The House at Sandalwood

by Virginia Coffman

  Ito said, “Have you ever considered using another sector of the island for the resort you are planning, Steve?”

  “It was my father’s plan. Not mine. I am only carrying it out. But of course I am considering it and have considered other sites. Do you think I’m a blockhead? We’ve gone over dozens of places, but it always means doing away with something of value to the island. The latest idea was an area they are using for some pineapple experiments. It may mean irrigation problems. But take the area above the papaya grove on the western spur of Mt. Liholiho. It would have made a nice terraced arrangement like that hotel on Maui—what’s-its-name? That’s valuable watershed. On Ili-Ahi we’ve got the last of the real primitive forests in the islands. Ecologically, any other place than the grove would do far more damage. There is nothing wrong with the Sandalwood heiau location at all. Nothing but sheer superstition.”

  “Pele is there,” Deirdre said conversationally. She fingered the shell necklace Stephen had brought her as a surprise.

  Ito and I were startled, he more than I because I hadn’t been sure I heard the name properly, and for all I knew, ‘Pele’ might be the name of one of the Hawaiians from the village. But before I could ask a question, Stephen spoke out with an almost rude haste that made Deirdre’s remark suddenly important.

  “Absolutely no reason in the world why the grove shouldn’t be used. No reason.”

  Deirdre was smiling. She started to speak but Stephen put his hand over hers, and she subsided contentedly. Dr. Nagata and I tried to change the subject, both speaking at once. He yielded to me and my inane conversation.

  “Is it true that this will be the first commercial venture on Ili-Ahi?” Commercial venture. What a pompous, stupid remark, like something written by a no-talent advertising agency. Fortunately, Ito took it up at once.

  “I don’t think Stephen really intends that the resort complex should open up the island.”

  Stephen seconded that so emphatically we all jumped.

  “God forbid! Have Ili-Ahi ruined like Oahu in no time? That’s the last thing we want, to make this another Honolulu monster. No. I don’t want anything more than just to see the Sandalwood heiau completed. I want the growth here on the island strictly controlled.”

  I ventured with some hesitation, “But won’t that bring over the very people, the influences you want to avoid?”

  “No!” We all looked at him, wondered if he actually believed what he was saying. He insisted, “Controlled growth is the answer. Anyway, I’m only interested in the Sandalwood heiau.”

  “Pele won’t like it,” Deirdre threw in calmly.

  This time Ito Nagata and I were speechless. Stephen sighed. He kept his temper better than I had expected.

  “Darling, Pele doesn’t exist. Pele is a myth. Someone the Hawaiians used to worship. Like Lono and—well, the mene-hunes. Now, shall we adjourn to the living-room for coffee and brandy?”

  He could have offered us plain water and we’d have been relieved. Anything to change the subject. Very much to my surprise, once we were in the living room with the pleasantly cool evening reaching us through the long windows, Dr. Nagata began to discuss the gods and goddesses of old Hawaii.

  “You know, Steve, even though we may feel that other and older religions are absurd, antiquated, pagan, I’m in a rather odd position. I see the importance of religion—not pagan, not antiquated—in my own family. Or Michiko’s family, I should say. These are quite different from ours. We are Christians, but Michiko’s aunt and most of the Yees are Buddhist.”

  “It isn’t the same thing,” Stephen protested. “I’m talking about fairy tales. Myths. Not religion ... Judith, this really is a good brandy. Won’t you try a little?”

  Deirdre interrupted gaily, “I’ll have Judy’s share.”

  I wasn’t anxious to make a fool of myself by getting drunk, and I hadn’t had any strong liquor in nine years until I started my trip to Hawaii. I glanced at Ito Nagata who understood. “Very little, Steve. Judith hasn’t been used to it.”

  I thought Stephen was about to apologize and make a big thing out of something I preferred not to think about; instead, he said quietly, “I know,” and poured a little into the extra brandy snifter, offering it to me. Deirdre did not ask again. She watched me and giggled.

  “You’ll see more than a few Goddess Peles if you can’t handle that.”

  I agreed that she was right and sipped carefully. While the men started to discuss the safety precautions at the grove, Deirdre remarked to me, confidentially, “They don’t like me to talk about it.”

  “Then maybe it would be better not to.”

  She raised her chin. “I do know what myths are. I’m not an idiot. The people at the village believe in the old gods, and so do I. I went into the sacred grove yesterday to get away from Victor Berringer, and no one hurt me, because they know I’m not their enemy. But I wish you could persuade Stephen that he’ll never finish the Sandalwood heiau.”

  I agreed with her in some ways but I was certainly in no position to advise her husband on his business investments. Suddenly, she and I heard the word “Honolulu” and Deirdre rushed into the conversation between the men.

  “You promised me, Stephen. You said when Judy came we could go to Honolulu. And Judy hasn’t seen Michiko for ages; have you?”

  I agreed that I hadn’t and would like to see Ito Nagata’s wife again soon, but I was uneasy about Stephen’s reaction. While he hesitated, apparently not so set against it as I had feared, Ito put in his persuasion on behalf of the idea.

  “It might be a good thing, Steve. Michiko was saying only last night that she wanted to see Judith and Deirdre. She missed Judith yesterday. Had this appointment about the new layout for the Polynesian Artifacts Arboretum. Sort of an ecological Bishop Museum. But she wanted very much to get together with the girls.”

  I wanted to smile at “the girls” but didn’t. Deirdre pleaded, “I’ve just got to get some new bikini sets. And this awful coral in the cove wears out a pair of my sandals every week.”

  Stephen straddled the arm of the couch beside his wife. He looked down at her fondly, took a strand of her long hair and wound it around one linger.

  “But don’t I try to bring you all the sandals and bikinis you ask for, sweetheart?”

  Her gaze fixed upon his face. There was a beautiful, almost terrible love in that gaze.

  “You bring me everything I ever wanted.”

  “But you’d rather do it yourself.” He pretended to pull her hair and she squeaked.

  “Well, maybe now and then. It would be marvelous, darling. Judy and Michiko would go shopping with me and then afterward we’d meet you and Ito at that apartment where you have the meetings. And then the late flight back to Kaiana. We could spend the night at the new Kaiana Hilton. That would keep us from crossing the channel so late in the night.”

  I felt like a fifth wheel in this little party of two married couples, and I suggested, “I think it would be a wonderful idea for the four of you. But if you wouldn’t mind, I have a dozen things to do, and really would prefer to stay here and—I have some dresses to shorten. Things like that. Styles change so quickly, especially hemlines.”

  “No!” Stephen stopped me sharply.

  I wanted to laugh hysterically at this sharp outburst when I was babbling away about hemlines, but instead, like everyone else, I stared at Stephen. He finished his drink, behaving as if he hadn’t contradicted me. Did he mistrust his young wife so much that he wanted her well-guarded, like a prisoner on parole?

  As usual, Ito Nagata smoothed over the awkwardness.

  “I agree, Steve. You heard Michiko complaining the other day when she couldn’t be at the airport to meet Judith.” He gestured to me. “You are quite essential to the party.”

  So it was arranged, and we all made plans for the next day. Ito Nagata stayed the night in a guest room next to Stephen’s with Deirdre comfortably settled in the bedroom she preferred, across the hall from Stephen’s
room. No one who is an outsider can or should interfere with another’s marriage, but it worried me that this condition prevailed. Small wonder Stephen was so concerned about Deirdre in this marriage that was less than a year old.

  Deirdre waved a nonchalant good night to me and went into her room. Ito and Stephen talked for a minute or two about the arrangements for the visit to Honolulu. I started to close my door but Stephen signaled to me. Ito was still there in the hall when Stephen passed him and took a few steps toward me. He said briefly, “We do want you, Judith, very much. You know that.”

  “Thank you. I’ll do whatever I can.”

  He seemed about to say something, but changed his mind. The silence between us lasted perhaps ten seconds, but during that time I was intensely aware of him, of his physical presence, the overwhelming attraction I felt toward him. Recognizing this, I stepped back into my room, with my hand on the door. I tried to smile but I was too nervous.

  “You’ve made Deirdre very happy with this trip.”

  He watched my hand upon the door. He wasn’t fooled by my inane smile, and he certainly wasn’t feeling amused. He said abruptly, “Deirdre is the most enchanting child I have ever known. She deserves all the happiness we can give her.” Then he added, in a voice stripped of almost all emotion, “But she is a child.”

  He turned and left me. He did not speak to Ito, who had been an uneasy witness to our brief conversation. Ito and I avoided each other’s eyes and closed our doors.

  When I was ready for bed I went to open the blinds for a look in the morning at the tree tops and the first daylight appearing in the western sky. I stood there a few minutes enjoying the midnight scents of tropic foliage which were delicious to me. I was surprised to hear Deirdre’s voice in the hall. She moved beyond my door, toward the upper lanai. Or was it the staircase? I didn’t want to spy on her, but her conduct seemed odd and I distinctly heard her say, “Thank you again. I’m ever so grateful. You’re not afraid to go home alone? Good night.”

  I hesitated at the window, and while I postponed the decision to cross the room, I lost my chance to identify the person to whom Deirdre was grateful. Could it be one of the people who worked at Sandalwood? That seemed most likely. I took one more long whiff of the night air and was turning from the window when I heard a door close downstairs. Deirdre’s visitor leaving.

  I moved closer to the window. A minute later I saw Ilima Moku’s huge, regal figure striding up toward the clearing and the path to her village.

  So the Queen of Ili-Ahi had been visiting Deirdre! It was too much to hope that she hadn’t told Deirdre about my meeting with Stephen and Ito Nagata at the landing that afternoon.

  Ten

  I slept badly that night. I couldn’t see how I might have disobeyed Stephen’s request to meet him at the landing, but all the same, my conscience nagged at me. I think, if I had been the mere protective “aunt,” the housekeeper and companion I intended to be, I would have found it easier to accept Deirdre’s resentment and jealousy now. During that minute or two with Stephen tonight, I had been attracted to the man and sensed that he felt something for me.

  But in his case there were excuses. He had married a stunning and endearing young beauty only to find she was a child. A man of great sexual appeal, and probably normal sexual appetites, he found himself bound to a girl who, I suspected, was emotionally too immature for his needs. I did not dare to dwell on Stephen’s problems. My concern must be with Deirdre herself, a child cut off from all understanding and love. With her mother’s death she lost even me, the surrogate parent.

  Sometimes during that night, as during the previous nine years, I resented this chain that seemed to keep me forever hobbled to another human being. Had Deirdre been anyone but the bubbling, loving girl she was, I might have broken those links in spite of all my promises to her father. But I couldn’t abandon Deirdre. I could only try to see that she made Stephen a good wife. From the little Ito Nagata and Michiko had told me when Deirdre married Stephen, I understood he was not a man who played around much. His drive was quite different. I suspected his mastery of business, and his stubborn determination to finish what his weak father had begun, were more urgent drives to him than casual affairs would be. That was Deirdre’s greatest protection.

  On the other hand, there were those minutes when we were together ... I knew we shared a physical desire. And it would be disastrous to give in to that under the circumstances.

  By the time I got to sleep I felt that I knew what I must do: banish entirely this ridiculous crush I had on Deirdre’s husband and rigorously concentrate on helping Deirdre’s growth. That would be painful for both of us, but it seemed obvious now that the most serious aspect of her problem had begun with her mother’s death. Having faced that, I thought I might know where to start in helping her. If, of course, a layman could help.

  With all these good resolutions I finally slept, and dreamed. Although my days and often the nights before I managed to sleep were haunted by bits and pieces of memories, it was strange that I so seldom relived the nightmare of Claire Cameron’s death. But sometimes during those predawn hours of troubled sleep I found myself once more returning to that horrible day, trying to keep out of the way of Deirdre’s friends at her thirteenth birthday party, while still making myself available in case of emergency.

  I awoke with a start in that humid Hawaiian darkness, but with my mind full of those memories. With one arm behind my head, I went over in my thoughts every detail I could recall—trying for the hundredth, or thousandth time, to fix the pattern, find out what really happened:

  It was a very warm, dry day. Unexpectedly warm even for southern California at that time of year. I could see the smog settling in flat layers over the sprawling city that was spread out below my home in the Hollywood Hills. I stood on the terrace at the rear of the house, trying not to listen to the silly, lovable chatter going on around the pool, which was on the next level below the terrace. I was wondering if I shouldn’t change from my green linen sheath to a two-piece white silk because John, my fiancé, was coming, and John Eastman had a thing for white. And purity in every sense except, of course, when applied to himself.

  I remember that John felt Deirdre was a serious obstacle to our marriage. He used to ask me, “How can you try to mother a teen-age girl with a heart murmur, palpitations, and a dozen other ailments? She should be in a decent girls’ school where she could be treated whenever she had a flare-up. You can’t be responsible for her. You were a teen-ager yourself not so long ago. Judith, can’t you see your way clear to sending her back to her real mother? Let her worry about the girl’s birthday parties and her schooling and all the rest.”

  To this I could only remind him, “Don’t you think I want Deirdre to be raised in her own home, with her own mother? If we could just sober up Claire for a little while, she might ... But there I had to leave it, the obvious answer unspoken. I was still romantic enough in those days to believe that all Claire needed was a genuine love in order to sober up and become a family woman.

  So I waited out the birthday party, hoping there would be no quarrels among the groups around the pool, no hard feelings between two pretty blonde girls over an equally pretty boy who wore his hair surprisingly long for the style nine years ago. I looked over the group, wondering where Deirdre was, saw her with a boy and a girl, all three stretched out in the sun beyond the far end of the pool. Deirdre wore what she called her first “grown-up” bikini set, in black with a white deer strategically placed over the right hipbone.

  Deirdre would have preferred to do some strenuous swimming, or the very least, to join the group tossing the big beach ball in the pool, but she had never quite gotten her childhood strength back after her attack of rheumatic fever long ago.

  She saw me glance that way and waved to me. I waved back. Then she sat up, looking puzzled about something behind me, and pointed. I looked over my shoulder, then up at the windows of my bedroom on the second floor of the rambling stucco house. S
omeone was up there, wandering around—probably one of Deirdre’s young guests curious to see the family rooms. But it had been my experience that such curiosity often meant pilfering as well, so I left the terrace and went in through the breakfast room door and up the stairs. I made enough noise to warn whoever was up there. I didn’t want to “catch” someone if I could help it. Better just to warn off the interloper by my presence and a friendly greeting. Have it all look accidental.

  There was a group downstairs at the buffet finishing up the luncheon—the foot-long sandwiches and the sundaes they had made themselves. It wasn’t so long since I had participated in just such parties myself. As I went up the stairs I heard buzzing and whispers and guessed that those at the buffet were watching me. They must have known which of their friends I was about to encounter.

  I crossed the upper hall and went into my bedroom. The room was empty but the lively green spread on my four-poster bed showed signs of having been disturbed. Obviously, someone had been sitting on the bed. The door to the small dressing room between my bedroom and bathroom was almost closed. I had left it wide open. I supposed whoever was snooping around had ducked into the bathroom. Amused at the natural curiosity of my unseen visitor, I followed.

  Nearly everything on my dressing table had been overturned. Powder was spilled over the little mirrored tray in which I set my lipsticks. The lipsticks themselves rolled on the floor. One had come open and its coral contents were ground into the gray carpeting. I wasn’t in too friendly a mood when I saw that. I picked up the lipstick case and, weighing it in my palm, I pushed open the bathroom door which was ajar.