No Greater Love (25 page)

“WHY DID PHILLIP COME HOME?” ALEXIS ASKED WITH
curiosity as she combed her doll’s hair. “Did he flunk out of school?” She was interested, as were Fannie and Teddy, but Edwina refused to discuss it with them as she served breakfast the next morning.

The two boys had gone out to dinner the night before, to their father’s club, and she knew they had met Ben, but she had not spoken to Phillip since the previous afternoon.

“Phillip decided he missed us, that’s all.” She spoke very seriously, and offered nothing further. And as they watched the look on her face, even Teddy knew that something was wrong that she wasn’t saying.

She kissed them all before they left for school after breakfast, and she walked out to the garden then, and picked up the roses she had dropped the day before on the lawn when she first saw Phillip. She had forgotten all about them, and they were more than a little wilted, but
they seemed so unimportant now. Everything did, in light of what Phillip had told her. She didn’t know what she could do, but she knew she was going to do everything she could to stop him. He had no right to go away and leave them like that, and more importantly, risk his life. She took the roses into the house, and she was thinking about calling Ben to discuss it with him, when George walked into the room. He was late for school, as he always was, and she looked up and was about to scold him, but the look in his eyes told her it was too late for that. Like Phillip, he was almost a man now.

“Are you really going to try and stop him, Win?” The words were spoken quietly, with a sad look. It was as though he knew she had already lost, but he understood it all better, because he was a man and she wasn’t.

“Yes, I’m going to try and stop him.” She put the roses in a vase with a certain vehemence and then looked up at him with grief and anger. “He had no right to do that without asking me first.” And she wanted to be sure that George also got that message. She wasn’t going to tolerate either of them doing that, and George was just impulsive enough to try and follow his older brother into the war in Europe.

“You shouldn’t do it, Win. Papa wouldn’t approve of your stopping him. He believed in standing up for what you believe in.”

Her eyes pierced into his like darts and she didn’t mince words. “Papa isn’t here anymore,” she said harshly, and George realized that she had never been that blunt about it before. “Papa wouldn’t want him leaving us alone either. Things are different now.”

“You have me,” he said gently, but she only shook her head.

“You’re going to Harvard next year.” He had already been accepted and he was following the family tradition, and it wasn’t that she was trying to hang on to them, but
she didn’t want them to get killed. “Don’t get involved in this, George,” she warned, “this is between me and Phillip.”

“No, it’s not,” he said, “it’s between him, and him. It’s up to Phillip to stand up for what he believes in. You wouldn’t want him to be less than that, Win. He’s got to do what he thinks is right, even if it hurts us. I understand that, and you have to too.”

“I don’t have to understand anything.” She spun around so he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes, and spoke to him over her shoulder. “Go on, now, you’ll be late for school.”

He left reluctantly, just as his brother came downstairs and whispered to George across the main hallway. “How is she?” They had talked about it long into the night, and there was no doubt in Phillip’s mind. He had to go.

“I think she’s crying.” George whispered back, and smiled as he saluted his brother and flew out the front door. He would be late for school, as usual, but it didn’t matter anymore. School was almost over. He was going to graduate from Drew School in six weeks, and he was off to Harvard in September. And to him, school was a place where you made friends, and chased girls, and had a good time before you went home to your family and ate dinner. He had always liked school, but he had never been the serious student that Phillip was. He was sad, too, that his brother was going to war, but he was certain that Phillip was doing the right thing, and equally so that Edwina was wrong. Their father would have told her so, had he been alive, but unfortunately he wasn’t. And Phillip was no longer a little boy.

He tried to tell her that himself a little while later in the garden, but she was furiously pulling weeds, and pretending not to hear him, and then finally she turned
to him with tears running down her cheeks, and with the back of her hands, pushed the hair back from her face.

“If you’re not a child anymore, then act like a man and stand by us. I’ve held on to that damn paper for you for five years, and what do you expect me to do now? Close the doors?” The paper had nothing to do with it and they both knew it. All she really wanted to tell him was that she was scared. So scared that she couldn’t bear the thought of him leaving, and she would have done anything in her power to stop him from going to the war in Europe.

“The paper will wait while I’m gone. That’s not the point and you know it.”

“The point is …” She started to justify herself again, but this time the words failed her. She couldn’t go on, as she turned and saw the look on his face. He looked so strong and so young, and so damn hopeful. He believed in what he’d done and he wanted her to believe in it too, for him, but she just couldn’t do it. “The point is …” she whispered as she reached out to him and he went to her, “… the point is I love you so much,” she sobbed, “… oh, please, Phillip … don’t go …”

“Edwina, I have to.”

“You can’t …” She was thinking of herself, and Fannie and Teddy, and Alexis. They all needed him so much. And if he left, they would have only George. Silly George of the endless mischief, the tin cans tied behind horses, the cranks “borrowed” from motorcars, the mice let loose in classrooms … the sweet face that kissed her at night, the arms that always hugged Fannie … the boys they had been, and no longer were… and in the fall, George would be gone too. Suddenl· everything was changing as it had once before, except that the children were all she had left now and she didn’t want to lose them. “Phillip, please …”

Her eyes begged and he looked at her unhappily. He had come all the way to California to tell her, and he had half expected this, but it was so painful for all of them. “I won’t go without your blessing. I don’t know how I’d get out of it, but if you really mean what you say, if you can’t manage without me, then I’ll have to tell them I can’t go.” He looked heartbroken as he said it, and the look in his eyes told her there was no choice. She had to let him do it.

“And if you don’t go?”

“I don’t know….” He looked sadly around his mother’s garden, remembering her, and the father they had loved, as he looked back into his sister’s eyes. “I think I’d always feel that somehow I had failed them. I have no right to let someone else fight this war for us. Edwina, I want to be there.” He looked so sure, and so calm, it broke her heart just to see him. And she didn’t understand the lure of war for men, but she knew that he had to go with it.

“Why? Why do you have to be the one?”

“Because even though to you I’m still a child, I’m a man now. Edwina … that’s where I belong.”

She nodded silently and stood up, shaking out her skirt and dusting her hands off, and it was a long moment before she looked up at him again. “You have it then.” She sounded solemn and her voice was shaking, but she had made up her mind, and she was glad he had come home to tell her. If he hadn’t, she would never have understood it. And she wasn’t sure she did now, but she had to respect him. And he was right. He was no longer a boy anymore. He was a man. And he had a right to his own principles and opinions.

“What do I have?” He looked confused, and suddenly surprisingly boyish as she smiled at him.

“You have my blessing, silly boy. I wish you wouldn’t go, but you have a right to make up your own mind.”
And then her eyes grew sad again. “Just be sure you come home.”

“I promise you … I will …” He threw his arms around her and hugged her close, and they stood that way for a long time, as Teddy watched them from an upstairs window.

THE TWO OLDEST BOYS HAD TALKED FOR HOURS THE NIGHT
before, as Phillip packed some of his things, and told George he could take anything of his he wanted to Harvard, and it had been long after midnight when they went downstairs and decided to have something to eat in the kitchen.

George talked animatedly, waving a chicken leg, and wished him Godspeed, and then teased him about the girls he would meet in France, but that was the last thing on Phillip’s mind.

“Be easy on Edwina,” he urged, and then reminded George not to go wild when he got to Harvard.

“Don’t be silly.” George grinned as he poured a beer for himself and his older brother. All of Phillip’s bags were packed, and they had nothing left to do until morning. They could talk all night if they wanted to, and George knew that Edwina wouldn’t have minded if they
stayed up all night, or even got drunk. As George saw it, they had a right to.

“I mean it,” Phillip said again. “It’s been hard on her having to take care of all of us for all these years.” It had been exactly five years since their parents had died.

“We haven’t been so bad.” George smiled as he sipped the beer, and wondered how his brother would look in a uniform. When he thought about it, he envied him and wished he were going with him.

“If it weren’t for all of us, she might be married to someone,” Phillip said pensively. “Or maybe not. I don’t think she’s ever gotten over Charles, maybe she never will.”

“I don’t think she wants to get over him,” George said. He knew his older sister well, and Phillip nodded.

“Just be good to her.” He looked lovingly at his younger brother as he set his own glass down, and then as he tousled George’s hair, he smiled. “I’ll miss you, kid. Have a good time next year.”

“You too.” George smiled, thinking of his brother’s adventures in France. “Maybe I’ll see you over there sometime.”

But at that Phillip only shook his head. “Don’t you dare. They need you here.” And his eyes said he meant it, as George nodded at him with a sigh of envy.

“I know.” And then, looking unusually sober for him, “Just be sure you come back.” It was what Edwina had said too, and silently Phillip nodded.

The two brothers walked upstairs arm in arm, shortly after 2:00
A.M.
, and the next morning, everyone was ready and waiting when they came down to breakfast. Edwina had made their breakfast herself, and she looked up and smiled at the two boys, looking tired from the night before, and their long hours of talking in the kitchen.

“Did you get to bed late last night?” she asked, pouring
coffee for both as Fannie stared at Phillip. She couldn’t believe he was leaving them again, and this time she knew that Edwina wasn’t happy about it.

They were all going to the station to see him off, and there was an aura of false gaiety as Edwina drove them through town in the Packard.

There were other boys like him waiting at the station for the train. Many had enlisted in the past few days. It was only nine days since the United States had entered the war. And for Alexis it was a sad and special day, it was her eleventh birthday. But it was a doubly sad day for her, because Phillip was leaving.

“Take care of yourself,” Edwina said softly as they waited for the train, and George cracked an endless series of old jokes. They kept the younger children distracted anyway, and Edwina suddenly felt an arrow pierce her heart, as in the distance, they heard the train begin to wail as it approached them.

It swept into the station then, and George helped him carry his things, as the younger children waited with sad eyes and unhappy faces.

“When will you come back again?” Teddy asked unhappily as a tear trembled in the corner of his eye, and then slid down his cheek.

“Soon … be good … don’t forget to write …” His words were interrupted by the whistle of the train as it prepared to pull out. Everything was happening too rapidly as he kissed each of them, and then squeezed Edwina close to him. “Take care … I’ll be alright … I’ll be back soon, Win … oh, God … I’ll miss you so….” His voice broke on the words.

“Stay safe,” she whispered, “come home soon.… I love you …” And then, they hurried to the platform as the conductor shouted, “All aboard.” She held Teddy close to her, and George stood holding Alexis’s and
Fannie’s hands, as slowly, relentlessly, the train moved out of the station.

Edwina felt a terrible pull at her heart, and prayed that he would come home safely. And then they all waved and he was gone, and as the train sped away, they couldn’t see the tears rolling down Phillip’s cheeks. He was doing what he knew he had to do … but God … he was going to miss them….

IT SEEMED LIKE AN ENDLESS WAIT FOR HIM. HE WROTE TO
Edwina and the children occasionally, and by winter, Phillip was in France, at the battle of Cambrai. His unit was fighting with the British there and for a while, they were doing well, better than the nearly half million who had died at the battle of Passchendaele. But ten days after the battle of Cambrai began, the Germans counterattacked, and the British and Americans lost ground and had to fall back, almost to where they had started.

The loss of men was staggering and as Edwina read accounts of the battles there, her heart would sink, thinking of her brother. He wrote of mud and snow and discomfort everywhere, but he never told them how afraid he was, or how disheartened, watching men die by the thousands day after day, as he prayed that he’d survive it.

In the States, there were the recruitment posters everywhere
, showing a stern invitation from Uncle Sam. And in Russia the Czar had fallen that year, and the imperial family was in exile.

“Is George going to be a hero too?” Fannie asked one day just before Thanksgiving, as Edwina trembled at the thought of George following in Phillip’s footsteps.