Jewel of the Pacific (37 page)

“You’re a wise girl. I guess that comes from all those years with Ambrose. Let Rafe heal and come to his decisions on his own timing.”

“Keno, there is something more. And I’m the one who needs convincing on this. Do you recall the morning my father had his angina aboard the
Minoa?
There was an envelope—”

She could see he was gripped by what she was bringing to his remembrance.

“I confess I went through his drawer,” she said, blushing. “Rafe knows I did, too. Because I brought up the photograph and the card.”

“I knew you’d found them,” he said. “And I knew it meant trouble.”

“Rafe denies that the card was there,” she said. “After the false letter he received, I can’t help thinking he’s right. But I can’t understand how they could have been planted in the captain’s cabin.”

Keno ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ve wondered the same thing. Bernice wasn’t aboard the
Minoa
that’s for sure. But if Rafe comes out straight and says he didn’t stash them away as a secret memento, then he didn’t.

“At the time I just didn’t know. I was surprised. It didn’t fit what I knew about him. And while he saw Bernice in San Francisco a few years ago, most of the entertaining was done at the Judson Mansion by Parker Judson who often had Rafe go there to talk business and meet other associates. Men like Spreckels. I don’t ever recall him cooing over Bernice. But like you, I couldn’t see how the photograph got in the cabin unless he put it there. So I tried to guard him. I didn’t want you to find it. But I knew you saw me. There was just that one moment when you looked over at the desk and I was putting it in the drawer.”

“But I can’t understand how it got out of the drawer to begin with,” she said.

He looked at her sharply.

“You did find the envelope outside the desk didn’t you?” she asked quickly, intently. “I was almost sure I saw you pick it up …”

“Eden, that’s what must have happened! It was on the floor by your father’s medical satchel when I saw it and picked it up. And I’m the one who dropped it there!”

“You!”

“Sure. Looking back it’s plain enough. I was rushing to find his heart tablets in the bag. I couldn’t find them, they weren’t in the bag, but I didn’t know it. So I practically ransacked the medicine bag. That’s when the envelope must have fallen out. There might have been some other envelopes, too—mail, I guess, just sort of stuffed inside. So you see the envelope wasn’t in the drawer with Rafe’s private papers. I’m the one who put it there thinking it belonged there. I wanted to get it out of your sight.” He slapped his forehead.

Eden almost laughed. “You’re sure, Keno?”

“Certain as can be. But why would your father be carrying that sort of thing around in his medical bag?”

The tension returned. Yes, why indeed? She wondered.

“My advice is to talk this over with Ambrose. Then bring him with you and chat with Dr. Jerome. He should know how it got in his medical bag.”

Eden agreed. What’s more she wanted to pursue the “investigation” at once. “Would you explain to Candace that I went to see Ambrose?”

“I’ll tell her. Want to borrow one of Rafe’s horses? He has half a dozen here in the stables.”

“Thanks Keno, but the bungalow is not far from here, I’d like to walk.”

The brisk walk revived her. When she neared the church by Ambrose and Noelani’s house she heard men’s voices followed by laughter floating out the open window. She had no trouble recognizing Ambrose’s hearty laugh. She didn’t recognize the other. When she entered through the open church door she was surprised to find that Ambrose was with her own father. Perhaps not recognizing his laughter was a reminder of how driven he’d been all these years. But his quest was now over, the door had shut, and she prayed the laughter might grow to replace his obsessiveness, like a strong, stately tree bearing spiritual fruit. Free, at last—and so was Rebecca.

They were sitting on one of the benches down front, talking together like two old friends. She’d already noted they’d been together a great deal lately since he’d recovered enough to leave his bed and take slow walks. She loathed breaking in on their camaraderie. Especially when her reason for coming would renew old tensions. Nonetheless she had to discover the truth.

Ambrose saw her first and stood. “Come on and join us, lass.”

Her father smiled his welcome and got to his feet, putting an arm around her shoulder. Jerome had lost much weight and he remained sallow, with his cheekbones showing. Nevertheless he had survived his attack and, by God’s grace, it appeared that he would live for some years

“Jerome feels well enough to want to teach the men’s Bible class this evening,” Ambrose told her.

“Splendid, Father, there’ll be a nice crowd I’m sure.”

She sat on the bench where her father and Ambrose had been confiding, and admitted that she’d come for a specific reason.

Again, she told of how she’d met with Rafe Easton at the
Gazette
and of the loan he’d arranged with Great-aunt Nora.

“She had to do something to save her paper, and I’m pleased Rafe came to the rescue,” Jerome said.

Ambrose added, “There’s no other man I’d rather have Nora working with than Rafe. True, he’s been up a tether recently, but I believe that is winding down. Now what’s this troubling you, Eden? Not Rafe buying the paper?”

She came straight to her quandary and told them about Bernice Judson’s letter found on the
Minoa
, and how Keno now believed it had fallen out of her father’s medical bag.

“Do you know anything about such an envelope being in your satchel, Father?”

Jerome rubbed the bridge of his nose, then his dark eyebrows shot up with enlightenment.

“Ah, yes! There were several letters that came into the medical ward for Rafe Easton. I’d forgotten all about them. I believe there were two letters from San Francisco—one from his mother, Celestine, and while I can’t be sure, another one from Miss Judson. I had intended to take them to his room that day at the medical ward and to read them to him. But I was in a desperate hurry and forgot about them. I do deeply regret it. Rafe departed soon afterward on the steamer, while I must have carried the mail aboard the
Minoa.”

Jerome fastened his apologetic gaze upon her. “I’m sorry my dear. Does that help the matter any?”

I
will need to go back to work at Kalihi
, Eden thought as she sat at the desk in her bedroom at Kea Lani. Several days had passed since she’d spoken with Keno at Hawaiiana.

She sorted through the papers her father had signed for the loan from Rafe Easton to enable the work on Kalawao. She couldn’t possibly burden her father with these bills now! When he more fully recovered, then he, too, was likely to return to work at the Kalihi hospital. Just this morning her father had visited Kalihi where he’d seen old friends in the medical world. She wanted to keep him free of worry for at least a few months longer.

Returning to her previous position as research assistant would not be the same as it was under Dr. Bolton and Aunt Lana. She decided she would apply as a regular medical nurse. The new doctor who had taken Bolton’s position was a Frenchman named Dr. Traevonne.

Adding up the overall debt, she was embarrassed when comparing it with her finances. She wondered how she would pay it off. She’d decided she could quite easily do without some new clothes. Even without the debt to pay she had intended to return to work at Kalihi, but not until work on the journal was finished.

Rafe had implied the story should be printed, but the matter remained as unsettled as their relationship. She persisted in her caution over what would happen, and when. Only two days had passed since their confrontation at the
Gazette
, and things had remained quiet. He hadn’t contacted her about the journal and the information about Kip, but she had no doubt that he would. She was prepared to tell him the truth!

It was through Great-aunt Nora, who had extended her stay at the Royal Hotel, that Eden learned Rafe had been away from Honolulu. “He told Zachary he needed to visit the Parker Judson house for a day or two.”

Nora had the first installment of Rebecca’s Story, and was excited about publishing it, “just as soon as Rafe returns from Maui so we can sit down together and discuss it.”

Eden smiled. She knew the real reason Rafe went to Maui. Then she sobered and pondered the bills strewn across her desk. Rafe had been generous, but paying it all back in monthly installments would not be easy. After the trouble she’d gone through trying to procure the money to bail out the
Gazette
, she wasn’t a bit eager to seek more financial help from
anyone
, including Grandfather Ainsworth.

Besides, her grandfather had been clear about his disinterest in Jerome’s leprosy work all these years, and he wouldn’t have much interest in paying the debt when he’d denied Jerome money for the project from the beginning.

Now that Jerome’s health forbade his return to the clinic, her grandfather would consider payment for equipment and supplies a business risk. It would not matter that Dr. Bolton and Lana were doing research, or that Eden had met her mother and received a journal that she hoped to see printed.

Indirectly, however, Grandfather would help pay off the loan. Eden would use the money he allocated to her as a monthly bequest to help make the payments. She had written a draft on her account intending to have it delivered to Rafe’s mailbox at the front desk of the hotel when she went to see Great-aunt Nora that afternoon.

She paced her bedroom floor, then made up her mind. She went to her jewelry box and carefully removed the engagement ring, and slipped it into her bag, while keeping Rebecca’s journal locked away.

It was then the message from Rafe arrived from the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. She opened the seal and read:
It’s important we meet in private before your visit with Nora. I’ll wait for you in the hotel garden salon at 3 p.m. R.E
.

Now how did he know about her visit with Great-aunt Nora? Nora must have told him.

Eden wore an ivory brocaded silk with a velvet trim of ribbon, the trim also adorning the rim of her summer hat. She looked fetching and knew it.

She drove her buggy along narrow King Street toward the hotel, wondering if he would explain what happened in his head-on confrontation with Bernice. Somehow she did not think he would share the details. Eden could only imagine, from knowing Rafe, what must have been said between them. Even though their own relationship was wounded, he would not look well on a woman who had played him for a fool. Reading a letter of lies to a man who was unable to see was at the very bottom of the character scale.

Unless she was wrong, Bernice would be an angry woman about now, and spoiled enough to pack her trunks—or rather, have a servant pack her trunks of beautiful, expensive gowns—and head back to Nob Hill society. She would leave a trail of seething smoke and ill will!

Changing the direction of her thoughts, Eden marveled that Nora refused to stay at Kea Lani because she was “miffed,” as she put it, with her brother Ainsworth. She wouldn’t stay at Hawaiiana, either, because Keno and Candace would soon marry and set up their living there.

“Aunt Nora, we’d love to have you when you’re in Honolulu,” Candace had protested. Even Rafe’s mother, Celestine, wrote to Nora. Still, Nora remained at the hotel. “I relish my independence. Tamarind House is getting too difficult to get around in with my weak ankle. Here, I can ring for help easily, and Rafe, dear boy, is just minutes away.”

Eden wondered over that statement. Why was there nothing except affection for Rafe after he had bought out most of the
Gazette?
Surprisingly, they were on affectionate terms, and Nora went out of her way to defend Rafe’s decisions. Maybe what Rafe had told her about why he’d bought most of the
Gazette
was genuine? If so, her heart warmed toward him. Once again he had reached out to defend Zachary and to show he really did have a nephew-like affection for Nora.

Eden turned her buggy over to the hotel worker with: “Be sure my mare is put in the shade.”