The House at Sandalwood (24 page)

My gray, lumpish companion was much closer now. I gasped as I saw it peering in at me through the broken window.

Sixteen

There was a certain amount of light remaining in the sky in spite of the rain and the night. I could see that the lump was human and male. I was about to run when the creature began to mumble, to make noises that sounded more pitiful than frightening.

“Judy ... need a little—little help... I’m soaked... Can’t seem to get ... going...”

Good heavens! It was poor William Pelhitt.

I made my way around the tree, managing to slip on several of those glossy leaves, but I did avoid the glittering and dangerous slivers of glass. I got William under the armpits. He was wet through, absolutely soggy.

“Come on. Right foot. Now the left. Watch it! That’s glass.”

At least he could move. He must have had a great deal to drink before he came to Sandalwood. He wasn’t as heavy as he appeared. It must be his bad posture that gave the illusion, this and his lack of belief in himself. That was not surprising in the circumstances, and in the company of Victor Berringer. He was a fool to remain here as the butt of Berringer’s contempt and cruelty.

I got him across the room. As we were about to move into the hall, Pelhitt crashed into the door frame. He groaned. He had bruised his temple and the pain must have been excruciating for a few minutes. But it roused him, and by feeling our way, we managed to get across the hall into the kitchen without further disasters. He fell into the chair I pulled out, and while he huddled there dripping water in pools around him, I fumbled for candles, got matches off the shelf beside the candle box and lighted two candles, melting wax into a dish and a saucer for their bases. I was shocked at Bill Pelhitt’s condition. A razor-thin streak of blood trailed below the bruise, and I grabbed up the dish towel where I had left it at the time the tree crashed through the living room window.

Bill Pelhitt raised his head, tried a faint smile, which looked more like a grimace.

“If you—throw—I’ll try to catch.”

I said lightly, “It’s not necessary. I always wanted to play nurse.”

I tried to be gentle as I dabbed at the bruise but he took the towel and tried to rub off the blood. I winced at the effort it cost him. I offered to take a candle and get antiseptic from the downstairs bathroom but he said, “Not yet, please. Don’t leave me alone. Lord, but I’m cold! Can I get next to the oven? It feels warm.”

Together, we shoved the chair over to the oven. The stove was electric, so we couldn’t count on any more heat until the power came back. I got him settled and taking a candle, I ran upstairs and brought down several blankets. Poor Pelhitt was shivering too much to get out of his sodden clothes, so I threw a blanket around him and asked him to dry himself off. He shook his head tiredly, groaned.

“A drink of water. Never been so thirsty all my...”

I ran the water, threw it out, and ran a second glass full that was only slightly cleaner. “Here. Try this. If the mud doesn’t clear your head, nothing will.”

He tried to smile and started to drink, the glass shaking in his unsteady hand. I reached over to help him but he stopped me.

“What was that?”

I glanced out around the blind. “Looks like the rain is letting up.”

“No, no. Listen!”

We listened together. No doubt about it—there was a rattling noise at the back of the house. Not another tree about to crash through? I remembered the beautiful golden shower tree at the rear door. Bill Pelhitt made a supreme effort to rise but I motioned him back to his chair before the oven. The rattling came again followed by a sudden quiet.

“He’s gone,” Bill Pelhitt took a long swallow of water and shivered inside his blanket.

I was sorry I couldn’t agree with his opinion. The wind and the rain had slowed to a gentle purr, but I was sure I heard footsteps at the end of the hall, and I thought how easily a man might leap over the rail of the lower
lanai
and enter in spite of the locked outside door.

Bill Pelhitt’s teeth were chattering but he muttered bravely, “Give me a knife.”

On the cutting board Mr. Yee had left one of his good French knives, shining and polished. I passed it to Bill and we waited breathlessly. The footsteps grew louder and before he appeared in the doorway I knew whom to expect. I was enormously relieved and at the same time I felt far happier than I should have been to see Deirdre’s husband. It was more than mere relief—much more. A feeling I had no right to be having.

Stephen stopped at the sight of us, looking so amazed in the sudden, blinding light of the candles that I almost laughed. His thin nylon jacket and slacks were as soaked as Bill Pelhitt, and his hair had fallen across his face. He was just as amused at the first sight of us.

“I see you’ve been out in our local weather. What they call in Honolulu ‘liquid sunshine.’ ”

“We’re so glad to see you,” I managed to say and then repeated it as if there were no other greeting in the world.

He came in, touched my cheek gently with cold, wet fingers that, nevertheless, were warm to my heart. “Are you all right? I was so worried when I saw the power had gone, and there was no sign of life. I thought they might have ... you are all right?”

“Fine. But Bill is sick. Please look at him.”

As I spoke he was carefully taking the knife away from Bill.

“You won’t need that now. You look pretty done in. Here. Let’s get you dry.” He reached for the fallen blankets, but Bill seemed to resent the attention. Stephen asked him, “What were you doing out in that cloudburst?”

“Visiting Judy.”

That took me unaware, but I nodded as Stephen questioned me with a glance. He didn’t like this. He seemed upset over Bill’s use of my nickname, but at least he was getting Bill dried off.

“I think he has a temperature,” I said, but temperature or not, he certainly was suffering from a bad chill.

Bill tried vainly to wriggle out of Stephen’s clutches while making half-hearted protests, “Let me go! ... can d-do it. I’m fine...”

“Quiet!” Stephen ordered him. “You’re on your way to pneumonia if you aren’t careful. You’d damn near have to lie down in the rain to get this wet.” Bill looked at me furtively. I made no sign of understanding how close to the truth Stephen’s casual comment might have been, for I suspected Bill had been lying there in the grove since sometime soon after he had quarrelled with Berringer. Apparently, Berringer had gone on, leaving Bill in his unsteady condition, and this was the result. Stephen glanced around. “Look, darling, would you mind—” His mouth twisted a little. “That is—Judith ... could you get the couch ready in my study? There are linens—”

“Yes. I know where the linens are.” I took one of the candles and started out, then hesitated. “Is there some way we could get Bill warm?”

“I don’t need anything. Will you please leave me alone?”

We ignored Bill because evidently he was not quite himself. He very probably was delirious. Stephen suggested then, “There’s a hibachi here. We can warm up some of those stones on the path outside the pantry door, wrap them in towels. Pretty old idea and not much use in Hawaii, but they helped my mother once, and you never know.” Bill was complaining with as much vehemence as he could muster. Stephen tried to buck him up. “The sooner we wring you out, old man, the sooner you can go home.”

But Bill objected querulously even to this. “Don’t call me ‘old man.’ ”

Stephen apologized in a careful voice. “Sorry. Figure of speech.”

I took the top linens from the shelf in the closet and ran to the study. I stripped the cover from the studio couch and threw on gaily flowered pink sheets and a blanket. I had forgotten pillowcases, but I
rolled up the extra blanket I had brought. It would serve as a pillow. I called to Stephen.

“It’s all right. Damp in here, though.”

They were already in the hall and Stephen supported Bill Pelhitt who managed a small smile. I took his other side and we got him to the couch. He murmured, “Not drunk now. Honest.”

“Of course, you’re not, Bill. Now just relax. That’s it.” I felt his forehead. He certainly had a fever. Stephen nodded. He himself still looked as if the downpour had Scotch-taped all his clothing to his body. I suggested, “I’ll help Bill. Hadn’t you better change too? You’ll find yourself fighting pneumonia if you don’t.”

“Don’t worry. It isn’t the first time I’ve crossed Kaiana Bay and gotten drenched. First, we’ve got to get the hibachi going. Can you take over while I get the thing started?”

So I sat down on the edge of the couch, rearranging sheets and blankets around Bill Pelhitt. He drew back with an embarrassment I couldn’t understand until I realized Stephen had stripped him of the soggy clothes and under all these blankets he was naked.

For some reason I felt as sorry for him as if he had been a helpless child. In other circumstances I might have been surprised or even amused at his sudden modesty, but he must have been through a great deal since the disappearance of the girl he loved, and I liked him nearly as much as I pitied him. I felt that some friend ought to give him stern advice when he felt better able to take it. He would have to stand up to Victor Berringer.

In a remarkably short time Stephen had the little black hibachi smoking and burning in the kitchen and was able to heat stones in the coals of the briquets he used. I furnished towels in which to wrap the stones. It occurred to me, very belatedly, that we must call for a doctor from Kaiana, but when I broached the subject as we were carrying the wrapped stones to the study, Stephen shook his head.

“I couldn’t get through to you half an hour—no, an hour ago, from the Kaiana airport. However, we’ll try if he doesn’t show any improvement. All right, Pelhitt. You may not believe it but you’re going to feel better pretty soon.”

Bill’s teeth were still chattering but he managed to get out a polite, “Awfully ... good of you.”

His uneasiness over my presence, as a woman and a comparative stranger, kept me from being of much help, but as I could see, Stephen managed very well alone. In spite of Bill’s hot, feverish forehead, it was clear almost at once that the towels with their heated stones were exactly what he needed. He calmed down, stopped shivering and in no time went to sleep.

Satisfied that he would be all right for a few minutes, Stephen and I went back to the kitchen to find something that would seal up the broken living-room window until morning. All his exertions with blankets and hot stones and hibachis had dried out Stephen himself.

He remarked wryly, “I thought when I reached the landing tonight that the amount of Pacific water I carried ashore would sink the island.” He looked at me. We smiled, although there was nothing very funny about his remark or our situation. We reached for the remaining candle at the same time. His fingers, firm and warm, closed over mine. It took an enormous effort of will for me to remove my hand. Long minutes after I caught myself staring at my hand and wishing—like a child with a first crush—that I could preserve that sensuous feeling between us.

But instead, I said quickly, “I wish I could perk some coffee. We could use it.”

“I don’t suppose you’d take a chance on a very small jigger of my father’s Oke.”

“His what?” At least, the moment between us had passed. We were now comrades, not potential lovers.

“Okolehau. It used to be popular—and legal—before the second World War. Something to do with taro. Everything has, in the Islands.”

Somewhere I had heard of it before. I remembered that I had wanted to ask about Deirdre, to be certain there had been no relapse, but the house was damp, the jungle around us closing in from all sides, and a little warmth, I felt, would do us good. I said gaily, “Fine. Then we’ll try and cover that window in the living room. Have you eaten?”

“Come to think of it, I haven’t.”

“A little food, or at any rate, something healthy to drink, would do Mr. Pelhitt good, too,” I suggested.

“You are a true pioneer’s woman, Judith.” He touched my chin jokingly, but I think the fact that I avoided his warm gaze might have brought the situation more firmly into focus. He stepped back, returned to the easy relationship he might have shown in Deirdre’s presence.

“Great idea about dinner. I’m afraid we’ll have to cook on our guest’s hibachi.”

“I wonder if there are any steaks in Mr. Yee’s precious refrigerator. Never mind. We’ll find something.”

We attended to the living-room problem first. By the light of a third candle we got the window fairly well covered by a huge piece of plasterboard that had been under his desk in the study to protect the heirloom carpet. Stephen’s guest was not disturbed. Stephen had put a big Band-Aid patch on his temple. Apparently, the injury, though painful, was not serious. Bill slept heavily but as his body had warmed and dried, his temperature seemed to go down. I left the glass of water near him. He would have a monumental thirst when he began to recover. Some orange or tomato juice wouldn’t hurt either. How unhappy he seemed to be, caught in a vise between Victor Berringer and his highly unstable daughter!

While I rummaged through Mr. Yee’s carefully arranged foods in the freezer, Stephen went upstairs and changed. He came back through the dark halls only minutes later looking especially handsome in a white turtleneck pullover and rust-colored slacks. He had combed his hair but it was still tousled. I was glad that such a mundane problem as food could keep my mind occupied.

“There isn’t any tomato juice,” I told him. “I think Bill could do with quarts of orange juice. But all we’ve got is pineapple.”

“One of the first dates Deirdre went on with me was to the big pineapple factory here,” Stephen reminisced. “It didn’t matter that we could have bought a glass of pineapple juice anywhere. Her thrill was to take a paper cup to the faucet and watch the juice pour out in front of her eyes. She likes things like that. Fairy-tale things. A not-quite-real world.”

“How about some papaya?”

“For me or our patient?”

“For you. The patient gets the pineapple. There aren’t any steaks, by the way. Doesn’t Mr. Yee believe in beef?”

He reached over my head into the highest shelf in the freezer, felt around and agreed that Mr. Yee had finally showed his Achilles’ heel.