The Paradise Affair Read online

  On Saturday evening she and John dined by themselves, but when they entered the dining saloon on Sunday all the tables were taken. There was seating at two of the four-person tables, one of which was occupied by Margaret Pritchard, the woman they’d encountered on deck before sailing, and a large, distinguished-looking man some ten years her senior. Mrs. Pritchard spied Sabina and smilingly gestured for her and John to join them.

  Lyman Pritchard, it developed, was an executive with J. D. Spreckels and Brothers, agents for several Hawaiian sugarcane plantations and a leading exponent of trade between the United States and the Islands. John D. Spreckels was also the founder and owner of the Oceanic Steamship Company, Sabina knew, which likely meant that the Pritchards were traveling gratis or at a much reduced rate. They visited San Francisco annually for a week of business meetings, get-togethers with old friends, and shopping for items unavailable in Honolulu.

  John identified himself and Sabina as owners and operators of “a private consulting service,” and neatly forestalled questions about just what sort of consultations they engaged in by revealing that they had been married just six months. Margaret said, “Oh, then this trip is a belated honeymoon?,” to which Sabina replied more or less truthfully that it was.

  The dinner fare proved to be very good—oysters, Dungeness crab, roast lamb, fresh vegetables, a fruit medley that included pineapple and mango—and the Pritchards were convivial companions. Margaret was genuinely and effusively friendly, her chocolate-drop eyes sparkling when she described the picturesque attractions that awaited them on Oahu—Iolani Palace, Diamond Head, the Manoa and Kalihi valleys, the landlocked bay known as Pearl River. Sabina felt an immediate rapport with her. She liked Lyman, too; it was plain from the attention he paid to his wife that he doted on her. John also found them good company. He was quietly charming, a certain indication that he felt socially at ease.

  Margaret again wore the white jade earrings, and beamed when Sabina complimented her on them; they had been an anniversary present from her husband, she said, giving his hand an affectionate pat. He smiled at her, and in a habitual gesture akin to John’s whisker-fluffing, ran a long forefinger over his ginger-colored mustache—which he’d grown wide and brushy, Sabina guessed, to compensate for the sparseness of his hair. They had been married nine years, having met in San Francisco on one of Lyman’s business trips, and had not as yet been blessed with children.

  At the end of the meal, as they lingered over coffee, Margaret asked where they would be staying on Oahu. Sabina said, “We don’t know for certain. We decided on the voyage on short notice and have no reservations. The Oceanic agent recommended the Hawaii Hotel and said we shouldn’t have any difficulty getting accommodations there.”

  “Oh, my. The Hawaii Hotel is a decent hostelry, but it is located in Honolulu proper and there are quite a few more visitors than usual these days. The city proper isn’t the best place to be just now, I’m afraid.”

  “The Spanish-American war and increased U.S. military presence, for one reason,” Lyman said. “Strained relations with Japan, for another. And there have been public protests against the probable annexation by disgruntled natives loyal to Queen Lili‘uokalani.”

  “Does that mean the city is unsafe?” John asked.

  “No, not at all. None of the protests have been violent. Tourists have no cause for concern. That is, as long as they avoid Nuuanu Street and Chinatown after nightfall.”

  John’s ears perked up. Nuuanu Street was where the Honolulu detective, George Fenner, hung his hat and shingle. “Chinatown I can understand,” he said, “but why the other?”

  “Well, you might say that Nuuanu Street is Honolulu’s version of the Barbary Coast. Disreputable saloons and other, ah, businesses that cater to sailors and soldiers.”

  “Where is it located?”

  “Near the waterfront, adjacent to Chinatown. Fortunately the Honolulu Police Station is also situated nearby.”

  Margaret turned the conversational topic back to lodgings. “The city really is crowded these days,” she said, “and the number of available hotel rooms is limited. But there are other available accommodations. Many residents rent rooms to visitors for a nominal fee. We do so ourselves on occasion—not a room but a small guesthouse on our property. You would be welcome to stay with us. Wouldn’t they, Lyman?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  Sabina said, “It’s kind of you to offer, but we wouldn’t want to impose.”

  “It wouldn’t be an imposition,” Margaret said. “The guesthouse is a separate unit, so you’d have complete privacy. And we’re right on the beach at Waikiki.”

  “How far from Honolulu proper?” John asked. “I have a business matter to attend to in the city.”

  Neither of the Pritchards asked him the nature of the business matter; they were not ones to pry, fortunately. Margaret said, “It’s three miles from our door to the city center. And there is a trolley stop a short distance from our property.”

  The invitation appealed to Sabina because of the Waikiki location. John seemed less taken with it because of the distance, short though it was, from Honolulu proper. Acceptance or refusal without discussing it privately would be premature.

  Margaret, perceptive as well as gracious, sensed this. “You needn’t decide now,” she said. “We have only just met, after all. We’ll become better acquainted, I hope, before we arrive and you can give us your answer then.”

  * * *

  Sabina did become better acquainted with the Pritchards over the next two days, but John did not. Beginning early Monday morning a pair of fierce back-to-back storms lashed the Alameda, roughening the sea and causing the ship to pitch and roll, now and then to plunge and surge like the bucking of a wild horse. The constant upheaval had no appreciable effect on her; its effect on John, however, was severe—surprisingly so, for he had never complained of motion sickness on any of his many trips on bay and river steamers.

  Queasiness kept him confined to their cabin, abed much of the time. Their steward recommended raw ginger root as a remedy for seasickness, but when he brought some from the ship’s galley John couldn’t abide the taste and refused to swallow it. The continual stomach upset made him short-tempered and grouchy—“Restful ocean voyage? Romantic interludes? Faugh!”—and sent Sabina elsewhere in self-defense.

  One place she went was the ladies’ lounge, where she and Margaret had arranged to meet daily for afternoon tea. The bond of friendship between them grew stronger at the first of these meetings, when Margaret asked if Sabina considered herself a “New Woman,” the term used to describe the modern woman who broke with the traditional role of wife and mother by working outside the home, and Sabina emphatically said she did. Margaret, too, believed in the principle, though her own pursuit of emancipation was limited by Honolulu society. She also heartily approved of Sabina’s involvement with the woman suffrage movement, which she, too, supported, and commiserated with her over the fact that the California State Woman Suffrage Convention held in San Francisco in November had failed to produce a voting rights amendment to the state constitution.

  Sabina had told her of John’s struggles with mal de mer. “Is he feeling any better today?” she asked when they met on Tuesday.

  “I’m afraid not,” Sabina said, and added wryly, “Green is not a becoming color on him.”

  “Poor soul. I know how he feels—I was a bit green myself on my first crossing. It takes a while for some of us to develop what sailors call sea legs. You’re fortunate you were born with them.”

  “Very fortunate.”

  “Has he been able to eat anything?”

  “Broth and a little milk. Nothing solid.”

  “His appetite will return once the weather clears. We should have calm seas again soon.”

  Sabina hoped so. For her sake as well as John’s.

  * * *

  Margaret’s prediction proved true. On Wednesday morning Sabina awoke to a mostly clear sky and a placid ocea
n. John’s color was much better, his mood likewise when he discovered that the queasiness was gone and he was able to be up and about on steady legs again.

  They dressed and went for a stroll on the passenger deck. The Pacific was a deep, sunstruck aquamarine, the air warm, the breeze light and bracing. It was not long before John announced that he was famished. He proceeded to eat a gargantuan breakfast and afterward went to smoke his pipe for the first time in two days.

  That night his ardor returned as well. Oh, yes, he was his old self again, definitely none the worse for his mini-ordeal.

  * * *

  The skies remained clear, the ocean as flat and smooth as a pane of colored glass, the days and nights growing progressively warmer as they neared their destination. A posted announcement from the captain stated that the steamer was on schedule to arrive in Honolulu Harbor early Saturday morning.

  On Friday evening Sabina and John once again dined with the Pritchards. Margaret regaled them with stories of the Polynesian settling of the Islands, of King Kamehameha and the monarchy, of the coming of the missionaries. She was so well versed on the subject of Hawaiian history, Lyman told them, that she served as a volunteer teacher at a school for the young children of Caucasian residents. This made Sabina like her even more.

  She and John had discussed the guesthouse invitation, and toward the end of the meal she gave their decision. He preferred to be in Honolulu proper, but she had pointed out that the shortage of hotel accommodations would make it difficult to find lodgings and likely delay his pursuit of the two swindlers. That, the nominal rental fee, and the consideration of her comfort convinced him. They would be staying at Waikiki with their newfound acquaintances.

  4

  SABINA

  The island of Oahu shimmered in dark green splendor as the Alameda neared a point of land Margaret identified as Koko Head, once around which Honolulu would be visible. The shimmer was a thin heat haze. As early as it was, the morning was hot, the air humid and breathlessly still, the sky threaded with milky streaks. John had grumbled about the sticky heat while they were dressing in their lightest attire. Where were the soft blue sky, the balmy trade winds she had touted?

  Margaret provided the answer when they joined her and Lyman and several other passengers at the starboard deck rail. “Kona weather,” she said.

  “It comes two or three times a year when the winds turn westerly.”

  One of the other passengers, a tubby little man in a white linen suit similar to the one Lyman wore, overheard this and saw fit to add, as if delivering a lecture, “The kona winds are actually blown-out typhoons that have come up across the equator. They bring heavy rainstorms and now and then cause volcanic eruptions. The Polynesians believed them to be ‘sick winds,’ that kona weather is ‘dying weather.’”

  “The Polynesians had many superstitions,” Margaret said.

  “Yes, and some of them are justified.”

  John, who was perspiring freely, muttered something unintelligible under his breath. Sabina remained prudently silent.

  The steamer rounded Koko Head, slowed as it approached the channel entrance to Honolulu Harbor. Sabina was impressed by her first view of the city. Beyond piers and warehouses lining the waterfront, buildings sprawled in a wealth of tropical vegetation backed by a section of higher ground that Lyman identified as Punchbowl Hill. In the far distance stood a majestic mountain range, Tantalus, whose jagged peaks were like a row of sentinels. The shoreline swept southward in a wide crescent, the extinct volcano known as Diamond Head standing guard at its far end.

  They weighed anchor just inside the harbor entrance, near a small island—Quarantine Island, Margaret told them, where ships believed to be carrying contagious passengers were detained and isolated. The reason for the stoppage was a routine quarantine inspection. Shortly a launch arrived from the island with a doctor to perform the examination; it did not take long for him to clear the passengers and allow the ship to proceed.

  The Alameda took her designated place among a number of other vessels—steamers, three-masted barques, a quartet of gunmetal-gray American naval battleships and troop ships—moored at the long line of piers. Passengers disembarked into a shed where they waited for their baggage. It was stifling hot in the shed; the simple act of drawing breath made perspiration flow from Sabina’s pores. The Pritchards, happy to be home, seemed not to mind the heat or the waiting.

  The baggage was soon carted in and separated. Lyman assigned their trunks, and hers and John’s, to a pair of native porters. Immigration was a mere formality; the Pritchards were well known to the inspector, and when Lyman stated that the Quincannons were to be their guests, they were swiftly passed through.

  When they emerged from the shed, they and the other arrivals were greeted by a brass band playing Hawaiian music, by young girls (somewhat scantily clad, though not in grass skirts) who draped fragrant hibiscus-flower leis around their necks, and by a handsome, smiling Hawaiian of indeterminate age who proved to be the Pritchards’ houseman, Alika. The family equipage, a Studebaker carriage with a calash folding top, drawn by a sturdy sorrel horse, awaited them.

  Not a single motorcar was in sight. Sabina asked Lyman if horseless carriages had made their appearance on the island.

  “No, not yet,” he said, “but they will surely be here by the turn of the century. Some residents feel that the machines will spoil this peaceful paradise of ours.”

  “Yes,” Margaret said, “and we are two of them.”

  Alika saw to the loading of their trunks into a trailer cart attached to the buggy, and they were soon under way. The drive to the Waikiki district was on a well-graded, packed earth roadway, Kalakaua Avenue, that followed the curve of the shoreline. Sections on both sides of the road had a swampy look relieved somewhat to seaward by groves of coconut palms; inland, beyond a line of trolley tracks, were taro patches and rice fields in which Chinese laborers stood toiling in knee-deep water. The sweltering heat was unrelieved by even a slight breeze; the palm fronds and other vegetation hung limp and lifeless. John appeared to be suffering its effects more than Sabina was—he kept shifting position on the leather seat, wiping his brow, tugging at the collar of his white shirt—but he made no verbal complaints.

  The swampland eventually gave way to the residential district of Waikiki. Even though it was three miles from the city proper, it was not at all isolated. In addition to the streetcar tracks paralleling Kalakaua Avenue, here, too, were arc light standards and poles strung with electrical and telephone wires. Clearly this was where a portion of Honolulu’s wealthy citizens resided; most of the homes visible here and there were large and set on well-landscaped parcels. The Pritchards’ was one of these, a square, two-story waterfront house surrounded by an abundance of tropical flora. Access was along a crushed-shell carriageway that looped across the front of the house, then opened into a parking area at the end of which was a shed-like lean-to and stable.

  A young bronze-skinned Hawaiian woman dressed in a bright floral-patterned garment appeared as Alika halted the buggy. When they had all alighted, Margaret embraced the girl, spoke to her briefly in her native tongue, and then performed introductions. She was Kaipo, Alika’s wife “and the finest cook on Oahu.” The girl smiled shyly and said to Sabina and John, “E komo mai. Welcome.” After which she hurried off on a path that led into the gardens to their left.

  “I asked her to prepare the guesthouse,” Margaret said. “Alika will bring your trunks. Meanwhile we’ll have something cool to drink on the lanai.”

  The guesthouse was invisible from this vantage point, its location hidden by the lush vegetation. The plantings on both sides made Sabina catch her breath; it seemed that shades of every vivid color in the spectrum were represented. Their mingled scents were as heady as expensive perfume.

  The main house was composed of large, airy rooms comfortably furnished in native koa woods, the walls decorated with Island paintings and tapestries. The lanai opened off the living room, separate
d from it by a bamboo curtain; long and wide, screened on three sides, it extended down a slight slope toward the sweep of beach below. The four of them sat out there on rattan chairs and drank iced fruit punch that Kaipo had prepared.

  The drinks and the relative coolness of the enclosed lanai relieved some of Sabina’s torpor. John looked less wilted, too, but he was still fidgety and his preoccupied expression told her he was thinking of the two swindlers. He confirmed it when Kaipo entered to inform them that the guesthouse was ready for occupancy.

  He was the first to stand, after which he rather rudely consulted his watch and then said to the Pritchards, “My apologies, but as I mentioned on the ship there is a business matter I must see to in the city.”

  Lyman blinked his surprise. “You mean now? But you’ve only just arrived. Can’t the matter wait until Monday?”

  “I would rather attend to it today. If you’d direct me to the nearby trolley stop…”

  “Alika can drive you into the city.”

  “The trolley will suit me,” John said. His reason for declining the drive offer, Sabina knew, was to keep his destination private. “What is the fare?”

  “Umi keneta Hawaiian, one dime American. You intend to leave right away?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  Margaret said, “At least come see the guesthouse first. Lyman will show you to the trolley stop. Then you’ll be sure to find your way back here when you return.”

  John agreed to that, after which they all trooped outside with Margaret leading the way.

  The guesthouse proved to be a simple thatch-roofed structure with a narrow screened porch facing seaward. Purple and red bougainvillea decorated its walls, and it was shaded by a poinciana tree whose wide, spreading branches and flaming red blossoms put Sabina in mind of a gaily colored parasol. The little structure had been built close to a low fence that separated the Pritchards’ property from that of their immediate neighbor. Sabina had a glimpse through shrubbery and across an expanse of lawn of the neighboring house. It was not of Hawaiian design, but surprisingly and rather closely resembled one of the Queen Anne homes prominent in San Francisco.