No Greater Love Part 7

"Even widows remarry eventually. You have a right to happiness, Edwina."

"Maybe," she said, but she didn't sound convinced. "Maybe it is too soon." But in her heart she knew she would never marry. "But to be honest with you, I don't think I'll ever marry."

"But that's absurd."

"Maybe it is." She smiled up at him. "But it seems easier this way, because of the children. I couldn't give any man what he'd deserve, Ben, I'd be too busy with them, and sooner or later any decent man would resent it."

"Do you think I would?" He looked hurt, and she smiled.

"You might. You deserve someone's full attention. Mine won't be available for another fifteen years at least, until little Teddy goes off to college. That's a long wait." She smiled gently at him, touched by his intentions.

He shook his head and grinned. He was beaten and he knew it. She was a stubborn girl, and if she said it, he knew she meant it. He knew that well by now, and it was also part of why he loved her. He loved the things she stood for, and her courage, and indomitable strength and wonderful ability to laugh ... he loved her hair and her eyes, and her delicious sense of humor. And in a way, he knew that she loved him, too, but not the way he wanted. "Fifteen years might be a little long for me, Edwina. I'll be sixty-one years old by then, and you might not want me."

"You'll probably be a lot livelier than I will. The kids will have worn me out by then." Her eyes sobered as she held a hand out to him. "That's all part of it, Ben. My life is theirs now." She had made a promise to her mother to take care of them, no matter what. And she couldn't think of herself anymore. She had to think of the children first. And no matter how fond she was of Ben, she knew she didn't want him, or anyone else, as a husband. But he was clearly worried now, as he frowned. He was desperately afraid he would lose her.

"Can we still be friends?"

Tears filled her eyes and she smiled as she nodded. "Of course we can." She got up and put her arms around him. He was her best friend, her dearest friend, not just her father's friend now. "I couldn't manage without you."

"You seem to be doing just fine," he said wryly, but at the same time he pulled her close, and held her fast for a moment. He didn't try to kiss her, or argue with her anymore. He was grateful not to have lost her affection and her friendship, and maybe it was just as well he had spoken up after all. Maybe it was better to know where he stood, and how she felt. But he still had a heavy heart when he left her that night, and he turned to look back at her as he got in his car, and he waved, and drove away, wishing that things could have been different.

The telegram came from Aunt Liz the next day. Uncle Rupert had died on the anniversary of Kate and Bert's death. And Edwina was subdued when she told the children at dinner. She was quiet all day, thinking of what Ben had said the night before. And she was still touched, but she was sure she had made the right decision.

The children weren't overly distraught at Edwina's news from Aunt Liz, and Phillip helped compose a telegram to her shortly after dinner. They a.s.sured her of their prayers and warmest thoughts, but Edwina made a point of not saying that they hoped their aunt would visit soon. She decided that she really couldn't bear it. Her visit three months before had left them all far too shaken.

Edwina contemplated going into mourning again, and then decided it didn't make sense for an uncle they barely knew and had never been very fond of. She wore gray for a week, and then went back to wearing the colors she had found again only days before, the colors she hadn't worn since the previous April. She even wore Ben's beautiful blue cashmere shawl, and she saw him almost as often as before, although not quite. He seemed a little bit more careful of her now, and faintly embarra.s.sed, although she always acted as though nothing had happened between them. And the children weren't aware of it at all, although once or twice, she thought she saw Phillip staring at them, but there was nothing he could detect except an old, well-worn friendship.

In May, Edwina went out for the first time. She accepted an invitation to a dinner party from old friends of her parents', and she felt awkward when she went, but she was surprised to discover that she had a very pleasant evening. The only thing she didn't like was that she somehow suspected that she had been invited to entertain their son, and the second time they invited her she was certain. He was a handsome young man of twenty-four, with a large fortune and a small mind, and a wonderful estate near Santa Barbara. But he was of no interest to her, nor were the other young men she suddenly found herself paired off with whenever she accepted invitations from her parents' friends. Her own friends all seemed to be married now, and most of them were busy having babies, and spending too much time with them only reminded her of Charles, and the life they would never share, and it never failed to depress her. It was easier being with her parents' friends. In some ways, she had more in common with them since she was bringing up children of the same ages as theirs, and she found it easier to be viewed without the added tension of s.e.xual interest. She had no interest whatsoever in young men, and she made it clear to all of them when, eventually, they pressed her. She continued to wear her engagement ring and to think of herself as still belonging to Charles. She didn't want anything more than her memories of him, and her busy life with her brothers and sisters. And in the end, it was a relief when they left the city and went to Lake Tahoe in August. It was a special summer for them. Phillip had been accepted at Harvard months before, and he would be leaving them for Cambridge in early September. It was hard to believe he'd be gone, and Edwina knew that they would all feel his absence, but she was happy for him that he was going. He had offered to stay home with her, to help her manage the little ones and the exuberant George, and Edwina had refused to even discuss it. He was going, and that was that, she announced. And then she packed the entire family up, and they boarded the train for Lake Tahoe.

And once they were there, on a moonlit night, Phillip finally dared to ask her the question. He had been wondering for a while, and more than once, he had gotten seriously worried about it.

"Were you ever in love with Ben?" he finally whispered.

She was startled not only by what he asked, but by the way he looked when he asked it. It was a look that said Edwina belonged to him, and the others, and she suddenly wasn't quite sure what to answer.

"No."

"Was he in love with you?"

"I don't think that's very important." Edwina spoke softly. The poor boy really looked worried.

But he had nothing to fear and she smiled as she rea.s.sured him. She took a deep breath, thinking of the wedding veil hidden in her closet. "I'm still in love with Charles ..." And then a whisper in the dark, "... Perhaps I always will be...."

"I'm glad," and then he flushed guiltily. "I mean ... I didn't mean ..."

But Edwina smiled at him. "Yes, you did." She belonged to them ... they owned her now ... they didn't want her marrying anyone. She was theirs. For better or worse, until the day she died, or her services were no longer needed. She accepted that, and in a way she loved them for it.

It was odd, she thought to herself, her parents had a right to have each other, but the children felt that she should love only them. She owed the children everything, even in the eyes of Phillip. He had the right to go away to school, as long as she stayed there, waiting for him, and caring for the others.

"Would it make a difference if I did love him? It wouldn't mean I love you less," she tried to explain, but he looked hurt, as though she had betrayed him.

"But do you?"

She smiled again, and shook her head, reaching up to kiss him. He was still a boy, she realized, whether or not he was going to Harvard. "Don't worry so much. I'll always be here." It was what she had said to all of them, ever since her mother died. "I love you ... don't worry ... I will always be here ..."

"Good night, Phillip," she whispered, as they walked back to their cabins, and with an easy smile he looked at her, relieved by what she'd said. He loved her more than anything. They all did. She was theirs now, just as their parents had been. And she had them ... and she had a wedding veil she would never use, hidden on a shelf ... and Charles's engagement ring, still sparkling on her finger.

"Good night, Edwina," he whispered, and she smiled and closed her door, trying to remember if life had ever been different.

Chapter 15.

THE TRAIN STOOD IN THE STATION WITH ALL OF THE WINFIELDS standing in Phillip's compartment. Ben had come too, and Mrs. Barnes, and a handful of Phillip's friends, and two of his favorite teachers. It was a big day for him. He was leaving for Harvard.

"You'll write, won't you?" Edwina felt like a mother hen, and then asked him in an undertone if he had all his money hidden in the money belt she'd given him. He grinned and ruffled her elegant hairdo. "Stop that!" she scolded, as he went to talk to two of his friends, and she chatted with Ben, and tried to keep George from climbing out the window. She couldn't see Alexis then, and a faint wave of panic rose in her, remembering another time when Alexis had disappeared, but a moment later she saw her with Mrs. Barnes, staring sadly at the brother who was about to leave them. Fannie had cried copiously the night before, and at three and a half even Teddy knew he was being deserted.

"Can I come too?" he asked hopefully, but Phillip only shook his head and gave him a ride on his shoulders. He could touch the ceiling in the compartment then, and he chortled happily as Edwina pulled Fannie closer to her. They were all sad to realize that the group at home was shrinking. To Edwina, it felt like the beginning of the end, but that morning, she had reminded Phillip of how proud their father would have been, it was an important moment in his life, and one he should always be proud of.

"You'll never be quite the same," she had tried to explain to him, but he didn't yet understand what she meant. "The world will grow, and you'll see us differently when you come home. We'll seem very small to you, and very provincial." She was wise for her years, and the long talks she'd had with her father for years had given her a perspective that was rare for a woman. It was something Charles had loved about her from the first, and something Ben admired greatly. "I'll miss you terribly," she said to Phillip again, but she had promised herself not to cry and make it harder for him. More than once, he'd offered not to go at all, and to stay and help her with the children. But she wanted him to have this opportunity. He needed it, he had a right to it, just as their father had, and his father before him.

"Good luck, son." Ben shook his hand as the conductor began calling, "All aboard." And Edwina felt her heart fill with tears, as he called good-bye to his friends, shook hands with his teachers, and then turned to kiss the children.

"Be good," he said soberly to little Fannie, "be a good girl, and listen to Edwina."

"I will," she said seriously, two big tears rolling down her cheeks. For over a year, he had been like a father to her, not just an older brother. "Please come back soon ..." At five and a half, she had lost two teeth, and she had the biggest eyes Edwina had ever seen. She was a sweet child and all she wanted in life was to stay close to home, and her brothers and sisters. She talked about wanting to be a mama one day, and nothing more. She wanted to cook and sew, and have "fourteen children." But what she really wanted was to be safe, and cozy and secure forever.

"I'll come back soon, Fannie ... I promise ..." He kissed her again, and then turned to Alexis. There were no words between those two. There didn't need to be. He knew only too well how much she loved him. She was the little ghost who slipped in and out of his room, who brought him cookies and milk on silent feet when he was studying late, who divided everything she had with him, just because she loved him. "Take care, Lexie ... I love you ... I'll be back, I promise ..." But they all knew that to Alexis, those promises meant nothing. She still stood in her parents' room sometimes, as though she still expected to see them. She was seven now, and for her the pain of losing them was as great as it had been a year before. And now losing Phillip was a blow Edwina feared would truly shake her far more than it would the others.

"And you, Teddy Bear, be a good boy, don't eat too many chocolates." He had eaten a whole box of them the week before, and gotten a terrible stomachache, and he laughed guiltily now, as Phillip carefully lifted him off his shoulders.

"Get out of here, you rotten kid," he said with a grin to George, as the conductor called, "Allllllll aboooarrrrddd" for the last time, and waved them off the train. Edwina scarcely had time to hold him close and look at him for a last time.

"I love you, sweet boy. Come home soon ... and love every minute of it. We'll all be here forever, but this is your time ..."

"Thank you, Winnie ... thank you for letting me go ... I'll come home if you need me." There were tears in her eyes and she nodded then, barely able to answer.

"I know ..." She clutched him one more time, and it reminded her too much of the good-byes they'd never had time to say on the ship, the good-byes they should have said and didn't. "I love you ..." She was crying as Ben helped her off, and he had an arm around her shoulders, to comfort her, as the train pulled out of the station. They saw Phillip waving his handkerchief for a long, long time, and Fannie and Alexis cried all the way home, the one in loud, gulping sobs of grief, the other in silent furrows of tears that rolled down her cheeks and tore through her heart and Edwina's when she watched her. None of them were good at grief, none were impervious to pain, and none were happy at the thought of Phillip leaving.

The house was like a tomb once he was gone. Ben left them at their front gate, and Edwina walked them all inside with a look of sorrow. It was hard to imagine life without him.

Fannie helped her set the table that night, while Alexis sat quietly, staring out the window. She said not a word to anyone. She only sat there, thinking of Phillip. And George took Teddy out to the garden to play, until Edwina called them in. It was a quiet group that night, as she served them their favorite roasted chicken. And it was odd now, she never thought of taking her mother's place. It no longer occurred to her. After a year and a half, it seemed as though this was what she had always done. At twenty-two, she was a woman with five children. But the void Phillip had left reminded her now of a ne'er-to-be-forgotten pain, and they were all quiet as she said grace, and asked George to carve the chicken.

"You're the man of the house now," she said, hoping to impress him, as he pierced the roasted bird straight through and lopped the wing off as though using a dagger. At thirteen, he had neither matured nor lost his pa.s.sion for mischief and what he considered humor. "Thank you, George, if you're going to do that, I'll do it myself."

"Come on, Edwina ..." He lopped off another wing, and both legs, like a mercenary carving up the spoils, as chicken gravy splashed everywhere and the children laughed, and suddenly in spite of herself, Edwina was laughing too, until tears came to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She tried to force herself to be serious and reproach him, but she found that she couldn't.

"George, stop it!" He whacked the carca.s.s in half and handled the knife like a spear. "Stop it!... you're awful ..." she scolded, and he bowed low then, handed her her plate, and sat down with a happy grin.

It was certainly going to be different having him underfoot as the oldest child, instead of the far more dignified, responsible Phillip. But George was George, an entirely different character than his brother.

"After dinner, let's write a letter to Phillip," Fannie suggested in a serious voice, and Teddy agreed. And Edwina turned to say something to George just in time to see him flinging peas at Alexis. And before Edwina could say anything, two of the peas. .h.i.t Alexis on the nose and she exploded into laughter.

"Stop that!" Edwina intoned, wondering why, suddenly feeling like a child herself ... stop making us laugh!... stop making me feel better!... stop keeping us from crying!... She thought about it for a moment, and without a sound, Edwina put three peas on her own fork and silently hurled them across the table at George, as he retaliated in glee, and she threw three more peas back at him, while the younger children squealed with excitement. And far, far away ... Phillip rolled relentlessly toward Harvard.

Chapter 16.

THE FIRST FEW DAYS AFTER PHILLIP LEFT, THEY ALL FELT THE pain, and for them, the pain of loss was far too familiar. It was a leaden feeling, and within a week, Edwina saw signs of the strain telling on Alexis. She began to stutter, which she had done before, for a brief time after they first lost their parents. The stutter had disappeared fairly quickly then, but this time it seemed to be more persistent. She was having nightmares again, too, and Edwina was worried about her.

She had just mentioned it to Ben that day, during a board meeting at the newspaper, and when she came home, faithful Mrs. Barnes told Edwina that Alexis had spent all afternoon in the garden. She had gone out there as soon as she had come home from school, and she hadn't come in since. But it was a lovely warm day, and Edwina suspected that she was hiding in the little maze that their mother had always called her "secret garden."

Edwina left her alone for a little while, and then shortly before dinner, when she hadn't come back in, Edwina went back outside to find her. She called her, but as often was the case with the child, there was no answer.

"Come on, silly, don't hide. Come on out and tell me what you did today. We have a letter from Phillip." It had been waiting for her in the front hall, along with one from Aunt Liz that mentioned her not being very well, and having sprained her ankle when she went to London to see the doctor. She was one of those people that unhappy things happened to. And she had just asked Edwina again if she'd finally emptied her mother's room, and the question had annoyed her. In fact, she hadn't yet, but she still didn't feel ready to face it, or to do it to Alexis. "Come on, sweetheart, where are you?" she called, glancing at the rosebushes at the far end, sure she was hiding there, but when she walked the length of the garden, and peeked into all the familiar places, she still couldn't find her. "Alexis? Are you there?" She looked some more, and even climbed up to George's old, abandoned tree house, and she tore her skirt as she jumped down, but Alexis was nowhere.

Edwina went back into the house and asked Mrs. Barnes if she was sure she'd been out there, but the old woman a.s.sured her that she had seen Alexis sit for hours in the garden. But Edwina knew only too well that Mrs. Barnes paid very little attention to the children. Sheilagh was supposed to do that, but she had left shortly after Easter, and Edwina took care of them herself now.

"Did she go upstairs?" Edwina asked pointedly, and Mrs. Barnes said she didn't remember. She'd been tinning tomatoes all afternoon, and she hadn't been paying close attention to Alexis.

Edwina checked Alexis's room, her own, and then finally walked slowly upstairs, remembering Liz's words in her letter only that day. "... it's high time that you faced it, and cleared those rooms out. I've done it with all Rupert's things ..." But it was different for her, Edwina knew, and all she wanted now was to find where Alexis was hiding, and solve whatever problem had driven her to it.

"Lexie?..." She pulled back curtains, rustled her mother's skirts, and noticed that there was a musty smell in the room now. They had been gone for a long time, almost eighteen months. She even looked under the bed, but Alexis was nowhere.

Edwina went downstairs and asked George to help her look around, and finally, an hour later, she was beginning to panic.

"Did something happen today at school?" But neither Fannie nor George knew anything about it, and Teddy had been with Edwina when she went to the paper. The secretaries there were always happy to baby-sit for him, while she went to her meetings. And at three and a half, he was a little charmer. "Where do you suppose she is?" she asked George. Nothing special had gone wrong, and no one seemed to have any idea where she'd gone. The dinner hour came and went, and Edwina and George conducted another search in the garden, and they finally came to the conclusion that she was nowhere in the house or on the grounds. Edwina went into the kitchen then, and after some hesitation, decided to call Ben. She didn't know what else to do, and he promised to come over at once to help her find Alexis. And he was frantically ringing the doorbell ten minutes later.

"What happened?" he asked, and for an odd moment, Edwina thought he looked like her father. But she didn't have time to think of it now, as she brushed her stray hair off her face. Her upswept hairdo had been torn apart while she searched for Alexis in the garden.

"I don't know what happened, Ben. I can't imagine. The children said nothing happened in school today, and Mrs. Barnes thought she was in the garden all afternoon, but she wasn't, at least not by the time I got there. We've looked everywhere, inside the house and out, and she's just not here. I don't know where she could have gone to." She had few friends at school, and she never wanted to play at their houses. And everyone in the family knew that she had always been the sensitive one, and she had never totally recovered from their mother's death. She was just as likely to disappear as she was not to speak for days on end. It was just the way she was, and they all accepted her that way. But if she'd run away, G.o.d only knew where she was or what it meant, and what would happen to her when she got there. She was a beautiful child, and in the wrong hands, anything might have happened.

"Have you called the police yet?" Ben tried to appear calm, but he was as worried as she was. And he was glad that Edwina had called him.

"Not yet. I called you first."

"And you have no idea where she's gone?" Edwina shook her head again, and a moment later Ben walked into the kitchen and called the police for her. Mrs. Barnes had already helped put Fannie and Teddy to bed, and she'd told them it was very, very naughty to run away, and Fannie had cried and asked if they would ever find her.

George was standing with Edwina as Ben called the police, and half an hour later they rang the front doorbell and Edwina went to answer. She explained that she had no idea where her sister had gone, and the sergeant who had come asked in some confusion who the child's parents were. Edwina explained that she was Alexis's guardian, and he promised to search the neighborhood and report back to her in an hour.

"Should we come?" she asked worriedly, glancing at Ben.

"No, ma'am. We'll find her. You and your husband wait here with the boy." He smiled at them comfortingly and George glared at Ben. He liked him as a friend, but he didn't like him being referred to as Edwina's "husband." Just like Phillip, he was possessive about his older sister.

"Why didn't you tell him?" George growled at her, when the policeman had left.

"Tell him what?" Her mind was totally on Alexis.

"That Ben isn't your husband."

"Oh, for heaven's sake ... will you please concentrate on finding your sister and not this nonsense?" But Ben had heard it too. After a year and a half of her full attention, night and day, they all felt as though they owned her. It wasn't a healthy thing for any of them, he thought, he also knew that it was none of his business. Edwina wanted to run her family as she chose, and unfortunately he had no reason to interfere with them. He looked up at her worriedly again, and they went over the possibilities, of where Alexis might have gone, and with whom, and he volunteered to drive her in his car to the child's various friends' houses, and Edwina jumped to her feet with a hopeful look and told George to wait for the policeman.

But a tour of three neighboring houses turned up nothing at all. They said that Alexis hadn't been to visit in weeks, and more and more Edwina found herself thinking of how upset Alexis had been ever since Phillip left for Cambridge.

"You don't suppose she'd do something crazy like try to hop a train, do you, Ben?" It was her idea, but Ben thought it more than unlikely.

"She's afraid of her own shadow, she can't be far from here," he said as they walked up the front steps again. But when Edwina mentioned it to George, he narrowed his eyes and started thinking.

"She asked me how long it takes to get to Boston last week," George confessed with an unhappy frown, "but I didn't think anything of it. G.o.d, Win, what if she does try to catch a train? She won't even know where she's going." And she could get hurt ... she could trip on the tracks, fall trying to get into a freight car ... the possibilities were horrifying as Edwina began to look frantic. It was ten o'clock at night by then and it was painfully obvious that something terrible had happened.

"I'll take you down to the station, if you like, but I'm sure she wouldn't do anything like that," Ben said quietly, trying to rea.s.sure them both, but George only snapped at him. He was still amazed at the policeman's a.s.sumption that Ben was Edwina's husband.

"You wouldn't know anything about it." From close family friend, he had suddenly become a threat to George. Phillip's jealousy of him before he left for school had not been entirely lost on him either. And although Edwina normally kept a firm grip on them, this time she was far too worried about their younger sister to pay much attention to what George was saying.

"Let's go." She picked a shawl up off the hall table, and ran out the front door, just as the policeman returned, but the man at the wheel only shook his head.

"No sight of her anywhere."

Ben drove her down to the station in his Hupmobile with George in the backseat, and all along the way, Edwina glanced nervously out the window, but there was no sign of Alexis anywhere. And at ten-thirty at night the station was almost deserted. There were the trains to San Jose, and it was a roundabout way of going east instead of taking the ferry to Oakland station.

"This is a crazy idea," Ben started to say, but as he did, George disappeared, running through the station, and to the tracks behind it.

"Lexie!..." he called. "Lexie!..." He cupped his hands and shouted, and the words echoed in silence. There was the occasional grinding of an engineer shifting wheels as they sidetracked a locomotive or a car here and there, but on the whole there was nothing and no one, and no Alexis.

Edwina had followed him by then, and she didn't know why, but she trusted George's instincts. In some ways he knew Alexis better than anyone else, better even than Edwina or Phillip.

"Lexie ..." he shouted for her endlessly, and Ben tried to get them to turn back, just as they heard a train wailing in the distance. It was the last Southern Pacific freight train that came in every night shortly before midnight. There was a long beam of light in the distance, and as it approached, Edwina and Ben stood safely behind a gate, and then with a sudden flash there was a quick movement, a tiny white blur, a something, an almost nothing, and George took off like a shot across the tracks before Edwina could stop him. And then she realized what he'd seen. It was Alexis, huddled between two cars, frightened and alone, she was carrying something in her hand, and even from the distance Edwina could see that it was the doll she had rescued from the t.i.tanic.

"Oh, my G.o.d ..." She grabbed Ben's arm, and then started under the gate to go after them, but he pulled her back.

"No ... Edwina ... you can't ..." George was headed in a straight line across the tracks in front of the oncoming train, toward the child who lay huddled next to the tracks. If she didn't move, she would be hit, and George had seen it all too clearly. "George! No!..." she screamed, tearing herself from Ben, and heading across the tracks after her little brother. But her words were lost in the scream from the oncoming train as she headed after him. Ben looked around frantically, wanting to pull a switch, an alarm, to stop everything, but he couldn't, and he felt tears sting his cheeks as he waved frantically at the engineer, who didn't see him.

And through it all, George was hurtling toward Alexis like a bullet, and Edwina was stumbling toward him, falling over the tracks, her skirt held in her hands, and screaming soundlessly for him, and then with the rush of a hurricane, the train sped past her, and it seemed an interminable wait for it to go by. But when it was gone, sobbing uncontrollably, she ran ahead looking for them, sure that she would find them both dead now. But instead, what she saw was Alexis, covered with dirt, her blond hair caked with dust, as she lay under a train, her brother's arms around her, lying in the place where he had pushed her. He had reached her, just in time, and the force of his body hitting her much smaller one, as he dove for her, had pushed them both to safety. She was wailing in the sudden stillness of the night, as the train shrieked away into the distance, and Edwina fell to her knees looking at them both, and holding them, as Ben ran to where they lay, and looked down at them with tears pouring down his own cheeks. There was nothing he could say, to either of them, or even to Edwina. In a moment, Ben helped her up, and George pulled Alexis out from under the train. Ben swept her up into his arms, and carried her to the car, as George put an arm around Edwina. She stopped before they reached the car, and looked down at him. At thirteen, he had become a man, as surely as their father had been. Not a boy, or a clown, or a child anymore, but a man, as she cried and held him to her.

"I love you ... oh, G.o.d ... I love you ... I thought you were ..." She started to sob again, and she couldn't finish her sentence. Her knees were still shaking as they walked slowly to the car, and on the way home Alexis told them what George had instinctively known, she had been going to find Phillip.