On the Makaloa Mat
Unlike the women of most warm races, those of Hawaii age well andnobly. With no pretence of make-up or cunning concealment oftime's inroads, the woman who sat under the hau tree might havebeen permitted as much as fifty years by a judge competent anywhereover the world save in Hawaii. Yet her children and hergrandchildren, and Roscoe Scandwell who had been her husband forforty years, knew that she was sixty-four and would be sixty-fivecome the next twenty-second day of June. But she did not look it,despite the fact that she thrust reading glasses on her nose as sheread her magazine and took them off when her gaze desired to wanderin the direction of the half-dozen children playing on the lawn.It was a noble situation--noble as the ancient hau tree, the sizeof a house, where she sat as if in a house, so spaciously andcomfortably house-like was its shade furnished; noble as the lawnthat stretched away landward its plush of green at an appraisementof two hundred dollars a front foot to a bungalow equallydignified, noble, and costly. Seaward, glimpsed through a fringeof hundred-foot coconut palms, was the ocean; beyond the reef adark blue that grew indigo blue to the horizon, within the reef allthe silken gamut of jade and emerald and tourmaline.And this was but one house of the half-dozen houses belonging toMartha Scandwell. Her town-house, a few miles away in Honolulu, onNuuanu Drive between the first and second "showers," was a palace.Hosts of guests had known the comfort and joy of her mountain houseon Tantalus, and of her volcano house, her mauka house, and hermakai house on the big island of Hawaii. Yet this Waikiki housestressed no less than the rest in beauty, in dignity, and inexpensiveness of upkeep. Two Japanese yard-boys were trimminghibiscus, a third was engaged expertly with the long hedge ofnight-blooming cereus that was shortly expectant of unfolding inits mysterious night-bloom. In immaculate ducks, a house Japanesebrought out the tea-things, followed by a Japanese maid, pretty asa butterfly in the distinctive garb of her race, and fluttery as abutterfly to attend on her mistress. Another Japanese maid, anarray of Turkish towels on her arm, crossed the lawn well to theright in the direction of the bath-houses, from which the children,in swimming suits, were beginning to emerge. Beyond, under thepalms at the edge of the sea, two Chinese nursemaids, in theirpretty native costume of white yee-shon and-straight-linedtrousers, their black braids of hair down their backs, attendedeach on a baby in a perambulator.And all these, servants, and nurses, and grandchildren, were MarthaScandwell's. So likewise was the colour of the skin of thegrandchildren--the unmistakable Hawaiian colour, tinted beyondshadow of mistake by exposure to the Hawaiian sun. One-eighth andone-sixteenth Hawaiian were they, which meant that seven-eighths orfifteen-sixteenths white blood informed that skin yet failed toobliterate the modicum of golden tawny brown of Polynesia. But inthis, again, only a trained observer would have known that thefrolicking children were aught but pure-blooded white. RoscoeScandwell, grandfather, was pure white; Martha three-quarterswhite; the many sons and daughters of them seven-eighths white; thegrandchildren graded up to fifteen-sixteenths white, or, in thecases when their seven-eighths fathers and mothers had marriedseven-eighths, themselves fourteen-sixteenths or seven-eighthswhite. On both sides the stock was good, Roscoe straight descendedfrom the New England Puritans, Martha no less straight descendedfrom the royal chief-stocks of Hawaii whose genealogies werechanted in males a thousand years before written speech wasacquired.In the distance a machine stopped and deposited a woman whoseutmost years might have been guessed as sixty, who walked acrossthe lawn as lightly as a well-cared-for woman of forty, and whoseactual calendar age was sixty-eight. Martha rose from her seat togreet her, in the hearty Hawaiian way, arms about, lips on lips,faces eloquent and bodies no less eloquent with sincereness andfrank excessiveness of emotion. And it was "Sister Bella," and"Sister Martha," back and forth, intermingled with almostincoherent inquiries about each other, and about Uncle This andBrother That and Aunt Some One Else, until, the first tremulousnessof meeting over, eyes moist with tenderness of love, they satgazing at each other across their teacups. Apparently, they hadnot seen nor embraced for years. In truth, two months marked theinterval of their separation. And one was sixty-four, the othersixty-eight. But the thorough comprehension resided in the factthat in each of them one-fourth of them was the sun-warm, love-warmheart of Hawaii.The children flooded about Aunt Bella like a rising tide and werecapaciously hugged and kissed ere they departed with their nursesto the swimming beach."I thought I'd run out to the beach for several days--the tradeshad stopped blowing," Martha explained."You've been here two weeks already," Bella smiled fondly at heryounger sister. "Brother Edward told me. He met me at the steamerand insisted on running me out first of all to see Louise andDorothy and that first grandchild of his. He's as mad as a sillyhatter about it.""Mercy!" Martha exclaimed. "Two weeks! I had not thought it thatlong.""Where's Annie?--and Margaret?" Bella asked.Martha shrugged her voluminous shoulders with voluminous andforgiving affection for her wayward, matronly daughters who lefttheir children in her care for the afternoon."Margaret's at a meeting of the Out-door Circle--they're planningthe planting of trees and hibiscus all along both sides of KalakauaAvenue," she said. "And Annie's wearing out eighty dollars' worthof tyres to collect seventy-five dollars for the British Red Cross--this is their tag day, you know.""Roscoe must be very proud," Bella said, and observed the brightglow of pride that appeared in her sister's eyes. "I got the newsin San Francisco of Ho-o-la-a's first dividend. Remember when Iput a thousand in it at seventy-five cents for poor Abbie'schildren, and said I'd sell when it went to ten dollars?""And everybody laughed at you, and at anybody who bought a share,"Martha nodded. "But Roscoe knew. It's selling to-day at twenty-four.""I sold mine from the steamer by wireless--at twenty even," Bellacontinued. "And now Abbie's wildly dressmaking. She's going withMay and Tootsie to Paris.""And Carl?" Martha queried."Oh, he'll finish Yale all right--""Which he would have done anyway, and you KNOW it," Martha charged,lapsing charmingly into twentieth-century slang.Bella affirmed her guilt of intention of paying the way of herschool friend's son through college, and added complacently:"Just the same it was nicer to have Ho-o-la-a pay for it. In away, you see, Roscoe is doing it, because it was his judgment Itrusted to when I made the investment." She gazed slowly abouther, her eyes taking in, not merely the beauty and comfort andrepose of all they rested on, but the immensity of beauty andcomfort and repose represented by them, scattered in similar oasesall over the islands. She sighed pleasantly and observed: "Allour husbands have done well by us with what we brought them.""And happily . . . " Martha agreed, then suspended her utterancewith suspicious abruptness."And happily, all of us, except Sister Bella," Bella forgivinglycompleted the thought for her."It was too bad, that marriage," Martha murmured, all softness ofsympathy. "You were so young. Uncle Robert should never have madeyou.""I was only nineteen," Bella nodded. "But it was not GeorgeCastner's fault. And look what he, out of she grave, has done forme. Uncle Robert was wise. He knew George had the far-away visionof far ahead, the energy, and the steadiness. He saw, even then,and that's fifty years ago, the value of the Nahala water-rightswhich nobody else valued then. They thought he was struggling tobuy the cattle range. He struggled to buy the future of the water--and how well he succeeded you know. I'm almost ashamed to thinkof my income sometimes. No; whatever else, the unhappiness of ourmarriage was not due to George. I could have lived happily withhim, I know, even to this day, had he lived." She shook her headslowly. "No; it was not his fault. Nor anybody's. Not even mine.If it was anybody's fault--" The wistful fondness of her smiletook the sting out of what she was about to say. "If it wasanybody's fault it was Uncle John's.""Uncle John's!" Martha cried with sharp surprise. "If it had to beone or the other, I should have said Uncle Robert. But UncleJohn!"Bella smiled with slow positiveness."But it was Uncle Robert who made you marry George Castner," hersister urged."That is true," Bella nodded corroboration. "But it was not thematter of a husband, but of a horse. I wanted to borrow a horsefrom Uncle John, and Uncle John said yes. That is how it allhappened."A silence fell, pregnant and cryptic, and, while the voices of thechildren and the soft mandatory protests of the Asiatic maids drewnearer from the beach, Martha Scandwell felt herself vibrant andtremulous with sudden resolve of daring. She waved the childrenaway."Run along, dears, run along, Grandma and Aunt Bella want to talk."And as the shrill, sweet treble of child voices ebbed away acrossthe lawn, Martha, with scrutiny of the heart, observed the sadnessof the lines graven by secret woe for half a century in hersister's face. For nearly fifty years had she watched those lines.She steeled all the melting softness of the Hawaiian of her tobreak the half-century of silence."Bella," she said. "We never know. You never spoke. But wewondered, oh, often and often--""And never asked," Bella murmured gratefully."But I am asking now, at the last. This is our twilight. Listento them! Sometimes it almost frightens me to think that they aregrandchildren, MY grandchildren--I, who only the other day, itwould seem, was as heart-free, leg-free, care-free a girl as everbestrode a horse, or swam in the big surf, or gathered opihis atlow tide, or laughed at a dozen lovers. And here in our twilightlet us forget everything save that I am your dear sister as you aremine."The eyes of both were dewy moist. Bella palpably trembled toutterance."We thought it was George Castner," Martha went on; "and we couldguess the details. He was a cold man. You were warm Hawaiian. Hemust have been cruel. Brother Walcott always insisted he must havebeaten you--""No! No!" Bella broke in. "George Castner was never a brute, abeast. Almost have I wished, often, that he had been. He neverlaid hand on me. He never raised hand to me. He never raised hisvoice to me. Never--oh, can you believe it?--do, please, sister,believe it--did we have a high word nor a cross word. But thathouse of his, of ours, at Nahala, was grey. All the colour of itwas grey and cool, and chill, while I was bright with all coloursof sun, and earth, and blood, and birth. It was very cold, greycold, with that cold grey husband of mine at Nahala. You know hewas grey, Martha. Grey like those portraits of Emerson we used tosee at school. His skin was grey. Sun and weather and all hoursin the saddle could never tan it. And he was as grey inside asout."And I was only nineteen when Uncle Robert decided on the marriage.How was I to know? Uncle Robert talked to me. He pointed out howthe wealth and property of Hawaii was already beginning to passinto the hands of the haoles" (Whites). "The Hawaiian chiefs lettheir possessions slip away from them. The Hawaiian chiefesses,who married haoles, had their possessions, under the management oftheir haole husbands, increase prodigiously. He pointed back tothe original Grandfather Roger Wilton, who had taken GrandmotherWilton's poor mauka lands and added to them and built up about themthe Kilohana Ranch--""Even then it was second only to the Parker Ranch," Marthainterrupted proudly."And he told me that had our father, before he died, been as far-seeing as grandfather, half the then Parker holdings would havebeen added to Kilohana, making Kilohana first. And he said thatnever, for ever and ever, would beef be cheaper. And he said thatthe big future of Hawaii would be in sugar. That was fifty yearsago, and he has been more than proved right. And he said that theyoung haole, George Castner, saw far, and would go far, and thatthere were many girls of us, and that the Kilohana lands ought byrights to go to the boys, and that if I married George my futurewas assured in the biggest way."I was only nineteen. Just back from the Royal Chief School--thatwas before our girls went to the States for their education. Youwere among the first, Sister Martha, who got their education on themainland. And what did I know of love and lovers, much less ofmarriage? All women married. It was their business in life.Mother and grandmother, all the way back they had married. It wasmy business in life to marry George Castner. Uncle Robert said soin his wisdom, and I knew he was very wise. And I went to livewith my husband in the grey house at Nahala."You remember it. No trees, only the rolling grass lands, the highmountains behind, the sea beneath, and the wind!--the Waimea andNahala winds, we got them both, and the kona wind as well. Yetlittle would I have minded them, any more than we minded them atKilohana, or than they minded them at Mana, had not Nahala itselfbeen so grey, and husband George so grey. We were alone. He wasmanaging Nahala for the Glenns, who had gone back to Scotland.Eighteen hundred a year, plus beef, horses, cowboy service, and theranch house, was what he received--""It was a high salary in those days," Martha said."And for George Castner, and the service he gave, it was verycheap," Bella defended. "I lived with him for three years. Therewas never a morning that he was out of his bed later than half-pastfour. He was the soul of devotion to his employers. Honest to apenny in his accounts, he gave them full measure and more of histime and energy. Perhaps that was what helped make our life sogrey. But listen, Martha. Out of his eighteen hundred, he laidaside sixteen hundred each year. Think of it! The two of us livedon two hundred a year. Luckily he did not drink or smoke. Also,we dressed out of it as well. I made my own dresses. You canimagine them. Outside of the cowboys who chored the firewood, Idid the work. I cooked, and baked, and scrubbed--""You who had never known anything but servants from the time youwere born!" Martha pitied. "Never less than a regiment of them atKilohana.""Oh, but it was the bare, naked, pinching meagreness of it!" Bellacried out. "How far I was compelled to make a pound of coffee go!A broom worn down to nothing before a new one was bought! Andbeef! Fresh beef and jerky, morning, noon, and night! Andporridge! Never since have I eaten porridge or any breakfastfood."She arose suddenly and walked a dozen steps away to gaze a momentwith unseeing eyes at the colour-lavish reef while she composedherself. And she returned to her seat with the splendid, sure,gracious, high-breasted, noble-headed port of which no out-breedingcan ever rob the Hawaiian woman. Very haole was Bella Castner,fair-skinned, fine-textured. Yet, as she returned, the high poseof head, the level-lidded gaze of her long brown eyes under royalarches of eyebrows, the softly set lines of her small mouth thatfairly sang sweetness of kisses after sixty-eight years--all madeher the very picture of a chiefess of old Hawaii full-burstingthrough her ampleness of haole blood. Taller she was than hersister Martha, if anything more queenly."You know we were notorious as poor feeders," Bella laughed lightlyenough. "It was many a mile on either side from Nahala to the nextroof. Belated travellers, or storm-bound ones, would, on occasion,stop with us overnight. And you know the lavishness of the bigranches, then and now. How we were the laughing-stock! 'What dowe care!' George would say. 'They live to-day and now. Twentyyears from now will be our turn, Bella. They will be where theyare now, and they will eat out of our hand. We will be compelledto feed them, they will need to be fed, and we will feed them well;for we will be rich, Bella, so rich that I am afraid to tell you.But I know what I know, and you must have faith in me.'"George was right. Twenty years afterward, though he did not liveto see it, my income was a thousand a month. Goodness! I do notknow what it is to-day. But I was only nineteen, and I would sayto George: 'Now! now! We live now. We may not be alive twentyyears from now. I do want a new broom. And there is a third-ratecoffee that is only two cents a pound more than the awful stuff weare using. Why couldn't I fry eggs in butter--now? I shoulddearly love at least one new tablecloth. Our linen! I'm ashamedto put a guest between the sheets, though heaven knows they darecome seldom enough.'"'Be patient, Bella,' he would reply. 'In a little while, in onlya few years, those that scorn to sit at our table now, or sleepbetween our sheets, will be proud of an invitation--those of themwho will not be dead. You remember how Stevens passed out lastyear--free-living and easy, everybody's friend but his own. TheKohala crowd had to bury him, for he left nothing but debts. Watchthe others going the same pace. There's your brother Hal. Hecan't keep it up and live five years, and he's breaking his uncles'hearts. And there's Prince Lilolilo. Dashes by me with half ahundred mounted, able-bodied, roystering kanakas in his train whowould be better at hard work and looking after their future, for hewill never be king of Hawaii. He will not live to be king ofHawaii.'"George was right. Brother Hal died. So did Prince Lilolilo. ButGeorge was not ALL right. He, who neither drank nor smoked, whonever wasted the weight of his arms in an embrace, nor the touch ofhis lips a second longer than the most perfunctory of kisses, whowas invariably up before cockcrow and asleep ere the kerosene lamphad a tenth emptied itself, and who never thought to die, was deadeven more quickly than Brother Hal and Prince Lilolilo."'Be patient, Bella,' Uncle Robert would say to me. 'GeorgeCastner is a coming man. I have chosen well for you. Yourhardships now are the hardships on the way to the promised land.Not always will the Hawaiians rule in Hawaii. Just as they lettheir wealth slip out of their hands, so will their rule slip outof their hands. Political power and the land always go together.There will be great changes, revolutions no one knows how many norof what sort, save that in the end the haole will possess the landand the rule. And in that day you may well be first lady ofHawaii, just as surely as George Castner will be ruler of Hawaii.It is written in the books. It is ever so where the haoleconflicts with the easier races. I, your Uncle Robert, who amhalf-Hawaiian and half-haole, know whereof I speak. Be patient,Bella, be patient.'"'Dear Bella,' Uncle John would say; and I knew his heart wastender for me. Thank God, he never told me to be patient. Heknew. He was very wise. He was warm human, and, therefore, wiserthan Uncle Robert and George Castner, who sought the thing, not thespirit, who kept records in ledgers rather than numbers of heart-beats breast to breast, who added columns of figures rather thanremembered embraces and endearments of look and speech and touch.'Dear Bella,' Uncle John would say. He knew. You have heardalways how he was the lover of the Princess Naomi. He was a truelover. He loved but the once. After her death they said he waseccentric. He was. He was the one lover, once and always.Remember that taboo inner room of his at Kilohana that we enteredonly after his death and found it his shrine to her. 'Dear Bella,'it was all he ever said to me, but I knew he knew."And I was nineteen, and sun-warm Hawaiian in spite of my three-quarters haole blood, and I knew nothing save my girlhoodsplendours at Kilohana and my Honolulu education at the Royal ChiefSchool, and my grey husband at Nahala with his grey preachments andpractices of sobriety and thrift, and those two childless uncles ofmine, the one with far, cold vision, the other the broken-hearted,for-ever-dreaming lover of a dead princess."Think of that grey house! I, who had known the ease and thedelights and the ever-laughing joys of Kilohana, and of the Parkersat old Mana, and of Puuwaawaa! You remember. We did live infeudal spaciousness in those days. Would you, can you, believe it,Martha--at Nahala the only sewing machine I had was one of thosethe early missionaries brought, a tiny, crazy thing that onecranked around by hand!"Robert and John had each given Husband George five thousanddollars at my marriage. But he had asked for it to be kept secret.Only the four of us knew. And while I sewed my cheap holokus onthat crazy machine, he bought land with the money--the upper Nahalalands, you know--a bit at a time, each purchase a hard-drivenbargain, his face the very face of poverty. To-day the NahalaDitch alone pays me forty thousand a year."But was it worth it? I starved. If only once, madly, he hadcrushed me in his arms! If only once he could have lingered withme five minutes from his own business or from his fidelity to hisemployers! Sometimes I could have screamed, or showered theeternal bowl of hot porridge into his face, or smashed the sewingmachine upon the floor and danced a hula on it, just to make himburst out and lose his temper and be human, be a brute, be a man ofsome sort instead of a grey, frozen demi-god."Bella's tragic expression vanished, and she laughed outright insheer genuineness of mirthful recollection."And when I was in such moods he would gravely look me over,gravely feel my pulse, examine my tongue, gravely dose me withcastor oil, and gravely put me to bed early with hot stove-lids,and assure me that I'd feel better in the morning. Early to bed!Our wildest sitting up was nine o'clock. Eight o'clock was ourregular bed-time. It saved kerosene. We did not eat dinner atNahala--remember the great table at Kilohana where we did havedinner? But Husband George and I had supper. And then he wouldsit close to the lamp on one side the table and read old borrowedmagazines for an hour, while I sat on the other side and darned hissocks and underclothing. He always wore such cheap, shoddy stuff.And when he went to bed, I went to bed. No wastage of kerosenewith only one to benefit by it. And he went to bed always the sameway, winding up his watch, entering the day's weather in his diary,and taking off his shoes, right foot first invariably, left footsecond, and placing them just so, side by side, on the floor, atthe foot of the bed, on his side."He was the cleanest man I ever knew. He never wore the sameundergarment a second time. I did the washing. He was so clean ithurt. He shaved twice a day. He used more water on his body thanany kanaka. He did more work than any two haoles. And he saw thefuture of the Nahala water.""And he made you wealthy, but did not make you happy," Marthaobserved.Bella sighed and nodded."What is wealth after all, Sister Martha? My new Pierce-Arrow camedown on the steamer with me. My third in two years. But oh, allthe Pierce-Arrows and all the incomes in the world compared with alover!--the one lover, the one mate, to be married to, to toilbeside and suffer and joy beside, the one male man lover husband .. . "Her voice trailed off, and the sisters sat in soft silence while anancient crone, staff in hand, twisted, doubled, and shrunken undera hundred years of living, hobbled across the lawn to them. Hereyes, withered to scarcely more than peepholes, were sharp as amongoose's, and at Bella's feet she first sank down, in pureHawaiian mumbling and chanting a toothless mele of Bella andBella's ancestry and adding to it an extemporized welcome back toHawaii after her absence across the great sea to California. Andwhile she chanted her mele, the old crone's shrewd fingers lomiedor massaged Bella's silk-stockinged legs from ankle and calf toknee and thigh.Both Bella's and Martha's eyes were luminous-moist, as the oldretainer repeated the lomi and the mele to Martha, and as theytalked with her in the ancient tongue and asked the immemorialquestions about her health and age and great-great-grandchildren--she who had lomied them as babies in the great house at Kilohana,as her ancestresses had lomied their ancestresses back through theunnumbered generations. The brief duty visit over, Martha aroseand accompanied her back to the bungalow, putting money into herhand, commanding proud and beautiful Japanese housemaids to waitupon the dilapidated aborigine with poi, which is compounded of theroots of the water lily, with iamaka, which is raw fish, and withpounded kukui nut and limu, which latter is seawood tender to thetoothless, digestible and savoury. It was the old feudal tie, thefaithfulness of the commoner to the chief, the responsibility ofthe chief to the commoner; and Martha, three-quarters haole withthe Anglo-Saxon blood of New England, was four-quarters Hawaiian inher remembrance and observance of the well-nigh vanished customs ofold days.As she came back across the lawn to the hau tree, Bella's eyesdwelt upon the moving authenticity of her and of the blood of her,and embraced her and loved her. Shorter than Bella was Martha, atrifle, but the merest trifle, less queenly of port; butbeautifully and generously proportioned, mellowed rather thandismantled by years, her Polynesian chiefess figure eloquent andglorious under the satisfying lines of a half-fitting, grandlysweeping, black-silk holoku trimmed with black lace more costlythan a Paris gown.And as both sisters resumed their talk, an observer would havenoted the striking resemblance of their pure, straight profiles, oftheir broad cheek-bones, of their wide and lofty foreheads, oftheir iron-grey abundance of hair, of their sweet-lipped mouths setwith the carriage of decades of assured and accomplished pride, andof their lovely slender eye-rows arched over equally lovely longbrown eyes. The hands of both of them, little altered or defacedby age, were wonderful in their slender, tapering finger-tips,love-lomied and love-formed while they were babies by old Hawaiianwomen like to the one even then eating poi and iamaka and limu inthe house."I had a year of it," Bella resumed, "and, do you know, things werebeginning to come right. I was beginning to draw to HusbandGeorge. Women are so made, I was such a woman at any rate. For hewas good. He was just. All the old sterling Puritan virtues werehis. I was coming to draw to him, to like him, almost, might Isay, to love him. And had not Uncle John loaned me that horse, Iknow that I would have truly loved him and have lived ever happilywith him--in a quiet sort of way, of course."You see, I knew nothing else, nothing different, nothing better inthe way of men. I came gladly to look across the table at himwhile he read in the brief interval between supper and bed, gladlyto listen for and to catch the beat of his horse's hoofs cominghome at night from his endless riding over the ranch. And hisscant praise was praise indeed, that made me tingle with happiness--yes, Sister Martha, I knew what it was to blush under his precise,just praise for the things I had done right or correctly."And all would have been well for the rest of our lives together,except that he had to take steamer to Honolulu. It was business.He was to be gone two weeks or longer, first, for the Glenns inranch affairs, and next for himself, to arrange the purchase ofstill more of the upper Nahala lands. Do you know! he bought lotsof the wilder and up-and-down lands, worthless for aught savewater, and the very heart of the watershed, for as low as five andten cents an acre. And he suggested I needed a change. I wantedto go with him to Honolulu. But, with an eye to expense, hedecided Kilohana for me. Not only would it cost him nothing for meto visit at the old home, but he saved the price of the poor food Ishould have eaten had I remained alone at Nahala, which meant thepurchase price of more Nahala acreage. And at Kilohana Uncle Johnsaid yes, and loaned me the horse."Oh, it was like heaven, getting back, those first several days.It was difficult to believe at first that there was so much food inall the world. The enormous wastage of the kitchen appalled me. Isaw waste everywhere, so well trained had I been by Husband George.Why, out in the servants' quarters the aged relatives and mostdistant hangers-on of the servants fed better than George and Iever fed. You remember our Kilohana way, same as the Parker way, abullock killed for every meal, fresh fish by runners from the pondsof Waipio and Kiholo, the best and rarest at all times ofeverything . . ."And love, our family way of loving! You know what Uncle John was.And Brother Walcott was there, and Brother Edward, and all theyounger sisters save you and Sally away at school. And AuntElizabeth, and Aunt Janet with her husband and all her children ona visit. It was arms around, and perpetual endearings, and allthat I had missed for a weary twelvemonth. I was thirsty for it.I was like a survivor from the open boat falling down on the sandand lapping the fresh bubbling springs at the roots of the palms."And THEY came, riding up from Kawaihae, where they had landed fromthe royal yacht, the whole glorious cavalcade of them, two by two,flower-garlanded, young and happy, gay, on Parker Ranch horses,thirty of them in the party, a hundred Parker Ranch cowboys and asmany more of their own retainers--a royal progress. It wasPrincess Lihue's progress, of course, she flaming and passing as weall knew with the dreadful tuberculosis; but with her were hernephews, Prince Lilolilo, hailed everywhere as the next king, andhis brothers, Prince Kahekili and Prince Kamalau. And with thePrincess was Ella Higginsworth, who rightly claimed higher chiefblood lines through the Kauai descent than belonged to the reigningfamily, and Dora Niles, and Emily Lowcroft, and . . . oh, whyenumerate them all! Ella Higginsworth and I had been room-mates atthe Royal Chief School. And there was a great resting time for anhour--no luau, for the luau awaited them at the Parkers'--but beerand stronger drinks for the men, and lemonade, and oranges, andrefreshing watermelon for the women."And it was arms around with Ella Higginsworth and me, and thePrincess, who remembered me, and all the other girls and women, andElla spoke to the Princess, and the Princess herself invited me tothe progress, joining them at Mana whence they would depart twodays later. And I was mad, mad with it all--I, from a twelvemonthof imprisonment at grey Nahala. And I was nineteen yet, justturning twenty within the week."Oh, I had not thought of what was to happen. So occupied was Iwith the women that I did not see Lilolilo, except at a distance,bulking large and tall above the other men. But I had never beenon a progress. I had seen them entertained at Kilohana and Mana,but I had been too young to be invited along, and after that it hadbeen school and marriage. I knew what it would be like--two weeksof paradise, and little enough for another twelve months at Nahala."And I asked Uncle John to lend me a horse, which meant threehorses of course--one mounted cowboy and a pack horse to accompanyme. No roads then. No automobiles. And the horse for myself! Itwas Hilo. You don't remember him. You were away at school then,and before you came home, the following year, he'd broken his backand his rider's neck wild-cattle-roping up Mauna Kea. You heardabout it--that young American naval officer.""Lieutenant Bowsfield," Martha nodded."But Hilo! I was the first woman on his back. He was a three-year-old, almost a four-year, and just broken. So black and insuch a vigour of coat that the high lights on him clad him inshimmering silver. He was the biggest riding animal on the ranch,descended from the King's Sparklingdow with a range mare for dam,and roped wild only two weeks before. I never have seen sobeautiful a horse. He had the round, deep-chested, big-hearted,well-coupled body of the ideal mountain pony, and his head and neckwere true thoroughbred, slender, yet full, with lovely alert earsnot too small to be vicious nor too large to be stubborn mulish.And his legs and feet were lovely too, unblemished, sure and firm,with long springy pasterns that made him a wonder of ease under thesaddle.""I remember hearing Prince Lilolilo tell Uncle John that you werethe best woman rider in all Hawaii," Martha interrupted to say."That was two years afterward when I was back from school and whileyou were still living at Nahala.""Lilolilo said that!" Bella cried. Almost as with a blush, herlong, brown eyes were illumined, as she bridged the years to herlover near half a century dead and dust. With the gentleness ofmodesty so innate in the women of Hawaii, she covered herspontaneous exposure of her heart with added panegyric of Hilo."Oh, when he ran with me up the long-grass slopes, and down thelong-grass slopes, it was like hurdling in a dream, for he clearedthe grass at every bound, leaping like a deer, a rabbit, or a fox-terrier--you know how they do. And cut up, and prance, and highlife! He was a mount for a general, for a Napoleon or a Kitchener.And he had, not a wicked eye, but, oh, such a roguish eye,intelligent and looking as if it cherished a joke behind and wantedto laugh or to perpetrate it. And I asked Uncle John for Hilo.And Uncle John looked at me, and I looked at him; and, though hedid not say it, I knew he was FEELING 'Dear Bella,' and I knew,somewhere in his seeing of me, was all his vision of the PrincessNaomi. And Uncle John said yes. That is how it happened."But he insisted that I should try Hilo out--myself, rather--atprivate rehearsal. He was a handful, a glorious handful. But notvicious, not malicious. He got away from me over and over again,but I never let him know. I was not afraid, and that helped mekeep always a feel of him that prevented him from thinking that hewas even a jump ahead of me."I have often wondered if Uncle John dreamed of what possibly mighthappen. I know I had no thought of it myself, that day I rodeacross and joined the Princess at Mana. Never was there suchfestal time. You know the grand way the old Parkers had ofentertaining. The pig-sticking and wild-cattle-shooting, thehorse-breaking and the branding. The servants' quartersoverflowing. Parker cowboys in from everywhere. And all the girlsfrom Waimea up, and the girls from Waipio, and Honokaa, andPaauilo--I can see them yet, sitting in long rows on top the stonewalls of the breaking pen and making leis" (flower garlands) "fortheir cowboy lovers. And the nights, the perfumed nights, thechanting of the meles and the dancing of the hulas, and the bigMana grounds with lovers everywhere strolling two by two under thetrees."And the Prince . . . " Bella paused, and for a long minute hersmall fine teeth, still perfect, showed deep in her underlip as shesought and won control and sent her gaze vacantly out across thefar blue horizon. As she relaxed, her eyes came back to hersister."He was a prince, Martha. You saw him at Kilohana before . . .after you came home from seminary. He filled the eyes of anywoman, yes, and of any man. Twenty-five he was, in all-gloriousripeness of man, great and princely in body as he was great andprincely in spirit. No matter how wild the fun, how reckless madthe sport, he never seemed to forget that he was royal, and thatall his forebears had been high chiefs even to that first one theysang in the genealogies, who had navigated his double-canoes toTahiti and Raiatea and back again. He was gracious, sweet, kindlycomradely, all friendliness--and severe, and stern, and harsh, ifhe were crossed too grievously. It is hard to express what I mean.He was all man, man, man, and he was all prince, with a strain ofthe merry boy in him, and the iron in him that would have made hima good and strong king of Hawaii had he come to the throne."I can see him yet, as I saw him that first day and touched hishand and talked with him . . . few words and bashful, and anythingbut a year-long married woman to a grey haole at grey Nahala. Halfa century ago it was, that meeting--you remember how our young menthen dressed in white shoes and trousers, white silk shirts, withslashed around the middle the gorgeously colourful Spanish sashes--and for half a century that picture of him has not faded in myheart. He was the centre of a group on the lawn, and I was beingbrought by Ella Higginsworth to be presented. The Princess Lihuehad just called some teasing chaff to her which had made her haltto respond and left me halted a pace in front of her."His glance chanced to light on me, alone there, perturbed,embarrassed. Oh, how I see him!--his head thrown back a little,with that high, bright, imperious, and utterly care-free poise thatwas so usual of him. Our eyes met. His head bent forward, orstraightened to me, I don't know what happened. Did he command?Did I obey? I do not know. I know only that I was good to lookupon, crowned with fragrant maile, clad in Princess Naomi'swonderful holoku loaned me by Uncle John from his taboo room; and Iknow that I advanced alone to him across the Mana lawn, and that hestepped forth from those about him to meet me half-way. We came toeach other across the grass, unattended, as if we were coming toeach other across our lives."--Was I very beautiful, Sister Martha, when I was young? I do notknow. I don't know. But in that moment, with all his beauty andtruly royal-manness crossing to me and penetrating to the heart ofme, I felt a sudden sense of beauty in myself--how shall I say? asif in him and from him perfection were engendered and conjuredwithin myself."No word was spoken. But, oh, I know I raised my face in frankanswer to the thunder and trumpets of the message unspoken, andthat, had it been death for that one look and that one moment Icould not have refrained from the gift of myself that must havebeen in my face and eyes, in the very body of me that breathed sohigh."Was I beautiful, very beautiful, Martha, when I was nineteen, justturning into twenty?"And Martha, three-score and four, looked upon Bella, three-scoreand eight, and nodded genuine affirmation, and to herself added theappreciation of the instant in what she beheld--Bella's neck, stillfull and shapely, longer than the ordinary Hawaiian woman's neck, apillar that carried regally her high-cheeked, high-browed, highchiefess face and head; Bella's hair, high-piled, intact, sparklingthe silver of the years, ringleted still and contrasting definitelyand sharply with her clean, slim, black brows and deep brown eyes.And Martha's glance, in modest overwhelming of modesty by what shesaw, dropped down the splendid breast of her and generously truelines of body to the feet, silken clad, high-heeled-slippered,small, plump, with an almost Spanish arch and faultlessness ofinstep."When one is young, the one young time!" Bella laughed. "Lilolilowas a prince. I came to know his every feature and their everyphase . . . afterward, in our wonder days and nights by the singingwaters, by the slumber-drowsy surfs, and on the mountain ways. Iknew his fine, brave eyes, with their straight, black brows, thenose of him that was assuredly a Kamehameha nose, and the last,least, lovable curve of his mouth. There is no mouth morebeautiful than the Hawaiian, Martha."And his body. He was a king of athletes, from his wicked, waywardhair to his ankles of bronzed steel. Just the other day I heardone of the Wilder grandsons referred to as 'The Prince of Harvard.'Mercy! What would they, what could they have called my Lilolilocould they have matched him against this Wilder lad and all histeam at Harvard!"Bella ceased and breathed deeply, the while she clasped her finesmall hands in her ample silken lap. But her pink fairness blushedfaintly through her skin and warmed her eyes as she relived herprince-days."Well--you have guessed?" Bella said, with defiant shrug ofshoulders and a straight gaze into her sister's eyes. "We rode outfrom gay Mana and continued the gay progress--down the lava trailsto Kiholo to the swimming and the fishing and the feasting and thesleeping in the warm sand under the palms; and up to Puuwaawaa, andmore pig-sticking, and roping and driving, and wild mutton from theupper pasture-lands; and on through Kona, now mauka"(mountainward), "now down to the King's palace at Kailua, and tothe swimming at Keauhou, and to Kealakekua Bay, and Napoopoo andHonaunau. And everywhere the people turning out, in their handsgifts of flowers, and fruit, and fish, and pig, in their heartslove and song, their heads bowed in obeisance to the royal oneswhile their lips ejaculated exclamations of amazement or chantedmeles of old and unforgotten days."What would you, Sister Martha? You know what we Hawaiians are.You know what we were half a hundred years ago. Lilolilo waswonderful. I was reckless. Lilolilo of himself could make anywoman reckless. I was twice reckless, for I had cold, grey Nahalato spur me on. I knew. I had never a doubt. Never a hope.Divorces in those days were undreamed. The wife of George Castnercould never be queen of Hawaii, even if Uncle Robert's prophesiedrevolutions were delayed, and if Lilolilo himself became king. ButI never thought of the throne. What I wanted would have been thequeendom of being Lilolilo's wife and mate. But I made no mistake.What was impossible was impossible, and I dreamed no false dream."It was the very atmosphere of love. And Lilolilo was a lover. Iwas for ever crowned with leis by him, and he had his runners bringme leis all the way from the rose-gardens of Mana--you rememberthem; fifty miles across the lava and the ranges, dewy fresh as themoment they were plucked, in their jewel-cases of banana bark;yard-long they were, the tiny pink buds like threaded beads ofNeapolitan coral. And at the luaus" (feasts) the for ever never-ending luaus, I must be seated on Lilolilo's Makaloa mat, thePrince's mat, his alone and taboo to any lesser mortal save by hisown condescension and desire. And I must dip my fingers into hisown pa wai holoi" (finger-bowl) "where scented flower petalsfloated in the warm water. Yes, and careless that all should seehis extended favour, I must dip into his pa paakai for my pinchesof red salt, and limu, and kukui nut and chili pepper; and into hisipu kai" (fish sauce dish) "of kou wood that the great Kamehamehahimself had eaten from on many a similar progress. And it was thesame for special delicacies that were for Lilolilo and the Princessalone--for his nelu, and the ake, and the palu, and the alaala.And his kahilis were waved over me, and his attendants were mine,and he was mine; and from my flower-crowned hair to my happy feet Iwas a woman loved."Once again Bella's small teeth pressed into her underlip, as shegazed vacantly seaward and won control of herself and her memories."It was on, and on, through all Kona, and all Kau, from Hoopuloaand Kapua to Honuapo and Punaluu, a life-time of living compressedinto two short weeks. A flower blooms but once. That was my timeof bloom--Lilolilo beside me, myself on my wonderful Hilo, a queen,not of Hawaii, but of Lilolilo and Love. He said I was a bubble ofcolour and beauty on the black back of Leviathan; that I was afragile dewdrop on the smoking crest of a lava flow; that I was arainbow riding the thunder cloud . . . "Bella paused for a moment."I shall tell you no more of what he said to me," she declaredgravely; "save that the things he said were fire of love andessence of beauty, and that he composed hulas to me, and sang themto me, before all, of nights under the stars as we lay on our matsat the feasting; and I on the Makaloa mat of Lilolilo."And it was on to Kilauea--the dream so near its ending; and ofcourse we tossed into the pit of sea-surging lava our offerings tothe Fire-Goddess of maile leis and of fish and hard poi wrappedmoist in the ti leaves. And we continued down through old Puna,and feasted and danced and sang at Kohoualea and Kamaili andOpihikao, and swam in the clear, sweet-water pools of Kalapana.And in the end came to Hilo by the sea."It was the end. We had never spoken. It was the end recognizedand unmentioned. The yacht waited. We were days late. Honolulucalled, and the news was that the King had gone particularlypupule" (insane), "that there were Catholic and Protestantmissionary plottings, and that trouble with France was brewing. Asthey had landed at Kawaihae two weeks before with laughter andflowers and song, so they departed from Hilo. It was a merryparting, full of fun and frolic and a thousand last messages andreminders and jokes. The anchor was broken out to a song offarewell from Lilolilo's singing boys on the quarterdeck, while we,in the big canoes and whaleboats, saw the first breeze fill thevessel's sails and the distance begin to widen."Through all the confusion and excitement, Lilolilo, at the rail,who must say last farewells and quip last jokes to many, lookedsquarely down at me. On his head he wore my ilima lei, which I hadmade for him and placed there. And into the canoes, to thefavoured ones, they on the yacht began tossing their many leis. Ihad no expectancy of hope . . . And yet I hoped, in a small wistfulway that I know did not show in my face, which was as proud andmerry as any there. But Lilolilo did what I knew he would do, whatI had known from the first he would do. Still looking me squarelyand honestly in the eyes, he took my beautiful ilima lei from hishead and tore it across. I saw his lips shape, but not utteraloud, the single word pau" (finish). "Still looking at me, hebroke both parts of the lei in two again and tossed the deliberatefragments, not to me, but down overside into the widening water.Pau. It was finished . . . "For a long space Bella's vacant gaze rested on the sea horizon.Martha ventured no mere voice expression of the sympathy thatmoistened her own eyes."And I rode on that day, up the old bad trail along the Hamakuacoast," Bella resumed, with a voice at first singularly dry andharsh. "That first day was not so hard. I was numb. I was toofull with the wonder of all I had to forget to know that I had toforget it. I spent the night at Laupahoehoe. Do you know, I hadexpected a sleepless night. Instead, weary from the saddle, stillnumb, I slept the night through as if I had been dead."But the next day, in driving wind and drenching rain! How it blewand poured! The trail was really impassable. Again and again ourhorses went down. At fist the cowboy Uncle John had loaned me withthe horses protested, then he followed stolidly in the rear,shaking his head, and, I know, muttering over and over that I waspupule. The pack horse was abandoned at Kukuihaele. We almostswam up Mud Lane in a river of mud. At Waimea the cowboy had toexchange for a fresh mount. But Hilo lasted through. Fromdaybreak till midnight I was in the saddle, till Uncle John, atKilohana, took me off my horse, in his arms, and carried me in, androuted the women from their beds to undress me and lomi me, whilehe plied me with hot toddies and drugged me to sleep andforgetfulness. I know I must have babbled and raved. Uncle Johnmust have guessed. But never to another, nor even to me, did heever breathe a whisper. Whatever he guessed he locked away in thetaboo room of Naomi."I do have fleeting memories of some of that day, all a broken-hearted mad rage against fate--of my hair down and whipped wet andstinging about me in the driving rain; of endless tears of weepingcontributed to the general deluge, of passionate outbursts andresentments against a world all twisted and wrong, of beatings ofmy hands upon my saddle pommel, of asperities to my Kilohanacowboy, of spurs into the ribs of poor magnificent Hilo, with aprayer on my lips, bursting out from my heart, that the spurs wouldso madden him as to make him rear and fall on me and crush my bodyfor ever out of all beauty for man, or topple me off the trail andfinish me at the foot of the palis" (precipices), "writing pau atthe end of my name as final as the unuttered pau on Lilolilo's lipswhen he tore across my ilima lei and dropped it in the sea. . . ."Husband George was delayed in Honolulu. When he came back toNahala I was there waiting for him. And solemnly he embraced me,perfunctorily kissed my lips, gravely examined my tongue, decriedmy looks and state of health, and sent me to bed with hot stove-lids and a dosage of castor oil. Like entering into the machineryof a clock and becoming one of the cogs or wheels, inevitably andremorselessly turning around and around, so I entered back into thegrey life of Nahala. Out of bed was Husband George at half afterfour every morning, and out of the house and astride his horse atfive. There was the eternal porridge, and the horrible cheapcoffee, and the fresh beef and jerky. I cooked, and baked, andscrubbed. I ground around the crazy hand sewing machine and mademy cheap holokus. Night after night, through the endless centuriesof two years more, I sat across the table from him until eighto'clock, mending his cheap socks and shoddy underwear, while heread the years' old borrowed magazines he was too thrifty tosubscribe to. And then it was bed-time--kerosene must beeconomized--and he wound his watch, entered the weather in hisdiary, and took off his shoes, the right shoe first, and placedthem, just so, side by side, at the foot of the bed on his side."But there was no more of my drawing to Husband George, as had beenthe promise ere the Princess Lihue invited me on the progress andUncle John loaned me the horse. You see, Sister Martha, nothingwould have happened had Uncle John refused me the horse. But I hadknown love, and I had known Lilolilo; and what chance, after that,had Husband George to win from me heart of esteem or affection?And for two years, at Nahala, I was a dead woman who somehow walkedand talked, and baked and scrubbed, and mended socks and savedkerosene. The doctors said it was the shoddy underwear that didfor him, pursuing as always the high-mountain Nahala waters in thedrenching storms of midwinter."When he died, I was not sad. I had been sad too long already.Nor was I glad. Gladness had died at Hilo when Lilolilo dropped myilima lei into the sea and my feet were never happy again.Lilolilo passed within a month after Husband George. I had neverseen him since the parting at Hilo. La, la, suitors a many have Ihad since; but I was like Uncle John. Mating for me was but once.Uncle John had his Naomi room at Kilohana. I have had my Liloliloroom for fifty years in my heart. You are the first, SisterMartha, whom I have permitted to enter that room . . . "A machine swung the circle of the drive, and from it, across thelawn, approached the husband of Martha. Erect, slender, grey-haired, of graceful military bearing, Roscoe Scandwell was a memberof the "Big Five," which, by the interlocking of interests,determined the destinies of all Hawaii. Himself pure haole, NewEngland born, he kissed Bella first, arms around, full-hearty, inthe Hawaiian way. His alert eye told him that there had been awoman talk, and, despite the signs of all generousness of emotion,that all was well and placid in the twilight wisdom that wastheirs."Elsie and the younglings are coming--just got a wireless fromtheir steamer," he announced, after he had kissed his wife. "Andthey'll be spending several days with us before they go on toMaui.""I was going to put you in the Rose Room, Sister Bella," MarthaScandwell planned aloud. "But it will be better for her and thechildren and the nurses and everything there, so you shall haveQueen Emma's Room.""I had it last time, and I prefer it," Bella said.Roscoe Scandwell, himself well taught of Hawaiian love and love-ways, erect, slender, dignified, between the two nobly proportionedwomen, an arm around each of their sumptuous waists, proceeded withthem toward the house.WAIKIKI, HAWAII.June 6, 1916
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