登陆注册
15479000000005

第5章 ON THE MAKALOA MAT(5)

"He was the cleanest man I ever knew. He never wore the same undergarment a second time. I did the washing. He was so clean it hurt. He shaved twice a day. He used more water on his body than any kanaka. He did more work than any two haoles. And he saw the future of the Nahala water."

"And he made you wealthy, but did not make you happy," Martha observed.

Bella sighed and nodded.

"What is wealth after all, Sister Martha? My new Pierce-Arrow came down on the steamer with me. My third in two years. But oh, all the Pierce-Arrows and all the incomes in the world compared with a lover!--the one lover, the one mate, to be married to, to toil beside and suffer and joy beside, the one male man lover husband . . . "

Her voice trailed off, and the sisters sat in soft silence while an ancient crone, staff in hand, twisted, doubled, and shrunken under a hundred years of living, hobbled across the lawn to them. Her eyes, withered to scarcely more than peepholes, were sharp as a mongoose's, and at Bella's feet she first sank down, in pure Hawaiian mumbling and chanting a toothless mele of Bella and Bella's ancestry and adding to it an extemporized welcome back to Hawaii after her absence across the great sea to California. And while she chanted her mele, the old crone's shrewd fingers lomied or massaged Bella's silk-stockinged legs from ankle and calf to knee and thigh.

Both Bella's and Martha's eyes were luminous-moist, as the old retainer repeated the lomi and the mele to Martha, and as they talked with her in the ancient tongue and asked the immemorial questions 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 the unnumbered generations. The brief duty visit over, Martha arose and accompanied her back to the bungalow, putting money into her hand, commanding proud and beautiful Japanese housemaids to wait upon the dilapidated aborigine with poi, which is compounded of the roots of the water lily, with iamaka, which is raw fish, and with pounded kukui nut and limu, which latter is seawood tender to the toothless, digestible and savoury. It was the old feudal tie, the faithfulness of the commoner to the chief, the responsibility of the chief to the commoner; and Martha, three-quarters haole with the Anglo-Saxon blood of New England, was four-quarters Hawaiian in her remembrance and observance of the well-nigh vanished customs of old days.

As she came back across the lawn to the hau tree, Bella's eyes dwelt upon the moving authenticity of her and of the blood of her, and embraced her and loved her. Shorter than Bella was Martha, a trifle, but the merest trifle, less queenly of port; but beautifully and generously proportioned, mellowed rather than dismantled by years, her Polynesian chiefess figure eloquent and glorious under the satisfying lines of a half-fitting, grandly sweeping, black-silk holoku trimmed with black lace more costly than a Paris gown.

And as both sisters resumed their talk, an observer would have noted the striking resemblance of their pure, straight profiles, of their broad cheek-bones, of their wide and lofty foreheads, of their iron-grey abundance of hair, of their sweet-lipped mouths set with the carriage of decades of assured and accomplished pride, and of their lovely slender eye-rows arched over equally lovely long brown eyes. The hands of both of them, little altered or defaced by age, were wonderful in their slender, tapering finger-tips, love-lomied and love-formed while they were babies by old Hawaiian women like to the one even then eating poi and iamaka and limu in the house.

"I had a year of it," Bella resumed, "and, do you know, things were beginning to come right. I was beginning to draw to Husband George. Women are so made, I was such a woman at any rate. For he was good. He was just. All the old sterling Puritan virtues were his. I was coming to draw to him, to like him, almost, might I say, to love him. And had not Uncle John loaned me that horse, I know that I would have truly loved him and have lived ever happily with him--in a quiet sort of way, of course.

"You see, I knew nothing else, nothing different, nothing better in the way of men. I came gladly to look across the table at him while he read in the brief interval between supper and bed, gladly to listen for and to catch the beat of his horse's hoofs coming home at night from his endless riding over the ranch. And his scant 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 in ranch affairs, and next for himself, to arrange the purchase of still more of the upper Nahala lands. Do you know! he bought lots of the wilder and up-and-down lands, worthless for aught save water, and the very heart of the watershed, for as low as five and ten cents an acre. And he suggested I needed a change. I wanted to go with him to Honolulu. But, with an eye to expense, he decided Kilohana for me. Not only would it cost him nothing for me to visit at the old home, but he saved the price of the poor food I should have eaten had I remained alone at Nahala, which meant the purchase price of more Nahala acreage. And at Kilohana Uncle John said 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 in all the world. The enormous wastage of the kitchen appalled me. I saw waste everywhere, so well trained had I been by Husband George.

同类推荐
  • 戎幕闲谈

    戎幕闲谈

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 赋四相诗 礼部尚书

    赋四相诗 礼部尚书

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 本草蒙筌

    本草蒙筌

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 沈氏女科辑要

    沈氏女科辑要

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 道德真经集解

    道德真经集解

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 重生之墨离

    重生之墨离

    小丫头发现她家姑娘那日闯婚闹得人尽皆知之后痴傻病好了,不爱皇族四皇了,不仅如此,连墨家主也变得怪怪的,墨家三姑娘要横着走没人竖着走……四子心好痛……
  • 校草的纯真丫头

    校草的纯真丫头

    夏茉汐一个美丽天真的女孩和诺萌是从小玩到大的的闺蜜。直到上了高二,茉汐遇到了璟熙、诺萌遇到了阳辰。她们都遇到了真爱。而她们会摩擦出怎样的爱情火花呢?让我们拭目以待吧!
  • 福妻驾到

    福妻驾到

    现代饭店彪悍老板娘魂穿古代。不分是非的极品婆婆?三年未归生死不明的丈夫?心狠手辣的阴毒亲戚?贪婪而好色的地主老财?吃上顿没下顿的贫困宭境?不怕不怕,神仙相助,一技在手,天下我有!且看现代张悦娘,如何身带福气玩转古代,开面馆、收小弟、左纳财富,右傍美男,共绘幸福生活大好蓝图!!!!快本新书《天媒地聘》已经上架开始销售,只要3.99元即可将整本书抱回家,你还等什么哪,赶紧点击下面的直通车,享受乐乐精心为您准备的美食盛宴吧!)
  • 初衷日

    初衷日

    罗孝孝是一名中学生,成长在他的生活里充满了各种天真与成熟的碰撞。但是,每一个生活的细节里,都流露出他成长迷茫的恍惚。每一个努力的人都是这样,越是努力,越是迷茫。
  • 妖孽王爷溺宠异能王妃

    妖孽王爷溺宠异能王妃

    他是星辰国神话般的人物,受人敬仰尊敬,外表冷酷无情,其实腹黑的紧。她是月歆整个王爷府的宝贝,实则却是穿越重生的异能杀手。当他们撞在一起的时候会擦出怎样的火花呢?此文男主及其腹黑,女主扮猪吃虎,超级溺宠。欢迎收看此文,如有不足,请多多见谅。欢迎加我QQ1466473535
  • 医手遮天:蛮妃太嚣张

    医手遮天:蛮妃太嚣张

    异能少女平生两大爱好,玩和美男,穿在个软弱的将军小姐身上。斗姨娘,惩渣姐,废伪兄,花花草草做武器,某女玩的是风生火起,一道圣旨指婚给一只披着羊皮的狼,好吧,看你还算有点财势又那么秀色可餐的份上,姐就勉为其难跟你混了。本文纯属虚构,请勿模仿。
  • 三国之江山红颜

    三国之江山红颜

    大丈夫生于乱世,当带三尺剑立不世之功!且看秦寻在这乱世之中,如何争夺江山坐拥美人,博一个青史留名!------------------------------------------------书友群《明日当歌》:134753613欢迎大家加入!
  • 深蓝凉

    深蓝凉

    凉若考进当地最好的大学——南轩大学后,发现自己身边出现了很多不简单的人,甚至还有神秘的组织对自己进行攻击,而这些人和组织的出现竟是冲着凌辰三年前送的紫伊镯…
  • 红唇与领带

    红唇与领带

    本书系台湾当代知名作家、东海大学教授周芬伶的散文自选集。作者的作品以女性书写闻名,文字间既有感性的流动,亦有精细的修饰,诗一般的语言令人读起来有忧伤,有畅快,有愉悦,有悲戚,有坚韧……
  • 复仇公主唯美恋

    复仇公主唯美恋

    她曾是受万千宠爱的公主!生活的无忧无虑,但是因为她——白晓晴的到来,让她彻底改变了自己的人生!家人的不信任,让她伤心欲绝,所爱的人的不信任,让她痛彻心扉!一夜之间,什么都变了,她不再是公主,而是撒旦!复仇的撒旦!“我回来了,你们准备好了吗?你们会后悔你们所做的一切的!尤其是你,白晓晴,演戏是吗?谁不会啊?我会让你知道演戏的代价是什么!你欠我蓝心雨的,是时候百倍的还给我了!”嗜血,残忍,冷酷是她的代名词!看她上官冰萱的如何华丽蜕变!如何华丽复仇!如何玩转校园!