Etienne DePres stood quietly for a long time, staring at nothing in particular, his mind working furiously. He had absolutely no doubt, just as he’d said, that Saint Morris had debauched his daughter. And Juliana, with her grandmother’s wild blood … well, he knew her for what she was, had known since she was a little girl what she would turn out to be. And now, he thought, nodding at himself in approval, he knew what he would do. He sat down at his desk and began to write.
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10
Saint quietly slipped into the back of the Waine’e Church. It was cool inside, for the building was of stone. It could seat nearly three thousand Hawaiians, most of them packed together on the floor. There were calabash spittoons for the tobacco-chewing chiefs and ships’ masters on the far side of the huge room. This Sunday morning, however, there were only about three hundred souls waiting to hear the Lord’s words. Saint thought cynically that the souls gathered were so few because Dwight Baldwin, who normally preached at the Waine’e, was across the island ministering to a dying woman, leaving Etienne DuPres to exhort the flock.
He spotted Jules with her family at the front of the church, her face, beneath her plain bonnet, pale and set. He sat back, crossed his arms over his chest, and prepared himself to be bored.
But he wasn’t. He was enraged.
After two hymns were sung, Reverend DuPres walked to his pulpit, read from the Scriptures, and spoke briefly and generally of
the sins of the flesh. Nothing new in that, of course. It was one of Reverend DuPres’s favorite sermons. Then he paused a moment, and Saint could have sworn that he smiled.
‘it is difficult,’ Reverend DuPres said, his voice rising and filling the large room, ‘for a man of God to be cursed with an offspring who has no moral responsibility, despite all the pious teachings she’s received, despite the model of a virtuous mother and father.’ He paused a moment, aware of the gasps of surprise, aware that he had everyone’s attention. Saint tensed. No, he thought, DuPres won’t, he wouldn’t, not to his own daughter!
‘As most of you know, particularly those of you who know my family well, we believed my younger daughter dead. Just as that virtuous woman Kanola is indeed dead, and with our Savior in heaven. The difference between these two women is obvious. The one chose death rather than submit to the wanton evil of the flesh. The other chose to debauch herself, to wallow in sin.’
Saint heard a snicker from one of the sailors. He looked at Jules and saw that she was rigid as a statue. Her mother’s head was bowed, but Sarah, curse her, was smiling. Thomas’ face was red. Saint was barely aware that he had risen and was slowly walking the
long distance toward the pulpit. He felt his rage pound through him like storm-tossed waves to the shore.
‘My daughter Juliana DuPres,’ Reverend DuPres continued, his voice stern and cold, ‘has debauched herself. Indeed, she has a true sinner’s disregard for what is good and Christian, and dared to come back to Lahaina – in the company of one of the men who taught her the way of the flesh.’
‘You goddamned bastard, shut up!’
‘I will not shut up!’ Etienne DuPres shouted back at Saint, slamming his fist on the wooden pulpit. ‘No, I will speak the truth_, Dr. Morris! My daughter has proven herself to be a harlot, a slut! And you, sir, have added to her sins! Even yesterday, she tried to seduce, yes, seduce, my virtuous daughter’s fiance’, John Bleecher! A fine upstanding young man who was appalled and who would have none of her, of course!’
‘Father, that’s a lie!’ Thomas DuPres roared, jumping to his feet. ‘He tried to rape her!’
‘She is to be reviled, cast out –
Reverend DuPres got no further. Saint rushed to the pulpit, grabbed him by the lapels of his black frock coat, lifted him a good foot off the floor, and shook him as he would a rat. ‘You miserable lying worm!’
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