Spoils of Eden

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  “That’s what he said,” Zachary choked. “Said it right in front of me to some of the legislators at the Iolani Palace dinner meeting last night. And all I could do was to stand there embarrassed, my feet glued to the floor. He boasts of the relationship growing strong between him and his ‘firstborn son,’ Silas.” He gritted. “It brings him pleasure, he said. And Silas illegitimate. But me? Oh, no. Not a word, even though I’ve been loyal to him all my life.”

  Eden was aware of Townsend’s favoritism toward Silas, and flaunting it publicly was unwise, serving only to feed jealousy and competition between the brothers. She could see jealousy, like an adder, sinking poisonous fangs into weak human flesh—Zachary’s. The tensions were increasing with time, and she saw no promise of resolution. If her uncle Townsend acted with impatience and recrimination, as he was likely to do, he would be adding fuel to the fire.

  Was any good to come from Silas’s return to Honolulu? Perhaps Grandfather Ainsworth’s forthcoming response would put an end to Townsend’s behavior.

  “I’ll try to warn Candace about Grandfather’s arrival as soon as I leave Ambrose,” she said.

  Eden gazed off toward the pale blue water and clear sky. The palms rustled lazily in the tropic breeze beside the road. Just beyond the horizon a storm appeared to be building. Eden sensed that trouble would indeed come to test them all.

  Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life, she quoted from Proverbs 4:23. Lord help us Derringtons, she prayed. We are all walking the cliff’s edge, where our hearts and convictions are concerned. To accomplish Your purpose for our lives is the true cause that will matter in the end.

  Chapter Three

  Ambrose

  Zachary drove along the narrow dirt road toward the little missionary church established by Eden’s parents. The familiar bungalow for Ambrose and Noelani stood nearby, a welcoming sight for Eden. Noelani would be up at Hawaiiana caring for baby Kip while Ambrose was home preparing for the Sunday service.

  Her cousin halted the buggy near the roadside and was about to climb down to assist her, but she remembered his injured knee and stopped him.

  “Zachary, before I go … don’t think I’m trying to interfere, because I understand how you feel. But saying too much to your father in Silas’s presence can’t strengthen your cause. Wait until Grandfather is home, then tell him how you feel about Silas. Remember, Grandfather doesn’t yet know.”

  His face was glum. “Sometimes I wonder. Grandfather appears to know more than he ever expresses.”

  “Yes, but he’s never approved of your father’s ways with women. Let Grandfather handle Townsend and Silas.”

  He nodded. “Don’t worry. I won’t go after Silas with flying fists.” Under his breath he added, “Though sometimes I’d like to teach him a lesson.”

  She winced. Silas looked as though he might be able to defend himself too well. She could have reminded her cousin that he was a Christian now, and Christians did not use their fists to settle family disagreements, but Zachary often told her she was too preachy. As far as she was concerned, it just made good sense to remind him of what the Scriptures taught….

  “Remember,” he asked. “Try to get Candace and Great-aunt Nora here before Grandfather arrives this afternoon, will you?”

  She dismounted from the buggy, feeling a warm gust of moist Pacific air rustling her gray nurses dress with its red cross. She watched soberly as Zachary turned the horse and buggy onto Derrington property, where a secondary road led to the plantation house built in the days of Grandfather Ainsworth’s father.

  As Zachary rode away, her restive mind could envision strife personified as jackals running close at the buggy’s wheels, nipping and snarling as Zachary set out to keep the meeting. “We have your emotions,” she imagined them boasting. “You’ll soon be ours to parcel out like a dead rabbit.”

  The mission church spoke to her of peace, for within rested the treasure chest of truth that would answer all debates and silence the quarreling voices of strife. The wooden building stood across the road on a gardened plot of land once owned by the Derringtons but now part of a larger acreage sold by her uncle Townsend to Parker Judson. When Rafe had agreed to a partnership with Parker Judson to develop the pineapple plantation using the prized slips Rafe brought from French Guiana, he’d gone out of his way to negotiate with Parker Judson to allow the historical church to remain untouched on its own special plot of ground, along with Ambrose’s house. For that act of faith and devotion on Rafe’s part, she loved him all the more.

  Eden quickened her steps, turning her thoughts to the new problem she must deal with. Ambrose could advise her, as he had been doing since her childhood, and he would pray for her when she went to speak with Rafe about Kip. Ambrose was a bedrock in her life. He had always been there for her while her father, Dr. Jerome, was away on his quest.

  She hurried along the path past the pearl fishery once belonging to Matt Easton, but now controlled by uncle Townsend since he’d married Celestine.

  The sun was warm, and she resettled her fiber sun hat while the trade wind, smelling of the sea, stirred around her and flirted with the tropical foliage, weaving mysterious patterns and hinting of many adventures yet to come. She smiled, wondering what those adventures might be.

  Eden neared the church, nestled among the palm trees and topped by a white cross. The cross beckoned to the weary and sin burdened, and the door was placed perfectly in the center, for “Jesus is the true door that opens to forgiveness and access to the Father,” her father had said.

  Inside there were no fancy furnishings or stained glass murals, only wooden pews and plain, square windows. As she stepped onto the bare wooden floor, the familiar grit of beach sand greeted the soles of her shoes. Somehow the sand always found its way inside. It did not matter, though, for in this little church amid the soft rustle of palms and the distant breaking of waves, Eden felt a fellowship with heaven. She suspected she was sentimentally inclined toward the church as a link to join her heart to her parents because they had established it before her birth.

  When several Hawaiians working for the Derrington family in the pearl fishery had made professions of faith and were baptized—in the pearl fishery—her father, Jerome, had requested land from his father, Ainsworth, to build the church. A missionary friend of Jerome and Rebecca had served as pastor until the American mission board transferred him to the Big Island.

  Jerome, with Rebecca’s help, had managed to keep the church open until the tragedy of leprosy struck Rebecca and shed been sent to Molokai. Her father, a broken man, had then departed the islands in search of a cure.

  After that, Ambrose had stepped in to carry on the work as lay minister. The Bible teaching had borne lasting fruit when a nearly blind Hawaiian woman became his first female convert. That woman had been Noelani’s mother. The entire family had turned to the Lord, and Ambrose eventually married Noelani.

  Now that Eden knew Rebecca was a leper on Molokai, she understood why her father had immersed himself in his work of trying to find a cure. His dedication to all the lepers on Molokai had spurred him on to travel the world doing medical research for Kalihi Hospital. Despite his prolonged absences—she had seen him only a dozen times since Rebecca’s incarceration at the leper colony—there remained a special connection between them.

  He had not written much to her in those early years, but later, as she grew older, his letters would arrive filled with news of the world’s medical needs. Eden found them anything but dull. As the years continued his fiery, John Brown-style passion for his cause inspired her to share his feelings. Perhaps it had been his fascinating letters, written from steamy jungles in South America and the Far East, that helped forge her decision to enter the medical profession. Joining the Kalihi staff at the hospital had been her choice, and now more than ever, knowing her mother yet lived, she was determined to follow her father from Kalihi Hospital to Molokai if given the opportunity.

  Eden w
alked the narrow aisle toward the cubicle that Ambrose used for his office. The enclosure was piled with pulpit commentaries, some of which shed bought for him in San Francisco and sent by steamer, and it provided a quiet place to pray. He needed the solitude, for Noelani’s many Hawaiian brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews loved to call on them, so their small house was often hectic with visitors.

  Ambrose must have heard her steps, for he stood up in the cubicle and looked out into the small sanctuary.

  He was a big man, and at age sixty had developed a rounded middle, but unlike her tall, slim Grandfather Ainsworth, Pastor Ambrose’s stolid stance and dark, smiling eyes brought her a sense of paternal security. Ambrose’s usually sleek silver hair was tousled, as though he might have been praying on his knees with his head in both hands, as he often did.

  “Well, Eden, my dear, come in, come in. I guess you know Noelani’s up at the big house? Nora and Candace are there also.”

  “Yes, I know, but I wanted to talk to you first if you have time.”

  “There’s always time for what matters most. Come up to the bungalow, and we’ll enjoy some of Rafe’s Kona coffee. He brought a load of good beans back from Hanalei yesterday and dropped some off here for the Monday meeting.”

  She followed him through the church door and out along the flowered path toward the bungalow where she’d lived her childhood under his and Noelani’s compassionate patronage.

  “I hear Rafe’s too busy to attend those Monday night meetings,” she said casually.

  “Zachary tell you that? Well, Zach’s the lad I worry about. That’s not to say Rafe isn’t causing me a few sleepless hours lately, but Zach’s behaving strangely this past month or so.”

  “It’s Silas,” she said quietly as they walked along. “Uncle Townsend’s been boasting about his firstborn son and dismissing Zachary.”

  “Yes, a pity for both young men.” He shook his head sadly. “Unless something changes in the near future with Townsend, I’m afraid there’s real trouble ahead. And Zachary isn’t alone in it.”

  She thought of Celestine and wondered how the matters between her and Townsend could be solved, when Townsend remained unrepentant.

  “I can’t help thinking that Townsend’s boasts of Silas are another insult to Celestine. He’s a selfish fellow and needs all the prayers we can muster, Eden. He’s at the top of my list.”

  She had sometimes wondered who was first on Ambrose’s precious prayer list, but knew it was a holy matter between him and God. Hearing this brought a twinge of conviction. She rarely prayed for her uncle Townsend. To be truthful, she didn’t like him. It was easier to pray for lepers she didn’t know than a man who gloated over his shameful affairs. This is something I need to deal with, she thought.

  “About Zachary.” He looked down at her. “Did you notice he’d hurt his leg?”

  “I can’t help noticing such things. It’s the nurse in me,” she jested. “But he didn’t say how it happened. Why do you ask?”

  “Perhaps it’s nothing. As I mentioned, Rafe dropped by this morning. He merely asked if Zachary had been here last night.”

  She paused on the pathway, and searched his gaze, wondering what was on his mind.

  “Why would Rafe ask such a thing? Zachary lives at Kea Lani, so he would come by almost every day.” She stopped, remembering how Zachary hadn’t stopped at the church to see Ambrose since April. Even so, Zachary lived at Kea Lani, which was within walking distance of Ambrose’s house and Rafe’s new pineapple plantation.

  “True, my dear, but Zachary isn’t usually in the habit of prowling about after midnight, then running when a member of the family recognizes him.”

  “Is that what happened?” Her curiosity sparked to life.

  “It’s likely inconsequential, but, yes, Candace thought she saw him last night on the lanai near your Great-aunt Nora’s guest room. When she called to him, he left in a hurry. She mentioned it to Rafe at breakfast and thought Zachary might have injured himself. Rafe knows I’m often up late at night working, so when he stopped by this morning with the Kona beans, he asked if Zach had come by to see me last night on his way back from Hanalei.”

  She considered as they came to the bungalow. “Did Rafe think Zachary hurt his leg leaving the lanai?”

  “Candace did, I gather from what she told him. I don’t know what any of this means.”

  She glanced at him. He wore a troubled look, so she remained silent as they walked on together. Zachary’s behavior made no sense, and when they arrived at the comfortable bungalow, the puzzling incident was dropped.

  Ambrose’s horse and buggy were still out front from some earlier calling. Her favorite hibiscus bushes were growing vigorously beside the wooden steps that climbed up to the latticed lanai. She remembered them from childhood, when shed lived in this love-filled home.

  Even though she now lived at Kea Lani as a Derrington, there were still so many prized memories here that whispered to her heart. Shed grown up believing her mother had died, and Grandfather Ainsworth and Great-aunt Nora had told her there was no one in the family to properly care for her at Kea Lani. Jerome had taken Rebecca’s death extremely hard, it was said, and he had left Oahu to voyage to Tahiti, Bora Bora, and eventually as far away as India until his loss was assuaged. Shed accepted this story as a girl, but even then it hadn’t been satisfying. “Why couldn’t Jesus heal his hurting heart?” she’d asked as a child, and received only a sad silence and the admonition that her father thought it best that she be cared for by Ambrose and Noelani.

  Noelani, who had worked for Rebecca at the Hawaiian Royal School, had been pleased to become Eden’s nanny. Even after Eden reached her young teens, the family had appeared in no hurry to bring her to Kea Lani to be raised with her two cousins, Candace and Zachary.

  “You fit in so well with ‘Uncle’ Ambrose and ‘Aunt’ Noelani,” they had commented, although Ambrose and Noelani were not actually her blood uncle and aunt. They were Eastons, which meant that Ambrose was Rafe’s blood uncle, while Townsend was Eden’s. Eden had wondered if she would ever move to the plantation house.

  Then, when she’d turned fifteen, Grandfather Ainsworth, without advance notice, sent for her by carriage and brought her to Kea Lani as a rightful member of the prestigious Derrington family.

  Eden had never resented those early years with Ambrose and Noelani, for they’d been happy ones. She loved them as fully as any Derrington and, in some cases, perhaps even more. It was through Noelani that shed learned to love the native Hawaiian people and to understand their Polynesian culture. And Ambrose, dear Ambrose, had brought her to faith in Christ and taught her to appreciate the missionary endeavors that were so much on his heart.

  After returning to Kea Lani, Eden had settled into the comfortable life of being a wealthy Derrington, receiving her higher education along with Candace and Zachary, and moving among the elite families of the islands and the influential planters and members of the Hawaiian monarchy. Through Great-aunt Nora, who was a friend of the royal family and especially of the present queen, Liliuokalani, she attended dinners and balls at Iolani Palace in Honolulu, and met dignitaries and ambassadors from England and America.

  “I’m on my way to Hawaiiana, Uncle Ambrose, so I can’t stay long,” she said as they entered the front door. She explained the expected return of her grandfather on the afternoon steamer, then said, “Zachary is concerned for Candace. Oliver P. Hunnewell is in the party that voyaged from San Francisco with Ainsworth.”

  “Oh he is, is he? Zachary does well to be concerned for Candace. No doubt your grandfather wishes the marriage to take place between her and Oliver this year.”

  “Is there any way you can convince him that she’s better off marrying Keno?”

  “No, but I will use our most powerful resource—the matter will go on my prayer list. Candace asked me to speak to Ainsworth before he went to Washington D.C. Unfortunately, he doesn’t see the need for her to marry any man other than the Hun
newell boy. Ainsworth’s a fine man, but when his mind’s made up on a matter, he can’t—or won’t—be swayed. I’ve little doubt, though, that Keno, while lacking in this world’s treasures, would be the better choice for Candace.”

  Eden stood on the woven palm fiber rug. It was stained blue-green. The rattan furniture throughout the room was padded with soft, indigo cushions, and on the wall hung one large painting that always made her smile: a replica of a fox hunt in Tudor England, with lords and ladies wearing massive white wigs. Though out of place in a Hawaiian bungalow, it had hung there since her childhood.

  On a small stand under the painting were woven baskets of coconuts and bananas, and next to these were a fire-darkened coffeepot that had seen many years of use and a certain brown-stained mug that Ambrose refused to yield for a chinaware tea cup from Shanghai. On a wooden table was a collection of his papers and books, an inkhorn and pen, and a worn leather Bible smudged with yellowing margins. Everything was old, but cherished because of memories of blessings and prayers answered, and verses that had comforted and warned. Yes, this was home to her. These things were more valuable than Kea Lani’s thick French carpets, mahogany furniture engraved with pineapples, fine damask divans, Vienna chandelier, and expensive figurines from Europe.

  Ambrose sat at his desk, and Eden noticed for the first time that his breathing appeared to trouble him. For a moment she forgot about Candace and her grandfather. She remembered how Ambrose had hoped to turn the church over to the Hawaiians and retire, but there was no one willing to take his place as its busy lay-pastor, and certainly no one as spiritually capable. Ambrose once had held high hopes that Noelani’s nephew, Keno, would become a minister, but Keno had never felt it was his spiritual gift or calling to serve as pastor.

  “Is that why you’re here, Eden? To discuss Candace?”

  She walked around the room. Now that she was here with the unpleasant news about Kip, she wondered if she shouldn’t have left the matter to Aunt Lana after all. Then, squelching her inner doubts, she faced it head-on. “No. It’s not about Candace. I only learned about Grandfather’s arrival a short while ago. It’s Rafe that brings me here, and baby Kip.”