No Greater Love (26 page)

“No, he’s not,” she answered somberly. It was hard enough worrying about Phillip night and day, and fortunately George had been at Harvard since the fall. He called infrequently, and his rare letters showed that he was happy there, although he talked of none of the things Phillip had when he’d been there. He talked of the people he met, the men he liked, the parties he went to in New York, and the girls he dated constantly. But he also surprised Edwina by saying that he missed California. And he wrote a funny letter raving about the latest movies he’d seen, a new Charlie Chaplin called
The Cure
, and something with Gloria Swanson called
Teddy at the Throttle.
His fascination with films lived on, and he had written a long, technical letter about both films, telling how they could have been better. It [made her wonder if he really was serious about going Hollywood one day and making movies. But the world of Hollywood seemed a long, long way from Harvard.

Phillip was still in France with frostbitten fingers and men dying all around him.

Fortunately, Edwina was unaware of it, as they said grace and prayed for him at their Thanksgiving table.

“… and God bless George, too,” Teddy added solemnly. “Who isn’t going to be a hero, because my sister Edwina won’t let him,” he offered by way of explanation, as she smiled at him. At seven, he was still a pudgy, cuddly little elf with a special attachment to her. Edwina was the only mother he remembered.

They spent a quiet day, and sat in the garden after their Thanksgiving meal. It was a warm, pretty day, and
Alexis and Fannie sat on the swing, as Teddy kicked a ball from one to the other. It was odd now, with both of the big boys gone, and having only the younger children at home. Edwina suggested that they write to Phillip that night. And she hoped that George would call. He was spending Thanksgiving with friends in Boston.

Everyone was still full when they went to bed, and Edwina was still awake late that night, when she heard the doorbell. She sat up, startled by the noise, and then hurried downstairs before the persistent bell could wake the children.

She was still struggling into her dressing gown as she reached the front door, in bare feet with her hair in braids, and she opened the door cautiously, expecting to see one of George’s friends, drunk and looking for him, having forgotten that he’d gone to Harvard.

“Yes?” she said, looking very young in the darkened hall, her face shining in the moonlight.

There was a man she didn’t recognize outside, with a telegram in his hand, and she stared at him in surprise. “Is your mother home?” he asked, adding to her confusion.

“I … no … I think you mean me.” She frowned. “Who is that for?” But a finger of fear was tracing its way around her heart and she found herself short of breath as he read her name loudly and clearly. He handed the telegram to her, and scurried down the stairs like a rat in a bad dream, as she closed the front door and leaned against it for an instant. There could be nothing good in it. Good things did not come in telegrams shortly after midnight.

She walked into the front parlor then, turned on a lamp, and sat down slowly to read it. The envelope tore open easily in her hands, and her eyes raced over it as her breath caught and she felt her heart writhe within her. It couldn’t be … it wasn’t possible … five
years before, he had survived the sinking of the
Titanic
… and now he was gone … “regret to inform you that your brother, Private Phillip Bertram Winfield, died with honor on the battlefield today in Cambrai on November 28, 1917. We at the Department of the Army extend our condolences to your entire family …” and it was signed with a name she had never heard of. A sob tore at her throat as she read it a dozen times, and then stood up silently and turned the light off.

With tears streaming down her cheeks, she walked upstairs, and stood in the hall where he had lived, and they had grown, and knew that he would never come home again … like the others … five borrowed years he had lived after them, long enough to grow to be a man, and be killed by German soldiers.

And then, as she stood there, crying silently, holding the hated telegram, she saw a little face peering at her in the dark. It was Alexis. She stood there, staring at her for a long time, knowing something terrible was wrong, but not daring to approach Edwina. And then at last, Edwina saw her there and held out her arms, and instinctively Alexis knew that he was gone, and they stood there in the hall for a long, long time, until at last Edwina dried her eyes, and took Alexis to bed with her, where they lay clinging to each other like two lost children until morning.

“HELLO?
…
HELLO!” EDWINA SHOUTED ACROSS THREE
thousand miles. The connection was terrible, but she had to reach George. She had already waited two days for him to get back to Harvard after the Thanksgiving weekend. And finally, at his end, someone answered. “Mr. Winfield, please,” she shouted into the phone, and then there was endless staccato again, while someone went to find him. And at last, George was on the line, and for an instant he heard only silence.

“Hello!” he shouted back at her, “… hello!… who is this?” He was sure that they had lost the connection, but at last she took a breath and spoke, not sure how to begin. It was hard enough telling him, without having to shout it over the long-distance wires, and yet she hadn’t wanted to give him the shock of a telegram, or spend days waiting for a letter to reach him. He had a right to know, just as the others did. The children had cried for days. They were familiar tears to them, tears
they had already shed once before, even if they didn’t remember.

“George, can you hear me?” Her voice barely reached him.

“Yes!… are you alright?”

The answer was a hard one, and tears filled her eyes before she spoke, as suddenly it seemed a mistake to have called him. “Phillip …” she began, and before she said another word, he knew, as he felt his blood run cold, and listened to her from Boston. “We got a telegram two days ago,” she began to sob, which George knew was unlike her. “He was killed in France … he …” suddenly it seemed important to tell him all the details, “… he died honorably …” And then she couldn’t go on. She couldn’t say another word, as the children stood on the stairs and watched her.

“I’m coming home,” was all he said, as tears rolled down his cheeks. “I’m coming home, Win …” They were both crying then, and Alexis walked slowly upstairs, all the way to the top floor where she hadn’t been in so long. But she needed to go there now, to be alone with her thoughts of her oldest brother.

“George,” Edwina tried to go on, “you don’t have to do that … we’re … alright …” But this time, she was far from convincing.

“I love you …” He was still crying openly, thinking of Phillip and her, of all of them, and how unfair it was. Edwina had been right. She should never have let him go. He knew that now. Too late. For Phillip. “I’ll be home in four days.”

“George, don’t …” She feared that they would take a dim view of it at Harvard.

“Good-bye … wait … are the little ones alright?” They were, more or less, except Alexis, who seemed very badly shaken. The others were clinging to
Edwina for fear that it could mean she might die and leave them.

“They’ll do.” She took a breath, and tried not to let herself think of Phillip and how he must have died, alone, in the freezing mud. Poor baby … if only she could have held him…. “See you in four days, then.”

She was about to tell him not to come, but he was gone by then, and she slowly set the phone down, and turned to see Fannie and Teddy sitting on the stairs crying softly, just above her. They came to cuddle with her then, and she took them back upstairs to their own rooms, but that night they slept with her, and eventually Alexis came back downstairs and joined them. Edwina had left her alone, knowing where she’d gone, and that she needed to be alone with her memories of Phillip. In some ways, they all did.

They talked about him until late that night, and all the things they loved about him. How tall and distinguished he had been, how kind, how serious about things, how responsible, how loving, and how gentle. There was a long list of attributes that came to mind, and as she thought about him, Edwina realized with a gash of pain again, how terribly she would miss him.

And as they huddled together late into the night, she realized that it was once again like being in the lifeboat, afraid, alone, clinging to each other in stormy waters, wondering if they would all find each other again. Only this time, she knew they wouldn’t.

It was a long four days of quiet thoughts, and tears, and silent anger, waiting for George to come home, but when he did, the house came alive again, as he hurried up or down stairs, slammed doors, or rushed into the kitchen. It made Edwina smile just seeing him again, and when he walked through the front door when he arrived, he hurried out to find her in the garden. He strode toward her, pulling her close to him, and they
stood together for a long time and cried for their lost brother.

“I’m glad you came,” she admitted later on, when the little ones were all tucked into bed upstairs. And then she looked sadly at George. “It’s so lonely here without him. It’s different suddenly, knowing that he’s … gone … that he’s not coming back. I hate going into his room now.” George understood. He had gone in and just sat down and cried that afternoon when he’d gotten home. A part of him had expected Phillip to be there.

“It’s so strange, isn’t it?” he said. “It’s as though he’s still alive somewhere out there, and I know that he’ll be back someday … except he won’t, Edwina … will he?”

She shook her head, thinking of him again, and how serious he had been about everything, how responsible, and how he had always helped her with the children. Unlike George, who was always busy putting frogs into people’s beds, except that now, she was grateful to see him.

“I used to feel that way about Mama … and Papa … and Charles …” Edwina admitted. “That they would come back one day, but they didn’t.”

“I guess I was too young to understand that then,” he said quietly, getting to know her better now. “It must have been terrible for you, Win … with Charles and everything.” And then, “You’ve never cared about anyone else, have you? I mean … after him …” He knew about Ben liking her, but he also knew that Edwina had never been in love with him. And he didn’t think there had been any serious suitors since then.

She smiled and shook her head. “I don’t suppose I will love any other man again. Maybe that was enough in one lifetime. Just Charles …” Her voice drifted off as she thought of him.

“That doesn’t seem fair … you deserve more than
that.” And then, “Don’t you want children of your own someday?”

But at that, she laughed, and wiped the tears that she had shed for her brother off her face, “I think I’ve had quite enough, thank you very much. Wouldn’t you say five is sufficient?”

“That’s not the same, though.” He was still looking serious and she laughed again.

“I’d say it’s close enough. I promised Mama I’d take care of all of you, and I have. But I’m not sure I need more than that. And besides, I’m too old now anyway.” But she didn’t look as though she regretted it. All she regretted was losing so many people she had loved so much. It made those who were left now even more precious. “When do you have to go back?”

He looked at her for a serious moment before he answered. “I want to talk to you about that … but not tonight … maybe tomorrow …” He knew she’d be upset, but he had made his mind up even before he’d left to come home to California.

“Is something wrong? Are you in trouble, George?” It wouldn’t have been a total shock, in George’s case, but now she smiled lovingly. He was still such a boy, and so full of life, no matter how serious he appeared. But he was shaking his head, looking faintly insulted.

“No, I’m not in trouble, Win. But I’m not going back either.”

“What?” She looked shocked. All the men in her family had graduated from Harvard. For three generations. And after George did, one day Teddy would go, and one day, their children.

“I’m not going back.” He had made his mind up, just as Phillip had when he went to war, and Edwina sensed it.

“Why?”

“Because I belong here now. And to be honest with
you, I never did belong there. I had a good time, but it’s not what I want, Win. I want something very different. I want the real world … something new and exciting and alive … I don’t want Greek essays and mythological translations. That was fine for Phillip … but it just isn’t for me. It never was. I want something else. I’d rather go to work out here.” The suggestion shocked his sister, but she already knew it would be pointless to try and dissuade him. Perhaps if she let him be, one day he’d go back of his own choice and finish. She hated to think of him not getting his diploma. Even Phillip had planned to go back and finish.

They talked about it for several days, and eventually she discussed it with Ben, and two weeks later, George began an apprenticeship at their father’s paper. She had to admit that maybe for him, it made more sense, and with Phillip gone, now there would be no one else to run the paper. George was a long way from being there, but perhaps after a year or two, he would have learned enough to try his hand at it. God knew, there was no one else to.

And she smiled to herself as she watched him leave for the paper every morning. He looked like a child, pretending to be his father. First, he would fall out of bed, invariably late, and with his coat and tie askew, he would eventually appear at the breakfast table, just in time to tease and distract the children. Then, after spilling three glasses of milk, and feeding his oatmeal to the cat, he would grab two pieces of fruit, and fly out the door, telling her that he’d call her at lunchtime. He called her religiously every day, but usually to tell her a joke, and ask if she minded if he went out to dinner, which, of course, she didn’t.

George’s romances were legendary all over town, and as soon as people knew he was back, invitations poured in for him almost daily. The Crockers, the de Youngs,
the Spreckleses, everyone wanted him, just as they had always wanted Edwina, but a lot of the time, she preferred to stay home now. She went out occasionally with him, and he made a very handsome escort, but Edwina no longer thrived on going to parties. But George enjoyed it all thoroughly, much more than he enjoyed his apprenticeship at the paper.