The House at Sandalwood Page 26

  “Take it easy, Deirdre. Easy! I’ll get across. Don’t worry.”

  She was weeping now in her panic. “It’s got to go across. It’s got to!”

  I ignored this, and ordered her to stop and take it easy while I followed the river bank upstream, climbed around the banyan roots, and examined the river at this level. It certainly wasn’t deep, but its power was frightening. I could swim, but hardly in rocky water only a few feet deep. The real danger would come from being washed off my feet and getting a few bones broken, or, even worse, being washed downstream, no doubt cracking my head in the process.

  My decision was made for me. I heard Deirdre call out sharply and then, in an agonized voice, cry my name:

  “Judy—!”

  The inevitable seemed to have happened. Her nervous excitement and her exertions had triggered one of her attacks. I stared downstream, frantic at my helplessness. Deirdre had dropped the end of the log and was kneeling beside a big tree trunk, her fists pressed tight against her chest.

  “Be very quiet. Don’t move!” I called and then stepped out on the rock again, but slipped as before. I tried to confine my thoughts to this one task. Forget Deirdre. Forget that once I reached her, there would still be the problem of getting her out of this claustrophobic Eden. She cried out again. I forced myself not to look her way. There seemed to be more panic than pain in her voice, but I could not be sure. I considered the area downstream where the log bridge had been propped on boulders and on that rotting tree.

  I returned to the area I had been afraid to test. With Deirdre across from me, panicky and crying, I found this area more possible now. I had to make it. There was no alternative. It was like a ghastly chess game played with my life and perhaps Deirdre’s life. I chose a flat boulder that appeared to be securely anchored in the stream. The heavy run-off from the mountain peak above poured across the rock, but I felt I could better manage the current than one of the dry but highly dangerous rocks that might possibly overturn under my weight.

  I stepped out, planting my foot firmly. It was lucky that I had been firm, because Deirdre screamed in terror as she saw me, and the sound cut through my very bones. That and the current nearly swept me off the boulder, but my toes dug into my sandals and somehow those flat soles fastened upon the boulder. One of the reasons for my choice of this boulder was that the next seemed firm and steady as well. Confidently, I set one foot upon that stone. My confidence—and my foot—were misplaced. A heavy tree limb, twisting and turning as it rushed downstream, cracked so hard against my thigh that it numbed my leg for a minute and I went down under the impact. I was soaked hip-deep but at least I hadn’t been washed away. I put one foot after the other, clinging to the soggy, moss-covered log which had helped to support the original bridge.

  Deirdre reached out, trying to help me, but I ordered her back. The only good thing in this ridiculous mess was Deirdre’s surprising recovery at this moment. I told myself the mysterious “palpitations” would never have let her move about like this, trying repeatedly to touch and help me. There were still signs of her panic. Her face was twisted and tears stained her cheeks but she stood her ground, shaky as she was, so close to the water. I was grateful for her outstretched arm after all. I grasped the tree trunk again only to break off a handful of decayed wood and a hideous, crawling white mass. Maggots? Worms? I screamed, louder than Deirdre had ever screamed. I splashed on toward her outstretched arm and fell against the riverbank. As she bent over me, shaking me and calling my name, I muttered, “I’m all right. Don’t worry.”

  We looked at each other.

  “Deirdre?”

  Shivering, she whispered, “I’m so sorry...”

  I tried a smile. It wasn’t much but it reassured her. “I couldn’t have made it without your help. You did it. You saved my life.” It seemed to me at that minute only a slight exaggeration. Her hand had been exceedingly welcome.

  Deirdre smiled back at me. She leaned against the ohia tree, pressing her knuckles into her chest and closing her eyes, but she did not seem to be in the great pain that had struck her earlier. Perhaps the pain—if it was real and not psychosomatic—had subsided with her panic. She repeated proudly, “I really did save you, in a way. Didn’t I?”

  I straightened my back and pulled myself up against the tree. I was badly shaken but felt very much myself. It was Deirdre who suffered, and she had added to that suffering by her attempt to help me. The old, childish Deirdre might have collapsed in tears, suffered severe palpitations or worse. I remembered that when her mother died, she had gone into a kind of childish stupor, and she had never grown up since. But today something had taken place that might be more important than all the memories between us. She had overcome fear and pain, whether self-induced pain or real, in order to help me. She had grown up.

  I touched her hand lightly. “I’m so proud of you! How are you feeling?”

  “Pretty good. It hurts. My chest hurts, but—” She took several short, sharp breaths. “Honest! Not as bad as it was.” She looked around at this overgrown jungle, and I thought her voice was fainter. “Do you think we can get going without help?”

  “Just give me a few minutes.” I tried to rub my foot and leg, but the touch sent stabs of pain through my leg. I knew from past experience that this was merely a muscle spasm and would go away in a few minutes, but it was unpleasant enough now.

  “Did you tell anyone where you were going?” Deirdre asked. She spoke with an effort and I looked at her sharply.

  “What is it? Not the pain ... Deirdre!”

  She shook her head. It was all in slow motion and she was shivering, but the pressure in her chest seemed to have lessened. The pink color of excitement and pride at her effort to help me had drained from her face, and I was deeply troubled to note that her pallor had returned. Seeing me stare at her, she looked down and mentioned distant bird sounds in some tree across the river, but I couldn’t hear them. I wondered if they were real at all or if the river gushing and bubbling past us noisily prevented me from hearing. I began to wring out the fabric of my soaked and dirty slacks. My sweater had remained comparatively dry, but that wouldn’t be the case for long. The mountain rain had drifted down to our level, beginning with large, intermittent drops. It seemed to be scattering, which was the best we could hope for, and I had learned how quickly showers came and went here in Hawaii. One was dry almost before the shower had moved on.

  “We had better start,” I suggested, getting to my feet. I moved away from the river. Deirdre took my right arm.

  “Let’s go. It’s easier to breathe now.”

  The shower caught us as soon as we left the thick jungle growth bordering the course of the river, but the wind was driving it rapidly on toward Sandalwood. Deirdre huddled under a palm tree, laughing while her teeth chattered.

  “I’m so cold ... so cold! Isn’t it silly? The sun’s just over that ridge.” She was still giggling when her finger groped for me and she whispered, “I—I—can’t...” I tried to hold her, but I hadn’t the strength, and we went down together. It was a grassy patch dotted with tiny white flowers that our bodies trampled down, but it saved us from the muddy ground.

  Deirdre’s eyes were closed and her face looked old, drawn and sallow. I called to her, took hold of her shoulders and shook her. It was no use. I felt the pulse in her thin wrist, thanking God there was a response, sluggish but unquestionably present.

  I got up and went on a few yards. I could see the ocean between stretches of a papaya grove that had been battered by the recent storm. I went back to Deirdre. I had left her huddled with her head upon one hand. She was moving now like a child who had just awakened from a nightmare, very slowly, her eyes open, yet unfocused. Her hands were spread flat on the grass, shifting, as if she searched for something.

  “Deirdre! What is it? Have you lost something? Deirdre, look at me.”

  She did not raise her head. Still searching, she moved each finger in that curious slow motion I had noticed ear
lier. She began to cry.

  “Don’t ... oh, please ... please don’t take any more ...I’ll throw them away. You can’t take any more...”

  I knelt beside her, touched her wind-blown, rain-wet hair. “Deirdre, what is it?” She terrified me. She seemed to be in another world. Another time. Gradually she saw me but there seemed to be a veil between us. She whispered, “I could have stopped her. It’s my fault. She just stood there and swallowed them. And every time she swallowed a capsule she said, ‘come with me and I’ll stop taking them. Leave your aunt and come with me. I’m lonely.’ And then she went to sleep—and died. I should have gone with her, and she’d be alive today.” She was shaking again.

  “Deirdre ... are you talking about your mother?”

  She raised her hand slowly, let it fall, felt again over the grass. I think she was talking to herself. “If I find them first, she won’t be able to take them.”

  “What, dear?”

  “The capsules...”

  I felt unnaturally calm, like a victim of shock, and I knelt there silently, staring at the miniature white flowers, remembering nine years gone by. So that was how it had happened long ago! My defense had been correct after all, only no one had believed it. Not even me. Claire Cameron had taken those pentobarbital capsules with some idiotic idea of forcing her daughter to leave my house. Her drunken condition had done the rest. And the shock of it combined with Deirdre’s false sense of guilt had banished the scene from her mind until now.

  I tried to get to her.

  “Deirdre, I’m going to walk a few yards and see if I can signal someone on the way to the village. We must be almost directly above the trail.”

  She nodded. I had at least gotten through to her. When I looked back a minute or two later, she was sitting with her head on her crossed arms, ignoring the rain squall that passed overhead.

  I went off the path and made my way between waist-high ferns in the direction of the westerly seacoast. This time I did see parts of the village trail and several men, and a woman, walking in a northerly direction toward the village. Did this mean they knew about us? I stood on my toes, wincing at the sudden, painful reminder of the muscles and flesh bruised by the tree limb that had struck my leg on my crossing of the stream.

  I must have looked like a semaphore waving my arms over my head—they couldn’t hear my voice, as it turned out—but I felt that nothing had ever been so important in our lives as the arrival of those unknown rescuers. While I waited to see if they noticed me and left the village trail, one part of my brain was registering again the all-important fact that Claire Cameron had unintentionally killed herself. How often I had assured myself of this, and yet, I had always retained that horrible little doubt!

  But Deirdre was innocent. She had done nothing except plead with her mother. Deirdre was innocent! I could not doubt that awful moment of delirium when she had reverted to the child watching her mother die. It had been worth everything to know that. It was also a dreadful reflection on me that I could have believed at any time in Deirdre’s possible guilt, knowing Claire Cameron’s irresponsibility as I did. And Stephen. Had he suspected his wife’s guilt in that crime? This knowledge might be the preservation of their marriage.

  I waved again, called to them until my throat was raw, and kept waving, criss-crossing my arms. Anything to attract their attention. Then they turned somewhere off the trail into a clump of ferns and young trees. They had turned eastward when I returned to Deirdre but not before I recognized Stephen among them. The woman must be Ilima Moku.

  I found Deirdre in the same grassy spot where I had left her and in the same position.

  “He’s coming for you,” I told her gently.

  She looked up. “Not—?”

  “Your husband is coming, especially for you.” Her red, tear-filled eyes gradually brightened. She stared at my face, as if gauging its degree of truth. I went on, “He will be so proud of you! You were very grown-up and brave when I got into that trouble in the river. You didn’t faint or lose control. You were quite wonderful.”

  I expected this to produce one of her quick and enchantingly childlike moods of enthusiasm. She surprised me, however, by her quiet, adult pleasure.

  “I tried. I didn’t know I could do anything decent. You were always so good at everything. But I knew I had to be strong. And I was, wasn’t I? The pain in my chest went away. I didn’t let it get me.” She clutched her bare arms. In spite of the heat and humidity she was chilled and shaking. The halter she wore was totally inadequate and my sweater was still soaking wet, so I made no attempt to switch with her. I could only hope the men would get here before the next mountain shower.

  “Do you think you can walk to meet them if I help?” I asked her hopefully.

  She accepted my idea with a soft smile that still managed to suggest a burgeoning pride in herself.

  “I might even do it alone. Not that I don’t thank you, Judy, but Stephen must see me alone.”

  I understood. I watched her get to her feet dizzily. As she swayed I reached out, but she did not need my help. I could see that these movements cost her considerable effort, and she murmured, “I had a dream when I fainted. I dreamed of mother. Wasn’t that odd, Judy? I dreamed I saw her die.” She hesitated. I thought she had stumbled but she recovered quickly. “It’s all right. I think I understand. It wasn’t a dream, was it?”

  “It was an accident. She was trying to persuade you to go away with her, but she had been drinking and with those capsules on top of the alcohol, she had no chance.”

  She nodded and then her face lighted and I knew before I saw the path ahead that she had seen Stephen. I did not look at him, but I knew he had reached Deirdre and taken her up in his arms.

  Wearily, I stepped aside and directly into Ilima Moku’s ample form. Victor Berringer was with her. As I disliked them both intensely, I tried to pull away from their strong hands when they attempted to help me. Was this how Deirdre had felt when someone always propped her up so that she could do nothing for herself?

  I ignored Mrs. Moku and addressed Berringer. “What are you here for? Not to rescue Stephen’s wife, I’m sure. What are you? Some kind of secret service?”

  “Nothing secret, I assure you.”

  Stephen, with Deirdre in his arms, looked me up and down anxiously. “Judith! You are soaking wet. Berringer, for God’s sake, make yourself useful!” He started down the mountain path.

  Berringer looked as though he was about to pick me up, but I twisted away and went on, my steps matching those of. Mrs. Moku, who helped me down to the village trail and into the Hawaiian village itself. Ilima’s husband, Moku, came to meet us, walking heavily as if under a great weight. The loss of his only daughter had broken his spirit. He kindly suggested that Deirdre and I might get into dry clothes. He didn’t tell us he was offering us Kekua’s sun dresses and Ilima did not refuse. Whatever her feelings about the guilt of the Giles family, it was clear that some of her old liking for Deirdre remained. Deirdre and I changed to Kekua’s Hawaiian-print, two-piece dresses. Then William Pelhitt came out of the cottage Berringer had rented and tried to help us into Stephen’s jeep. His hands shook as he helped Stephen wrap Deirdre up in a blanket that he furnished when she began to shiver again. She was lifted into the jeep. William asked me then, “Are you all right, Judith?”

  “Fine.”

  “Don’t let anything happen to you. Vic, I think I’ll go along, just in case Judith needs help, or something.”

  Berringer cut him off. “You find it very easy to replace Ingrid. She hasn’t even been decently buried yet!”

  “No! I only—”

  While they were arguing, Deirdre raised her head and looked at Mrs. Moku.

  “I meant to ask you, Ilima, and I forgot. Remember the note you brought me from Kekua that night when you warned me about ... You know?”

  I lost interest in Bill Pelhitt’s protests and Berringer’s stinging answers. I was suddenly remembering the night I saw Ilima Moku leavi
ng Sandalwood after talking with Deirdre. I could only guess that having seen Stephen and me at the boat landing in that intimate and secretive conversation, she had warned Deirdre about me.

  Mrs. Moku said in her deep, musical voice, “I remember. My daughter sent you a note about a monkeypod bowl you wanted from Kaiana City.”

  “But that’s the thing.” Deirdre pulled her head out of the blanket like a small turtle in a big shell. She did not seem to notice the warm, muggy heat all around us. “It may be a note about the monkeypod bowl, but it was sealed inside the envelope you gave me. On the sealed envelope it just told me to open it in case of accident. But I was in the hospital when Kekua had her accident, and I forgot all about it.”

  Stephen and I looked at each other. He barked suddenly, “Berringer, will you lift up Miss Cameron? She and my wife need to get home and rest.”

  As Berringer overcame my objections and lifted me into the jeep, Mrs. Moku said, “I will come too,” and managed to get her bulk up behind us in the jeep. Stephen started off at such a speed Deirdre and I were thrown against each other, and though Stephen apologized, I knew why he was hurrying.

  Twenty-one

  The sun was brilliant now, with the clouds driven far out to sea, but the fury of the recent big storm had left evidence everywhere along the cliff road, in the ruts of the road itself and in the debris piled along the face of the cliff that bordered us on the right. The left side was a sheer drop to those deceptively smooth, piercingly blue waters of the Pacific.

  In spite of the moist heat Deirdre was buried deep in her blanket and as the jeep bounded over every conceivable obstacle, Stephen shifted one arm and put it around her shoulders, pulling her to him. The knuckles of his hand touched my bare shoulder. I remained motionless, but I felt that touch. I was sure I would never forget the excitement of it, which was out of all proportion to the slightness of our contact.