by Bodie Thoene
“I will remember from now on to let sleeping dogs lie.” At that she strode through the French doors and up the broad stairway to her rooms.
Chapter Seven
The air was littered with steamboat whistles, the happy chatter of children, the plaintive screeching of gulls, and the soft susurration of the waves. The pleasure pier at Southport was famous. When constructed decades earlier, it was one of the first of its kind in the world. At over four thousand feet in length, jutting into the summer swells and winter fogs of Liverpool Bay, it was still among the longest. The approach to the pier was marked by the gleaming glass dome of the pavilion, modeled after London’s Crystal Palace.
It was beautiful, impressing even a trio of Hawaiians for whom coral reefs and waving palms did not seem exotic.
To the quartet of Annie, Hannah, Kaiulani, and Clive was added a fifth member. Joining them on this outing was Clive’s friend from school: Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill. When the school term recommenced, Churchill was leaving Harrow School to attend the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.
At just six inches over five feet in height, Churchill did not have the impressive physique Clive possessed, but he did have something of a presence. Kaiulani was well aware that Annie, two inches taller than Churchill, admired the deliberate bravado with which he overcame his natural shyness. Kaiulani also knew that Annie wished to mother him, in the best tradition of Hawaiian matriarchy.
“Shall we go all the way to the end?” Clive addressed his question to Kaiulani. Southport’s Sunday promenade was famous as a place to see and be seen. The men in suits; the women dressed in hats, long skirts, tailored shirtwaists, and carrying parasols; the afternoon stroll was the Merseyside equivalent of parading up the Strand in London.
The dusky island maidens attracted more than their share of attention.
“Everyone is looking at us,” Annie said.
“Everyone is looking at you,” Clive confided to Kaiulani. “But I’m the one walking beside you.”
Churchill, hands on hips, elbows akimbo, expounded to Annie on the history of the pier as they walked. “A thousand feet longer now than when first built,” he said. Jabbing with his thumb, he indicated the small-scale steam locomotive that hauled passengers and baggage the half mile from the steamer landing to the shore. “No pier-train in those days.”
While Churchill discoursed on engineering, Kaiulani reveled in the sparkling light on the wind-ruffled waves and in the sea gulls using the breeze to remain almost stationary above the dock.
Clive’s attention never strayed from the princess.
“Boring you, am I?” Churchill inquired after delivering another cargo of facts.
“Not at all,” Annie assured him. “Go on.”
Having insisted on buying toffee apples for the group, Clive was clearly now at a loss. Kaiulani carried her parasol in one hand and the candy treat in the other. She had no hand free for him to hold, which she could tell he desperately longed to do.
A brass band paraded past. Their uniforms were a trifle snug around some midsections, and the gold embroidery of their cuffs a tad frayed, but they played bravely and with gusto.
When the quintet and the musicians arrived abreast of each other the band was concluding “Hunters’ Chorus” from The Lily of Killarney.
To Kaiulani’s amazement, upon the next downbeat they launched into “Hawaii Ponoi.” The music was clearly unfamiliar to the performers, and the tempo awkward, but it was mysteriously affecting to hear the Hawaiian national anthem played so far from home.
Kaiulani felt a tear hang in the corner of her eye.
“How…,” Hannah wondered aloud.
“I asked them to play in honor of the princess,” Clive explained.
“Thank you,” Kaiulani murmured.
Churchill’s lower lip protruded, but whether in criticism of the poor quality of the performance, or because he was impressed with his friend’s romantic qualities, he did not say.
The rendition concluded, the musicians gave Kaiulani three cheers and a huzzah. The rest of the holidaymakers applauded with some bewilderment, before movement on the pier resumed.
Kaiulani responded with a brilliant smile that embraced the crowd but warmed Clive’s heart most of all. Then the princess solved Clive’s dilemma for him. “Would you please carry my apple for me? I think I’ll save it for later.”
And she allowed Clive to take her hand.
When they reached the terminus of the pier, Churchill stared into the west, as if seeing his destiny written on the waves. “The Irish Sea,” he declaimed portentously in a dramatic fashion only partially spoiled by his lisp. “They say all great English leaders come to grief if they attempt to deal with the Irish problem.”
“Then the answer’s simple,” Annie said. “Don’t try. Let the Irish alone. Let them solve their own island’s problems, without interference.”
“All island nations agree on that!” Hannah asserted forcefully.
“Hear! Hear!” Clive said.
At the terminus of the pier a mother with four red-headed stairstep children was trying to keep them all in order. The two oldest and the youngest agreed to be herded along, but one, a precocious six-year-old boy, refused to be corralled.
Over the protests of his mother he clambered atop the railing and began walking along the rim between earth and sea.
“Harold! Get down,” his mother scolded. “Come here this instant.”
Harold ignored the command.
“Clive,” Kaiulani said, sensing danger, “do something.”
“Harold,” the mother continued, “I shall tell your father, and he will take the birch to you! Now come here.”
“Mustn’t scare him,” Clive replied, sidling sideways to intercept the child’s progress along the wooden railing.
Harold glanced up at Clive’s approach, then made the mistake of gazing down at a white-foamed breaker rolling past beneath him. The semblance of movement and the slight sway of the pier made the boy overcorrect his imbalance.
He toppled head first, shrieking, into the water.
“Help!” his mother cried. “Won’t somebody help?”
Churchill was first to respond. Shedding shoes and coat, he leapt atop the rail and dove into the sea. When his head popped up, he looked about for the child, just as the next wave tossed him forcefully against a piling.
Kaiulani did not hesitate. Stripping off to her camisole and bloomers, she plunged over like a diving pelican.
As Churchill clung to a wooden crossbeam, Kaiulani yelled, “Where’s the boy?”
He could not have disappeared so fast! Kaiulani was terrified he had already been swept away. The long shore current moved past the end of the pair like a millrace.
“Where!” she demanded again.
Gesturing frantically, Clive pointed to her right, where a chubby white hand slapped the water before slipping beneath it. “There!”
Diving under the next roller and coming up from below, Kaiulani seized the boy in one arm and began towing him toward a platform beneath the pier.
Clive located a ladder and climbed down. “Here,” he shouted, “hand him to me.”
Moments later, while Harold was restored to his mother, Kaiulani stood dripping in Clive’s jacket. She gestured helplessly at the destruction of her hair and stockings. “Destroyed,” she said.
“Not at all,” Clive refuted. “Like Venus rising from the sea.”
Churchill was dripping equal parts of water and embarrassment. “I don’t swim that well,” he admitted.
Annie gave him a ferocious Hawaiian hug. “Then that makes you the bravest of all.”
* * * *
1973
The sun rose behind The Mission House. The shade of fragrant plumeria trees provided a nice place to cool off in the hot Lahaina morning. The day was well on its way to the forecasted 84 degrees, and the humidity felt as thick as a fog.
While Sandi waited for Auntie Hannah to arrive, she gazed back tow
ard Front Street and read the museum’s modest sky-blue sign, quietly apprising the public of the building’s history:
Missionary Home of
The Rev. Dwight Baldwin, 1834
Museum Open Daily, 10 a.m.
By special arrangement for Auntie Hannah, they were scheduled to go through the place much earlier than that; it was just now seven o’clock. Any later, Hannah had said, would be too hot for her old bones.
Sandi flipped to a new page on her spiral pad, dated it, and copied the information on the sign. She would have brought the tape recorder but thought it might be intrusive if she kept shoving it in Hannah’s face to make sure it caught everything. Instead, Sandi would scribble the shorthand she’d invented for the classes of one of her professors—the one who lectured as if practicing speed-reading out loud.
A creak sounded behind her, and she turned to see a young man about her age standing half inside the building. He held the hunter green door open and locked its spring open. He didn’t notice Sandi and disappeared inside again.
Must be the caretaker, she thought, and turned back toward the street. Auntie Hannah was walking toward her. She looked every bit the lady-in-waiting, Sandi mused. Everything about the way Hannah carried herself spoke of modest refinement and dignity.
Auntie Hannah wore an ankle-length floral print dress, printed with deep purples, blues, and greens. Her reed-thin cane was topped with a silver handle, and in spite of a real dependence on it for walking any distance, she was able to make it seem like a fashion accessory, like the silver brooch she wore near her collar. Her white hair was bound up but flowing nonetheless. Several loose curls that must have taken her hours to arrange fell around her shoulders and covered her neck.
“You’re beautiful, Auntie Hannah,” Sandi gushed. “If I’d have known this was a formal occasion—”
“Tosh, my dear,” Hannah interrupted. “You are the very model of perfection yourself. Dressed splendidly for such a day. I think you’re quite at home on our little island, don’t you?”
Sandi looked down at her wrinkled sundress, one of only two she had with her, and couldn’t help but wonder how many of these field trips Auntie Hannah would ask her to take.
They ascended the front steps together and were met by the man Sandi had seen earlier—and a view of him she had not seen. He was wearing a patch over his left eye, and his left hand was missing at the wrist. In its place was a chrome pincer that looked to Sandi like two silver coat hangers. She tried her best to look only at his right eye as Hannah made the introduction.
“This is my great-grandson, Archibald David La’amea Kalakaua. Archibald, I present to you Missus Sandi Smith.”
He reached out his right hand to take Sandi’s but didn’t shake it. Instead he gave a slight bow as though he might kiss her fingers. Sandi was relieved when he didn’t.
She smiled and said, “That’s quite a name. I’m afraid mine’s pretty boring by comparison.”
“Archie,” he said. “Everybody just calls me Archie.”
“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Archie. I’ve been having the most wonderful conversations with your great-grandmother. What do you call your great-grandmother, by the way?” She raised her pad and pen, poised to scribble whatever he said phonetically, then ask for a proper spelling later.
“I call her…are you ready?” He paused, then spoke slowly, “I call her ‘great-grandmother.’ ”
“Archibald!” Auntie Hannah feigned shock. “I’m sorry, dear, he’s such a card. Everyone just calls me Auntie Hannah—even my own children these days. Now, Archie, you behave!”
“Yes, Archie,” said Sandi, “you have delighted us long enough.”
“Ouch!” Archie replied. “Pride and Prejudice?”
Taking Auntie Hannah’s arm in hers, Sandi swept past him saying, “Most people call it sarcasm. Considering your delightful use of it, I’d have thought you knew.”
Archie clutched his chest as if he was mortally wounded, but a broad smile betrayed his enjoyment at the exchange. Auntie Hannah patted Sandi’s hand, saying, “Well done, my dear. Now, Archie, will you be so kind as to give us our nickel’s worth?”
“My pleasure.” Archie launched into his memorized introduction of the old buildings. “My name is Archie Kalakaua. I am the volunteer,” he stressed the word, “docent here at the Baldwin Home Historical Site, more commonly known as The Mission House. The house was built by the Reverend Ephraim Spaulding in 1834. The construction is mostly hand-hewn lumber and cut coral stone, roughly two feet thick in the walls. That kind of construction is like primitive air conditioning. You can feel how much cooler it is inside the home compared to outside.”
Auntie Hannah added, “It was always the coolest place in Lahaina, so everyone came. If these walls could talk…”
Archie bowed slightly. “In place of the walls, I’ll do my best. The Reverend Doctor Dwight Baldwin took it over in 1836 when Spaulding returned to the United States. In 1840 the Baldwins added a bedroom and study, followed by the entire second floor, completed in 1849.
“The Islands were in desperate need of a doctor at that exact moment. Whalers brought such lovely gifts as whooping cough, measles, dysentery, and influenza. Some even blame the introduction of mosquitoes on them, perhaps as larvae in fresh water kegs dumped out here when they could replenish their supply.”
As he spoke, Sandi couldn’t help enjoying the look of his face. The deep tan was contrasted with pale lines in wrinkles that only revealed themselves when he wasn’t smiling. Which must not be often, she thought. His good hand was big and muscled, calloused from some work other than “volunteer docent.”
“…and remained in their family until just six years ago, when they donated it to the Lahaina Restoration Foundation. The house was completely gutted and restored to what you see here, more closely resembling what it looked like in the eighteen hundreds. Now, if you’d like to head upstairs…”
Hannah led the way. Sandi followed, keeping watch to catch her if the elderly woman stumbled.
Auntie Hannah peered up the narrow stairs. “You two go ahead. I’ll wait here.” Ignoring a velvet rope across the arms of an ancient upholstered chair, Hannah unsnapped the barrier and took a seat.
Sandi climbed to the top with Andrew following close behind.
“Hello?” someone called from the front door when they were near the top of the stairs. Archie turned back to deal with the sound of many feet arriving on the planks of the lanai.
“Uh, sorry, we’re not actually open yet,” Sandi heard Archie say.
Sandi heard the voices of children then: “Wow! Look at that! He’s got a hook! And a patch!” The parents were trying to hush them, but Archie seemed to enjoy the attention.
“Arrrgh, maties!” he growled, “I lost this hand in my piratin’ days to a wee little shark, while divin’ for sunken gold. As I reached through a hole in the bow of a sunken—”
One of the kids, an older voice than the rest, interrupted with skepticism. “You were a pirate?”
“Aye, laddie. Sailin’ the Spanish Main. Me and my first mate, Fluffy, were the—”
Sandi had to stifle a laugh.
“How’d you get to Hawaii?” asked the younger one.
“After Fluffy glued on me hook, I took a nice long catnap. While I slept, someone called Teddy dug a trench through Panama and me ship floated through. When I awoke, I was docked in Lahaina, and Fluffy had run off with me eye!”
“Ewwww!” the kids squealed in unison and laughed, the sound fading as they ran away in the yard.
The parents thanked Archie for interacting with their children.
“No problem,” he said, returning to his normal voice. “If you come back at ten, I can take you through then.”
When Archie returned upstairs, Sandi caught a hint of sadness in his features and realized this entertainment was simply a well-rehearsed means of dealing with children’s fear and revulsion at his disfigurement. But when he caught her eye, the moment
was gone, replaced with his perfect smile.
“Now, where were we? Oh yes, the furniture was… .”
Sandi hoped she might find another time to ask about the real cause of his loss but knew that time wasn’t now. She turned her attention back to her notes, focusing on the details of the ancient home’s restoration.
Archie paused and said quietly, “If these walls could talk.” And then, “It means a lot to her, your interest.”
Sandi tilted her head slightly and dimly glimpsed her own reflection next to Archie in the antique mirror over the dresser. “She is such a special lady.”
