“Well, you might say that Nuuanu Street is Honolulu’s version of the Barbary Coast. Disreputable saloons and other, ah, businesses that cater to sailors and soldiers.”
“Where is it located?”
“Near the waterfront, adjacent to Chinatown. Fortunately the Honolulu Police Station is also situated nearby.”
Margaret turned the conversational topic back to lodgings. “The city really is crowded these days,” she said, “and the number of available hotel rooms is limited. But there are other available accommodations. Many residents rent rooms to visitors for a nominal fee. We do so ourselves on occasion — not a room but a small guesthouse on our property. You would be welcome to stay with us. Wouldn’t they, Lyman?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Sabina said, “It’s kind of you to offer, but we wouldn’t want to impose.”
“It wouldn’t be an imposition,” Margaret said. “The guesthouse is a separate unit, so you’d have complete privacy. And we’re right on the beach at Waikiki.”
“How far from Honolulu proper?” John asked. “I have a business matter to attend to in the city.”
Neither of the Pritchards asked him the nature of the business matter; they were not ones to pry, fortunately. Margaret said, “It’s three miles from our door to the city center. And there is a trolley stop a short distance from our property.”
The invitation appealed to Sabina because of the Waikiki location. John seemed less taken with it because of the distance, short though it was, from Honolulu proper. Acceptance or refusal without discussing it privately would be premature.
Margaret, perceptive as well as gracious, sensed this. “You needn’t decide now,” she said. “We have only just met, after all. We’ll become better acquainted, I hope, before we arrive and you can give us your answer then.”
Sabina did become better acquainted with the Pritchards over the next two days, but John did not. Beginning early Monday morning a pair of fierce back-to-back storms lashed the Alameda, roughening the sea and causing the ship to pitch and roll, now and then to plunge and surge like the bucking of a wild horse. The constant upheaval had no appreciable effect on her; its effect on John, however, was severe — surprisingly so, for he had never complained of motion sickness on any of his many trips on bay and river steamers.
Queasiness kept him confined to their cabin, abed much of the time. Their steward recommended raw ginger root as a remedy for seasickness, but when he brought some from the ship’s galley John couldn’t abide the taste and refused to swallow it. The continual stomach upset made him short-tempered and grouchy — “Restful ocean voyage? Romantic interludes? Faugh!” — and sent Sabina elsewhere in self-defense.
One place she went was the ladies’ lounge, where she and Margaret had arranged to meet daily for afternoon tea. The bond of friendship between them grew stronger at the first of these meetings, when Margaret asked if Sabina considered herself a “New Woman,” the term used to describe the modern woman who broke with the traditional role of wife and mother by working outside the home, and Sabina emphatically said she did. Margaret, too, believed in the principle, though her own pursuit of emancipation was limited by Honolulu society. She also heartily approved of Sabina’s involvement with the woman suffrage movement, which she, too, supported, and commiserated with her over the fact that the California State Woman Suffrage Convention held in San Francisco in November had failed to produce a voting rights amendment to the state constitution.
Sabina had told her of John’s struggles with mal de mer. “Is he feeling any better today?” she asked when they met on Tuesday.
“I’m afraid not,” Sabina said, and added wryly, “Green is not a becoming color on him.”
“Poor soul. I know how he feels — I was a bit green myself on my first crossing. It takes a while for some of us to develop what sailors call sea legs. You’re fortunate you were born with them.”
“Very fortunate.”
“Has he been able to eat anything?”
“Broth and a little milk. Nothing solid.”
“His appetite will return once the weather clears. We should have calm seas again soon.”
Sabina hoped so. For her sake as well as John’s.
Margaret’s prediction proved true. On Wednesday morning Sabina awoke to a mostly clear sky and a placid ocean. John’s color was much better, his mood likewise when he discovered that the queasiness was gone and he was able to be up and about on steady legs again.
They dressed and went for a stroll on the passenger deck. The Pacific was a deep, sunstruck aquamarine, the air warm, the breeze light and bracing. It was not long before John announced that he was famished. He proceeded to eat a gargantuan breakfast and afterward went to smoke his pipe for the first time in two days.
That night his ardor returned as well. Oh, yes, he was his old self again, definitely none the worse for his mini-ordeal.
The skies remained clear, the ocean as flat and smooth as a pane of colored glass, the days and nights growing progressively warmer as they neared their destination. A posted announcement from the captain stated that the steamer was on schedule to arrive in Honolulu Harbor early Saturday morning.
On Friday evening Sabina and John once again dined with the Pritchards. Margaret regaled them with stories of the Polynesian settling of the Islands, of King Kamehameha and the monarchy, of the coming of the missionaries. She was so well versed on the subject of Hawaiian history, Lyman told them, that she served as a volunteer teacher at a school for the young children of Caucasian residents. This made Sabina like her even more.
She and John had discussed the guesthouse invitation, and toward the end of the meal she gave their decision. He preferred to be in Honolulu proper, but she had pointed out that the shortage of hotel accommodations would make it difficult to find lodgings and likely delay his pursuit of the two swindlers. That, the nominal rental fee, and the consideration of her comfort convinced him. They would be staying at Waikiki with their newfound acquaintances.
4
Sabina
The island of Oahu shimmered in dark green splendor as the Alameda neared a point of land Margaret identified as Koko Head, once around which Honolulu would be visible. The shimmer was a thin heat haze. As early as it was, the morning was hot, the air humid and breathlessly still, the sky threaded with milky streaks. John had grumbled about the sticky heat while they were dressing in their lightest attire. Where were the soft blue sky, the balmy trade winds she had touted?
Margaret provided the answer when they joined her and Lyman and several other passengers at the starboard deck rail. “Kona weather,” she said.
“It comes two or three times a year when the winds turn westerly.”
One of the other passengers, a tubby little man in a white linen suit similar to the one Lyman wore, overheard this and saw fit to add, as if delivering a lecture, “The kona winds are actually blown-out typhoons that have come up across the equator. They bring heavy rainstorms and now and then cause volcanic eruptions. The Polynesians believed them to be ‘sick winds,’ that kona weather is ‘dying weather.’”
“The Polynesians had many superstitions,” Margaret said.
“Yes, and some of them are justified.”
John, who was perspiring freely, muttered something unintelligible under his breath. Sabina remained prudently silent.
The steamer rounded Koko Head, slowed as it approached the channel entrance to Honolulu Harbor. Sabina was impressed by her first view of the city. Beyond piers and warehouses lining the waterfront, buildings sprawled in a wealth of tropical vegetation backed by a section of higher ground that Lyman identified as Punchbowl Hill. In the far distance stood a majestic mountain range, Tantalus, whose jagged peaks were like a row of sentinels. The shoreline swept southward in a wide crescent, the extinct volcano known as Diamond Head standing guard at its far end.