No Greater Love-Danielle Steel

[Dalyia]

"Is there any way I can find . . . I was looking for . .
She didn't quite know how to phrase the question. "We haven't been able to find my six-year-old sister, and I thought . . . she was with my mother. . .." It was impossible to say the words and yet she had to know, and the nurse understood. She gently touched Edwina's arm and handed her a list.
"We have everyone we picked up listed here, including the children.
It's possible that in the confusion yesterday, you might not have found her. What makes you think she's on the ship? Did you see her stowed in a lifeboat before you got off?"
"No." Edwina shook her head, and then held the doll out.
"It's this . . . she was never without it." Edwina looked so mournful now, and a quick perusal of the list told her that Alexis wasn't on it.
"Are you sure it's hers?"
"Positive. I made the dress myself."
"Could another child have taken it?"
"I suppose so." Edwina hadn't even thought of that. "But aren't there any lost children who are here without their parents?" She knew there were several unidentified babies in the sick bay, but Alexis was old enough to identify herself, if she wanted to . . . or wasn't too traumatized. . . . Edwina suddenly wondered if she was wandering about, unidentified and lost, and unaware that her brothers and sisters were on the ship with her. She said as much to the nurse, who told her that it was most unlikely.
But it was late that afternoon when she was strolling on the deck, and trying not to think of the hideous outline of the Titanic against the night sky just before she went down, her stern rising against the horizon, when she saw Mrs. Carter's maid, Miss Serepeca, taking a short walk with the children.
Miss Lucille and Master William were looking as frightened as the other children on the ship, and the third child hung back, clutching Miss Serepeca's hand, and seeming almost too terrified to walk on deck, and then suddenly as the child turned, Edwina saw her face, and gasped, and in an instant she was running toward her and had swept her into her arms, off the deck, and she held her with all her love and strength, crying as though her heart would break. She had found her! It was Alexis!
As Edwina held the frightened child in her arms, and smoothed her hair over and over again, Miss Serepeca explained, as best she could, what had happened. When Alexis had been thrown into lifeboat number four, Mrs. Carter had rapidly realized that she had no family with her, and once on the Carpathia, she had taken responsibility for her until they reached New York. And, Miss Serepeca added in an undertone, ever since the child had seen the ship go down almost two days before, she had not said one word. They didn't know her first name or her last, she absolutely refused to speak to them or say where she was from, and Mrs.
Carter had been hoping that some member of her family would claim her in New York. And it was going to be a great relief to Mrs. Carter, Miss Serepeca said, to find that the little girl's mother was on the ship after all. But as she said the words, Alexis spun her head around, instinctively looking for Kate, and Edwina quietly shook her head, pulling the child closer to her.
"No, baby, she's not here with us." They were the hardest words she would ever say to her, and Alexis tried to pull away, while bowing her head, not wanting to hear what Edwina was saying. But Edwina wouldn't let her stray far from her. They had almost lost her that way once before. Edwina thanked Miss Serepeca profusely and promised to look for Mrs. Carter to thank her for taking care of Alexis. But as Edwina walked back to the shelter of the Grand Saloon, carrying her, Alexis stared at her miserably, and she had still not said a single word to Edwina. "I love you, sweetheart . . . oh, I love you so much and we've been so worried about you. . .." There were tears streaming down her cheeks as she carried the child. It was a gift finding her again, yet Edwina found herself wishing that she could have found them all, that she could have discovered her parents and Charles hovering in a corner somewhere. They couldn't really be gone. It couldn't have happened like that, except it had . . . and only Alexis was left, like a little ghost from the past. A past that had existed only a short time before, and was gone now, like a dream she would always remember.
When Edwina held her treasured doll out to her, Alexis snatched it from her sister's hand, and held it close to her face, but she wouldn't speak to anyone, and she watched as Phillip cried when he saw her again, but it was George she turned to now, as he stared down at her in amazement.
"I thought you were gone, Lexie," he said quietly. "We looked for you everywhere." She didn't answer him, but her eyes never left his, and she slept next to him that night, holding his hand, and with her other hand, clutching her doll, as Phillip kept watch over them both. Edwina was sleeping with Fannie and Teddy in the infirmary again that night, although Fannie was fine, and Teddy was much better. But it was the safest place for her to be with two such delicate children, and Teddy was still coughing pretty badly at night. She had invited Alexis to stay there with her too, but she had shaken her head, and followed George into the Grand Saloon and lay down next to him on his narrow mattress. Her brother lay on his side watching her, before they fell asleep. It was like seeing his mother again, finding her, because the two had always been together so much of the time, and he slept that night, dreaming about their parents. He was still dreaming about them when he woke up in the middle of the night and heard Alexis crying beside him, and he comforted her and held her close to him, but she wouldn't stop crying.
"What is it, Lexie?" he asked finally, wondering if she would finally tell him, or if, like the rest of them, she was just so sad that all she could do was wail. "Do you hurt? . . . do you feel sick? Do you want Edwina?"
She shook her head, looking down at him as she sat up, clutching her dolly to her. "I want Mama. . .." She whispered softly, her big blue eyes searching his face, and tears sprang to his own eyes as he heard her and then he hugged her to him.
"So do I, Lexie . . . so do I." They slept holding hands that night, two of Kate's children, the legacy she had left behind when she had chosen not to leave her husband. They all remembered the great love she had had for them, and the love and tenderness between their parents, but now all that was gone, to another place, another time.
And all that was left was the family they had created, six people, six lives, six souls, six of the precious few who had survived the Titanic.
And for the rest of time, Kate, and Bert, and Charles, and the others were gone.
Lost forever.
EDWINA AND PHILLIP stood on the deck on Thursday night, in a sorrowful rain, as the Carpathia passed the Statue of Liberty and entered New York. They were home again, or back in the States at least. But it seemed as though there was nothing left for them now. They had lost everything, or so it felt, and Edwina had to silently remind herself that at least they still had each other. But life would never be the same for them again.
Their parents were gone, and she had lost her future husband.
In only four months, she and Charles would have been married, and now he was gone . . . his gentle spirit, his fine mind, his handsome face, the kindness she had so loved, the tilt of his head when he laughed at her . . . all of it, and with him her bright, happy future, gone forever.
Phillip turned to her then, and saw the tears streaming down her cheeks, as the Carpathia steamed slowly into the harbor, assisted by tugs, but there were no sirens, no horns, no fanfare, there was only sorrow and silent mourning.
Captain Rostron had reassured them all the night before that the press would be kept away from them for as long as possible, and he would do everything he could to assure them a quiet arrival in New York. He warned them that the ship's radio room had been besieged by wires from the press since the morning of the fifteenth, but he had answered none of them, and no journalists would be allowed on his ship. The survivors of the Titanic had earned the right to mourn in peace, and he felt a responsibility to all of them to bring them home quietly and safely.
But all Edwina could think about now was what they had left behind, somewhere in the bowels of the ocean. Phillip quietly took her hand in his own, as he stood next to her, the tears streaming down his face as well, thinking of how different it all might have been, had the fates been only a little kinder.
"Win?" He hadn't called her that since he was a small child, and she smiled through her tears as he said it.
"Yes?"
"What are we going to do now?" They had talked about it on and off, but she hadn't really had time to think about it, with Teddy so ill, and Alexis so distraught, and the others to worry about too now.
George had hardly spoken in the last two days, and she had found herself longing for a little of his naughtiness and mischief. And poor little Fannie cried every time Edwina left her, even if it was only for an instant. It was difficult to think, with all the responsibility she suddenly had. All she knew was that she had to take care of them, and Phillip as well.
She was all they had now.
"I don't know, Phillip. We'll go home, I guess, as soon as Teddy is completely well." He still had a dreadful cough, and the day before he'd been running a fever. And for the moment, none of them were up to the long train ride back to California.
"We'll have to stay in New York for a little while, and then go home."
But the house, and the newspaper? It was more than she cared to think about. All she wanted to do now was look back . . . just a moment .
. . a few days . . . to the last night she was dancing with Charles to the happy ragtime music. It was all so simple then, as he whirled her around the floor, and then swept her into the beautiful waltzes she loved best of all. They had danced so much in four days on the ship that she had almost worn her new silver shoes out and now she felt as though she would never dance again, and never want to.
"Win?" He had seen her mind drift away again. She kept doing that.
They all did.
"Hmm? . . . I'm sorry . .." She stared out at New York Harbor, looking at the rain, fighting back tears, and wishing that things were different. And everyone on the Carpathia felt the same, as the widows lined the railing, with tears streaming down their cheeks, mourning the men and the lives they'd lost less than four days before. Four days that now seemed like a lifetime.
Many of them were being met by relatives and friends, but the Winfields had no one in New York to meet them. Bert had made reservations for them at the Ritz-Carlton before they left, and they would stay there now until they left for California again. But simple details were now suddenly complicated for all of them. They had no money, no clothes, Alexis had somehow managed to lose her shoes, and Edwina had only her now tattered pale blue evening gown and the black dress someone had given her the day they'd been rescued from the lifeboats. It was a problem for all of them, and Edwina found herself wondering how she would pay for the hotel. She would have to wire her father's office in San Francisco. Suddenly she was having to solve problems that only a week ago she had never even thought of.

[Dalyia]

They had radioed the White Star Line's London office from the ship and asked them to notify Uncle Rupert and Aunt Liz that all of the Winfield children had survived, but Edwina knew that her aunt would be hard hit by the news of the loss of her only sister. She had also radioed her father's office with the same information There was suddenly so much to think about, and as she stared out into the New York mist, suddenly a flotilla of tugboats came into view, there was a shrill whistle blast, and then suddenly there were salutes from every boat in the harbor.
The spell of the somber silence they had all lived with for four days was about to be broken. It had never occurred to Edwina and Phillip that their tragedy would be big news, and suddenly as they looked at the tugs and yachts and ferries below, crowded with reporters and photographers, they both realized that this was not going to be easy.
But Captain Rostron was as good as his word, and no one except the pilot boarded the Carpathia before they reached the pier. And the photographers had to satisfy themselves with whatever photographs they could take from the distance. The lone photographer who had snuck on board had been seized and confined to the bridge by the captain.
They reached Pier 54 at 9:35 P. M and for a moment all was silent on the ship. Their terrible journey was about to be ended. The lifeboats from the Titanic had been taken off first, the davits had been moved into place, and the boats lowered as they had been when they left the sinking ship four days before, only this time the boats were lowered with only a single seaman in each, as the survivors stood at the rail and watched while lightning bolts lit up the night sky, and thunder exploded overhead. The sky seemed to be crying over the empty boats, as the mourners watched them, and even the crowd below stood in silent awe as they were made fast and left there bobbing in the water. And it would be only a matter of hours before looters stripped them.
Alexis and George had joined Edwina and Phillip as the lifeboats were lowered toward the deck, and Alexis started to cry as she clutched Edwina's skirt. She was frightened by the storm, and her eyes were wild with fear as she watched the lifeboats go down and Edwina held her close as Kate had always done. But in the last few days, Edwina had felt like such an inadequate replacement for their mother.
"Are we . . . going in them again?" Terrified, Alexis could barely speak as Edwina tried to reassure her. And Edwina could only shake her head. She was crying too hard to answer . . . those boats . . . those tiny shells . . . and so precious few of them . . . had there been more, the others would have been alive. .
"Don't cry, Lexie . . . please don't cry It was all she could say to her as she held her tiny hand. She couldn't even promise her that everything would be alright again. She no longer believed it herself, so how could she make empty promises to the children? She felt as though her heart were filled with sadness.
Edwina saw, as she looked at the pier, that there were hundreds if not thousands of people waiting there. At first, it looked like a sea of faces. And then, as lightning lit up the sky again, she saw that there were more. There were people everywhere. The newspapers said later that there were thirty thousand at the pier, and ten thousand lining the banks of the river.
But Edwina was unaware of most of them. And what did they matter now?
The people she loved were gone, her parents and Charles. There was no one waiting for them there. There was no one left in the world to care for them. It was all on her shoulders now, and even poor Phillips. At sixteen, he was no longer a child, he would have to become a man, a burden he had willingly assumed from the moment they were saved, but it seemed so unfair to Edwina as she looked at him, telling George to put his coat on and stand next to Alexis. It made Edwina sad all over again, just looking at them, in their ragged clothes and ravaged faces.
They all suddenly looked like what they were. All of the Winfield children were now orphans.
The Carpathia passengers disembarked first. There was a long wait then, as the captain gathered all the others in the dining saloon where they had slept for three days, and he said a prayer, for those lost at sea, and for the survivors, for their children and their lives. There was a long moment of silence then, and only the sounds of gentle sobbing. People said goodbye to each other then, a touch on the arm, an embrace, a last look, a shake of the head, a touch of the hand for a moment, and then they shook hands with Captain Rostron. There was little that anyone could say, as the silent group left each other for the last time. They would never be together again, yet they would always remember.
Two of the women reached the gangplank first, hesitated, started to turn back, and then walked down slowly with tears streaming down their faces. They were friends from Philadelphia, and they had both lost their husbands, and they stopped midway as a roar went up from the crowd. It was a roar of sorrow, and of grief, of sympathy, and fascination, but it was a terrifying sound, and poor little Alexis dove into Edwina's skirts again with her hands over her ears and her eyes closed, and Fannie set up a terrible wail as Phillip held her.
"It's alright . . . it's alright, children. . .." Edwina tried to reassure them, but they couldn't hear her above the din. And she was horrified as she watched reporters dash forward and engulf the exhausted survivors. The flash of cameras exploded everywhere, as the heavens rained, and the lightning bolts continued to flash across the sky. It was a terrible night, but no more so than the night that had brought them all to this end only days before. That was the worst night of their lives, and this . . . this was only one more. Nothing more could happen to them now, Edwina felt, as she gently shepherded her brothers and sisters toward the gangplank. She had no hat, and she was soaked to the skin, as she carried Alexis, who clung to her neck with trembling desperation. Phillip carried each of the two youngest ones in his arms, and George walked right beside him looking very subdued and more than a little frightened.
The crowd was so huge, it was hard to know exactly what they would do.
And Edwina realized as they reached the end of the gangplank that people were shouting names at them.
"Chandler! . . . Harrison! . . . Gates? Gates! . . . Have you seen them? . .." They were family members and friends, desperately looking for survivors, but with each name, she shook her head, she knew none of them . . . and in the distance, she saw the Thayers being embraced by friends from Philadelphia. There were ambulances and cars everywhere, and again and again, the explosions of light coming from the reporters. There were wails from the crowd, and sobs, as the survivors shook their heads at the names being called out to them.
Until then, no complete list of the survivors had been published and there was always hope that the news was wrong, that a loved one may have in fact survived the disaster. The Carpathia had refused to communicate with the press, maintaining a barrier of silence around the survivors for their own protection. But now Captain Rostron could no longer do anything to shield them.
"Ma'am . . . ma'am!" A reporter lunged out at her, almost causing Alexis to leap from her arms, as he shouted into Edwina's face. "Are these all your children? Were you on the Titanic?" He was bold and brash and loud, and in the frenzy around them, Edwina couldn't escape him.
"No . . . yes . . . I . . . please . . . please. . .." She started to cry, longing for Charles and her parents, as the dreaded flash went off in her face, as Phillip tried to shield her but he was too encumbered with the younger children to help her very much, and suddenly a sea of reporters surrounded them, pushing George away, as Edwina shouted to him not to lose them. "Please . . . please . . . stop! . . ' They had done the same to Madeleine Astor when she'd gotten off with her maid, but Vincent Astor, and her own father, Mr.
Force, had rescued her and taken her away in the ambulance they had brought for her. Edwina and Phillip were not to be as lucky, but they left as quickly as possible, Phillip had gotten them into one of the waiting cars sent by the Ritz-Carlton. They were driven down Seventh Avenue, and walked slowly into the hotel, a ragtag-looking group with no luggage. But there were more reporters waiting there, and a solicitous desk clerk quickly escorted them to their rooms, where Edwina had to fight back a wave of hysterics. It was as though they had never left. The beautiful elegantly appointed rooms were the same as they had been only a month and a half before, and now they were back, and everything had changed completely. They had given them the same rooms as they'd had when they arrived from San Francisco, before they took the Mauretania to Europe to meet the Fitzgeralds and celebrate Edwina's engagement.
"Win . . . are you alright?"
She couldn't speak for a moment and then she nodded, looking deathly pale. She was wearing the tattered blue evening dress, her rain-drenched coat, and brogues, the same outfit she had worn when she left the Titanic. "I'm fine," she whispered unconvincingly, but all she could think about was the last time she had been in these rooms, only weeks before, with Charles and her parents.
"Do you want me to get different rooms?" Phillip looked desperately worried. If she fell apart now, what would they do?
Whom would they turn to? She was all they had now, but she shook her head slowly and dried her eyes, and made an effort to reassure the children. For now, she knew only too well that everything rested on her shoulders.
"George, you look for the menus. We need something to eat. And Phillip, you help Fannie and Alexis get into their nightclothes." She realized again then that they no longer had any. But when they walked through the other rooms, she saw what the owners of the Ritz-Carlton had done. They had provided an assortment of women's and children's clothes, and some things for the boys, too, sweaters and trousers, some warm socks, and some shoes, and laid out on the bed, two little nightgowns for the girls, two new dolls, a nightshirt and a bear for Teddy. The kindness was so great that it made Edwina cry again, and as she entered the main bedroom of the suite, her breath caught. There on the bed were clothes carefully laid out for her parents, and a bottle of champagne, and she knew that in the last bedroom, she would find the same for Charles. Her breath caught on a sob, and with a last look around her, she turned off the light, and closed the door, and went back to the waiting children.
She seemed calmer then, and once the little ones were put to bed, she sat down on the couch with Phillip and George and watched them eat a whole plate of roast chicken, and then some cakes, but even the thought of eating just seemed too exhausting to her. Alexis had that wild-eyed look again just before she went to bed, and all Edwina could do was urge her to hold her old doll, Mrs. Thomas, tight, and cuddle her new dolly. Fannie had gone to sleep in the big comfortable bed next to her, and baby Teddy was already sound asleep in a large, handsome cradle in his new nightshirt.
"We'll have to wire Uncle Rupert and Aunt Liz in the morning," she told the boys. They had wired them and Charles's parents via White Star from the ship, but she owed it to them to let them know they were safely arrived. There was so much to do and to think about. Nothing could be assumed anymore. Nothing could be taken for granted. She had to get clothes for them to get to California, she had to go to a bank, and get the little ones to a doctor. Most of all Edwina wanted to see a specialist to make sure that Teddy was alright and Fannie did not lose her frostbitten fingers. They looked better now, and in spite of the tempestuous arrival, Teddy had not run a fever. In truth, Alexis seemed the worst affected of all of them, the trauma of losing her mother seemed to have left her bereft of any interest in what was happening around her. She was despondent and afraid, and she got hysterical if Edwina tried to leave her even for an instant. But it was hardly surprising after what they'd all been through. The shock of it would stay with them all for a long time, and Edwina could feel her own hands shake whenever she tried to write something down, even her own name, or button the children's buttons. But all she could do was force herself to keep on going. She knew she had to.

[Dalyia]

She went down to the front desk then and spoke to them about hiring a car and driver for the next day, or at the very least a carriage if all the cars had been hired out, but they assured her that a car and driver would be put at her disposal.
She thanked them for the clothes they had left for them, and the thoughtful gifts for the children, and the manager of the hotel somberly shook her hand and extended his sympathy for the loss of her parents. They were old patrons of the hotel, and he had been devastated to learn when she arrived that they had not survived the disaster.
Edwina thanked him quietly and walked slowly back upstairs. She had glimpsed two or three familiar faces from the ship, but everyone was busy now, and exhausted with the business of surviving.
It was almost one o'clock in the morning when she found her two brothers playing cards in the living room of the suite.
They were drinking seltzer water and finishing off the last of the cakes, and for an instant, she stood in the doorway and smiled at them.
It saddened her to realize that life went on as though nothing had happened, and yet at the same time she realized that it would be their only salvation. They had to go on, they had a whole life ahead of them. They were only children. But Edwina knew that for her, without Charles, it would never be the same. There would never be another man like him, she knew. Her life now would consist of taking care of the children and nothing else.
"Going to bed tonight, gentlemen?" She blinked back tears again as she looked at them. They smiled at her, and then suddenly, looking at her in her now ridiculous outfit, George glanced up at her and grinned. It was the first time she had seen him look like his old self since they'd left the Titanic.
"You look awful, Edwina." He laughed, and even Phillip smiled in spite of himself. She did, and suddenly in the elegantly appointed rooms, her incongruous costume looked less noble and really only foolish.
"Thank you, George." She smiled. "I'll do my best to put something decent together tomorrow morning so I don't embarrass you."
"See that you do," he intoned haughtily, and went back to his card game.
"See that you two go to bed, please," she scolded them both, and then went to soak in the luxurious bathtub. And as she took the dress off a few minutes later, she held it for a long moment and stared at it. At first, she thought she would throw it away, she never wanted to see it again, and yet another part of her wanted to save it. It was the dress she had worn the last time she'd seen Charles . . . the last night she'd been with her parents . . . it was a relic of a lost life, of a moment in time when everything had changed, when everything had been lost forever. She folded it carefully then, and put it in a drawer.
She didn't know what she'd do with it, but in a way it seemed like all she had left, a shredded evening gown, and it almost seemed as though it had belonged to someone else, a person she had been, and would never be again, and now could scarcely remember.
THE MORNING after they arrived, Edwina put on the black dress she'd been given on the rescue ship, and took Fannie and Teddy and Alexis to the doctor the hotel manager had recommended. And when she got there, the doctor was actually surprised at how well the children had survived their ordeal on the Titanic. Fannie's two smallest fingers on her left hand would probably never be quite the same, they would be less sensitive and a little stiff, but he doubted very seriously that she would lose them. And he thought Teddy had made a remarkable recovery as well, perhaps even more so. He told Edwina that he considered it quite extraordinary that the child had survived the exposure at all, and in an undertone, he told her he thought the entire experience tragic and amazing. He tried to ask her questions about the night that the Titanic went down, but Edwina was reluctant to talk about it, particularly in front of the children.
She asked him to examine Alexis as well, but other than a number of bruises she'd gotten when she was thrown into the lifeboat, she appeared to be surprisingly unaffected and healthy. The problem was that the damage done to Alexis had been to her spirit far more than to her body. Ever since they'd found her again on the Carpathia, Edwina felt that she was no longer herself. It was as though she couldn't face the fact that their mother was gone, so she faced nothing at all.
She spoke seldom if at all, and always seemed removed and distant.
"She may be that way for quite some time," he warned Edwina when they were alone for a moment, as the nurse helped the children dress again.
"She may never be the same again. Too great a shock for some." But Edwina refused to believe that. In time, she knew that Alexis would be herself again, although she had always been a shy child, and in some ways too attached to their mother. But she made a commitment to herself now, not to let the tragedy destroy their lives, not the children's anyway. And as long as she was occupied with them, she had no time to think of herself, which was a blessing. And he told her that within a week, he felt they'd be ready for the journey to San Francisco. They needed a little time to catch their breath before being moved, but then again, so did Edwina.
When they went back to the hotel, they found Phillip and George poring over the story in the papers. Fifteen pages of The New York Times were devoted to interviews and accounts of the great disaster. And George wanted to read everything to Edwina, who didn't want to hear it. She had already had three messages from The New York Times herself, from reporters wanting to speak to her, but she had thrown the messages away, and had no intention of spending any time with reporters. She knew her own father's paper would carry the story of his death, and the circumstances of the giant ship going down, and if they wanted to speak to her when she got home, she knew she would have to. But she wanted nothing to do with the sensationalism of what was happening in the papers in New York. And she growled at a photograph of herself leaving the ship with her brothers and sisters.
She had also gotten another message that morning when she got back to the hotel. A Senate subcommittee was to begin meeting the next day, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and they were inviting her to come and speak to them within the next few days, about the Titanic. They wanted the details of what had occurred, from all the survivors who were willing to speak to them. It was important that the committee understand what had happened, who, if anyone, was to blame, and how a similar disaster could be avoided in the future. She had told Phillip about that, and that she was nervous about appearing but felt she should, and he tried to reassure her.
They had lunch in their rooms at the hotel, and then Edwina announced that she had work to do. They couldn't live forever in borrowed clothes, and she had to do some shopping.
"Do we have to go?" George looked appalled, and Phillip buried himself again in the papers, as Edwina smiled at them.
For a minute, George had sounded just like their father.
"No, you don't, as long as you stay here and help Phillip take care of the others." It reminded her of the fact that she would need to hire someone to help her once she got home. But even that thought reminded her of poor Oona. Whatever she thought of just now always took her back to painful memories of the sinking.
She went first to the bank, then to Altman's, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street, and bought as much as she could for all of them. And then she went to Oppenheim Collins and bought the rest of what she needed. Her father's office had wired her a fairly large sum, and she had more than enough money for herself and the children.
It was after four o'clock when she got back to the hotel in a somber black mourning dress she had bought at Altman's. And she was startled to see George playing cards again with Phillip.
"Where are the others?" she asked as she deposited her bundles on the floor of the sitting room, as the driver staggered in with the rest.
She realized suddenly that it took a great many things to properly outfit five children. And she had bought five serious black dresses for herself. She knew she would be wearing them for a long time, and when she'd put the somber-looking gowns on in the store, she realized with a sad pang how much they made her look like her mother.
But now as she looked around the suite, she couldn't see any of the younger children. Only her two brothers playing one of their passionate card games. "Where are they?"
Phillip grinned, and pointed toward the bedroom. Edwina quickly crossed the room, and gasped when she saw them. The two little girls and their two-year-old brother were playing with one of the maids and what must have been at least two dozen new dolls, and a rocking horse, and a train just for Teddy.
"My word!" Edwina looked stunned as she looked around the room. There were still unwrapped boxes halfway to the ceiling. "Where did all that come from?"
George only shrugged, and threw a card down that infuriated his brother, and then Phillip glanced over at Edwina, still gazing around in awe. "I'm not sure. There were cards on everything. I think most of it is stuff from people here at the hotel there's something from The New York Times . . . the White Star Line sent some things too. I don't know, they're just gifts, I guess." And the children were having a wonderful time tearing through them. Even Alexis looked up happily and grinned at her sister. It was the birthday party she had been cheated of on the day they sank, and more. It looked like ten birthdays and a Christmas.
Edwina walked around it all in amazement, as Teddy sat happily on his new horse and waved at his big sister. "What are we going to do with all this?"
"We'll just have to take it home, of course," George answered matter-of-factly.
"Did you get everything you needed?" Phillip asked as she attempted to make some order in the room, and divide up her purchases according to whom they were for. He looked up at her then and frowned. "I don't much like the dress, it's kind of old-looking, isn't it?"
"I suppose," she said quietly, but it had seemed appropriate to her.
She didn't feel young anymore, and wondered if she ever would again.
"They didn't have much in black at the two stores I went to." She was so tall and slim that it wasn't always easy to find exactly what she wanted. Her mother had had that problem too, and they had shared dresses sometimes. But no longer. They would never share anything again . . . not their friendship, their warmth, their laughter. Like Edwina's childhood, it was all over.
Phillip looked up at her again then, and realized why she was wearing black. He hadn't thought of that at first, and he wondered if he and George would have to wear black ties and black armbands. They did when their grandparents had died.

[Dalyia]

Mama had said it was a gesture of respect, but Papa had said that he thought it was silly. Which reminded Phillip of something he had forgotten to tell her.
"We got a Marconigram today from Uncle Rupert and Aunt Liz."
"Oh, dear." Edwina frowned. "I meant to send them a wire this morning and I forgot, with all the excitement of going to the doctor. Where is it?" He pointed to the desk and she picked it up and then sat down with a sigh. It was not exactly news that she wanted, although she appreciated their good intentions. Uncle Rupert was putting Aunt Liz on the Olympic in two days, and they were to wait for her in New York, and she would then bring them back with her to England. Edwina felt her heart skip a beat as she read it, and she felt sorry for her aunt's having to come over, knowing how desperately seasick she got. Besides which, the very thought of an ocean crossing now made Edwina feel ill.
She knew she would never get on a ship again for as long as she lived.
She would never forget the sight of the Titanic's stern sticking straight up out of the water and outlined against the night sky as they sat watching her from the lifeboats.
She wired an answer back to them later that evening, urging Aunt Liz not to come, and telling them that they were going back to San Francisco. But another response came back to them the next morning.
"No discussion. You will return to England with your aunt Elizabeth.
Stop. Regret circumstances for all of you. Must make the best of it here. See you shortly. Rupert Hickham."
The very prospect of going back to Havermoor Manor to live almost made her shudder.
"Do we have to, Edwina?" George looked up at her with ill-concealed horror, and Fannie started to cry and said she was always cold there and the food was awful.
"So was I cold, now stop crying, you silly goose. The only place we're going is home. Is that clear?" Five heads nodded and five serious faces hoped that she meant it. But it was going to be a little more difficult convincing their uncle Rupert.
Edwina fired off an answer to him at once. And a two-day battle ensued, culminating in their aunt Liz's coming down with a ferocious case of influenza, which forced her to postpone the crossing. And in the interim, Edwina made herself more than clear to her uncle. "No need to come to New York. We are going home to San Francisco. Much to settle, many things to work out. We will be fine there. Please come and visit. We will be home by May 1st. All love to you and Aunt Liz.
Edwina."
The last thing any of them wanted now was to go and live in England with Aunt Liz and Uncle Rupert. Edwina wouldn't consider it for a moment.


"Are you sure they won't come to San Francisco and just take us?"
George's eyes were huge in his face, and Edwina smiled at the obvious concern there.
"Of course not. They're not kidnappers, they're our aunt and uncle, and they mean well. It's just that I think we can manage on our own in San Francisco." It was a brave statement for her to make, and one she had yet to prove, but she had decided that she was determined to do it.
The paper was run by a fine staff well chosen by her father, and well directed by him over the years. There was no reason why anything had to change now, even without Bert Winfield at the helm of the paper. He had often said that if anything ever happened to him, no one would ever know it. And they were about to be put to the test, because Edwina had no intention of selling the paper. They needed the income, and even though it wasn't vastly profitable like The New York Times, or any of the truly great papers, it was still a very comfortable little venture, and she and the others would need the money, if they were to survive and stay together in their home in San Francisco. And she had no intention of letting Rupert, or Liz, or anyone else force her to sell the paper, or the house, or anything else that had belonged to their parents. She was anxious to get home now to see that everything was sorted out, and no one made any decisions that affected her and that she didn't approve of. She had decided they were going home. But what she didn't know was that Rupert had already made plans to have her close up the house and put the paper up for sale. As far as he was concerned the Winfield children would not be returning to San Francisco, and if so, not for long. But he had not fully reckoned with Edwina, and her determination to keep her family where they belonged.
Together, at home, in San Francisco.
The Winfield children spent the next week in New York, went for long walks in the park, saw the doctor again, and were pleased with the reports about Teddy's health and Fannie's two fingers. They had lunch at the Plaza, and went shopping again, because George informed Edwina that he wouldn't be caught dead wearing the jacket she had bought him.
It was a time to relax and to rest, and to be slowly restored, but at night they were all still strangely quiet, haunted by their own thoughts and fears, and the ship that had caused them. Alexis still had nightmares, and she slept in Edwina's bed now, with Fannie in another bed just beside her, and Teddy in a crib close beside them.
They had dinner in their rooms at the hotel on the last night, and they spent a quiet evening, playing cards, and talking, and George made them laugh with embarrassingly accurate impersonations of Uncle Rupert.
"That's not fair," Edwina tried to scold him, but she was laughing too.
"The poor thing has gout, and he means well."
But he was funny anyway, and easy prey for George's wicked sense of humor. And only Alexis didn't laugh with them, she hadn't smiled in days, and if anything, she was growing more withdrawn, as she silently mourned their parents.
"I don't want to go home," she whispered to Edwina late that night, as they lay cuddled close to each other in bed, and Edwina listened to the gently purring breath of the others.
"Why not?" she whispered, but Alexis only shook her head, and her eyes filled with tears as she buried her face in Edwina's shoulder. "What are you afraid of, sweetheart?
There's nothing to hurt you there. . .." Nothing could hurt them as much as the loss they had sustained on the Titanic. And there were times when even Edwina wished that her own life had been lost, there were times when she didn't want to go on without Charles or her parents. She had so little time alone to think about him, to mourn him, to just let her thoughts drift back to their happy moments. And yet, thinking about Charles at all was so painful, she could hardly bear it. But with the little ones counting on her, she knew she had to pull herself together. She could only allow herself to think of them and no one else. "You'll be safe in your own room again," she crooned to Alexis, "and you can go to school with your friends.
But Alexis shook her head vehemently, and then looked up miserably at her older sister.
"Mama won't be there when we get home." It was a sad fact they all knew, and Edwina also knew that a part of her was somehow childishly hoping that they would be there, and Charles with them, and it would all be a cruel joke, and none of it would have happened. But Alexis knew better, and she wisely didn't want to have to face it when they went home to San Francisco.
"No, she won't be there. But she'll be there in our hearts, she always will be. They all will Mama, and Papa, and Charles. And once we go home, maybe we'll even feel closer to Mama there." The house on California Street was so much a part of her, she had done so many things to make it lovely for them, and the garden was entirely magic of her mother's making. "Don't you want to see the rosebushes in Mama's secret garden?" Alexis only shook her head, and her arms went around Edwina's neck in quiet desperation. "Don't be afraid, sweetheart .
.
. don't be afraid . . . I'm here . . . and I always will be And as she held the little girl close to her, she knew she would never leave them. She thought of the things her mother had said in the past about how much she loved her children. Edwina thought about it, as she drifted off to sleep holding her little sister . . . it was true, she remembered how much her mother had loved her . . . and there was no greater love than she would have to have now for her brothers and sisters. And as she drifted off to sleep, and thought of Charles and her father, she remembered her mother's face and felt the tears sliding into her pillow, as she held Alexis near her.
THE WINFIELDS left New York on April 26, on a stormy Friday morning eleven days after the Titanic had gone down.
The car from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel took them to the station, and the driver helped Edwina check in their bags. There were precious few of them now, and they carried with them only the things she had bought for them in New York. The toys and gifts from well-wishers had been packed and sent on ahead by train. And now there was nothing left for them to do but go home, and begin to live their life without their parents.
For the little ones nothing much had changed, but Phillip felt an enormous responsibility to them all now, and for a boy of not quite seventeen, it was an awesome burden. And George felt the difference too. With Edwina, he didn't dare be quite as wild, because she was stricter with him than his parents had been, but he felt sorry for her too. She had so much to do now to take care of the younger children.
She always seemed to have one of them in her arms. Fannie was always crying, Teddy always needed to be changed, or had to be carried, and Alexis was either clinging to her skirts, or hiding from people in a remote corner or behind the curtains. It seemed as though Edwina needed to be an octopus now, and although George still liked keeping amused, he no longer dared to do it at the expense of his older sister.
In fact, both boys seemed absolutely angelic to her as they helped her board the train and settle the younger children.
They had two adjoining compartments on the train, and after sleeping on mattresses on the floor of the Carpathia for three days, she knew no one would ever complain again about the accommodations. They were grateful to be safe and warm, and to be going home, and as the train pulled slowly out of the station, Edwina felt a wave of relief sweep over her. They were going home again, to a familiar place where they would be safe, and nothing terrible would ever happen to them again, at least she hoped not. It was odd for Edwina now. At times she was so preoccupied with taking care of all of them that she didn't have time to think, or to remember, and at other times, like at night, in bed with Alexis or Fannie, all she could think of was Charles, and his last kisses, the touch of his hand . . . their last dance . . . and his good spirits when she had last seen him on the Titanic. He had been an elegant, kindhearted young man, and she knew he would have made her a wonderful husband.
Not that it mattered now. And yet she tortured herself thinking about it, and she did again on the train, hearing his name repeated over and over and over again as she listened to the sound of the wheels speeding along the train tracks .
Charles . . . Charles . . . Charles . . . I love you . . . I love you . . . I love you . . . she wanted to scream as she imagined the words and she could hear his voice calling her. And finally she closed her eyes just to shut out the face that still seemed so real to her in the darkness. She knew she would never forget him. And she envied her parents staying together till the end. Sometimes she wished she had gone down on the ship with Charles, and then she had to force her thoughts back to the children.
Edwina and the children read the newspapers as they crossed the States, and news of the Titanic was everywhere.
The Senate subcommittee hearings were still continuing.
Edwina had appeared before them briefly in New York. And it had been emotional and painful, but she had felt it her duty to oblige them.
And their conclusion thus far was that a three hundred-foot-long gash on the starboard side had caused the Titanic to founder. It no longer seemed to matter now, but people appeared to have a need to find a reason, a cause, as though that would make it all seem right, but Edwina knew only too well that it wouldn't. More importantly, people were outraged at the loss of life, and the fact that there had been lifeboats for less than half of those aboard. The committee had asked her how the officers had conducted themselves and what her impression was of how people had behaved in the lifeboats.
There was a general outcry over the fact that there had been no lifeboat drill, and not even the crew knew which were their stations.
The most appalling fact of all was that the lifeboats had been sent off the ship half empty, and had then refused to pick people up out of the water after the ship sank, for fear of overturning. The whole episode was one that would go down in history as a heart-wrenching tragedy of monumental proportions. Testifying had left her feeling spent and desolate, as though going there somehow might have changed it, but it didn't. The people they had loved were gone, and nothing was ever going to bring them back. Somehow, talking about it now only made it more painful. It was even more so to read in the newspaper on the train that three hundred and twenty-eight bodies had been recovered, but Edwina already knew before she left New York that none of them had been her parents or Charles.
She had gotten a touching telegram from the Fitzgeralds in London, offering their condolences to her, and assuring her that in their hearts she would always be their daughter. And for some odd reason, it made her think of the beautiful wedding veil that was being made, and Lady Fitzgerald was to have brought over in August. What would happen to it now? Who would wear it? And why did she care? She had no right to mourn the little things, she told herself, or to care about things like that now. Her wedding veil was no longer important. And at night, on the train, she lay awake, trying not to think about all of it, and staring out the window. Charles's gloves, which he had thrown to her to keep her own hands warm as she left the ship, were still in her valise. But she couldn't bear to look at them now. Even seeing them was painful. But just knowing that she still had them was a comfort.

[Dalyia]

. 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 fiance 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.
"Let it go," she said softly, and turned away to walk slowly to the window. She was thinking of what it had been like, and how anyone could pay you for that, and how they had almost lost Alexis when she ran away . . . and little Teddy from the brutal exposure to the freezing temperatures, and Fannie with her two little stiff fingers .
. . and their parents . . . and Charles . . . and all the nightmares and terrors and sorrows the wedding veil she would never wear . . . the gloves that had been his that she kept locked in a little leather box in her chest. She herself could hardly bear to look at the bay anymore, and she felt ill just glancing at a ship . . . how did they pay you for that? How much for a lost mother? . . . a lost father?
. . . a lost husband? . . . a damaged life? . . . What price did people put on all that? "There is nothing they could pay us that would make up for what we lost."
Ben was nodding sadly from where he sat. "Apparently, the others have thought pretty much the same thing. The Astors, the Wideners, the Strauses, no one else is suing either. I think some people are suing for their lost luggage. I can do that if you want me to. All we really have to do is file a claim." But she only shook her head again, and walked slowly toward him, wondering if they would ever forget, if it would ever go away, if life would ever be even remotely as it once had been before the Titanic.
"When does it stop, Ben?" she asked sadly. "When do we stop thinking about it night and day and pretending that we aren't? When will Alexis stop sneaking upstairs so she can feel Mama's fur coats, and the satin of her nightgowns . . . when will Phillip stop looking as though he's carrying the weight of the world . . . and little Teddy stop looking for Mama' There were tears sliding down her cheeks, as he came around the desk and put an arm around her shoulders. She looked up at him then as if he were the father she had lost and buried her face in his shoulder. "When will I stop seeing them every time I close my eyes?
When will I stop thinking Charles will come back from England? . .
. oh, God . . ' He held her for a long time while she cried, and wished he had the answers, and eventually she pulled away and went to blow her nose, but even the handkerchief she carried had once been her mother's, and nothing he could say would change what they had been through or what they had lost, and how they felt about it.
"Give it time, Edwina. It hasn't been two months yet."
She sighed and then nodded.
"I'm sorry." She smiled sadly and stood up again, kissed him on the cheek and absentmindedly straightened her hat. It was a lovely one her mother had bought in Paris. He walked her out of his office again and saw her downstairs to her carriage. And as she turned back to wave at him as they drove away, he couldn't help thinking what a remarkable girl she was. And then he silently corrected himself. She wasn't a girl anymore. She was a woman. A very remarkable young woman.
THe summer passed quickly for all of them, doing simple things and just being together. And in July, just as they always had when her parents were alive, Edwina took them to the lake to a camp they had always borrowed from friends of her father's. They had always spent part of their summers at Lake Tahoe, and as much as possible Edwina wanted their lives to remain the same now. The boys fished and hiked, and they stayed in a cluster of rugged, pretty cabins. She cooked their dinners at night and went swimming with Teddy and the girls while Phillip and George went hiking. It was a simple, easy life, and here, finally, she felt that they were all beginning to recover. It was exactly what they needed, and finally, even she no longer had the same anguished, troubled dreams of that terrible night in April. She lay in her bed at night, thinking of what they'd done all day, and now and then she would let herself think of being there with Charles the previous summer.
No matter what she did, her mind always drifted back to him, and the memories were always tender and painful.

[Dalyia]

Everything had been different before. Her father had organized adventures with the boys, and she had taken long walks with her mother, picking wildflowers around the lake. They had talked about life, and men, having children, and being married, and it was there that she had first admitted to her how much she was in love with Charles. It had been no secret to anyone by then, and George had been merciless with his teasing, but Edwina didn't care. She was ready to admit it to all the world. And she had been ecstatic when Charles had come up to stay with them from San Francisco. He brought little treats for the girls, a new unicycle for George, and a series of beautifully bound books for Phillip. His gifts delighted everyone, and he and Edwina had gone for long walks in the woods. She thought about it now sometimes, and it was hard not to cry as she forced her mind back to the present. It was a challenging summer for her mostly, though, trying to take her mother's place, and sometimes feeling so small in her shadow. She helped Alexis learn to float, and watched Fannie play at the edge of the lake with her dolls. Little Teddy went everywhere with her now, and Phillip talked to her for long hours about getting into Harvard.
She had to be everything to them now, mother, father, friend, mentor, teacher, and adviser.
They'd been there for a week when Ben came up from town, to surprise them. And as he had in years before, he brought presents for everyone, and some new books for Edwina. He was interesting and fun, and to the children, he was like a favorite uncle, and they were happy to see him.
Even Alexis had laughed happily as she ran toward him.
Her blond curls were flying loose, and she had just come up from the lake with Edwina, and their feet and legs were bare.
She looked like a little colt, and in his big sister's arms, Teddy looked like a little bear, and it almost brought tears to Ben's eyes as he watched them. He thought of how much his lost friend had loved them all, how much Bert's family had meant to him, and he felt his loss again the moment he saw them.
"You all look very well." He grinned, happy to see them, as she set Teddy down, and he chortled as he ran after Alexis.
Edwina smiled happily as she pushed away a lock of her dark, shining hair. "The children have been having fun."
"It seems as though it's done you good too." He was pleased to see her looking healthy and relaxed and brown, and a moment later, before he could say more, the children swarmed him.
They played together for hours, and that night she and Ben sat quietly in the twilight.
"It's been wonderful being here again." She didn't say that it reminded her of her parents, but they both knew it. But still she knew she could say things to Ben she couldn't say to anyone else because he had been so close to her parents. And it was odd coming back to the places she'd always gone to with them.
It was as though she expected to find them there, but one by one, as she went back to their favorite haunts, she came to understand, as the children did, that they were gone forever. It was the same with Charles. It was hard to believe he was never coming back from England . . . that he hadn't gone there for a while, and would be coming home soon. None of them would be back again. All of them had moved on.
But she and the children had to live with their memories, and for the first time in a long time, they were having fun and relaxing. And as she sat in the mountain twilight, she found herself talking about her parents to Ben. And even laughing about some of their past summer adventures. And he was laughing too, remembering the time Bert had pretended to be a bear and scared Kate and Ben and Edwina half to death wandering into the cabin beneath a huge bear rug.
They talked about fishing expeditions in some of the hidden streams, and entire days on the lake in the little boat they'd rented. They talked of silly things, moments they'd all shared, and memories they both cherished. And for the first time in months, it wasn't so much painful as a source of comfort. With Ben, she was able to laugh at memories of them, they became human again, and no longer godlike. And she realized as they chuckled into the night that this was something she wanted to share with the other children.
"You're doing a beautiful job with them," Ben said, and she was touched. Sometimes she wasn't sure she was.
"I'm trying," she sighed, but Alexis was still afraid, and Phillip so subdued, and the two little ones still had nightmares on occasion. "It isn't always easy."
"It's never easy raising children. But it's a wonderful thing to do."
And then finally he dared say something to her he'd thought for months but hadn't wanted to mention. "You ought to get out more, though.
Your parents did. They did more than just raise all of you. They traveled, they saw friends, your mother was involved in a lot of things, and your father was busy with the paper."
"Are you suggesting I get a job?" She grinned, teasing him, and he shook his head as he watched her. He was a good-looking man, but she had never thought of him as anything but her father's friend and her adopted uncle.
"No, I meant that you should go out, see friends." She had gone out almost constantly with Charles during their engagement. Ben had loved seeing her in beautiful gowns with dancing eyes, as she left the house on Charles's arm, whenever he dined with her parents. She was meant for all that, not for living the life of a recluse, or a widowed mother. Her whole life still lay ahead, altered perhaps, but certainly not over. "What happened to all those parties you . . . used to go to?" He was suddenly afraid to mention Charles, for fear it would be too painful, and Edwina lowered her eyes as she answered.
"It's not the time for that now." It was too soon, and it would only have reminded her of Charles and made his absence infinitely more difficult to bear. She never wanted to go out again, or so she thought at the moment. And in any case, she reminded Ben, she was still in full mourning for her parents.
She still wore only black, and she had no desire to go anywhere, except with the children.
"Edwina," Ben sounded firm, "you need to get out more."
"I will one day." But her eyes weren't convincing, and he hoped it would be soon. She was twenty-one years old and she was leading the life of an old woman. Her birthday had gone almost unnoticed that year, except for the fact that she was now legally of age and could sign all her own papers.
Ben slept in the same cabin with the boys that night and they enjoyed his company. He took them fishing at 5:00 A. M and when they returned, victorious, and very smelly, Edwina was already cooking breakfast. She had brought Sheilagh, the new Irish girl, with her, and she was pleasant, but no one seemed to have adjusted to her yet. They all still missed Oona.
But Sheilagh endeared herself to the fishermen by cleaning their fish, and Edwina grudgingly cooked them for breakfast.
But everyone else was extremely impressed that they had actually caught some fish this time, instead of just explaining why they didn't.
It was a happy few days with Ben, and they were all sorry when he had to go. They had just finished lunch and he said good-bye, and Edwina realized she hadn't seen the boys since just before lunchtime. They had said that they were going for a walk, and after that they were going swimming, and then suddenly as she and Ben talked, Phillip exploded into the clearing.
"Do you know what that little rat did?" Phillip shouted at her, barely coherent. He was angry and out of breath and obviously very frightened, as Edwina could feel her heart pound, fearing what might have happened. "He left while I was asleep, next to the fishing hole, way in back, at the creek. . . . I woke up and found his shoes and his hat and his shirt floating in it.
I've been digging everywhere with sticks . . . I dove all the way to the bottom of it . .." And as he spoke, Edwina saw that his arms were badly scratched, his clothes wet and torn, and his hands were covered with mud, his fingernails broken.
"I thought he had drowned!" he shouted at her, choking on tears of fear and fury. "I thought . .." He turned away so they wouldn't see him cry, and his whole body shook as he made a lunge at George as he entered the clearing. Phillip cuffed him hard on the ear, grabbed his shoulders, and then shook him again. "Don't you ever do that again .
. . the next time you leave, you tell me about it!" He was shouting at him, and they could all see that George was fighting back tears, too, as he punched him.
"I would have told you if you weren't sleeping. You're always asleep or reading . . . you don't even know how to fish!" He shouted back the only thing that came to mind, and Phillip just kept shaking him.
"You know what Papa said last year! No one goes anywhere without telling someone else where he's gone. Do you understand that?" But it was more than that now. It was all compounded by the agony of losing their parents, and the fact that all they had was each other. But George wouldn't back down as he glared at his brother.
"I don't have to tell you anything! You're not my father!"
"You answer to me now!" Phillip grew more heated by the moment, but George was furious now too. He swung at him again and missed his mark as Phillip ducked.
"I don't answer to anyone!" George screamed with tears running down his face. "You're not Papa and you never will be, and I hate you!"
They were both in tears, as Ben finally decided to step in and stop it.
He reached out quietly and separated them as tears rolled down Edwina's cheeks. It broke her heart to see her brothers fighting.
"All right, boys, enough!" He took George gently by the arms, and led him away, still sputtering, while Phillip calmed down. He looked at Edwina ferociously, walked to his cabin, and slammed the door. And once inside, he lay on his bed and sobbed because he thought George had drowned, and he desperately missed their father.
It was an incident that illustrated how shaken they still were, and how great a strain it was on the boys to no longer have a father. The boys calmed down eventually, and Ben said good-bye to them, and once again took leave of Edwina. The episode between the two boys only reminded him of what he had thought in the beginning. The family was too great a burden for Edwina alone, and he wondered for a moment if he should have tried to force her to go to England to her aunt and uncle. But one look into her eyes told him that she would have hated it. She wanted this, her family, in the familiar places they had always lived, even if sometimes it wasn't easy.
"They're alright, you know," she reassured Ben. "It's good for Phillip to let off steam, and it's good for George to learn that he can't play his tricks all the time. He'll think twice next time."
"And what about you?" Ben asked. How could she manage them all alone?
Two lively boys who were nearly men, and three other very young children. And the truth was there was no one to help her. But he had to admit, she didn't seem to mind it.
"I love this, you know." She said it calmly, and it was easy to believe that she meant it. "I love them."
"So do I. But I worry about you anyway. If you need anything, Edwina, just whistle, and I'll come running." She kissed him gratefully on the cheek, and he watched her for a long time, as she waved, and he drove slowly back toward the station. do back in San Francisco. She attended a monthly meeting at the newspaper now, with Ben, to show everyone that she was interested in what was going on, and she had to approve certain policy decisions, which was interesting. But she still felt uncomfortable in her father's place, and there was so much to learn even for her meager involvement. She had no desire to run the paper herself, but she wanted to preserve it over the next few years, for Phillip. And she was always grateful for Ben's advice at the meetings.
But the day after their August meeting was a hard one for her. She was working in the garden, pulling weeds, when the mailman came with what looked like an enormous parcel, from England. She imagined that it was something from Aunt Liz, and couldn't imagine what she had sent. She asked Mrs. Barnes to leave it in the front hall for her, and when she came in later with dirt all over her hands, and bits of grass and leaves on her black dress, she glanced at it, and felt her heart give a lurch.
The sender's name on the parcel was not Hickham, but Fitzgerald. And it was written Out in the careful, elaborate hand that Edwina had long since come to recognize as Charles's mother's.
She went into the kitchen to wash her hands, and came back to carefully take the parcel to her bedroom. And as she touched it her hands were shaking. She couldn't imagine what Lady Fitzgerald would be sending her, and yet she somehow feared that it might be something of Charles's, and she was more than a little afraid to see it.
The house was quiet as she walked upstairs, the boys were out with friends, and Sheilagh had taken the three younger children to Golden Gate Park to see the new carousel, and they had left the house in high spirits. There was no one to interrupt her now, and Edwina carefully unwrapped the package that Lady Fitzgerald had sent her. It had come by mail steamer, and then by train, and it had taken well over a month to arrive from England. Edwina noticed that the parcel was very light.
It almost felt as though there was nothing in it.
The last bits of paper fell away, and there was a smooth white box with a letter attached on blue stationery with the Fitzgerald crest engraved in the upper left-hand corner. But she didn't read the letter, she was too curious to see what was in the box, and as she untied the ribbon and lifted the lid, her breath caught as she saw it. There were yards and yards of white tulle, and a delicately made white satin crown, embroidered in elaborate patterns with the tiniest white seed pearls.
It was her wedding veil, the one Lady Fitzgerald was to have brought over when she came, and with a rapid calculation, Edwina realized that the next day was to have been her wedding day. She had tried to force it from her mind, and she had all but succeeded. And now all that was left was the veil, held in her trembling hands, as the miles of tulle floated across her room like a distant dream. Her whole body ached as she put it on, and the tears slid solemnly down her cheeks, as she looked in the mirror. It looked just as she thought it would, and she wondered what the dress would have been like. Surely, just as beautiful, but no one would ever know. The fabric they were bringing back to the States had gone down on the Titanic. She had hardly let herself think of that until now, it seemed so pointless. But now suddenly, here was her veil, and all it had stood for was gone forever.
She sat down on her bed, crying softly, still wearing the veil, and opened Lady Fitzgerald's letter. For the first time in months, she felt hopeless and alone, as she sat in her black mourning dress, with her wedding veil floating around her.
"My very dearest Edwina," she began, and it was like hearing her voice again as Edwina cried as she read it. She and Charles had looked so much alike, tall and aristocratic, and very English. "We think of you a great deal, and speak of you much of the time. It seems difficult to believe that you left London only four months ago . . . difficult to believe all that has happened in the meantime.
"I am sending you this now, with trepidation and regret. I very much fear that it will upset you terribly when you receive the veil, but it has been finished for some time, and after thinking about it a great deal, Charles's father and I feel that you should have it. It is a symbol of a very beautiful time, and the love that Charles had for you until he died. You were the dearest thing in his life, and I know that the two of you would have been very happy. Put it away, dearest child, do not think of it too much . . . and perhaps only look at it once in a while, and remember our beloved Charles, who so greatly loved you.
"We hope to see you again here one day. And in the meantime, to you and your brothers and sisters, we send our dearest love, and most especially to you, Edwina dear . . . our every thought, now and forever." She had signed it "Margaret Fitzgerald," but Edwina was blinded by tears by the end of the letter and could barely read it.
And she sat on her bed, in her wedding veil, until she heard the front door slam heavily downstairs and the children's voices in the stairway, looking for her. They had been to the carousel, and come home, and all afternoon, she had sat there, in her wedding veil, thinking of Charles, and the wedding day that was to have been tomorrow.
She took the veil off carefully, and set it back in the box, and she had just tied the lid when Fannie burst into the room with a broad, happy smile, and hurled herself into her big sister's arms. She didn't see the tears, or the ravaged look in her eyes. She was too young to understand what had happened.
Edwina put the box away on a shelf, and listened as Fannie rattled away about the carousel in the park. There were horses and brass rings and gold stars, and lots of music, and there were even painted sleds if you didn't want to ride a horse, but the horses were really much better.
"And there were boats too!" she went on, but then she frowned. "But we don't like boats, Teddy, do we?" He shook his head, having just come into the room, and Alexis was just behind him. She looked at Edwina strangely then, as though she knew something was amiss, but she didn't know what it was. And only Phillip saw it later, after the children had gone to bed, and he asked Edwina cautiously as they walked upstairs together.
"Is something wrong?" He was always worried about her, always concerned, always anxious to play the fatherly role with the others.
"Are you alright, Win?"
She nodded slowly, almost tempted to tell him about the veil, but she just couldn't say the words. And she wondered if he remembered what the date was. "I'm alright." And then, "I had a letter from Lady Fitzgerald today, Charles's mother."
"Oh." Unlike George, who was still too young and wouldn't have understood the implications, Phillip knew immediately what she was feeling. "How is she?"
"Alright, I guess." She looked sadly at Phillip then. She had to share it with someone, even if it was only her seventeen year-old brother, and her voice was low and gruff as she said it.
"Tomorrow was . . . would have been . .." It was almost impossible to say the words, and she turned away as they reached the second-floor landing. But Phillip gently touched her arm and she turned to him with tears streaming from her eyes. "Never mind . . . I'm sorry .
"Oh, Winnie." There were tears in his eyes too, as he pulled her close to him and she held him.

[Dalyia]

"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. And 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, "AllIllIll 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 the never-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 passion 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 carcass 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 hit 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. 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.

[Dalyia]

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 assured 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, God 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.
God, 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 reassure them both, but George only snapped at him. He was still amazed at the policeman's assumption 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.
"Lexie1 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, 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 Titanic.
"Oh, my God . .." 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.

[Dalyia]

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, God . . . 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.
"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 Titanic, 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. t 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 friendship. "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 embarrassed. 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 shimmered 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 the man she had loved, the man who was no more . . she had been desperately in love with Charles, and she knew with absolute certainty, there would never be another.
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 passed 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.

[Dalyia]

"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 yoC' 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 Hancock, 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 destitute, 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 fishing gear. He had a date to go trout fishing 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 God loved them so much he wanted to be closer to them." Teddy had nodded, and then looked at her with a worried frown.