Jewel of the Pacific (35 page)

He drew back. “What are you talking about?”

She sprang to her feet. “You know exactly what I’m speaking about!”

“No, I don’t!”

“I saw the card and photograph in the captain’s cabin.”

“What card? What photograph? What captain’s cabin?”

She hurled the words at him. “The
Minoa.
The card and photograph Bernice sent to you. Treasured by you and kept in a secret place. Asking you to admit—as you’d done before—that you loved only her!”

“There is no card. No photograph of Bernice. If I wanted to keep a photograph of her around, I’d set it out so I could look at it, not stash it in my desk. Besides, what were you doing snooping in my cabin drawer?”

“I’ll admit I snooped. And I’m glad I did. I discovered the truth about Rafe Easton and Bernice Judson.”

“You wouldn’t know the truth if it landed in your lap.”

“I know the truth!”

“The only thing in my ship desk suggesting a woman among my private mementoes was a jade comb from the Caribbean.”

“Oh, yes, I saw it. Very lovely. For my fair Bernice.”

“No. Not then. When I bought it I had you in mind. But I decided against giving you a gift back then. You were attending that nursing school of your aunt’s and I wasn’t ready to get serious, and it wasn’t proper to give you something personal—blame that on Ambrose’s lectures. I’d forgotten all about it.”

She looked at him. She was beginning to feel her foundation cracking. Though angry, she believed him about the jade. Instead, she refocused on the obvious betrayal:
But I did see that card and picture. I’m not hallucinating.
“But you were seeing Parker Judson’s niece at that time.”

“What of it?” He showed no guilt or shame. “Yes, I saw her a few times. You and I weren’t engaged then. Neither of us had made a commitment about caring for each other. That’s why I decided against giving you the jade piece. It was too soon. It was also the same time you saw Kip aboard the
Minoa
and jumped to the conclusion I’d kept a mistress!”

“I did not!”

“Of course you did.”

“What was I supposed to think? You were too proud to tell me the facts.”

“You could have asked me. Then believed in me when I told you the truth.”

“I did, later.”

“It took you long enough.”

“It did not! Anyway, where did it get me?”

His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”

“You were still carrying the torch for Bernice! That’s what I mean!”

“Hold on,” he said tersely. “You’re the one who threw me overboard!
He’s blind! Poor Rafe. Well, goodbye Rafe. You don’t fit into my big plans any longer. We’ll just forget everything, just as if it didn’t happen. You go your stumbling way in the darkness and I’ll carry on my life’s ambition on Molokai. Well, so long Rafe.”

She sucked in her breath, knotting her hands. “So that’s it. That’s what you believed about me? I would never say such a thing, ever. What happened to you, to hurt me so deeply? If you knew how much—” She stopped.

“Oh, very touching.”

The disdain in his voice nearly drove her to haul off and slap him.

“Cad!” she threw at him. “Scallywag! Rogue!”

“Anything else?”

“How dare you! I never said anything so venomous to you in your life. You know it.”

“Are you willing to stand there and lie about the letter?”

“What letter? You wouldn’t even see me, or write to me, or even tell me to go drown in the pearl lagoon! Yet you stand there after all I’ve been through, and dare say—and dare say—” She began to cry, but corrected herself.
Oh, no. No tears in front of him! He’d claim that was a dramatic ruse.
“And you dare say I abandoned you in your blindness?”

“I suppose your abominable letter just formulated itself and dropped down from the sky,” he said with derision.

“What letter?” she repeated, fuming.

“Why do you keep asking ‘what letter?’ That treacherous letter you sent to cheer me up in one of the worst trials of my life.”

“I sent you no letter.”

“I couldn’t read your loving words for myself, so Bernice read them to me—”

His sentence came to an abrupt halt. He stared at her.

Eden stared back, glowering at him. But her glower quickly faded. Rafe looked as though he’d experienced an intense jolt. She grew confused, then worried. Was it his head again—she took a step toward him.

“Bernice read them to me,”
he repeated.

He slowly sat on the edge of the desk again and put a hand against his head.

She continued to wait, breathing hard from her pounding heart, her hands cold and damp, surprised by his odd expression.

“Rafe? Are you—are you well? Is your head …?”

He sighed. “The only thing wrong with my head is that I’ve used it to play the fool.”

His manner had so drastically altered that she was dazed.

He looked at her for a long moment. He groaned, got up and walked over to the open window and leaned there. He murmured to himself as he shook his head in vexation.

“Rafe—”

He turned, studying her. “You
did
get my letter from San Francisco?”

“No. There wasn’t any letter, I told you that. There was nothing from the time you rode away from Hanalei.”

“I wrote to you from San Francisco.”

“You wrote to me?”

“I want to hear this again. Did you write to me from Kalawao about ending everything between us?”

She gasped. “You got a letter? But how?”

“Eden, please, just answer the question.”

“No. I didn’t write you from Kalawao or from anywhere else. Your silence was confusing, but it also made your feelings about me clear enough. Then when I found the evidence in the captain’s cabin I understood why. So I was waiting for the right time to send the ring to you at Hanalei. It’s safe. Bernice should like it—”

“No, don’t.” He came back to the desk again, absently moving pencils, papers, and a clock.

“I’ve got to look into this,” he murmured.

“I want to know about this letter,” she said. “The one you say I sent to you. I don’t understand.”

His gaze held hers. “Nor do I, yet. But I aim to find out. I should have done so a long time ago. To be clear—you never received my San Francisco letter.”

“No.”

“And you never wrote to me at the Judson Mansion, Nob Hill? Or at the Palace Hotel?”

“No. Why should I, after what I found in your cabin?”

“You keep talking of that, when I said I never kept a photograph of Bernice aboard the
Minoa
, or anywhere else. There’s some mistake.”

“There is no mistake. I saw them.”

“You could have written and asked me about them.”

“And you could have written
me
about my walking away in the midst of your trial. I’ve been in Honolulu for weeks. You might have contacted me with questions. Instead, you’ve—”

“Yes, I know.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re absolutely right. I could have contacted you. I admit it. I didn’t wish to get involved again. It wasn’t easy to hear you say in your letter that I was now worthless to you because I was blind.”

Painful shock overwhelmed her. She sat down and turned her head away. “I’d
never
say that to you, or even think it—”

She wanted to say something more that would end their estrangement, but sensed it would be unwise just then. Although his anger toward her had apparently taken flight, he was not readily responding. He looked weary, even discouraged, not with her, but with himself. She wanted to reach a hand to touch, but dare not be presumptuous. She saw the flexed jaw. He remained inaccessible. He’d just admitted how he did not wish to get involved again. He meant it. She would respect the distance he wanted to uphold for now.

“Anyway,” she murmured, “I didn’t have the address of Nob Hill. Nor would she have given my letter to you if she’d known about it.”

It was a bold thing to say to him, but she believed it. He was silent, pensive, as if he knew as much.

“Nor did I have the time to write anyone from Kalawao. It was dreadful there—and what would I say? The mail there is miserably slow, as you know. It took weeks after my father’s heart attack to get a letter to Ambrose. Then, two more weeks before he arrived on the
Minoa.
Kalawao is like a prison.”

“What about the message I asked your father to tell you before I left on the steamer? I knew you were going with him to Molokai. I asked him to say that I’d write you when I knew the outcome from Dr. William Kelly.”

She hesitated. Then there had been a message. She wanted to wail in frustration.

“No.” Her voice was barely audible.

He looked at her.

“I guess,” she added, looking away, “he was too taken up with going to Kalawao to bother about such things.”

Her voice was bitter.

He stood and moved aimlessly about the small office-room. Then he walked to the window, hands shoved in his trouser pockets. He looked onto King Street. People walked by. Horse-drawn buggies trotted down the street. The palm trees rustled their dance.

After a minute of tense silence he walked to the door, and opened it. He started out. He stopped, and looked back at her. Their gaze held.

“Eden, I have some important matters to straighten out.”

She laid her hand on Rebecca’s journal. “Aren’t you forgetting this?”

“No, I haven’t forgotten. Right now there’s something else more important.”

She looked at him. Her heart skipped.

“I’ll be in touch with you about it at Kea Lani.”

He departed, shutting the door behind him.

Eden watched through the window. Had he nothing more to say? Or was there too much to say it all now? Her heart was telling her that there wasn’t just one step back—not a quick embrace, or a long kiss—but perhaps a thousand steps were needed, and much forgiveness.

Rafe must feel more strongly about it than she did. Their trust in each other had been breached and trampled on by lies, deceit, and pride. She, too, had been proud, refusing to seek the deeper reasons why Rafe had suddenly turned from her. Yes, there’d been the incriminating evidence in the cabin drawer, but she could have insisted on an answer.

She could envision broken pieces of what once was theirs, stretching out before them like a great wilderness through which they must journey before they could reach the goal

No, it would not be an easy journey. Perhaps it was not even a journey Rafe wished to start out on again. She too, felt weary, betrayed, bewildered.

As Eden gazed out on the sunny warm morning, she wondered whether Rafe believed women in general sought him not for who he was, a Christian
man
, reborn in Christ, but because of his indisputable looks.

Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart
.

If Rafe believed this about women, then Eden’s own supposed rejection over his blindness would have convinced him he was right. He was angry because he wanted to be loved for who he was, not just a handsome, strong body. He had once believed that her love went much deeper because of their belief in Christ, and it did.

But then, along came the dark trial beginning with Townsend and the fire, and ending with a letter of cruel and hurtful lies.

In his hotel suite Rafe searched his trunk and baggage for the letter he’d received from Eden in San Francisco. He called for Ling who hurried into the bedroom. Ling flung his hands to his head in despair when he saw the clothing and goods spread out on the floor. Rafe faced him.

“That letter I received from Eden when I was at the Judson mansion. What did I do with it, do you remember?”

“Long time ago. You expect me know everything?”

“Think. It’s important. I suspect that letter didn’t come from Kalawao at all but from Judson Mansion. Written upstairs by the pretty hand of a treacherous woman.”

“You think so? I think so all along.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“You no listen to me. Very stubborn man sometime.”

“All true. And see where it got me? Take heed Ling. Now think. What did I do with it when I came back to my room?”

Ling rubbed his chin. Rafe glowered at the clutter, hands on hips, thinking.

“We in library. Miss Judson there, watching you. Mr. Zach come. Then I think you put letter in dinner-jacket pocket—black one.”

“Yes, I remember. Then where’s the coat?”

“I send to be cleaned long time ago. You wear others. Black one still over here now, in good closet.” He pointed. “But no letter inside pocket. Was none when I send to be cleaned in Chinatown. Pockets all empty. Always check before laundry. Pocket empty,” he repeated. “Strange.”

Empty. Nevertheless something in Ling’s voice roused Rafe’s interest. He saw the familiar sly look Ling used when he wanted Rafe to ask more questions because he had something to tell. Before he would tell, he must be prompted and made to look as though it were his honorable duty to tell what he knew.

“All right, Ling. Why do you say that?”

“Say what?”

“The pocket was empty.”

Ling looked uneasy. Then, embarrassed. “You change mind and give letter to Miss Judson?”

“Not at all.”