No Greater Love (34 page)

“You two are quite a team!” Sam said admiringly as George took Helen off to the floor without even pausing for breath after dancing with his sister.

“So are you.” Edwina grinned. “I saw you two out there.”

“Did you? Then perhaps you and I ought to try it again, just to make sure we don’t step on each other’s feet at the wedding.”

Edwina was sure they had danced all night, and she had a fabulous time getting to know him. She already knew how much she liked Helen.

And Edwina was surprised at how easy it was to glide around the room in Sam’s arms. He reminded her of someone, and she wasn’t sure who, and then she realized later on, that he reminded her of her father when she had danced with him when she was a little girl. Sam Horowitz was so much taller and stronger than she was that it made her feel like a child again, and in a funny way, she realized that she liked it. She liked him, and his constant thoughtfulness and kind eyes, which seemed to
take everything in and understand it. He had brought his daughter up alone too, after his wife died when Helen was only a baby. “It wasn’t easy sometimes, and she always thought I was too strict.” But it was easy to see she didn’t think so now, and that he adored her. She was truly a beautiful girl, and she obviously doted on Edwina’s brother. Edwina was happy for both of them. It made her feel both happy and sad. It was a bittersweet time, and more than once they reminded her of her last days with Charles, when they had gone to England to announce their engagement. She had put her engagement ring from him away finally, a few years before, and she looked at it now and then, when she went to get something else out of her jewel box.

Sam asked her to dance one last time, and from his arms, she watched her handsome brother glide his fiancée smoothly across the floor in a final tango, but she and Sam didn’t do badly either.

All in all, the two couples had a wonderful time and they went home at three in the morning.

And when Sam dropped her off, Helen got into the car with him outside George’s house. And Helen and Sam waved good night to the Winfields. Edwina thanked him again for a wonderful evening, and George kissed Helen again, as Sam and Edwina pretended not to notice.

“We’ll have to do this again, soon,” Sam said softly, and for an instant, Edwina felt a pang of regret that their lives hadn’t been different.

And the next day, Alexis started work on the picture. It was far more arduous than she had thought it would be, and there were days when it was grueling, but no matter how hard it was, or how demanding the director was with her, it was obvious how much she loved it. Edwina was with her on the set almost every day, but
after a while she felt superfluous. Alexis was doing a beautiful job, she felt totally at ease, and it was obvious that everyone on the set, from the star to the last extra, loved her. And just as George had known from the moment he came to Hollywood that he had found his home, so did Alexis. It was a fairyland of make-believe where she would always be a child and people would always take care of her, which was exactly what she wanted. And it warmed Edwina’s heart to see her so happy and so involved in what she was doing.

“She’s like a different person,” Edwina said to George late one night, when she was dining with him and Helen, at the Cocoanut Grove, which was Helen’s favorite nightspot. Edwina had been enjoying watching Rudolph Valentino dance with Constance Talmadge, and she found herself suddenly missing Sam. They had become good friends, and she enjoyed going out with him with George and Helen, but he was in Kentucky, buying two new horses.

“I have to admit,” George said, as he poured more champagne for his sister and his future wife, “Alexis is very good in the picture. Much better than I thought she would be. In fact,” he said, looking pointedly at Edwina, “it’s going to pose something of a problem.”

“What kind of problem?” She looked surprised. Thus far, everything had gone so smoothly.

“Pretty soon it may all be out of my hands. If she’s good in this, she’s going to be getting more offers to make other pictures. And then what are you going to do?”

Edwina had been thinking of that for the past week and she hadn’t yet solved it. “I’ll think of something. I really don’t want to stay down here with the other two.” And George had his own life now, and in spite of what Alexis thought, she wasn’t old enough to live alone in
Los Angeles. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll think of something.”

But fortunately, when the picture ended, there was a lull, and they all went back to San Francisco to put Fannie and Teddy back in school. Edwina found that she hated leaving Hollywood, but she felt that she had to go home, and she had promised the younger children. But she was sad to leave George and Helen and even Sam, and she missed their elegant evenings of dining and dancing. But they were going back to Los Angeles at the end of September anyway, for George and Helen’s wedding. By then, there was talk of another picture for Alexis, and Alexis was begging Edwina to let her get her own apartment, which Edwina said would only work if she could find a suitable chaperone. In fact, it was becoming a rather complicated situation. And she was still trying to sort it out when they went back down on the train for the much-heralded wedding.

George picked them up himself, and Edwina laughed at how nervous he was when he took them to the hotel. She had been determined not to get in his way, and she had booked them into the Beverly Hills Hotel again, which the children enjoyed and she had always liked too. And George was just beside himself with nerves as he told the bellboy where to put their luggage.

His bachelor party was scheduled for that night, and the rehearsal dinner was the following night at the Alexandria Hotel, and the night before they had been given a huge party at Pickfair.

“I may not live through the week,” George groaned, and fell onto the couch in the suite’s living room and looked up at Edwina. “I had no idea it was so exhausting, getting married.”

“Oh, shut up,” she teased, “you’re loving every minute of it, and so you should. How is Helen?”

“A tower of strength, thank God. If it weren’t for her
I couldn’t get through this. She remembers absolutely everything we’re supposed to do, she knows who gave what gifts, who’s coming and who isn’t, and where we’re supposed to be when. All I have to do is get dressed, try not to forget the ring, and pay for the honeymoon, and I’m not even sure I could do that much without her.” Edwina was impressed, as she had been months before when Helen asked her to be her maid of honor. There were going to be eleven other bridesmaids, eleven ushers, a best man, four flower girls, and a ring bearer. And George hadn’t been kidding when he said it should have been directed by Cecil B. De Mille. It sounded like one of his epics.

The wedding itself was going to take place in the Horowitzes’ garden, under a gazebo covered in roses and gardenias that had been specially grown just for Helen and George, and the reception was going to be in the house, and two huge tents that had been put on the grounds, with two bands, and every name in Hollywood who would be there to see Helen marry George. It brought tears to Edwina’s eyes each time she thought about it, but when they’d come down in June she had brought with her a very special gift for Helen.

“Have a good time tonight.” She kissed her brother as he left to get ready for his bachelor party that night. And as she went to take a bath, Alexis, Fannie, and Teddy took off like a band of roving urchins to check out the lobby. “Behave yourselves, please,” she urged, but she assumed that as long as they were together they couldn’t get into too much trouble. After all, this was where Alexis had met Malcolm Stone, but that had been months before, and Alexis was reformed now.

THE HOROWITZES’ DUESENBERG APPEARED FOR THEM AT THE
hotel at exactly eleven-thirty, and Edwina and the three children got in and they were driven to the Horowitz estate, where everything was orchestrated to perfection.

The tents were in place, both bands had already set up their stands and their music. Paul Whiteman and his orchestra and Joe “King” Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band were going to be playing from six o’clock until the wee hours of the morning. The caterers were in full swing. The Horowitz staff had everything in control. And an exquisite luncheon was being served to everyone but the bride in the dining room at precisely twelve o’clock. And when Sam Horowitz appeared to greet them, he looked calm and collected. He was wearing a business suit, and he thought Edwina looked very pretty in a white silk dress and a long rope of pearls that had been her mother’s. It was a big day for all of them, and all of the Winfield children were very excited. George had
asked Teddy to be his best man, which had flattered him and touched Edwina deeply. She was going to be Helen’s maid of honor, Alexis was a bridesmaid, and Fannie a flower girl, so they each had a role. At two o’clock, the girls went to the room where the bridesmaids were being combed and coiffed and made up and perfumed, Teddy joined the men, and Edwina went to find Helen.

“See you later,” Sam said quietly, and touched her arm just before she left. “It’s a big day for both of us, isn’t it?” She was more like the mother of the groom than the maid of honor and they both knew it, and he had to stand in, as he had for all of Helen’s life, as both father and mother.

“She’s going to look beautiful.” Edwina smiled at him, knowing what a wrench it had to be for him. She was feeling it, too, and George hadn’t lived at home in more than four years, and still, for all of them, it was an important moment.

And much to her surprise, she found Helen sitting calmly in her bedroom, looking beautiful and composed, her hair already done, her manicure perfect, her wedding dress all laid out. She had nothing more to do except relax and wait for five o’clock when she would walk down the aisle on her father’s arm and become Mrs. George Winfield.

Edwina had never realized when they met how organized she was, how capable, and how much she was like her father. She just quietly went about what she did, smiling, being pretty and pleasant, and taking care of everyone and seeing to their comfort. It made Edwina happy seeing that, and she knew without a moment’s doubt that she and George were going to be very happy. And yet, for a moment, just then, she felt almost sorry for her. It was a time when she should have had a mother and not simply a friend, to fuss over her, and
send her on her way with a warm hug and a tear as she walked down the aisle, but they were two young women alone, the one who had never known her mother at all, the other who had had to take her mother’s place and bring up five children.

As Edwina looked around the room, she saw the miles and miles of Chantilly lace, hundreds of tiny buttons, rivers of tiny pearls, and a twenty-foot train, but there was no veil, and then as she walked into Helen’s dressing room, she saw it. It had been pressed, and
it
was propped up on a hat stand high up on a chest of drawers, as it drifted across the room, fully as long as Helen’s train, and as Edwina saw it, tears filled her eyes. It looked just as it was meant to, a whisper to cover a virgin’s face, and make her groom long for her as she drifted toward him. It looked as it would have eleven years before, if she’d married Charles. She had given it to Helen and now she was deeply touched that she was going to wear it. And she turned at a sound, as Helen came into the room behind her, and gently touched her shoulder. They were sisters now, and not just friends. Sisters who had only each other, and as Edwina turned to embrace her, there were tears running down her face, as she remembered Charles as though she had seen him only moments before. With all the years since he’d been gone, he was still fresh in her mind and her heart, and if she closed her eyes, she could see him as she did her parents.

“Thank you for wearing it,” she whispered as they hugged, and Helen was crying too. She could only guess at how much the gift meant to Edwina.

“Thank you for letting me … I wish you had worn it too….” But what she really meant was that she wished Edwina had had the joy that Helen had now.

“I did, in my heart.” She pulled away and smiled at her new younger sister. “He was a wonderful man, and I
loved him very much.” She had never talked about him to Helen before. “And George is a wonderful man too … may you always be happy.” Edwina kissed her again, and a little while later, she helped her dress, and it took her breath away when she saw her. She looked more beautiful than any bride she had ever seen, in real life or any movie. Her blond hair seemed to frame her face, and it was swept around her head like a halo, artfully woven with little sprigs of baby’s breath and lily of the valley, and the crown of Edwina’s wedding veil fit carefully above the silken hair, with its shimmering pearls, and its miles of white tulle. It took six of her bridesmaids to help her down the stairs, and Edwina cried again as she watched her.

Her own dress was pale blue lace, and it had a matching coat that trailed far behind her, and a beautiful hat made in Paris by Poiret that dipped low and almost concealed one eye, and made her look at the same time both demure and sexy. The dress was cut low to reveal her creamy bosom, but the coat covered her for the ceremony and the pale sky blue made her shining black hair look like raven’s wings. She didn’t know it, but her brother thought she had never looked more beautiful.

Sam was startled by her, too, and then, a moment later, there was a hush and there was Helen. The extraordinary dress and the magical wedding veil transformed her into everyone’s dream, and reminded Sam that she was no longer a little girl and he was about to lose her. A tear crept slowly from Sam’s eye, and a moment later he held his daughter tight and everyone sobbed, watching them. She looked so beautiful, and he looked so loving and so strong, and Edwina knew everything Helen meant to him, and also what she meant to her brother. Helen was a lucky girl. She was precious to both men, and she knew how much they both loved her.

The music started up and the bridesmaids and flower
girls moved down the aisle, and then at the very end, Edwina moved out just ahead of Helen and Sam, in measured steps, holding her bouquet of white orchids. The bridesmaids all looked like little girls to her, and she could see Alexis and Fannie giggling far ahead, but as she looked toward him she could see George, waiting expectantly with his young, shining face, for his life to begin with Helen. And seeing him there made Edwina wish again that her parents were alive to see him now, as she moved to the side, and Helen appeared like a miracle suddenly in everyone’s field of vision. There were sighs throughout the crowd, and people straining to see, and as Edwina took her place, Sam Horowitz stood solemnly and looked down at his only child with a small, sad smile, and gave her delicate white-kid-gloved hand to her husband.