No Greater Love (13 page)

“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.

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 Altaian’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 Altaian’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?”