The House at Sandalwood Page 7

  “Your wife seems perfectly fit. In every respect,” Victor Berringer added, clipping off each word. “She has answers for everything. She is, in fact, almost too well prepared. I expect her to take the Fifth Amendment any minute.”

  Stephen was just as authoritative, and had the facts at his disposal. “Then why, may I ask, are you browbeating a total stranger who was two thousand miles from these islands when your daughter visited Honolulu?”

  The icy veneer of Victor Berringer cracked a little. In his arrogant, slightly sinister self-confidence, the man had been unshakable. Now he backed away from me, staring. I felt that something had to be said in order to smooth over this awkward moment, yet my real impulse, perhaps resulting from the tension of the last half hour, was to laugh at his absurd mistake. I didn’t though. Instead, I said, “Mr. Berringer, you haven’t given me a chance to introduce myself. I am Mrs. Giles’s aunt and her companion.”

  “Am I to understand—” Berringer cleared his throat. “This young woman is not Deirdre Cameron Giles?”

  Before either Stephen or I could say anything, William Pelhitt yelled in what probably was one of his few chances to top his prospective father-in-law, “Don’t you get it? That’s the little lady behind the door.”

  With all this attention upon her, Deirdre looked as though she wanted to disappear into some other space, preferably to another island. Berringer gazed around the room, clearly expecting to find one more woman who had slipped in while we were talking. He came back at last to Deirdre.

  “That child!”

  It was a comment even more embarrassing to her husband than to the rest of us. When I knew her as a girl, Deirdre often wore her lustrous chestnut hair in this Alice-in-Wonderland style with a pink ribbon run through it above her forehead and the wispy bangs. Her mini-length dress with the Empire waistline didn’t make her look any more mature either. Since I hadn’t seen her in nearly nine years, I hadn’t noticed the almost frightening discrepancy between Deirdre’s actual age and the age she appeared to be. There was the child’s seeming innocence about her smooth, unlined face, her mouth that was soft and emotional with a child’s changeable emotions—she was quickly hurt, quickly healed.

  As Berringer took a step toward her, she screamed and Stephen pushed her behind him.

  “My wife is a bit shy. I’ll ask her anything you want to know. Leave it to me and to Miss Cameron.”

  I think Victor Berringer was shocked at Deirdre’s reaction to him as much as by her looks. Whatever his manner, he was a civilized man, and this may have been the first time a young woman had ever screamed in fear of him. I found myself almost sorry for him. It was an awkward moment for all of us.

  Berringer stopped, glanced at me and at William Pelhitt, then answered Stephen after he had clearly revised what he intended to say.

  “You will appreciate my impatience, sir. I have been trying to trace my daughter’s actions since we received our last word from her. That was almost a year ago. You will admit this is a very long time to have no news of a loved one.”

  Stephen was obviously moved by this very natural concern. He motioned his guests to chairs and admitted, “I am sorry. I’ve been in the middle of some tough labor negotiations lately, and I am afraid I haven’t—”

  Deirdre interrupted in her soft, girlish voice, “But she was like that. She never sent letters. She bragged about it. She never wrote to her father, except when she needed money. She used to laugh when she said it. That’s Ingrid. Sometimes she laughed at me too.”

  I may have been the only one who shuddered. But the men shared my feelings, I am certain. I saw the little exchange of looks between William Pelhitt and Mr. Berringer. They understood now that Deirdre and Ingrid hadn’t really gotten along very well. Deirdre gazed at us all now in complete ignorance of any crisis. She had never looked prettier or more charming. Stephen had caught his breath when she spoke out like a thoughtless child. When he responded, he seemed to talk more rapidly than usual, but I didn’t suppose the other two men knew that.

  “Deirdre, where did Miss Berringer say she was going when she left here the last time you talked to her?”

  “But I didn’t see her then.”

  Victor Berringer started to speak to her, then addressed Stephen. It was as if he felt Deirdre were deaf and dumb or an animal, incapable of understanding him.

  “If that is the case, how does Mrs. Giles know when my daughter last visited the island?”

  Deirdre didn’t seem to know what he was insinuating. Both Stephen and I attempted to satisfy Berringer. I said, “Sir, as I understand it, your daughter came over briefly and left when Deirdre sent word that she couldn’t see her.”

  Stephen said, “We had been married only a few days before, and we wanted a little privacy.”

  Deirdre had at least won over William Pelhitt.

  “Very natural, Vic,” he said. “Hadn’t we better pursue this in Honolulu? After all, that’s where she left her things, isn’t it?”

  Three of us snatched at this reprieve. Reprieve from what disclosures, I wondered. I was fairly sure Stephen didn’t know either, and we were joined by these little doubts, this uneasiness concerning Deirdre, although none of us had any tangible evidence as yet that would connect her with Ingrid Berringer’s disappearance.

  Stephen pursued Pelhitt’s argument. “Suppose we discuss the matter over another drink. Darling, Mr. Yee is waiting to take your orders for dinner. Judith will help you.” He kissed her lightly on the forehead as she stood obediently before him. The two men witnessing this domestic scene avoided my eyes. I led Deirdre out gently with an arm around her waist, and Stephen closed the door.

  I was so shaken by the confirmation of my vague fears about Deirdre’s condition that I hardly knew which way to turn. Deirdre pointed ahead of us, thinking about her husband’s instructions.

  “The kitchen is through that pantry. Mr. Yee gets so mad when I tell him what to serve—the menus, you know.”

  “Just the same, dear, you want to make Stephen a good wife, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes! Yes! Above anything in the whole world, Judy. Didn’t you feel that way about John Eastman?”

  It was a long time since I had thought or felt any way about John Eastman, but the subject aroused surprisingly few bitter memories in me. So few, in fact, that I could say now with a high degree of indifference, “I suppose I did once. I was pretty young.”

  “Just the same, poor dear, you can’t really know how I feel, because Mr. Eastman might have been good-looking, but he wasn’t sweet and kind and telling you what to do so you didn’t go wrong, like my Stephen. Remember how you used to tell me about my father? He was strong and quick-tempered and red-haired and sort of told a person what to do, and that made life much easier—you know? Unless they tell you what you don’t really want to do.”

  I said yes, I knew what she meant. But how could I point out to Deirdre that a husband was not a father and shouldn’t have all the qualities of one? She was asking for trouble in her marriage. I couldn’t believe that Stephen Giles, a virile and attractive man, could settle for this kind of a marriage. The only consolation was that this was still their first year together, and first years were notoriously rough. While I was in the Islands, the most important service I could do for my niece and for Stephen Giles, would be to wake Deirdre up and make her want to be Stephen’s wife, in every sense of the word. She would have to discover in Stephen the man she physically loved, not just a father image.

  I reminded myself now that their private life was not my affair, that it was disastrous to interfere in someone else’s marriage. Years ago, I had been exceedingly careful, and had tried to keep mother from preventing my brother’s marriage to Deirdre’s mother. But this was a different situation. Surely, just a hint here and there, a word or two, some slight suggestions couldn’t hurt. Surely, I could help a little! I would just have to be careful so as not to make the mistakes everyone else always makes when trying to “patch up” their friend
s’ marriages. I would be different...

  Six

  Deirdre behaved beautifully with Mr. Yee. She began speaking with a slight stammer and a hesitant use of the word “we” which Mr. Yee misunderstood. She was ready, however, when he showed us what appeared to me an implacable countenance but may have been merely an uncomprehending look. She added, “I mean, Stephen ... Mr. Stephen, I mean, he likes teriyaki steak and you do it so well. Mr. Yee does everything perfectly, Judy—better than anyone in Hawaii.”

  Mr. Yee’s eyebrows remained uncompromisingly straight, like his trim, black moustache, but I felt, without quite knowing why, that he had softened.

  “A haole dish,” he complained. “They think it is kepani, but it is haole. However, if it is wanted, I make no objections. I will thaw the meat. Mrs. Mitsushima has made a fruit salad for luncheon. With the chilled chicken to be served also. She arranges these things with a certain artistry, so I permit her to work in my kitchen.”

  Pleased at her success in at least bearding if not slaying the dragon, Deirdre said, “That is very good of you, Mr. Yee, to allow Mrs. Mitsushima to putter around if she ... doesn’t get in your way. Thank you.”

  When we were in the hall again, she flashed a triumphant grin and hugged me.

  “How’d I do, wise old Auntie? I gave him plenty of hoomali-mali.”

  “You were wonderful. Absolutely perfect.” And she had been. She had handled the temperamental chef with thoroughly grown-up finesse. And plenty of hoomali-mali. I didn’t need a translation to know that must mean a form of flattery.

  “Good! Now I’m going up and do some sketching. I just feel in the mood. I haven’t sketched too much since I met Stephen, but I’m so proud of myself—Mr. Yee scares me to death, you know—that I think I can draw something again.”

  I thought this was a great idea and said so. “And I’ll look around,” I told her, “get my bearings.”

  We parted at the front staircase. She had gone up several stairs before she swung around, called to me. She laughed, a very light, wispy laugh.

  “Wasn’t that ridiculous? That awful man thought Stephen was married to you. He actually did!”

  “Utterly ridiculous, dear. Don’t think about it.”

  I went on toward the lanai, with what I hoped was a cheerful expression. But I couldn’t help feeling slightly crushed at her implication that no doddering, creaking old aunt like Judith Cameron would ever be married to a man her husband’s age.

  The man is just my own age! Ito said he is.

  After some effort I managed to work up my sense of humor and was able to laugh at my vanity by the time I walked out on the lower-floor lanai. Strictly speaking, the so-called lanai appeared to be a balcony that looked as if it might collapse at any minute into the jungle-covered gulch far below. It actually creaked when I stepped onto it.

  The gulch itself fascinated me. I was so impressed at the sight by daylight that I lost all interest in the ancient lanai. For the first few minutes the thunderous drop of the falls drowned all the other sounds. I leaned over the wooden railing, caught the rainbow spray of the falls, and then traced their descent. There was so much foliage below I barely made out any pool or even the continuation of the river that crossed the island from the northwest mountain where it began. I remembered reading, after Deirdre’s marriage, that a mountain on the island of Kaiana was called “the rainiest spot on earth.” And the mountain on this island was north of Kaiana. Small wonder this Ili-Ahi gulch was the wettest and most thickly overgrown spot I had ever seen.

  I couldn’t begin to identify the plant and forest life in front of me and below me. The intertwined plants, flowers, trees, the vegetation both living and dead seemed endless. The fallen leaves, windblown blossoms, endless palm fronds, not to mention the debris washed down the river, had collected here for months or even years. There was more vegetation further along toward the last barriers before Kaiana Channel, which I supposed was a series of ancient lava outcroppings or coral reefs. I couldn’t tell which they were from this point, although I could see the channel glittering in pools of sunlight, and then, hardly a hundred yards away, the pools turned midnight blue, rolling and angry under the rain clouds.

  Either I had grown used to the smell of rotting vegetation, or it was masked by the perfume of the plumeria growing thickly around the house on bushes or young trees. There was a golden shower tree almost on the edge of the chasm, and within the gulch itself, bright vermillion flashes proved to be ohia flowers, scattered among hibiscus and other less familiar blooms.

  Even as I watched all this tropic profusion and tried to trace the river after it gathered itself up from the bottom of that violent drop, huge raindrops splashed on my hair and my nose. I ducked into the hall and shook myself.

  A minute later I heard the door to that pleasant sitting room open and Stephen Giles, who apparently had his hand on the old-fashioned glass doorknob, said, “I suggest then that you get any other information you want from the Honolulu police. You should have dealt with them in the first place.”

  He was answered by Victor Berringer’s clipped, precise enunciation. “I fail to see why the police on Oahu would have more pertinent information than your own natives here on Ili-Ahi. Why do you object to our questioning them?”

  “In the first place, they are not our natives. You may as well say we here at Sandalwood are part of the Hawaiians who own this island in a kind of joint tenancy with us. Anyway, they know absolutely nothing about Miss Berringer. I told you that in our exchange of correspondence. And now, gentlemen, I have a great deal to do. I have meetings in Honolulu and I have some workmen here on a project started by my father, and which I intend to complete successfully. You understand therefore, I can’t waste more time. Once again, I suggest you see the police and let them handle the matter. From all I have learned of Miss Berringer, she might have gone on to Tahiti or Australia, or even to Taiwan. She mentioned them all.”

  “She would need a passport!” Berringer insisted, obviously on the verge of losing his temper.

  William Pelhitt, sounding anxious, put in, “Say, Vic, why couldn’t she have thought she lost her passport and just have gotten a new one? You know Ingrid. Always mislaying things.”

  “Because—as I keep telling you—the Passport Bureau says that is not the case. Don’t you think they would know? There are such things as records, Will.”

  Stephen stepped out into the hall, and I hurried up the back staircase to avoid being caught listening. “Gentlemen, I am sorry. I wish you luck, but I’m afraid you are searching in the wrong place. Miss Berringer is undoubtedly thousands of miles from here at this very minute. She was a very self-sufficient young woman and doubtless found some transportation where she didn’t need a passport. You must know that a yacht, a ship of some kind, could put in at any island in the Pacific and its owner could bring Miss Berringer ashore during the night without the local officials being the wiser. During the occasions I met your daughter, before my marriage, she used to joke about such things—’being swallowed up in the immensity of the Pacific,’ is how she put it. She joked about these things one day at lunch. Asked Deirdre if it wouldn’t be fun to go to sleep as herself and wake up as someone else. But you know all this. If I’m not mistaken, I wrote these details to you. Good-bye, gentlemen. Can you make your way to the dock? I’ll take you in my boat if you like.”

  “Quite unnecessary. We have the boat we rented from the Kaiana Hilton. Come along, William.”

  Their footsteps and receding voices told me they had decided to obey Stephen’s obvious command. A few minutes later, from my room, I saw all three men headed down the steep path to the little landing on our side of the channel. I didn’t like to hound Deirdre, but her husband had made it clear that my real job was to look after her. As a companion, or as a warden? I wondered.

  I started toward her suite farther along the hall and knocked. There was no answer, and then I remembered that she liked to use the room across from mine, overlooking the
heavy jungle vegetation that masked the Ili-Ahi stream before it plunged over into the gulch. Why she should prefer this to the pleasanter, sunnier side of the building I couldn’t imagine. Although hibiscus hedges and a golden shower tree grew along this side of Sandalwood, the path from the boat landing and the beginnings of the wide green open space in front of the building gave the sunlight a much better chance.

  I returned to the door opposite my room and knocked. Nothing happened and I knocked again, thinking that if her windows were open the roar of all that plunging water might drown out any other sounds. This time I could hear little scuffling noises which baffled me.

  “Who is it?” Deirdre asked in a high, fluting, breathless voice

  “It’s Judith. Do you need anything?”

  I was sure she considered carefully. Then she told me, “No, but the door is unlocked.”

  I took this as an invitation, though perhaps not the most happily phrased, and went in. The room seemed to have a curious blue-green hue and for a minute I stood there blinking. I could see my way, but I had the distinct feeling that I was at the bottom of an aquarium tank. Deirdre’s infectious giggle brought me out of this dizzy sense that I was drowning.

  “You’re perfectly all right, you know. People say they feel like choking in here. The room wasn’t used very much until Stephen married me. But I feel quite safe here.”

  “Safe?” I had been looking around at the wallpaper with its fish and great thrown nets, and torches for the night-fishing, but her odd choice of that word surprised me. “Safe from what?”

  She shrugged. “Oh, from ... busybodies and people trying to make me do things or go places when I don’t want to ... or when they won’t let me go to Honolulu. They’re awfully mean about that. I’ve gone down to the landing and tried and tried. I’ve offered them money. But nobody will take me across the channel.”