No Greater Love Part 8

"Don't ever do that again!" Edwina told her as she bathed her at the house, and put her between the clean sheets of her own bed. "Never! Something terrible could have happened to you." There, and on the t.i.tanic, twice now she had almost lost her life from running away, and the next time, Edwina knew she might not be as lucky. If George hadn't pushed her out of the way of the train ... she couldn't bear to think about it, and Alexis promised her she would never do it again, it was just that she missed Phillip. "He'll come home again," Edwina told her thoughtfully, she missed him too, but he had a right to what he was doing.

"Mama and Papa never came back," Alexis said quietly.

"That was different. Phillip will. He'll be home in the spring. Now go to sleep." She turned off the light and went back downstairs to Ben. George was in the kitchen having something to eat, and as she looked at herself, she realized that she was covered with the dirt from the train tracks, her skirt was torn, her blouse was filthy, and her hair looked even worse than Alexis's.

"How is she?" Ben asked.

"She's alright." As alright as she ever would be. For the rest of her life, she would never really trust anyone ... she would never believe that anyone was coming back, and in a part of her she would always be lost without their mother.

"You know what I think, don't you?" He looked unhappy tonight after all they'd been through, unhappy and almost angry. He had called the police for her while she put Alexis to bed, and he had felt George's eyes questioning him as they came back from the station. "I think this has gone far enough. I don't think you can manage them alone, Edwina. It's too much. It would be for anyone. At least your parents had each other."

"We're fine," she said quietly. George's hostility toward Ben that night had not been lost on her either.

"Are you telling me you're going to carry on like this till they grow up?" His own fears for the child had now exploded into irritation with Edwina, but she was too drained and shaken to argue.

"What do you suggest I do?" she snapped. "Give them up?"

"You can get married." She had called him to help her that night. That was all. But he looked suddenly hopeful.

"That's not a reason to marry anyone. I don't want to marry someone because I can't manage the children. I can manage them, most of the time. And if I can't, I'll hire someone to help me do it. But I want to marry someone because I love him, the way I loved Charles. I don't want anything less than that. I won't get married because I 'can't manage.'" She was thinking of what her parents had had, and what she'd felt for Charles, and she didn't feel that for Ben, and she knew that she never would, no matter how angry it made him tonight, or how much she cherished his friends.h.i.+p. "Besides, I don't think the children are ready for me to marry anyone." She didn't know it, but George had just come out of the kitchen and was listening to them. It had been a rough night and their voices were sharp now.

"If that's what you're waiting for, Edwina, you're dead wrong. They'll never be ready for you to have someone in your life. They want you to themselves, all of them ... they're selfish and all they think of is themselves ... Phillip ... George ... Alexis ... the little ones ... they don't want you to have a life. They want you there every minute of the day as their nursemaid. And when they grow up, when they're all through with you, you'll be alone, and I'll be too old to help you...." He started toward the door, and she said not a word, and then he turned slowly to face her. "You're giving your life up for them, Edwina, you know that, don't you?"

She looked at him and nodded slowly. "Yes, Ben, I know that. It's what I want to do ... what I have to do ... it's what they would have wanted."

"No, it isn't." He looked sad for her. "They wanted you to be happy. They wanted you to have what they did." But I can't, she wanted to cry ... I can't have it ... they took it with them....

"I'm sorry...." She stood very quietly, as George watched her, relieved somehow that she wasn't marrying Ben. He didn't want her to. And he instinctively knew that Phillip didn't either.

"I'm sorry too, Edwina," he said softly, and closed the door behind him. And as he did, she turned and saw George watching her, and she was suddenly embarra.s.sed. She wasn't sure if he'd been listening all along, but she suspected that he had been.

"Are you okay, Sis?" He walked slowly toward her, covered with grime, and his eyes were worried.

"Yes." She smiled at him. "I am."

"Are you sad you're not going to marry Ben?" He wanted to know what she felt, and he knew that most of the time she was honest with him.

"No, not really. If I really loved him, I'd have married him the first time he asked me." George looked more than a little startled and she grinned.

"Do you think you'll ever get married?" He wore a worried look and she laughed suddenly. She knew now that she never would. If nothing else, she wouldn't have time to. Between running after children under trains, getting them through school, and making cookies with Fannie, it was unlikely there would ever be a man in her life again, and she knew that in her heart of hearts, she didn't want one.

"I doubt it."

"Why not?" He was curious as they walked upstairs.

"Oh ... for a lot of reasons ... maybe just because I love all of you too much." She took a breath and felt a pull somewhere near her heart again. "And maybe because I loved Charles." And maybe because loving someone that much meant that part of you died ... that you gave everything up and went down with them, the way her mother had done, by choice, with her husband. Edwina had given her all to Charles, and to the children, and there was nothing left for anyone else now.

She kept George company while he washed the dirt of the train yard off in her bathroom, and then she put him to bed as she would have little Teddy. She turned off the light, and tucked George in after kissing him good night, and she checked on Fannie and Teddy sound asleep in their own rooms, and she walked past Phillip's empty room as she went back to her own, where Alexis purred softly beneath the sheets, her little golden head on the pillow. She sat down on her bed then, and looked at her, and for the first time in a long time, she reached high up into her closet. She knew it was still there in the box that had come from England, carefully tied with blue satin ribbons. And she pulled it down and set it carefully on the floor, and opened it, as the crown of tiny pearls and white satin s.h.i.+mmered in the moonlight. And as she held her wedding veil, with its sea of tulle floating around her like faded dreams, she knew she had told George the truth that night ... she would never wear a veil like this, there would never be another man in her life again ... there would be Phillip and George and Alexis and the others ... but for Edwina there would be nothing more than that It was too dangerous and too dear and too painful ... for Edwina, there would be no husband.

She set the bridal veil back in its box carefully, and she didn't even feel the tears that fell as she tied the ribbons. It was over for her, all that ... over on a long-distant night at sea, with die man she had loved, the man who was no more ... she had been desperately in love with Charles, and die knew with absolute certainty, there would never be another.

Chapter 17.

THE TRAIN PULLED INTO THE STATION ON THE FOURTEENTH OF June, 1914, and Edwina stood behind George, waving as hard as she could, while Phillip hung out of his compartment window grinning at them. It felt like a thousand years since he'd been home, instead of the nine months he had just spent completing his freshman year at Harvard.

He was on the platform before anyone else, his arms around them all, and Edwina felt tears roll down her cheeks, as George let out a wild whoop of glee, and the little ones jumped up and down shouting in the excitement. Alexis just stood there and grinned, staring at him in disbelief, as though she'd been sure he would never come back again, in spite of everything Edwina had said, and her promises that he would be back home again in time for summer.

"Hi there, little love." He turned quietly toward Alexis, and hugged her to him, as she just closed her eyes and beamed. He was home again, and all was right with the world for all of them. It was like a dream come true, and George punched him in the chest and pulled his hair at least a dozen times as Phillip grinned at him and put up with it. He was just so happy to be home, he could hardly stand it.

And as he climbed back on the train and pa.s.sed his things to George through the compartment window, Edwina realized how much bigger and broader he had grown in the year that he'd been gone. He looked sophisticated and poised and very grown up. He was clearly a man now. He was nearly nineteen, and suddenly he looked even older.

"What are you looking at, Sis?" He glanced over George's head and she smiled and saluted him.

"Looks like you did some growing up while you were away. You look alright." Their eyes were the same blue, and she knew that they both looked a great deal like their mother.

"You look pretty good too," he admitted grudgingly, and he didn't tell her that he had dreamed of coming home, almost every night. But he liked Harvard too. Ben Jones had been right, it was wonderful just being there, but there were times when it seemed like it was on a different planet than California. And it was so far away. Four days by train. It seemed to take an eternity to get here. He had spent Christmas with his roommate's family in New York that year, and he had been desperately homesick for Edwina and the children, though not quite as lonely as they were for him. And there were times when Edwina wondered if Alexis would survive it.

Phillip noticed that Ben wasn't there, and raised an eyebrow as they walked to the car parked just outside the station. "Where's Ben?"

"He's away. In L.A." She smiled. "But he said to send his love. He'd probably love to have lunch with you sometime, to talk about Harvard." And she wanted to hear about it too. His letters had been fascinating, about the people he met, the courses he took, the professors he was studying with. It made her envious at times. She would have loved to go to a place like Harvard. She had never even thought about things like that before Charles and her parents died. All she had wanted to do was get married and have babies then. But now she had so many responsibilities, she had to be so well informed when she went to meetings at the paper, and she felt as though she should be teaching the children something more than just baking cakes and how to plant daisies in the garden.

"Who drove you here?" Phillip was trying to keep George from spilling all the books he had brought home in a large box, while still holding Alexis's hand and keeping an eye on Fannie and Teddy. It was the usual juggling act, and Edwina laughed as she answered.

"I did." She looked very proud of herself, and Phillip laughed, thinking she was joking.

"No, seriously."

"I am serious. Why, don't you think I can drive?" She was grinning happily at him, standing next to the Packard she had bought for all of them, as a gift to them and herself on her twenty-third birthday.

"Edwina, you don't mean it?"

"Sure I do. Come on, dump all your stuff in here, and I'll drive you home, Master Phillip." They stowed everything in the trunk, and lashed the rest to the top of the handsome dark blue car she had bought, and Phillip was wildly impressed as she drove them home without a problem. The children were all chattering, and George was so excited he could hardly keep his questions straight. There was so much going on all at once that by the time they got home, Phillip jokingly said he had a headache.

"Well, I see nothing's changed here." And then he looked at her carefully. She looked well, and even prettier than he had remembered her. She was a beautiful girl, and it was odd to realize that this beautiful young woman who took such good care of them was not his mother but his sister, and that she had opted for this strange, lonely life, taking care of them, but it seemed to be what she wanted. "You're alright?" He asked her quietly as they walked into the house behind the others.

"I'm fine, Phillip." She stopped and looked up at him then. He had grown much taller in the months he'd been gone, and now he towered over her, and she suspected that he was even a trifle taller than their father. "Do you like it there? Really, I mean ..." He nodded at her, and he looked as though he meant it.

"It's a long way from home. But I'm learning wonderful things, and meeting people I like. I just wish it were a little closer."

"It won't be long," she said optimistically, "three more years and you'll be back here running the paper."

"I can hardly wait." He grinned.

"Neither can I. I'm getting awfully tired of those meetings." And sometimes it was a strain having to do business with Ben. He had been so disappointed the last time she'd turned down his proposal, the night Alexis was almost hit by the train. But they were still friends. They just kept a little more distance than they used to.

"When do we go to Tahoe, Win?" Phillip was looking around the house as though he'd been gone for a dozen years, drinking it all in, touching things. She couldn't begin to imagine how much he had missed it.

"Not for a few weeks. I thought we'd go in July as we always do. I wasn't sure what you wanted to do in August." And in September, he'd be going back to Cambridge again but he had two and a half months to enjoy with them before that.

They did all the things that he wanted to do for the first week. They had dinner at all his favorite restaurants, and he went to see all his friends, and Edwina noticed that by early July, there was even a certain young lady in his life. She was a very pretty young girl, she was very delicate and fair and she seemed to hang on Phillip's every word when she came to dinner. She was just eighteen, and she made Edwina feel as though she were a thousand years older. She treated her with the deference with which one would have treated a woman twice her age, and Edwina wondered how old the girl thought she was. But when she mentioned it to Phillip the next day, he just laughed and told her she just wanted to impress her. Her name was Becky Hanc.o.c.k, and conveniently, her parents had a house at Lake Tahoe, near where Edwina and the children stayed.

They saw a lot of her in July, too, and on several occasions she invited Phillip, George, and Edwina over to play tennis. Edwina played a good game of it, and when Phillip and Becky left the courts, she and George enjoyed a few slam dunk games, and she was extremely pleased when she beat him.

"You're not bad for an old girl," George teased, and she playfully threw a ball at him.

"See if I let you learn to drive in my car."

"Okay, okay, I apologize." Phillip drove the car to chauffeur Becky, but whenever it was free, Edwina was teaching George how to drive. At fourteen, he was remarkably good at it, and he was a little less mischievous these days, and she noticed that he was starting to keep an eye on the ladies. "Phillip is dumb to get stuck with that girl," he announced one day as they were driving along with George at the wheel, while Phillip was back at their familiar camp, keeping an eye on the younger children.

"What makes you say that?" She wasn't sure she disagreed, but she was curious as to why he thought so.

"She likes him for all the wrong reasons." It was an interesting observation.

"Such as?"

He looked pensive as he took a turn expertly, and Edwina complimented him on his driving. "Thanks, Sis." And then his thoughts returned to Becky again. "Sometimes I think she just likes him because of Papa's paper." Her father owned a restaurant and two hotels, and they were hardly dest.i.tute, but the Winfield paper turned a far bigger profit and had much more prestige. Phillip would be an important man one day, just as their father had been. She was a smart girl, if she was looking for a husband. But Phillip was still awfully young to be thinking of marriage, and Edwina didn't think he was, at least she hoped not, not for a long time.

"You could be right. But on the other hand, your brother is an awfully handsome guy." She smiled at George and he shrugged disdainfully, and then glanced at her thoughtfully as they drove back toward the house.

"Edwina, would you think I was terrible if, when I grow up, I didn't work at the paper?"

She was startled by his words, but she shook her head slowly. "Not terrible, but why wouldn't you?"

"I don't know ... I just think it would be boring. It's more for Phillip than me." He seemed so serious that Edwina smiled at him. He was still so young, and only months before he had been totally wild. But recently he seemed so much more grown up to her, and now he had decided that he didn't want a career at the paper.

"What is 'your' kind of thing then?"

"I don't know ..." He looked hesitant, and then glanced at her, prepared to confess as she listened. "One day, I think I'd like to make movies." She looked at him in astonishment, and then realized that he meant it. The idea was so farfetched that she laughed at him, but he went on to explain just how exciting it was, and then he went on to tell her all about a film he had seen recently with Mary Pickford.

"And when did you see that?" She didn't recall letting him go to the movies recently, but he grinned broadly at her.

"When I cut school last month." She looked horrified and then they both started to laugh.

"You're a hopeless beast."

"Yeah," he said happily, "but admit it ... you love me."

"Never mind." She made him turn the wheel over to her again, and they drove home easily, chatting about life, and their family, the movies he was so crazy about, and the family paper. And as they reached the camp and she stopped the car, she turned to look at him with surprise. "You're serious, George, aren't you?" But how could he think seriously about anything? To her, they were the dreams of a baby.

"Yes, I am serious. I'm going to do that one day." He smiled happily at her. She was his best friend as well as his sister. "I'll do it, while Phillip runs the paper. You'll see."

"I hope one of you runs the paper anyway. I'd hate to hang on to it for nothing."

"You can always sell it and make a bundle," he announced optimistically, but she knew only too well that it wasn't as easy as all that. The paper had been having some labor problems recently, and some profit troubles as well. It wasn't the same as when the owner was actually running the paper. And she had to keep it alive for three more years, until Phillip finished Harvard. And right now, three years seemed like a long time to Edwina.

"Did you have a nice drive, you two?" Phillip smiled at them as they returned. Teddy was asleep in the hammock under a tree, and Phillip had been having a long, serious talk with Fannie and Alexis.

"What were you all talking about?" Edwina smiled happily as she sat down next to them, and George went to change into fis.h.i.+ng gear. He had a date to go trout fis.h.i.+ng with one of their neighbors.

"We were talking about how pretty Mama was," he said quietly, and Alexis looked happier than she had in a long time. She loved hearing about her, and sometimes at night, when she slept in Edwina's bed, she would make Edwina talk for hours about their mother. It was painful at times for the older ones, but it kept her alive for the little ones, and Teddy loved to hear stories about their father.

"Why did they die?" he'd asked Edwina one day, and she had answered the only thing she could think of.

"Because G.o.d loved them so much he wanted to be closer to them." Teddy had nodded, and then looked at her with a worried frown.

"Does he love you too, Edwina?"

"Not that much, sweetheart."

"Good." He had been satisfied and they'd gone on to talk about something else. And it saddened Edwina to realize that Teddy had been so young when they died, that he would never know them. But Alexis still had memories of them, and Fannie did, a little. It had been more than two years since they'd died, and for all of them the pain had dimmed a little. Even for Edwina.

"Did you pick up a newspaper today?" Phillip asked casually, but Edwina said that she hadn't had time, and he told her he would buy one when he went to visit Becky.

He had been intrigued weeks before by the a.s.sa.s.sination of the heir to the Austrian throne, and had insisted several times to Edwina that the event had much broader implications than people suspected. He had gotten very involved in politics in the last year, and was talking about majoring in political science when he went back to Harvard.

When he found a newspaper that afternoon, he was stunned to discover that he'd been right. It was a copy of the Winfield paper, the Telegraph Sun, and it ran a banner headline. EUROPE AT WAR, the paper said, as people gathered around and stared. The a.s.sa.s.sination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife at Sarajevo had given the Austrians just the excuse they wanted to declare war on Serbia, and then for Germany to declare war on Russia, and within two days, Germany had declared war on France and invaded neutral Belgium as well, and the day after that the English declared war on the Germans in return. It seemed like utter madness, but in the s.p.a.ce of a week almost all of Europe was at war with each other.

"What does this mean for us?" Edwina asked as they drove back to San Francisco a few days later. "Do you suppose we'll get into it as well?" She looked at Phillip with concern, but he smiled and was quick to rea.s.sure her.

"There's no reason why we should." But Phillip was fascinated with all of it, and he devoured everything he could find to read about it. Once back in San Francisco, he went straight to his father's paper. And when Ben turned up there too, they spent hours dissecting and discussing the news in Europe.

For the rest of the month, the war news seemed to be the center of every conversation, with j.a.pan getting into the war against Germany, and the German air strikes on Paris. Within a month it had become a full-scale war, as the world stood by and watched in amazement.

He was still fascinated with it when he left for Harvard in early September, and at each stop along the way, he bought the newspapers and talked to people on the train about what he'd read. He had a youthful zeal about it all, but his interest in the war made Edwina more aware of it too. She read up on everything so she would know what they were talking about when she went to the paper for her monthly meetings. But she had her own problems, too, with unions causing trouble at the paper. There were times when she wondered if she could hang on to the paper for the next two and a half years. Waiting for Phillip to finish his education now seemed endless. Her decisions at the monthly meetings were cautious as a result. She didn't want to take any chances and jeopardize anything, and no matter how criticized she was for her conservative decisions, she knew there was nothing else she could do for the moment.

In 1915, as Phillip struggled through his soph.o.m.ore year at Harvard, the Great War grew more intense, and the German U-boat blockade of Great Britain began. She was still able to get mail from Aunt Liz from time to time, but it was becoming increasingly difficult. Her letters always had a sad, plaintive tone. She seemed so far away now to the children and Edwina. She was someone they had seen a long time ago, and whom they felt they didn't really know. She was still nagging at Edwina to put the rest of her parents' clothes away, which she had finally done long since, and sell the newspaper and the house and come to live at Havermoor with her, which Edwina would never do, and didn't even bother to mention in her letters.

The Panama-Pacific Exposition opened in San Francisco in February, in spite of the war, and Edwina took all the children to it. They had a marvelous time and after that they insisted that they wanted to go every week. But the most exciting thing of all was that in January long-distance telephone service had been established between New York and San Francisco, and when Phillip went there to the city to visit friends, he asked permission to make a call to San Francisco, promising to reimburse them.

The children were all at dinner one night when the phone rang, and Edwina thought nothing of it as she picked up the receiver. The operator connected it, told her to hang on, and then suddenly she was speaking to Phillip. The connection wasn't great, and there was lots of static on the line, but she could hear him, and she waved to all the children so they could hear him too. Five heads cl.u.s.tered as one and each shouted a message into the phone, as he listened and then he sent them all his love and said he had to get off. It was an exciting change for them, and it made him seem a little less remote as they waited for him to come home from Harvard.

At Harvard, Phillip was invited to a ceremony that was difficult for him and brought back some of the painful memories that had been beginning to fade. Mrs. Widener invited him to the dedication of the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library founded in her son's name. They had last met on the t.i.tanic, and Phillip remembered him well. He had gone down with his father, and he had also been a friend of Jack Thayer's. It was a sad reunion when they all met for the dedication, and Jack and Phillip chatted for a while, and then drifted away. It was strange to think that they had once been in the same lifeboat, and for a day or two the local papers wanted to interview Phillip as one of the survivors, but eventually, much to his relief, they forgot him. They had all lost too much, and too much time had pa.s.sed now to want to talk about it anymore. He wrote to Edwina about seeing Jack Thayer again, but she didn't mention it when she wrote back. He knew that with her as well it was a difficult subject. She seldom spoke of it anymore, and although he knew she still thought of him, she almost never talked of Charles. It was still agonizing for her, and he suspected that it always would be. Her life as a young girl had ended that night forever.

But the real blow came in May. Phillip was on his way across the campus when he heard it, and for a moment he stopped, thinking of an icy night almost exactly three years before.

The Lusitania had been sunk, torpedoed by the Germans, and the world was stunned. To all appearances, an innocent pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p had been attacked, and she had gone down in eighteen minutes, carrying with her 1,201 people. It was a brutal blow, and one that Phillip understood all too well. All morning, as he thought of it, he thought of his sister, and how hard the news of it would hit her. It was too close to home for all of them. And he was right. When Edwina heard, she closed her eyes, and walked all the way home to California Street from her father's paper. Ben offered her a ride when he saw her go, but she only shook her head. She couldn't speak and it was almost as though she didn't see him.

She walked slowly home, thinking, as Phillip had, of that terrible night three years before and all that it had changed for them. She had wanted the memories to fade, and they had, but the loss of the Lusitania brought them all back with a vengeance. The memories were all too vivid again, and all she could think of were her parents and Charles as she walked into the house. It was as though she could see their faces again through a mist of tears, as she said a prayer for the souls on the Lusitania.

And as she remembered back to three years before, she could almost hear the band on the t.i.tanic playing the mournful hymn just before the s.h.i.+p went down. She remembered the icy wind on her face, hearing the terrible ripping, roaring, tearing sounds ... and never again seeing people she had loved so much and lost so quickly.