wi
ll come out. And I guess from what she’s been babbling about, there’s plenty. So after you went up the mountain she fell apart—really cracked up. She started heaping blame on everyone else for all she’s done. So I got hold of Doc Murdock and he came over and gave her a shot of something. She’s resting now.”

  Joanna started toward the house. “I’ll go see her right away.”

  “Better not.” There was something in Tom’s voice that stopped her. “What you could do,” he went on more quietly, “is send her away someplace for a while. You’ve got to let yourself off the hook, Joanna. You and Noelle need some quiet time together. So how about that cousin of yours over on Kauai—the one who runs a small nursing home for special patients? You could send her there to get some help.”

  For just an instant Joanna’s step faltered, and Tom steadied her.

  “You’ve had enough!” he told her brusquely.

  She sounded almost meek as she answered him, and I could see her deepening relief. “Thank you, Tom.” He gave her a small salute of respect and affection, and went back to his horses. Noelle put an arm about her mother as they went toward the house, and Joanna straightened, taking hold again.

  It was still early morning, and as David and I followed, I saw Koma in his ranger uniform leaning against a post of the lanai. His expression was one of wicked amusement that meant he was up to something.

  After the crater, this scene seemed from another world—not altogether real—and I remembered that Grandmother Elizabeth and Scott were flying home today.

  Elizabeth Kirby sat with her back as stiff as ever, and her lips pressed together. Their suitcases had been brought down, and Scott stood with a foot on one of them, smoking a cigarette, clearly eager to get away, and probably unaware of the dynamics between Koma and Grandmother Elizabeth.

  Joanna spoke to her as she went past with Noelle. “Don’t worry, Elizabeth. I’ll see that you catch your plane. We’ll have breakfast first.”

  I stopped beside David as we reached the lanai. He too was aware of whatever was in progress.

  Apparently Koma had tossed out some cryptic remark that hadn’t gone past Elizabeth. She looked very handsome and dignified in her gray San Francisco suit and brimmed hat, and she wasn’t in the least pleased with Koma as she spoke to him.

  “You might as well know,” she said, “that I had a talk with your mother last night she felt that peace needed to be made between us, and I don’t blame her anymore for anything that happened. When we talked, I asked about a few things—including a date. The date of your birth.”

  Koma stopped looking like a boy about to throw a firecracker, and turned into a serious young man. “So?” he said, for once uncertain.

  “So!” she echoed. “You understand me perfectly well. This is nothing that pleases either of us, but neither can we do anything about it. I admire your mother and I don’t admire my son as much as I used to. You have a good deal of his charm and his impudence, young man, but I think you’re not very much like him.”

  Koma nodded, uncertain now of this woman who was his grandmother. “I hope you’re right,” he said, and stepped down from the lanai. “Maybe we won’t meet again, Mrs. Kirby. But anyway—aloha.”

  Grandmother Elizabeth nodded gravely, recognizing that the word was a salute, however grudgingly given.

  Koma stopped beside David and me, and his smile carried the natural warmth of our islands, without mockery.

  “I quote from my mother, who is full of Hawaiian proverbs,” he said. “‘The hidden answer to the riddle is seen.’”

  “Thank you again for last night,” I told him. “And especially for your song.”

  “Sure.” He flicked his fingers at us. “So long, Dave. See you later. Just let me know, Caroline, when you’re ready to start licking more stamps.”

  When he’d gone, Scott said, “What was that all about?”

  “I don’t think you’d understand,” Elizabeth told him, and looked at me. “But I believe you do, Caroline.”

  I felt unexpected affection for this other grandmother, and a new respect. She had lost a great deal, and like Joanna, she had made mistakes. Also like Joanna, she would handle whatever needed to be handled.

  David drew me away from the house. “I can’t stay for breakfast, but I’d like to talk with you for a minute.”

  We began to walk idly along the tangled path that led to the rose garden.

  “In a little while you’re going to start worrying,” David said.

  “That’s probably true. What do you think Joanna will do?”

  “She’ll follow her conscience, now that she’s free of what she believed was the need to protect your mother. But it won’t matter, one way or another. I agree with Tom. Not even Joanna can prove that she killed your father. There’s no real case against her, and not even a weapon. Noelle took care of that by throwing away the tapa beater.”

  And Marla, in her own way, had taken care of herself.

  “I suppose all that is true.”

  “Tom has a lot of good sense and he’ll look out for both of them. So that leaves you and me.”

  We’d reached the steps that led down to the rose garden, and he drew me toward the bench where I’d first seen my mother.

  “It might be a good idea,” he said as we sat down, “to leave Noelle and Joanna alone for a while. So how about you coming to Hana for a visit? My parents would enjoy having you, and I’d like you to know my son.”

  “I’d love that,” I said quickly, and leaned into the arm David put around me. Now I could stop all my restless searching.

  “I’m glad you grew up and came back to me, Caroline,” he said. “We have plans to make when you come to Hana.”

  Yes—plans!

  “David, I know now that I’ve never wanted to be anywhere else.”

  He kissed me and held me close—a lovely moment in that wild garden, where I’d known such grief only a little while ago. David and Maui—they were what I’d wanted all along.

  We walked together to his car, and I watched him drive away. There was time ahead now—for both of us.

  For a moment I stood looking up at the mountain. Haleakala’s long broken rim stood above the clouds, hiding all that strange world that lay within. I thought of the silverswords I’d seen up there struggling to exist, shining in barren lava soil—a symbol, perhaps, of all our struggles. And I thought of the moment when I’d seen my spirit shadow cast into a rainbow of light, like a portent I might someday fulfill.

  As I started toward the house there was a new lift in my step. I had the strong feeling that now Manaolana would live up to its melodic Hawaiian name that promised hope.

  AFTERWORD

  My affection for Hawaii began during my earliest years. My father had lived in the Islands during the time when the last queen’s tragic story was unfolding. Liliuokalani’s musical name was a familiar one in our home—then in Yokohama—though I was too young to understand what had happened during the annexation of Hawaii by the United States. My father loved the people, the land, the music of the Islands, and I grew up with his stories as part of my own emotional heritage.

  My first stopover in Honolulu was in 1918, when my mother brought me home to America after my father’s death in China. The First World War had just ended, and I didn’t see the Islands again until after the Second World War. Each time stories stirred in my mind, and I knew I wanted to write about Hawaii “some day.” When the time finally came, I decided to focus upon Maui, and now I could stay a little longer and begin to absorb something of these islands as they are today. Silversword is the result.

  One point should be made. Nowadays, descent into the crater is restricted by the Park, and helicopters are not allowed to land, except by permit for rescue missions.

  For readers who might wish to know more about our fiftieth state, there are several books I would like to recommend. Born in Paradise by Armine von Tempski gives a splendid picture of long ago Maui and is still to be found in some library collectio
ns. The Brook by Barbara Lyons is a charming account of the author’s childhood on Maui (published by Topgallant Press in Honolulu).

  Mary Kawena Pukui’s volume of Hawaiian proverbs gave me some colorful quotations, and the Pocket Dictionary she compiled with Samuel H. Elbert and Esther T. Mookini was always beside me as I wrote.

  Then there is the moving and beautifully written Kaiulani, Crown Princess of Hawaii by Nancy Webb and Jean Francis Webb—a book that helped me to better understand the time of the monarchy, so that when I visited Iolani Palace in Honolulu, I knew something of what had happened there.

  A splendid pictorial source is the handsome volume, Maui No Ka Oi, text and photographs by Robert Wenkam. and I am indebted to Lucretia Pladera’s charming account of The Palace, with illustrations by Richard Gallagher.

  So many people were generous in sharing their experiences with me and providing information and advice. I am grateful to Inez Ashdown, who told me I must write with a “Hawaiian heart”; to Jessie Bosworth of the Maui Historical Society; and to Joyce Van Zwalenburg, director of the Maui Public Library. I want to thank Barbara Lyons for her warm hospitality, and for letting me “borrow” her lovely home for my story (though I’ve changed it a bit to suit a work of fiction).

  When I left Maui after my visit, I know that I parted with a piece of my heart. So mahalo, Maui, and aloha.

  Phyllis A. Whitney

  A Biography of Phyllis A. Whitney

  Phyllis Ayame Whitney (1903–2008) was a prolific author of seventy-six adult and children’s novels. Over fifty million copies of her books were sold worldwide during the course of her sixty-year writing career, establishing her as one of the most successful mystery and romantic suspense writers of the twentieth century. Whitney’s dedication to the craft and quality of writing earned her three lifetime achievement awards and the title “The Queen of the American Gothics.”