Read The House at Sandalwood Online
Authors: Virginia Coffman
Tags: #General, #Romance, #Suspense, #Thrillers, #Gothic, #Fiction
The House at Sandalwood (6 page)
“I was young.” I smiled. “Once.”
He waved aside my little joke, which was only half a joke. “Yes, yes,
Aunt Judy
.” He emphasized the title. “I hope we may accomplish one thing, at least, before you are done with Ili-Ahi. We must persuade you that you are not some ancient crone come to slave away for your keep.” And then came that tiresome question: “Why have you never married?”
“I have been engaged.”
He looked far more interested than the question warranted. I felt that he would sit there looking at me until I gave more details, though I couldn’t see what this had to do with my qualifications as a housekeeper. I saw him glance at my hand. I raised it, turned it over. “It was a long time ago.”
“You stopped loving him?”
“I went on trial for murder.”
He didn’t even blink. “In that case, you didn’t lose much. He must have been singularly stupid.”
“As a matter of fact,” I began hotly, “for all you know, I may have had my heart broken over him.” Something about his expression, his clear gaze, made me backtrack. “But of course, I didn’t. Hearts are very flexible. Mine mended and, as I say, it was a long time ago.”
“I’m not sorry.” He held out his hand, took mine briefly. “Deirdre is delighted to have her problems loaded onto your shoulders. They look pretty slim to me. Can you handle the load?”
“Deirdre will do very well, Mr. Giles. Just give her a little time.”
He worried me by making no reply to this. He got up, set the chair back, and started to leave. I was relieved. I had felt uncomfortably conscious of him ever since he came into the room. In the doorway he said, “He really was a fool, you know.”
I didn’t immediately understand him. After an embarrassing few seconds, I finally realized he meant the man I’d been engaged to almost nine years ago. By that time I could think of no way to answer Stephen Giles, but apparently he didn’t expect an answer. He added, “Thank you, Judith. For my wife, and for me. Good night.”
“Good night, Mr. Giles.”
He didn’t like that formality and pretended to scowl but closed the door. I sat for a very long time, not thinking of anything in particular, sometimes getting little blurred visions of the man I had once expected to marry, pictures of the courtroom and the jury. They had looked so sympathetic, almost all of them. It just went to show. You couldn’t tell by people’s looks. Gradually, as if I had been trying vainly to shut it out, I came back to the real problem: the childish behavior of Deirdre who was now a grown-up, married woman of twenty-one.
Was it possible her behavior had something to do with the rheumatic fever that had left her with the slight heart problem? I supposed because she was endearing and often generous and sweet, she must have used these qualities to lean upon and cling to her schoolmates and her teachers. In this way she had discovered she could save herself from every problem. Perhaps, too, the bad heart assisted her in this calculated dependence upon others. But the result was that she had grown to her present age without ever facing anything more threatening than a frown. And now this Berringer and his friend with their awful suspicions came trooping ashore to stir up trouble, so she had run away.
What, precisely, were Berringer’s suspicions? Did he imagine a delicate girl like Deirdre had somehow murdered his daughter? Physically, it was preposterous. Ingrid Berringer, from the little I knew of her, was far more athletic than Deirdre, so the suspicion was extremely farfetched. Unless, of course, they were concerned about the way Deirdre’s mother died.
Feeling as cowardly as Deirdre, I closed my eyes and my thoughts to that subject and got ready for bed. Just before I got into that comfortable bed and sighed at the exact “rightness” of the mattress (not too hard, not too soft), I went to the window which faced west, and opened it to get the fresh, flower-and earth-scented air. The steep path up through the jungle vegetation from the copper-covered light on the channel dock was directly below the house. It was geometrically shadowed by the vegetation on both sides of the path. For a moment or two I imagined I saw long prehensile fingers, weird figures, endless fantasies, but actually, all these visions were formed by the curious, rich growth of the jungle beyond the path.
The moon was high overhead now. A tropic moon, exactly like the one in movies and the travel folders. I stood there dreaming a little, wondering how my life would have been by this time, over eight years later, if I had married John Eastman. Curiously enough, although I tried very hard, I couldn’t remember very much about the face of the man who had jilted me “for my own good,” as he put it at the time. Even the color of his eyes had faded from my mind. Maybe I tried too hard to remember. Or maybe he no longer mattered.
I shook myself and banished the thought of my unpleasant past. I looked out the open window, this time toward the front of the house, toward the green open space, the hole in the center that was the
emu
, and beyond, the grove with its half-finished cabins—Deirdre’s hiding place. I could see why the Hawaiians felt that the lush little grove was sacred. Bougainvillea and hibiscus, orchids and many less-famous bushes of perfume and beauty could be seen as far away as my window. They were guarded and heavily shadowed by hardwood trees, not the thickets I had seen on Kaiana, Ili-Ahi’s “parent” island, but straight, dignified trees intermingled with clinging plants and countless kinds of tropical vines.
I could hear the waters of the stream splashing down into the gulch behind the Giles house but could not see them, of course. I was on the wrong side of the house. The sound reminded me, however, that Deirdre had a private room on the other side, across the hall. Why would a nervous, frightened young woman like Deirdre prefer the view of the noisy, unhealthy gulch with its swampy areas at the foot of the plunging stream?
What was there to see from this side of the house that she feared more than the almost impenetrable swamp? And why did a young bride, scarcely a year married, have her own sets of rooms? Two of them? But there was no immediate answer to this, and speculation certainly was not the way to get a good night’s sleep. I gave up and went to bed.
In view of the many things that had happened since I had left Los Angeles that morning, it was surprising that my dreams were so commonplace. All night I kept missing the plane, a repetition so boring it acted as a soporific and when I did wake up once or twice, hearing the distant roar of the stream pouring down into the gulch, I went back to sleep instantly.
I was awakened by an assortment of sounds. Unidentifiable bird sounds, palm fronds rustling against the open window frame, the distant rush of waters. Although the room had a westerly view, it was filled with light, a slightly filtered and changing light. When I got up and went barefoot to look out the window, I noticed fleecy clouds floating overhead. There must have been showers earlier. All the incredible greenery beyond the steep path sparkled and gave off the acrid, earthy odor of recent rain.
I saw several men—Caucasian and Oriental, but none of them Hawaiian—coming up the path from the channel dock. They appeared to be headed toward the grove of unfinished cabins, that uncompleted Sandalwood
heiau
which had driven Stephen Giles’s father to suicide. This might be one strong reason for Stephen Giles’s own strength and determination. Whether he succeeded or not, I admired his effort. I watched the men move past the front of the house across the green open space. Moku, probably coming to work by way of the trail west of the
heiau
, passed the workers and stood a minute watching as they went into the grove. Then he strode on toward the house.
For many years I had seen California desert views exclusively when I saw outside views at all, and I spent far too long that first morning at Sandalwood sniffing the lush tropic splendor, admiring the multitude of different human types I saw here. It was only when I saw Moku enter the house that I remembered I was an employee, not a guest here, in spite of Stephen Giles’s beguiling attempt to make me believe I was “one of the family.”
I turned away from the window, showered, and dressed in a pale green cotton sheath. Today I went bare-legged like everyone else in the islands. Fortunately, I had a pair of sandals, somewhat worn, but quite adequate. I was just finishing my hair when Deirdre burst in without knocking, and sneaked up behind me, although I saw her reflection in the three mirrors. Before I could turn, she was hugging me as she had done in her girlhood when she was especially pleased.
“Judy! You really are here. I need you so much. Of course, not when Stephen’s here. Wasn’t that sweet and dear of him to hurry home from Honolulu last night just because I needed him? How on earth could he know? He’s psychic—
that
’
s
what he is. Oh, I love that man! Isn’t he divine? Judy, are you struck deaf and dumb? Say something!”
I laughed at this remark so typical of Deirdre. “No, dear. Only waiting for a chance to agree with you.”
“About what? Be specific.”
“About everything you’ve said.”
“Oh, Judy, you are the first one who’s thought I was right about anything since—well, since that awful thing happened and you went away.”
Anxiously, I watched her face hovering above mine as I sat before the mirror.
“But you mustn’t say that. Or even think it. You have just as much right to your opinion as others have to theirs. You are happy here, aren’t you?”
“Divinely!” She hugged me around the neck and almost strangled me in her enthusiasm. We both laughed. “That is,” she added as her mobile, young face shadowed suddenly, “I’m happy when I can be myself and not somebody else. The thing is, I was behaving exactly the way I always have. I’ve never changed. I swear it, Judy! Yet, after I’ve known people for a while,
they
want to change
me
. They say, ‘grow up, Deirdre. Be grown-up, Deirdre. Use your head, Deirdre.’ And yet, I’m only behaving just as I’ve always behaved when they—when they
liked
me.”
Her voice cracked just a little on that word and brought the sharp pinprick of tears to my eyes. I avoided her gaze and patted her hands that kept their tight grasp upon my shoulders.
“Everyone likes you, dear. But people are often very busy, or they have headaches, or they’re feeling angry over their own lives, and so they snap at other people. But they don’t mean it. One of the differences between being a little girl and being a grown-up woman married to Mr. Giles, is that when you are grown-up you understand other people have problems too, and you’re tolerant when they forget how much they really like you.”
“Wise old Judy!”
I wrinkled my nose at our reflections and she giggled. I said, “Remember one more thing. You talk of their liking you. Don’t you suppose they have their needs too? Why don’t you start thinking about liking other people yourself?”
She took her hands off my shoulders and murmured petulantly, “Not unless they like me first.”
The most obvious explanation of her thinking and her behavior was ready in my mind—the only possible answer: “I’m afraid you have been spoiled, Deirdre. By mother and me, and then by others. There really are other people in the world, you know.”
“Do I!” She rolled her eyes which were large and green and innocent as a ... I was about to say “innocent as a child’s,” an ironic cliché, but her eyes
were
childlike, mischievous, easily hurt, quick to laugh and cry. Though they looked like mirrors of what was within her still-childish mind, I felt they were more like the green leaves I had seen on the edge of the path below my window. They were fresh, dewy, and young, but behind them was the jungle, the unknown.
“You don’t want breakfast in your room, do you, wise old Auntie? Let’s eat in the dining room. Very regal and splendid. It’s a creaky old place, but fun. Like the haunted house we used to play in when I was a child, before I got sick. Remember?”
“I certainly don’t want to be served in my room, but strictly speaking, I shouldn’t eat with you and Mr. Giles. I have a job to do here.”
“How stuffy! No, you must come, because Stephen sent me to ask you to come.”
It was a slight letdown to be told that she had come in here so happily to see me only because her husband told her to invite me to breakfast, but when I realized that I was hurt, I was amused that I was behaving like Deirdre by allowing myself to take offense over nothing. I had evidently made too much out of Deirdre’s simplicity and honesty. She was a perfectly normal, slightly unsure young wife, in her first year of marriage.
We went together to the big, high-ceilinged dining room with its comfortable but exceedingly old-fashioned look. The furniture was too heavy: the long mahogany table and chair were more suited to a cluttered room in a mid-Victorian mansion. Certainly, it was not suited to the humid, sun-and-showers climate of Hawaii. I suspected it was part of Sandalwood’s nineteenth-century heritage. I could imagine how thrilled the Mrs. Giles of that period must have been when her fine, heavy, impressive furniture arrived at Lahaina or Honolulu in an old windjammer that had gone around the Horn to deliver it.
Deirdre hesitated at the long, narrow, paneled door. I heard Stephen Giles’s voice inside the room as he came toward his wife. His voice held the indulgent note everyone who loved Deirdre used with her. Sometimes a note of impatience could be detected as well. As I stood there, I prayed never to hear impatience or exasperation in
his
voice. It would mean that he had turned from her as Deirdre claimed others had turned away after the inevitable flattering first impression.
“There you are, sweetheart. You were such a long time I nearly starved to death. You must be quicker tomorrow if you don’t want me to fade away entirely.”
She giggled and I saw then that he held his arms out and she went into them. Over her head he smiled at me. “Good morning, Judy. Did you sleep well? I hope the early shower didn’t wake you.”
Deirdre was murmuring against his shoulder, “You’re so silly. Fade away! I can feel your muscles—you aren’t fading away.”
After a minute or two, Stephen reminded her, “We’ve got to show Judy to her chair. That’s the polite thing to do. Remember, I told you when Dr. and Mrs. Nagata were here? We must look after our guests.”
“Of course I remember! I’m not a baby!” Taking his hand as he released her, she brought it around her waist and grinned at me. “Your place is where the place setting is. Anybody knows that. Now, darling—” she said to her husband, “let’s eat so you won’t fade away.”
I went quickly to my place between the settings for Stephen and Deirdre at the head and foot of the long table. Stephen seated his wife and then me, and we held an absurd, long-distance conversation about my flight the previous day, the possible agreement to prevent a dock strike, whether there would be more showers today...
Over the fresh, golden papaya, the excellent coffee, bacon, eggs, and hot cross buns, I tried to bring up the subject of my purpose here. I had not been able to eat half the breakfast offered, but such bountiful meals seemed to be the custom, and there was a graciousness about it. The Gileses could apparently afford all the endless dishes no one touched, and that reminded me of my job as housekeeper. Each time I tried to mention it, one of them switched things around, made a little joke, or went on to mention something else so that I had to think up new opportunities to get the matter settled. But it never was settled. When we all got up from the table, I still knew no more about my real position at Sandalwood. I even wondered if I was invited to breakfast to provide added subjects of conversation in case Deirdre and her husband ran out of things to talk about. I snuffed out this idea but apparently buried it in my subconscious mind, for it recurred several times.
As Deirdre said good-bye to her husband, I started toward the kitchen. I had just gone in through the pantry when the cook, Mr. Yee, pointed behind me.
“Someone is looking for you, Miss Cameron.”
I turned and almost ran into Stephen Giles. Momentarily, he had lost the slightly amused, almost parental manner he used so successfully with Deirdre. Now he was businesslike. I remembered my first impression of him: that I felt his bronzed face might be admirable but that it also suggested an impetuous, impatient man.
“Judith, I don’t want any rubbish about your being a servant. Do you understand me?” I nodded, but even so he repeated, “Do you? Your real job is to look out for my wife. The housekeeper title was merely to satisfy the red tape, to get you free.”
“I’ll look out for her—you know that. But I don’t like to interfere, and I won’t interfere in any way.”
I had not been entirely correct about him. His eyes were not hard, though they were serious. “I have discovered Deirdre needs someone—a companion. Someone she can trust. And frankly, you are the only one who seems to have been—loyal.”
“Loyal?”
“That’s the right word. Through almost nine years that I know of.”
In a deeper sense, I thought, it really was the right word. And I realized that we understood each other without having spelled out the problem. Another part of that loyalty.
“You may count on me, I promise you.”
“Good.” He held out his hand and clasped mine. He turned away, then thought of something. “Did we mention the Berringers yesterday in Honolulu?”
I wasn’t sure. I had talked to someone about them yesterday afternoon, but wasn’t it Ito Nagata who had mentioned them?
“I know a little about them. Ingrid Berringer was Deirdre’s school friend. They came to Hawaii after graduation. Then...”
“I met and married Deirdre. It all happened fast.” I looked at him and he smiled. “I know. I make up my mind in a hurry. At any rate, the Berringer girl stayed around Waikiki for a few days. She tried for a secretarial job with us but hadn’t enough experience. So it is rather odd and annoying that these Berringers should be hounding my offices about the girl. We haven’t seen her in almost a year. She was over here on Ili-Ahi a few times before our marriage. And that does it!”
“But then why should anyone be concerned over here on Ili-Ahi?”
“Because there seems to be a story going the rounds that the Berringer girl visited Ili-Ahi two days or so after our marriage.”
“While you were on your honeymoon?”
“There was no honeymoon.”
That left me briefly nonplussed. Before I could think of any comment at all that would not be embarrassing, he saluted me with a jaunty flip of three fingers to his forehead and went out by a back door that I hadn’t noticed before. It was probably near the downstairs
lanai
. By the time I reached the front stairs, intending to go up and see if Deirdre was in her room, I heard her call to me from the veranda.
“Here I am, Judy. Hurry! Hurry!”
Not knowing what to expect, I rushed out and found she simply wanted a companion for nothing more important than a walk across the island to the village where Ilima’s people had lived and sustained the pureblood line for almost two hundred years.
As we crossed the green open space and entered onto the path to the west of the Sandalwood
heiau
, the Hawaiians’
kapu
ground, I thought I heard someone call to us. I stopped, but Deirdre pulled on my arm.
“Come on!”
I looked back. The path had wound around a huge growth of bougainvillea intermingled with stiff, shiny vines, and I couldn’t see what was happening at the big house except that someone was out in front, waving to us. “It looks like that pretty daughter of Ilima’s,” I said.
“Let’s pretend we didn’t see her. I like Kekua, but she is a bit on the nosy side. Judy, come on. I want to show you the rapids and the falls above the river.”
She was much too anxious to get me away from the house. I went back a few steps, saw Kekua motioning to me. She was looking very sexy in a white bikini that contrasted with the deep mahogany of her flesh. Tentatively, I started toward her. She began to run in my direction. We were still several yards apart when she called to me.
“They’re here. They insist on talking with Mrs. Steve. I was down swimming when I saw the boat come across. Steve’s boat missed them by a hair.”
With a sinking feeling, I thought that in spite of all the millions of people in the world, she could only be talking about Ingrid Berringer’s father. At the same time, I was sure this explained Deirdre’s frantic desire to get away from the house. Either she had known they were coming this early or she had guessed it. It was too bad they had missed Stephen Giles on the way down, but perhaps their boats had passed each other. As the two men suddenly appeared on the steep, rising path, I saw that they were alone. A tall, thin, forty-ish man with salt-and-pepper hair, cold eyes, and a certain elegance walked ahead, very much the leader. He was accompanied by a shorter, stockier man with the ingratiating face of a natural follower. I could see that even at this distance. There was no doubt in my mind that the tall, thin man with the frosty hair and eyes was Victor Berringer, and I didn’t like to think of Deirdre, confused at best, in the grip of that frosty man.