No Greater Love (16 page)

Half an hour later, Ben finally left them. She walked him to the door, and he asked her to let him know when she was ready to talk business with him.

“How soon do I have to do it?” she asked with a worried look.

“As soon as you’re ready.” He spoke quietly, not wanting to frighten her or the children, but the others were already out of earshot. George was already upstairs, destroying his room, and Phillip was checking his mail and sorting through his books, and little Fannie had gone to the kitchen with Mrs. Barnes for some cookies, with Teddy in hot pursuit, but still looking over his shoulder, as though at any moment he expected to see Mama and Papa.

“You have a lot of decisions to make,” Ben went on, standing in the hallway with Edwina.

“About what?” She needed to know. She’d been worried about it for a week. What if they didn’t have enough money to survive? She had always thought they did, but what if they didn’t?

“You have to decide what you want to do about the paper, this house, some investments your father has. I suppose I should tell you, too, that your uncle thinks you should sell everything and move to England, but we can talk about that later.” He hadn’t wanted to upset her, but her face was suddenly flushed and her eyes grew bright and angry as she listened.

“What does my uncle have to do with all this? Is he my guardian?” She looked horrified, she hadn’t even thought about that as a possibility, but Ben was shaking his head to reassure her.

“No, your aunt is, according to your mother’s will. But only until you’re twenty-one.”

“Thank God.” Edwina smiled. “That’s in three weeks. I can wait that long.” Ben smiled in answer. She was a bright girl, and she would do well, it was just a shame that she had to face this. “Will I have to sell the newspaper?” She looked worried again, and Ben shook his head.

“One day you might want to, but right now there are good people running it, and it will provide the income you need. But if Phillip hasn’t put a hand to it in a few years, you’ll probably have to sell it. Unless you want to give it a try, Edwina?” They both smiled at that. That was the last thing she wanted.

“We can talk about this next week, but I’ll tell you right now, Ben. I’m not going anywhere. And I’m not selling anything. I’m going to keep everything just as it is now … for the children.”

“That’s quite a responsibility to put on your shoulders.”

“Maybe so.” She looked sober as she walked to the door. “But that’s where it belongs now. I’m going to do everything I can to keep things just as they were when my parents were alive,” and he knew without a doubt that she meant it.

He admired her for trying, but a part of him wondered if she would be able to do it. Raising five children was no small task for a girl of twenty. But he also knew that she had her father’s brains and her mother’s warm heart and courage and she had every intention of making it work, no matter what it took. And maybe she was right. Maybe she could do it.

When he was gone, Edwina closed the door behind him with a sigh and looked around her. The house had the look of a place where people have been away for a long time. There were no flowers in the vases, no pretty, fresh smells, there were no happy sounds, no signs that people cared, and Edwina realized that she was going to have a lot to do there. But first, she needed to check on the children. She could hear the two youngest ones playing in the kitchen with Mrs. Barnes, and on the second floor, Phillip and George were having a heated argument over whose tennis racket George had apparently broken, and in Alexis’s room, she found no one. It was
easy to guess why, and passing her own room on the way, she walked slowly upstairs to what had been her parents’ sunny quarters.

It was painful just walking up the stairs now, knowing that they wouldn’t be there. And it was hot and airless up there, as though it had been months since anyone had opened the windows. But it was sunny, and they had a beautiful view of the East Bay.

“Alexis?” She called softly. She knew she was there. She could feel her. “Darling … Where are you?… Come back downstairs … we all miss you.” But she missed her mother more, and Edwina knew it. She knew she would find Alexis there, and it broke her heart as she walked into her mother’s pretty pink satin dressing room, with the perfumes all lined up, and the hats neatly put on the shelf, and the shoes all perfectly arranged … the shoes she would never wear again. Edwina tried not to look at them, as her own eyes filled with tears. She hadn’t wanted to come up here yet, but she had to now, if only to find Alexis. “Lexie?… Come on, baby … come on back downstairs. …” But all around her there was silence, and only the relentlessly happy sunshine, and the smell of her mother’s perfume. “Alex …” Her voice died on the word as she saw her, holding her beloved doll, and crying silently as she sat in her mother’s closet. She was holding on to her skirts, smelling their perfume and just sitting there, alone in the May sunshine. Edwina walked slowly toward her, and then knelt down on the floor and held the child’s face in her hands, kissing her cheeks, her own tears mingling with her sister’s.

“I love you, sweetheart … I love you so much … maybe not exactly the way she did … but I’m here for you, Alexis … trust me.” She could barely speak, as the sweet fragrance of her mother’s clothes tore at her memories and her heart. It was almost unbearable being
here now that Kate was gone. And across the hall, she could see her father’s suits hanging in his dressing room. And for the first time in her life, she felt as though neither she nor Alexis belonged here.

“I want Mama,” the little girl cried as she sank against Edwina.

“So do I,” Edwina cried with her and then kissed her again as they knelt there, “but she’s gone, baby … she’s gone … and I’m here … and I promise I’ll never leave you …”

“But she did … she’s gone …”

“She didn’t mean to leave us … she couldn’t help it. It just happened.” But it hadn’t, and Edwina had been fighting back the thought of that for days, ever since they’d left the
Titanic
without her. Why hadn’t she come in the lifeboat with Edwina and the children? Or later, after she thought she saw Alexis in the lifeboat? There had been other boats … later ones, she could have gotten in one. But instead she had chosen to stay on the ship with her husband. Phillip had told her about their mother’s decision to stay with him. How could she do that to all of them?… to Alexis … to Teddy … Fanny … the boys … and somewhere, deep within her, Edwina knew that she was angry at her for it. But she couldn’t admit that now to Alexis. “I don’t know why it happened, Lexie, but it did. And now we have to take care of each other. We all miss her, but we have to go on … that’s what she would have wanted.” Alexis hesitated for a long time, and then let Edwina stand her up, but she still looked unconvinced as she stood in her mother’s closet.

“I don’t want to come downstairs …” She balked as Edwina tried to lead her out of the room, and she looked around her as though in a panic, as though she were afraid she might never see this room again, or
touch her mother’s clothes, or smell her delicate perfume.

“We can’t stay up here anymore, Lexie … it’ll just make us sad. I know she’s here, so do you, she’s everywhere … we take her with us in our hearts. I always feel her with me now, and so will you, if you think about her.” Alexis seemed to hesitate, and very gently Edwina picked her up and carried her downstairs to her own room, but the child didn’t look as frightened now, or as desolate. She had finally come home, the thing they had all wanted and feared most, and they had found that it was true. Their mother and father were gone. But the memories lived on, like the flowers in her garden. And without saying anything, Edwina left a little bottle of her mother’s perfume on Alexis’s dresser that night. And from then on, she always smelled it on Alexis’s doll, Mrs. Thomas. It was a faint whiff of what their mother had been, a dim memory of the woman they had loved, and who had chosen to die with her husband.

“I
DON’T GIVE A DAMN.” EDWINA WAS LOOKING FEROCIOUSLY
at Ben Jones. “I will
not
sell the paper.”

“Your uncle thinks you should. I had a long letter from him only yesterday, Edwina. At least think about what he’s saying. He thinks that it can only run down slowly as long as there is no family member left to run it. And he strongly feels that you, and all the children, belong in England.” Ben looked apologetic but firm, as he repeated her uncle’s opinions.

“That’s nonsense. And there will be someone to run the paper, in time. In five years, there will be Phillip.”

Ben sighed. He knew what she wanted, and she could be right, but so could her uncle. “A twenty-one-year-old boy cannot run a paper.” It was how old Phillip would be five years later. And in the meantime he wasn’t sure either that a twenty-one-year-old girl should be responsible
for five younger children. It was an unfair burden on her, and perhaps moving to England with them would be simpler.

“There are perfectly good people running the paper now. You said so yourself,” Edwina insisted. “And one day Phillip will run the business.”

“And if he doesn’t? What then?” To her, it seemed an absurd question at the moment.

“I’ll face that when it happens. But meanwhile, I have other things to do. I have the children to think about, and there is absolutely no reason to worry about the business.” She looked tired, and her temper was short, and there were so many things to learn now. Her father had some stocks and bonds, and her mother had had a few too. And there was a small piece of real estate in southern California. She had decided to sell that. And to keep the house. And then there was the paper. It was all so damn complicated, and the children were still upset. And George wasn’t doing well at school, and suddenly the boys seemed to fight all the time, and Phillip was afraid of failing his exams, so she was studying with him at night, and then there were the cries … and the tears at midnight … and the constant nightmares. She felt as though she were living on a merry-go-round and she could never get off. She just had to keep going around and around and around, taking care of other people’s needs, learning new things, and making decisions. There was no room anywhere for her and what her needs were … nowhere for the constant aching memories of Charles…. There was no one to take care of her now, and she felt as though there never would be.

“Edwina, wouldn’t it be easier for you to go to England and stay with the Hickhams for a while? Let them help you.”

She looked insulted at the idea. “I don’t need help. We are fine.”

“I know you are,” he apologized, “but it’s unfair for all the responsibility to fall on you, and they want to help you.”

But she didn’t see it that way. “They don’t want to help me. They want to take everything away.” Tears filled her eyes as she spoke. “Our house, our friends, the children’s schools, our way of life. Don’t you understand?” She looked up at him mournfully. “This is all we have left now.”

“No.” He shook his head quietly, wishing he could reach out to her. “You have each other.”

He didn’t mention the Hickhams again, and she went over the paperwork with Ben, definite about what she wanted to do, no matter what anyone thought of it. She was going to hang on to the paper for her brothers, and to the house for all of them.

“Can I afford to keep it all, Ben?” Everything seemed to boil down to that now. And she had to ask questions she had never even thought about before, and fortunately, he was always honest.

“Yes, you can. For now nothing has to change. Eventually, it might become counterproductive. But for right now, the paper will actually bring you a very decent income, and the house is no problem.”

“Then I’ll keep both. What else?” She was amazingly matter-of-fact at times, and so capable it shocked him. Maybe she was right to keep everything as it was. For the moment, it was certainly the greatest gift she could give the children.

And eventually she explained it for the ten thousandth time to their uncle Rupert. And this time he understood it. In truth, he was relieved. It was Liz who had begged him to let them come, and he had wanted to
do his duty. Edwina told him how grateful they all were to him but that the children were still far too upset by everything that had happened, and so was she. What they needed now was to stay home, and catch their breath, and have a quiet, happy life in surroundings that were familiar. And that although they loved him and Aunt Liz, they just couldn’t leave California at the moment. He responded that they were always welcome to change their minds, and a flurry of letters began to arrive from Aunt Liz, promising to come and visit them the moment she was able to leave Uncle Rupert. But somehow, Edwina always found the letters extremely depressing, although she did not share that viewpoint with the younger children.

“We’re not going,” she finally told Ben. “In fact,” she said, looking at him seriously across his desk at the law firm where he was a partner, “I doubt very much if I will ever get on a ship again. I don’t think I could do it. You don’t know what it was like,” she said softly. She still had nightmares about the stern of the giant ship rising into the night sky with the propellers dripping, and she knew the others did too. She wouldn’t have put them through it for anything in the world, no matter what Rupert Hickham thought was best for them, or what he felt he owed them.

“I understand,” Ben said quietly. And he thought she was extremely brave to try to cope alone. But she seemed to be doing very well, much to his amazement.

There were times when he wondered how she was going to do it all. But she was so determined to carry on where her parents left off, and he admired her greatly for it. Any other girl her age would have been crying in her room over the fiancé she had lost, but not Edwina, she was carrying on as best she could, without a word of
complaint, and only a look of sorrow in her eyes, which never failed to touch him.

“I’m sorry to bring this up, by the way,” he mentioned one day. “But I’ve had another letter from White Star. They want to know if you’re going to file a claim for your parents’ death, and I want to know what to tell them. In some ways, I think you should, because you’ll have to bear the expenses for everything in your father’s absence, yet it won’t bring them back. I don’t even like mentioning it, but I have to know what you want to do. I’ll do anything you want, Edwina …” His voice drifted off as he met her eyes. She was a beautiful girl, and he was growing fonder of her every day. She had grown up hard and fast, and she wasn’t a child anymore. She was a very lovely young woman.