No Greater Love (11 page)

“Phillip?” Her voice was soft and sad in the darkness.

“Hmm?” He turned to look at her with eyes that were suddenly older than his sixteen years. He had aged a lifetime in a matter of hours in the lifeboat.

“What are we going to do now?” What were they going to do without them? It was awful to think about. They had lost so many people they loved, and now she was responsible for those who were left. “We’ll go home, I guess.” She spoke softly in the night. There was nothing else to do, except that Edwina wanted to take Teddy to a doctor in New York … if he survived that long. They had told her already that the first night would be decisive. And she knew she couldn’t bear another loss. They couldn’t let Teddy die. They just couldn’t. It was all she could think about now, saving him, her mother’s last baby. And as she held him in her arms later that night, listening to his labored breathing, she thought of the babies she would never have … Charles’s babies … all her dreams gone with him, and tears suddenly began streaming down her cheeks as her shoulders shook in silence as she mourned him.

Phillip and George were sleeping on mattresses in the hall and Phillip came back to check on her late that
night, looking tired and worried. He had been wondering if his parents had tried to jump free of the ship, and if they had survived for any length of time. Maybe they had tried to swim for the lifeboats, and no one had picked them up, and they had died in the icy water. There had been hundreds of people left to die in the waters around him. No one had wanted to pick them up, and so they called out and swam aimlessly for as long as they could, until finally they went down like the others. It was a horrifying thought, and he had lain awake thinking about it, until he finally gave up the thought of sleep and came to find Edwina. He sat with her in silence for a long time. All over the ship it was like that. The survivors hardly seemed to speak, everywhere there were people standing alone, looking out to sea, or small knots of people, just standing there, but not talking.

“I keep wondering if….” It was difficult to find the words in the darkened infirmary. There were several other people there, and in another room, there were a dozen or so unidentified children. “I keep thinking about the end….” His voice cracked and he turned away, as Edwina reached out to touch him.

“Don’t think about it … it won’t change anything.” But all night, she had thought about the same thing … her parents, and why her mother had chosen to stay … and Charles … and Alexis. What had happened to her in the end? Had they found her? Had she gone down with them? Phillip had been horrified to discover that she hadn’t been with Edwina. His parents had never realized that she hadn’t gotten off the ship with them in lifeboat number eight.

He sighed deeply then, and looked at little Teddy, sound asleep, with his soft baby curls. He looked deathly pale, and every now and then he was racked with coughing. Phillip had caught a terrible cold too, but he didn’t even seem to feel it. He insisted that he’d had it the day
before, and then she remembered something her mother had said, that he had caught it staring down at the unknown girl in second class. And now she was probably gone too, like so many others.

“How is he?” Phillip asked, looking down at his youngest brother.

“He’s no worse….” She smiled gently and smoothed his hair, and then bent to kiss him. “I think he sounds a little better.” As long as he didn’t come down with pneumonia.

“I’ll stay with him while you get some sleep,” he offered, but she sighed. “I couldn’t sleep anyway.” She kept remembering their careful cruise over the area where the
Titanic
had sunk early that morning. Captain Rostron had wanted to be certain that they didn’t leave behind any survivors, but all they saw were deck chairs, and pieces of wood, a few life vests, and a carpet that looked exactly like the one in her room, and a dead seaman floating past them. Just thinking about it now made Edwina shudder. It was all too impossible to believe. The night before, the Wideners had been giving a dinner for Captain Smith, and now only twenty-four hours later, the ship was gone, and with it the captain, Mr. Widener, his son Harry, and more than fifteen hundred others. Edwina could only wonder how a thing like that could happen. And again and again, she thought of Charles, and how much she had loved him. He had said he liked the blue satin gown she wore the night before … he had said it was exactly the color of her eyes, and he liked the way she’d done her hair. She had worn her sleek black hair swept up on her head, much like the style worn by Mrs. Astor. And now, she was still wearing the dress, in tatters. Someone had offered her a black wool dress that afternoon, but she had been too busy with the children to change. And what did it matter
now? Charles was gone, and she and the other children were orphans.

They sat side by side for a long time that night, thinking about the past, and trying to sort out the future, and finally Edwina told Phillip to go back to bed, George would be worried if he woke and didn’t find him.

“Poor little guy, he’s been through it too.” But he had come through it valiantly, and in the past twenty-four hours, he had been both a comfort and a help to Edwina. Had she been a little less tired, she might even have been worried because he was so docile. And little Fannie slept on through the night, just beside her. And once Phillip had gone, Edwina sat quietly, watching both Fannie and Teddy, touching their faces, smoothing back their hair, giving Teddy a drink of water once when he woke up thirsty, and holding Fannie when she cried in her sleep. Edwina sat there and prayed, as she had that morning, at the service conducted by Captain Rostron. Not all of the survivors had attended, but she and Phillip had. But many of the others were just too tired, or too sick, or they thought the service too painful. In one brutal blow, more than thirty-seven women of those who had survived had been widowed. One thousand five hundred and twenty-three men, women, and children had died. There were only seven hundred and five survivors.

Edwina dozed a little finally, and she only awoke when Teddy stirred and looked up at her with eyes so much like their mother’s. “Where’s Mama?” he asked, pouting, but he looked more like himself, and when Edwina stooped to kiss him, he smiled, and then cried again for their mother.

“Mama’s not here, sweetheart.” She didn’t know what to say to him. He was too young to understand, and yet she didn’t want to lie to him and promise that she would come later.

“I want Mama too,” Fannie cried, looking woebegone when she heard Teddy wake and ask for their mother.

“Be a good girl,” Edwina urged, with a kiss, and a hug. She got up and washed Teddy’s face, and then left him, protesting, with a nurse, while she took Fannie to the bathroom. And when she saw her own face in the mirror, she knew just how bad it had been. In one day she had aged a thousand years, and she felt and looked like an old woman, or so she thought. But a borrowed comb helped, and a little warm water. Still there was nothing lovely about the way she looked, or felt, and when she walked into the dining saloon later to find the boys, she saw that everyone else looked ghastly too. They were still wearing an array of odd, and sometimes barely decent, costumes, now added to with borrowed gear and ill-fitting clothes that only added to their strange appearances and general confusion. People were milling about everywhere, and whenever possible they had been put in crowded cabins together, or on cots in the hall, but there were hundreds sleeping on mattresses in the Grand Saloon, in crew quarters, on couches, or even on the floor. But to them, it no longer mattered. They were alive, although many of them wished they weren’t, as they realized how many had been lost.

“How’s Teddy?” George asked almost as soon as he saw his older sister, and he was relieved when she smiled. None of them could withstand any more disasters.

“I think he’s better. I told him I’d be back in a few minutes.” She had brought Fannie with her, and she wanted to get her something to eat before hurrying back to care for her little brother.

“I’ll stay with him if you want,” George volunteered, and then suddenly, the smile froze on his lips, and he stared at something just behind her. He looked as
though he had seen a ghost and Edwina stared at him and touched his arm, bending toward him.

“Georgie, what is it?”

He only stared, and then after a minute, he pointed. It was something on the floor, next to a mattress. And then, without a word, he rushed toward it and picked it up and brought it back to her. It was Mrs. Thomas, Alexis’s doll, she was sure of it, but there was no child in sight, and inquiries of those standing nearby turned up nothing. No one could remember seeing the doll before, or the child who had left it.

“She must be here!” Edwina looked around frantically, and there were several children in sight, but none of them was Alexis. Edwina was holding the doll tightly in her hand, and then her heart sank as she remembered. The Allison child had had a doll like this, too, and she said as much to Phillip, but he shook his head. He would have recognized this one anywhere, and George agreed, and so did Fannie.

“Don’t you remember, Edwina? You made her dress with some material from one of yours.” And as he said it, she remembered and tears came to her eyes. How cruel it would be if the doll had survived and Alexis hadn’t.

“Where’s Alexis?” Fannie looked up at her with enormous eyes, and the look of her father that had always brought him so much pleasure when he was alive. Even he had been able to see their astounding likeness.

“I don’t know,” Edwina answered her honestly, and held the doll in a trembling hand, and continued to look around her, but she didn’t see her.

“Is she hiding?” Fannie knew her well, but Edwina didn’t smile this time.

“I don’t know, Fannie. I hope not.”

“Are Mama and Papa hiding too?” She looked so
confused and Edwina’s eyes filled with tears as she shook her head and continued looking.

But an hour later, they still hadn’t found her, and Edwina had to go back to the hospital to Teddy. She still had the doll with her, and she had left Fannie with Phillip and George. And when Teddy saw the doll, he looked suspiciously at his older sister.

“Lexie?” he said. “Lexie?” He remembered the doll too. In truth, Alexis had seldom been without it. And one of the nurses smiled as she walked past them. He was a beautiful child, and it touched her to see them together. But suddenly Edwina looked up, and then stopped the nurse to ask her a question.

“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.