Spoils of Eden (11 page)

Eden turned away.

“You can tell the Board what I said when you go back there tomorrow. If it’s the last thing I do, Eden, I’ll fight that law of non-adoption until I see it discarded. It’s a law that needs to be booted out of Hawaii and anywhere else that claims to be a civilized Christian community.”

It hurt deeply as she realized he saw her as siding with the enemy, infringing on individual rights, taking away the baby he had learned to love. Even her role as a compassionate nurse with the red cross proudly displayed on the front of her pinafore no longer merited his respect. Mention of helpless children taken from parents and placed in perpetual quarantine made her feel she was becoming stern and pitiless. Was this how he saw her, then? And the work she’d been proudly engaged in?

Eden’s resolve tightened. “You seem to have forgotten,” she choked, “that I am a victim of this same law. My mother was taken from me, from my father, and from the safety of her home. She was forced onto a boat to Kalawao. For years I never knew what had happened to her. Don’t think that I have no compassion for the weak and abused.” She whipped around to run toward the house when he overtook her.

“Eden, darling, please forgive me.”

Once again, as in the past, she was in his embrace, and this time
she clung to him, holding back tears, wanting him to understand and support her, yet knowing that she must not lose control of herself and be left vulnerable to every sentiment that could come sweeping her way.

“I know you’re on Kip’s side.” He spoke warmly into her hair. “I only wish you were on mine.”

Oh Rafe, but I am!
she wanted to cry out.
I am!
And yet the words she believed and wanted to say were held bound and chained.

Someone was coming, riding the lane from the plantation house on horseback to where she and Rafe stood beside the buggy. Rafe released her, and Eden turned to see who it was.

Zachary rode up and drew his reins. He looked from Eden to Rafe and must have recognized that matters between them were strung to the breaking point. Rather than looking satisfied over Rafe’s difficulties as he would have two years earlier, he looked genuinely disheartened.

“Oh,” he said wearily, “sorry to interrupt like this.” He looked over at Eden. “Grandfather’s already arrived. He’s up at the house now and sent me to call you up.”

Eden stood, numb.

Zachary refocused on Rafe who stood with hands on hips. “Hope you don’t mind, Rafe, but your plantation house seems to have been commandeered as the meeting hall.”

For a moment Eden felt as though a storm had swooped through her mind, scattering her wits to the four winds as she remembered with a jolt, Candace, Keno, Grandfather, and Oliver P. Hunnewell. She had failed to warn Candace in time.

“Already arrived?” She put a hand to her forehead as if she could make herself come up with an answer to the dilemma. “But you said he wasn’t arriving till this afternoon.”

“The steamer must have arrived early. He surprised us all.”

“But I never warned Candace,” she said. “I needed to speak with Ambrose, then Rafe, and … ”

“Let’s not worry about it,” Rafe said calmly. “Candace is mature
enough to hold her own with Ainsworth. She’s not a child, and Eden isn’t responsible for making matters work out for everyone. Is Townsend here with you?”

Eden believed Rafe was thinking of his mother, Celestine, having to face Townsend. She was reluctant to legally end their marriage, despite Townsend’s widely known infidelities. After his son Silas arrived, shining the spotlight on Townsend’s earlier sins, her acquaintances advised her to divorce him, but she believed that something drastic could still happen and change him. “Life is meant to be endured,” she often said. “Not every heartache can vanish with a magic wand. I’ve been taught that God’s grace is abundant and that we can, in Him,
endure
whatever He allows to confront us. I was wrong to marry Townsend. I knew he was not faithful to God, so why should he be faithful to me? Now to jump out of my situation and expect to reap holiday cheer is immature.”

“No, he stayed behind at Kea Lani,” Zachary said. His voice turned sarcastic. “But his number one son, Silas, is here. Silas, that most seasoned and intelligent ‘windfall-of-a-son’ who arrived so unexpectedly from who knows where, is somewhere around, sneaking about, no doubt, with a deck of cards in his pocket.”

Rafe showed interest for the first time. “You need to be cautious in what you say aloud, Zach.”

Zachary jerked a shoulder to show his rebellious mood. “I have no proof yet, but I’ll get it before this is over. And a whole lot more before I come out with it all. He says he’s from Sacramento, and his mother was from the old silver rush in Carson and Virginia City. I think he’s lying.”

“Be careful,” Rafe said again.

If Zachary’s mood was any indication, the meeting between Townsend and his two sons at Kea Lani hadn’t accomplished any good. Eden wondered if Ainsworth’s sudden arrival had prevented the meeting.

“Ainsworth has a solid reason for coming here,” Zachary said mysteriously.

Rafe shot a glance toward the plantation house, yet remained silent.

A solid reason?
Eden drew her left hand behind her skirt, wondering. Grandfather Ainsworth wouldn’t know that her engagement with Rafe was, as Zachary put it, “cracked in two.” “What about Oliver Hunnewell?” she asked.

“Fortunately, he’s gone on to Hunnewell Plantation to rest for a few days. Grandfather’s giving a luau next week. Ol’Oliver will be there to begin his public courting of Candace. And guess what? Grandfather met up with someone else while in San Francisco,” Zachary announced with sudden good cheer. “It turns out they all came home to Honolulu together. Just one big, happy family.”

“Look, Zach, stop the theatrics,” Rafe said. “You’re worrying her. Out with it.”

“Eden’s brilliant father is here in the flesh—as gaunt and sober minded as a replica of Dr. David Livingstone.”

Eden caught her breath.
“
My
father?
Dr. Jerome? He’s
here?”

“He is.”

Dazed, she was nonetheless aware that Rafe tensed as he stood beside her.

Zachary turned on the saddle to gesture his blond head toward the big house. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s Dr. Jerome coming off the lanai now to meet you, Eden.”

Eden stared in near shock as a tall, thin figure in white came down the steps and walked in her direction.

“Eden?” he called. “Is that you, my daughter?”

It was, indeed, her father, Dr. Jerome Derrington. Her heart burst into unabashed joy from long-awaited expectation. With a laugh from deep in her soul, she dropped her medical bag and ran to meet him, arms open wide.

Rafe watched Eden run to meet Dr. Jerome Derrington. They embraced and laughed. Rafe told himself that if he had thought winning Eden was difficult before her father arrived, the real struggle had only just begun. This moment would change everything.

Rafe looked up at Zachary astride the horse, expecting to see a typical smirk, but there was understanding in his blue eyes.

“My sympathy,” Zachary said wryly.

Zachary drew the reins aside, and the horse did a fancy half-circle. “The Derrington patriarch wants to meet with you alone before he returns to Kea Lani,” he said of Ainsworth. “You can bank on some important new conditions being added to the privilege of entering the Derrington family. Whatever they are, you’ll need to wait and hear it from Ainsworth himself.” With a two-finger salute to his brow, Zachary rode back up the lane toward the house.

Rafe stood in the tropical heat looking toward his plantation house. There was trouble ahead, and plenty of it. But he was no quitter. He would fight all obstacles to win what he wanted most. He was aware of the odds stacked against him, but that made the battle all the more important—and more interesting. What mattered was whether he was on the road of God’s purpose or a path of his own making. A sure way to lose in the end.

E
den’s enthusiasm over the arrival of her father, Dr. Jerome, remained undiminished throughout the day. Thus far, she hadn’t mentioned the real reason for her visit to Hawaiiana, preferring to keep the matter of Kip and the Board of Health to herself and Rafe. Eventually, she would need to declare herself and her mission, since she could hardly keep the matter a secret when taking Kip away to Kalihi. She steeled her mind and emotions to endure what was ahead. She would need to explain to Noelani first since she was Kip’s nanny. Later that evening, when she departed with her father in the buggy for Kea Lani, Kip would need to come with her. Perhaps the best time to bring Kip to Kalihi Hospital was when her father went to the Board of Health. He would need to give a broad report of his travels and research, since he’d been under the sponsorship of the deceased King Kalakaua.

Lunch was served on the lanai, the food arranged buffet-style on a long table with a bird-of-paradise flower arrangement. The family spent the afternoon enjoying refreshments and listening with interest while Dr. Jerome spoke of his travels.

Jerome’s hair was thick and dark, and his long sideburns curving inward at the jawline were colored by the gray of age. His lean, craggy face, tanned and leathery from years of traversing the tropics of the world, wore a sober cast. His deep-set eyes told of a determination to achieve his goals, a single-minded spirit.

The dozen or so comfortable cane chairs were arranged casually. Eden became aware of her father smiling down upon her with undeniable pride upon learning of her successful ongoing studies in tropical diseases. Her heart, if only for a brief moment, was that of a young daughter, beating with the need to be cherished by her father.

The various dishes were cooked to everyone’s delight, and even Eden, who thought she wouldn’t be able to eat due to excitement, found herself enjoying the food. Her attention was riveted upon her father as he recounted his experiences with leprosy treatments in certain areas of India. She hardly stirred from where she sat near his chair on the breezy lanai. Fully absorbed, she continued to ask pertinent questions about the disease.

The other family members appeared to be interested, though they naturally would not share the zeal for medical knowledge that so engrossed Eden. If anything, Zachary looked bored and sleepy after lunch as he lounged in a wicker chair with his long, muscled legs stretched out before him and a small frown frozen between his golden brows. He looked as though he were recalling something unpleasant. He hadn’t said whether he’d met with Townsend and Silas, and neither of them had come to Hawaiiana with Grandfather Ainsworth and Dr. Jerome.

Eden suspected Townsend’s absence was out of deference for Celestine or, more likely, due to a wish not to encounter Celestine’s rugged son, Rafe Easton, on his own property. Silas would have been welcomed, as Rafe had told her that morning, but Townsend remained a bully where Rafe’s mother was concerned. Townsend knew well enough how his stepson felt about him.

Great-aunt Nora couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred
pounds, but she was a tempest of energy when confronting matters she believed important to God and country—in this case the Hawaii Islands. Eden often enjoyed her vinegary facade, knowing that she had a tender heart, even if that tenderness was absent today. She sat as straight as a ruler in a fan-flared chair of white cane, one pale hand clasping a feather fan. Her crisp political gaze was fastened sternly on her brother, Ainsworth. It was apparent that she would prefer to interrogate him on his annexation meetings in Washington D.C., rather than listen to her nephew Jerome talk of exotic oils slowing the spread of leprosy.

Candace, with her flame-red hair braided like a wreath of nobility about her head, sat in outward Victorian repose, a tall, slim figure with a type of beauty that bordered on elegant plainness. The far-off look in her eyes told anyone who knew her as well as Eden, how her concerns were out wandering the pineapple fields with the handsome hapa-haole, Keno. Now and then Candace’s eyes would sharpen on Grandfather Ainsworth like dueling blades preparing for a standoff.

Eden, with her spirits animated, found only one disappointment in the family gathering, and that was over her Grandfather’s lack of enthusiasm for his sons research accomplishments. Accomplishments that Ainsworth labeled, kindly enough, as being “somewhat illusive.” Eden was nettled by his attitude, just as she was affronted by anyone who failed to see the value of her father’s sacrificial work.

Even so, Ainsworth’s attitude didn’t surprise her. He had found his younger son’s dedication to a cure for leprosy a cause for concern from the beginning. According to Ainsworth, Jerome’s jungle travels would end with his drowning in a river, being devoured by a tiger, or worse—contracting the dreaded disease himself. Ainsworth often stated that if he could have kept Jerome in Honolulu as he had Townsend, he would have done so. “Jerome is the son who should have run for the Legislature, not Townsend,” he often said, “or if he wished to be the Lord’s minister, why not lead a church in
Honolulu?” He affectionately called Jerome his “long-lost prodigal,” and his travels, “a vagabond’s penury.”