Hawaii - James Michener [233]
Reverently, he accepted the two great thigh bones, placing them tenderly on the earth before him. "Are you determined to go to Honolulu with the American?" he asked.
"Yes. I am seeking a new life."
"May it be a good one," he said gently through his broken and lisping lips. He did not rise to bid her good-bye, for although he understood the pressures which were forcing her to act as she did, he could not condone them; and he was certain that she was rejecting the only true vocation and happiness she would know on earth. "May the goddess Pele . . ." he began, but she hushed his wish, unable to bear any further invocations.
Yet on her part she said, "May the gods be good to you, Kelolo. May the long canoe ride swiftly until the rainbow comes for your departure." She studied his worn old figure with its circular scars about the face and its gaping eye socket, and then she left, to board the ship, but when she reached the pier the sailors told her, "The kapena is not aboard yet," and they directed her to the mission house, where, looking into the bright new room, she saw her intended husband sitting on a kitchen chair, turned backward, its arched back under his chin, and he staring moodily at the floor; and as she watched he rose and carried the chair with him, and set it down three or four times with great violence, making the entire house shudder with his fury. And for some minutes he stood there, pounding the chair into the floor and holding his head down, with his eyes closed and knots standing out on his forehead in dark passion; and she recalled his earlier words and thought: "He can boast that he has no memories, but I am pleased that he has. I thought he remembered only trivial things like selling Iliki." And after he had thrashed the chair into the floor a dozen more times, to control himself from kicking the entire house into splinters, he carefully returned it to its place, gave the small wooden room one last lingering look and came out into the bright sunlight.
"We'll go," he said, and villagers, who had heard of the impending marriage, followed them to the pier, where they watched as the big captain caught Noelani in his arms and lifted her into the longboat.
On the way home from Wailuku, John Whipple and his wife, as soon as they reached the summit of the trail, began gazing into the distance so markedly that Abner finally asked, "What are you looking for?"
"A great surprise," John explained mysteriously, but the four had reached the last small hill before he was able to spot, beneath the branching trees, the roof line of the new mission house. "I see it now!" he cried. "Can you?"
The Hales looked futilely at the outlines of Lahaina and saw nothing. There was the broad reach of sea, the hills of Lanai, the dusty trails. And then Jerusha gasped, "Abner! Is that a house?"
"Where?"
"At the mission! Abner! Abner!" And she broke into a run and dashed down off the hill, with her bonnet flying behind and her skirts causing dust, and when she reached the road she rushed on ahead, not waiting for anyone to catch her, crying all the time, "It's a house! It's a house!"
Finally, gasping with excitement, she stood beside the stream and looked across the walled-in yard to where the old grass house had stood,, and there rose, as in a magic story, a New England farmhouse, snug and secure. She put her left hand to her mouth and looked dumbly first at the house and then at the approaching three, and finally she ran desperately to Abner and kissed him in public. "Thank you, my dearest friend and companion," she said weakly.
But he was more surprised than she and looked at Whipple for enlightenment, and for the time being John thought it permissible to tell only part of the truth, so he explained: "Your father sent it out from Boston, Jerusha. We wanted to surprise you." Later, when the association with