No Greater Love (38 page)

“I’m afraid everyone is going to be very disappointed, it’s just me, traveling to Europe to meet my sister.” She made it sound a little more innocent than it was, but it was just as well, and he looked interested in even that.

“And you’re only going to stay for a few days? How sad for us.” He smiled, and she thought, as she looked at him, that he was really very handsome. But it was a purely clinical observation, which came from meeting so many movie stars with her brother. “How interesting that you’re not married, though.” He made it sound like a fascinating job, and somehow he amused her. “Americans are so good about that sort of thing. Somehow, they do that with style. English girls all panic that they’ll never marry by the time they’re twelve, and if they’re not married in their first season out, their families bury them alive in the back garden.” She laughed aloud at the thought, and had never considered her single state as either a virtue or a preference. In her case, it had been a fact of circumstance, and an obligation.

“I don’t know that being single is such an American skill. Maybe we’re not as easy to marry as Englishwomen. Englishwomen are much better behaved. They don’t argue as much.” She smiled, and then thought of her aunt Liz and uncle Rupert. “I had an aunt who was married to an Englishman.”

“Oh, really, who?” He acted as though he should have known them, and perhaps he did, she realized.

“Lord and Lady Hickham, Rupert Hickham, he died several years ago, and so did she, actually. They never had any children.”

He thought for a moment and then nodded. “I believe I know who he is … or was … I think actually
that my father knew him. Rather a difficult sort, if that isn’t too rude.” She laughed at the understatement, and realized that he did know exactly who Rupert was, if he remembered that about him.

“It’s not rude at all, but quite accurate. And poor Aunt Liz was afraid of her own shadow. He terrified her into submission. We went to see them at Havermoor …” She had been about to say “eleven years ago,” and then suddenly realized that she didn’t want to say it. “A long time ago.” Her voice was suddenly sad and husky. “I haven’t been back to England since.”

“And when was that?” He looked interested and seemed not to notice her discomfort.

“Eleven years ago.”

“That’s a long time.” He was watching her face, wondering what had happened then, as she nodded. A terrible shadow had crossed her face, as he pretended not to notice.

“Yes, it is.” And then she stood up, as though she had to get away again. She was tired of running from the past, and tired of dealing with the present. “I suppose I’ll turn in. It was nice speaking to you, Mr. Sparks-Kelly.”

“Patrick,” he corrected. “May I walk you to your cabin, or may I waylay you briefly for a drink in the lounge? It’s actually very pretty, if you haven’t yet seen it.” But the last thing she wanted to do was tour the ship, sit in the lounge, get to know the people, it was all too reminiscent of their crossing on the ship that had gone down. She never wanted to see another ship again, and she was only on this one because of Alexis.

“I don’t think so, but thank you very much.” She shook his hand and walked away from him then. But when she got downstairs, she found that she couldn’t bear to go into her cabin either. It was all too oppressive, too familiar, too awful, and she couldn’t bear the
thought of going to sleep and living with her dreams, and her memories and her nightmares. She walked back out on deck then, just outside where her cabin was, and stood at the rail, thinking of what might have been, and how it had ended. She was so lost in her own thoughts that she didn’t hear the footsteps, and all she heard was the gentle voice as he stood right behind her.

“Whatever it is, Miss Winfield, it can’t be as bad as all that … I’m sorry.” He touched her arm and she didn’t turn around. “I don’t mean to intrude, but you looked so sad when you left that I was worried.”

She turned to look at him then, her hair blowing in the breeze, her eyes bright, and he could see that there were tears on her cheeks in the moonlight. “I seem to spend all my time on this ship telling people I’m alright.” She tried to smile, but she couldn’t quite pull it off as she wiped her eyes and he watched her.

“And have you convinced anyone?” His voice was warm and kind, and she almost wished she hadn’t met him. There was no point. He had his own life, and she had hers, and she was only here to bring back Alexis.

“No.” She smiled at him. “I don’t think I have convinced anyone.”

“Then I’m afraid you’ll have to try harder.” And then, with the kindest voice she’d ever heard, he asked a difficult question. “Has something really awful happened to you?” He couldn’t bear watching the suffering in her eyes, and she had looked that way since they’d left New York Harbor.

“Not lately.” She wanted to be honest with him, without going into all the details. “And I’m usually not this maudlin.” She smiled and wiped away the tears with a graceful hand as she took a deep breath of the sea air and tried to look more cheerful. “I just don’t like ships very much.”

“For any particular reason? Do you get seasick?”

“Not really.” She was vague with him. “I just don’t feel well on ships anymore … there are too many …” She stopped at the word
memories
, and then decided to throw caution to the winds. She didn’t know who he was, but for that moment in time, he was her friend, and she knew she liked him. “I was on the
Titanic
when it went down,” she explained quietly. “And I lost my parents and the man I was going to marry.” She didn’t cry this time, and for a moment Patrick was stunned into silence.

“My God.” There were tears in his eyes now. “I don’t know what to say … except that you’re very brave to be on the ship now. It must be awful for you. Is this the first time you’ve sailed since?” It explained why she was so strained and pale, and why she so seldom came out of her cabin, as she nodded.

“Yes, and it isn’t easy. I swore I’d never get on a ship again. But I had to come over to bring back my sister.”

“Was she on it too?” He was fascinated now. He had known of people who had been on the ship and gone down, but he had never met any of the survivors.

“We thought we had lost her. She was lost when we were getting into the lifeboats, or we thought she was. Actually, she’d gone back to the cabin for her doll. She was six years old then.” She smiled sadly. “The ship went down on her birthday. Anyway, we found her on the rescue ship, she was hysterical, and she’s never been … well, she’s a difficult child because of what she’s been through.”

“Did you have any other family?” He was interested in everything, but most of all in her. She was, after all, what they had thought her, a beautiful, mysterious young woman.

“I had three brothers, and two sisters and we all survived. Only my parents, and … my fiancé … went down. He was English too.” She smiled at the memory
as Patrick Sparks-Kelly watched her. “His name was Charles Fitzgerald.” Her voice grew husky again as she said his name, and for an instant she instinctively felt for the engagement ring on her finger. But she hadn’t worn it in years. She had offered to return it to his family, but Lady Fitzgerald had insisted that she keep it. But Patrick was staring at her now in amazement.

“My God …” He looked as though he’d seen a ghost, as his eyes met Edwina’s.

“I remember hearing about you … an American girl … from San Francisco … that was … oh, God, ten or twelve years ago. I was just married myself about then.” And then he explained what he was saying. “Charles was my second cousin.”

They stood in silence for a moment, thinking about him, and Edwina smiled again. It was a strange world, and it was odd that they should meet now, so long after he was gone.

“That was a terrible thing. Only son … favorite child … terrible …” He thought about it and it all came back to him, he even remembered hearing about Edwina. “His parents mourned him for years.”

“So did I,” she whispered.

“And you never married?”

She shook her head, and then smiled quietly at him. “I was too busy after that. I had the other children to bring up. I was twenty then, and most of them were still quite small. My brother Phillip was sixteen and he tried very hard to be a father to them, but it must have been hard for him to be so young and have so much on his shoulders. And he went away to college a year later, in 1913. And George was twelve, Alexis six, my little sister Fannie was four, and the baby was barely two. They kept me amused for a few years.” She grinned and he looked at her in amazement.

“And you did all that … alone?” He was stunned. She was quite something.

“More or less. I managed. I did my best, and sometimes I threw my hands up in despair, but we’ve all survived it.” … except for Phillip.

“And what happened to them now? Where are they all?”

She smiled as she thought of them, suddenly missing the two younger ones she had left in San Francisco. “My oldest brother, Phillip, died in the war six years ago. And my brother George is the family hero. He dropped out of Harvard when Phillip died, and he came home, and eventually went to Hollywood and has been a big success there.”

“As an actor?” Patrick looked intrigued. They sounded like an interesting group, certainly much more so than his own family in England.

But Edwina shook her head as she explained. “No, he’s a studio head now. And he’s awfully good at it. They’ve made some fairly major movies. And he just got married a few weeks ago.” She smiled. “And then there’s Alexis. The one I told you about. I’m meeting her in London,” but she didn’t explain why. “And Fannie, who is our homebody, she’s fifteen. And the baby, Teddy, is thirteen now.” She finished her account of them with a look of pride that touched him deeply.

“And you’ve managed them all single-handed. Bravo. I don’t know how you’ve done it.”

“I just did. Day by day. No one asked if I wanted to. It was something that had to be done, and I loved them all …” And then, in a gentle voice, “I did it for them … and for my mother…. She stayed on the ship to find Alexis. And then … when they wouldn’t let the men into the lifeboats, she chose to stay on with my father.”

The thought of it horrified him as he thought of the
children leaving the sinking ship in a lifeboat with only Edwina, and now she stared out to sea unhappily, remembering the night that would haunt her forever. “I think at first they must have thought there would be another lifeboat. No one ever really understood how few there were, or how dire the situation was. No one ever told us that we
had
to get off right then. The band just played on, and there were no sirens, no bells, just a lot of people milling around, thinking they had lots of time, and those precious few lifeboats going down. Maybe she thought she’d go later, or stay with him until other ships came….” But then, she turned to look at him, this stranger who had almost been her cousin, and she told him the truth she had hidden from herself for eleven years, and he reached out and took her hand as she said it. “For a long time, I hated her for what she’d done … not leaving me the children … but choosing to die with him, for loving him more than she did us … for letting her love for him kill her. I think it frightened me for a long time … it made me feel so guilty for leaving Charles, as though I should have stayed with him, too, just because she stayed with Papa.” There were tears rolling down Edwina’s cheeks now. “But I didn’t … I left in the first one, with the children … I took them off and let Mama and Papa and Charles die, while we were all safe in the lifeboat.” Just saying it released her from a burden of guilt she had carried for almost a dozen years, and as she spoke the words, she let herself drift into his arms and he held her.

“You couldn’t have known what would happen then. You didn’t know any more than they did … they thought they would all come in another lifeboat, or that they would still be on the ship later and they wouldn’t go down.” It was exactly what she had thought.

“I never knew I was saying good-bye to them,” she sobbed. “I hardly even kissed Charles … and then I
never saw him again.” She cried in the night air as Patrick held her.

“You couldn’t have done anything more. You did everything right … it was just rotten luck that it happened at all. But you weren’t to blame because you survived and they didn’t.”

“But why did she stay with him?” Edwina asked him as though he knew, but he could only guess, just as she had.

“Maybe she loved him too much to live on without him. That happens sometimes. Some women feel that way. Perhaps she couldn’t face it, and she knew you were there to take her place with the children.”

“But it wasn’t fair to the children, or to me … and I had to live on without Charles.” She sounded angry now as she spoke her innermost feelings for the first time. “Sometimes I hated her because I had survived and she hadn’t. Why did I have to live with the pain? Why did I have to live without him? Why did I have to …” She couldn’t go on, and it didn’t matter now. They were all gone, and Edwina had lived through it, She had devoted her life to loving Charles and them and bringing up her parents’ children, but it hadn’t been easy for her, and as Patrick listened to her cry, he knew it.

“Life is so unfair sometimes.” He wanted to cry with her, but he knew it wouldn’t help anything. He was only very flattered that she had talked to him. And he knew from the way she spoke that it was probably the first time she had admitted most of it, particularly her resentment of her mother for choosing to die with her father.

“I’m sorry.” She looked up at him finally. “I shouldn’t have told you all this.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks again, and he handed her a beautiful linen hand
kerchief with his crest embroidered on it, and she accepted it gratefully. “I don’t usually talk about all this.”

“I assumed that.” And then he smiled down at her again. “I wish we had met twelve years ago, and then perhaps I’d have stolen you from Charles, and you would have led a much happier life, and so would I. You’d have kept me from marrying someone I shouldn’t. Actually,” he smiled as he went on, “I married a first cousin of Charles’s, on his mother’s side. A very ‘handsome girl,’ as my mother said, but I’m afraid I never realized until too late that she didn’t love me.”