No Greater Love (4 page)

“I’d say you’ve had a good look at everything, George. Well done,” Charles congratulated him, and the errant child grinned proudly. “Have you been to the bridge yet?”

“No.” The boy looked disappointed. “I haven’t really had much time to have a good look at the bridge yet. I was up there, but there were too many people to really see what was going on. I’ll have to go back there later. Do you want to go for a swim after lunch?”

“I’d like that very much, if that suits your sister’s plans.”

But Edwina was fuming. “I think you should be put down for a
nap
, with Fannie and Teddy. If you think you can run all over this ship, acting like some wild young hoodlum, you’ve got another think coming, from me, if not from Mama and Papa.”

“Oh, Edwina,” the boy groaned, “you don’t understand anything. This is really important stuff.”

“So is behaving properly. Wait until Mama sees the way you look.”

“What was that?” Her father’s voice spoke from just behind her, and there was a ring of amusement to it. “Hello, Charles…. Hello, George, I see you’ve been busy.” There was even a small smear of grease across his face, and George had never looked more pleased with life or more at ease, as his father looked down at him with open amusement.

“This is just great, Dad.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” But at that exact moment, Kate caught a glimpse of her son as she approached, and scolded him when she reached them.

“Bertram! How can you allow him to look like that! He looks … he looks like an urchin!”

“Do you hear that, George?” his father asked calmly. “I’d say it’s time to clean up. May I suggest that you go to your stateroom and change into something a little less … uh … worn … before you overly upset your mother.” But his father looked more amused than annoyed, as the boy grinned up at him with a wide smile
that mirrored his own. But Kate was far less amused as she told George to take a bath and change his clothes before reappearing.

“Oh, Mom …” George looked imploringly at Kate, but to no avail. She pulled up her sleeve, took his hand in her own, and marched him downstairs, where she left him with Phillip, who was studying the passenger list, hoping to find someone he knew there. The Astors were on board, of course, and Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus, of the family who owned Macy’s. There were many, many famous names, and several young people as well, but no one Phillip knew, not yet anyway. But he had seen several young ladies who appealed to him, and he was hoping to meet them during the crossing. He was still studying the passenger list when his mother escorted George into the room and asked her older son to see to it that he clean up and behave himself, and Phillip promised to do his best, but George was already chafing to be off again. He still wanted to visit the boiler room and the bridge, and go back to the kitchen again, there were several machines they hadn’t let him use, and there was one elevator he still had to check to see if it went farther up or down than the others.

“It’s a shame you don’t get seasick,” Phillip said to him mournfully as Kate went back to the others on the Promenade Deck.

She and her husband enjoyed a pleasant lunch with Edwina and Charles, and then met up with Phillip and George and Oona and the younger children after their naps, and Alexis seemed a little less worried about the ship by then. She was fascinated by the people chatting and strolling all around, and by then she had met the little girl that her father had mentioned earlier. Her name was Lorraine, and she was actually closer to Fannie’s age. She was three and a half and she had a baby
brother named Trevor, and they were from Montreal. She had a doll just like Alexis’s. They were grown-up lady dolls, and Alexis called hers Mrs. Thomas. She had gotten her from Aunt Liz for Christmas the year before, and Alexis went everywhere with her. Lorraine’s had almost the same face, but her hat and coat weren’t as fancy as the one Aunt Liz had sent, and Mrs. Thomas was wearing a pink silk dress that Edwina had made, under the black velvet coat that she had come with. She had high button shoes, too, and that afternoon Alexis took her for a walk with her as she strolled around the Promenade Deck with her parents.

The ship docked at Cherbourg at Alexis’s bedtime that night. The little ones were already asleep, and George had disappeared again. Kate and Edwina were dressing for dinner, while Charles, Phillip, and Bertram waited in the smoking room for the ladies.

They had dinner in the main dining saloon on D Deck that night, the men all in white tie, of course, and the women in exquisite dresses they had bought in London or Paris or New York. Kate wore the incredible pearl and diamond choker that had once been Bertram’s mother’s. The dining saloon itself was exceptionally beautiful with carved woodwork, shining brass, and crystal chandeliers, and the three hundred first-class passengers dining there looked like visions in a fairy tale in the brightly lit room. Edwina thought she had never seen anything as beautiful as she looked around, and then smiled at her future husband.

After dinner, they sat in the adjoining reception room, where they listened to the ship’s band play for hours, and finally Kate yawned and admitted that she was so tired she could barely move. It had been a long day, and she was happy to stroll back to their staterooms with her eldest son and her husband. Edwina and
Charles had decided to stay a little longer, and Kate had no objection to it. And when Phillip checked and found George sound asleep in bed they were all relieved to realize that he was no longer on the loose.

At noon the next day, they made their final stop, to pick up steerage passengers in Queenstown, and suddenly as they watched the passengers boarding, from high up Oona gave a squeal and clutched the railing of the Promenade Deck.

“Oh, my Lord, Mrs. Winfield! It’s me
cousin
!”

“How on earth can you tell from here?” Kate looked unconvinced. She was a very emotional girl, and not without a vivid imagination. “I’m sure it can’t be.”

“I’d know her anywhere. She’s two years older than me, and we was always like sisters. She’s got ginger hair, and a little girl, and I see them both … Mrs. Winfield, I
swear
it!… She’s been talking about coming to the States for years … oh, Mrs. Winfield.” There were tears swimming in her eyes. “How will I find her on the ship?”

“If that’s really your cousin, we’ll ask the purser. He can check the third-class passenger list, and if it’s she, she’ll be on it. What’s her name?”

“Alice O’Dare. And her daughter is Mary. She’ll be five now.” The information wasn’t lost on Kate. If she was two years older than Oona, she’d be twenty … with a five-year-old daughter … she couldn’t help but wonder if there was a husband, too, but she didn’t want to offend Oona by asking, and she correctly assumed that there probably wasn’t.

“Can I play with her little girl?” Alexis asked quietly. She was feeling better today. After a night in a cozy bed, the
Titanic
didn’t seem quite so scary. And all the stewards and stewardesses were so nice to her that she was actually beginning to enjoy it. And Fannie thought it
was fun too. She had crept into Edwina’s bed that morning, and found Alexis already there, and pretty soon Teddy had climbed into bed with them, too, and a little while later, George appeared and sat on the edge of Edwina’s bed, tickling all of them, until their squeals and gales of laughter finally woke Oona. She had come running, and then grinned when she saw all of them. Just as she smiled from ear to ear when she found her cousin’s name on the passenger list. There it was, plain as day. Alice O’Dare. She went to tell Edwina, while she was dressing for dinner at the A la Carte Restaurant with Charles and her parents.

“Miss Edwina … I was right … it was my cousin coming on the ship today. I just knew it. I haven’t seen her in four years and she hasn’t changed a bit!”

“How do you know?” Edwina smiled at her. She was a sweet girl, and she knew that Oona was genuinely fond of the children.

“One of the stewardesses stayed with the little ones for an hour during their naps, while I went down to steerage to see her. She was on the passenger list, the purser said, and I had to see her.” And then, as though to defend herself, “Mrs. Winfield knew. I told her and she said I could go.”

“I’m sure it’s all right, Oona.” It was an odd position for Edwina sometimes, neither mistress nor child, and she knew that Oona and others in their house sometimes saw her as a spy, because she might mention something to her mother. “Your cousin must have been very happy to see you, I’m sure.” She looked kindly at the girl, feeling light-years older. And feeling relieved and happy, Oona smiled.

“She’s a beautiful girl, and little Mary is so sweet. She was only a year old the last time I saw her. And she looks just as Alice did as a child! Ginger hair like fire.”
She laughed happily, and Edwina smiled, clipping on a pair of her mother’s diamond earrings.

“Is she going to New York?”

The young Irish girl nodded, feeling blessed by the fates. “She was. She has an aunt and some cousins there, but I was after telling her to come to California. And she says she’ll try. I’ll do anything I can to help her.” Edwina smiled at her. The girl looked so happy, and it was nice for her to have relatives on the ship, and then suddenly she thought of something she knew her mother would have thought about too.

“Did you wash your hands carefully when you came back?”

“I did.” She looked faintly hurt, but she understood. To them, third class was like a disease, a place one never saw and wouldn’t want to. But it hadn’t been as bad as Oona had expected. It was nothing like her own cabin, of course, and none of the bits and pieces in the cabin were very fancy, but it was decent and clean, and it would get them all to America in one piece, and in the end, that was all that mattered. “Aren’t we lucky, Miss Edwina? To be on the same ship … fancy that … faith, I never thought I’d have so much good fortune.” She smiled at Edwina again, and went back to her cabin to watch the children, as Edwina walked into the parlor to join her parents and Charles. They were having dinner that night at the elegant A la Carte Restaurant, and Edwina could only agree with Oona as she smiled across the room at her intended. They were all lucky, and blessed, for the lives they led, the people they loved, the places they went to, and this beautiful ship taking them back to the States on its maiden voyage. As she stood holding Charles’s hand, in her pale blue satin dress, her hair softly piled high on her head, her engagement ring glistening on her finger, Edwina Winfield knew that in
all her life, she had never been as lucky or as happy. And as she drifted into the hall on Charles’s arm, as Kate and Bertram chatted cozily, she knew it was going to be a special night, a prelude to a wonderful lifetime.

THE DAYS ON THE
TITANIC
SEEMED TO GLIDE BY WITH EASE
and pleasure. There was so much to do, and seemingly so little time in which to do it. It was all too pleasurable, and so easy, suspended between two worlds, on the ship that offered absolutely everything from exquisite meals to squash games and swimming pools and Turkish baths.

Phillip and Charles enjoyed several games of squash and rode the stationary bicycles and the mechanical horses every morning while Edwina tried the novelty of the electric camel. George rode the elevators instead, making friends, and the entire family had lunch together every day. And then, when the little ones went for naps with Oona, Kate and Bertram would go for long walks on the Promenade Deck, talking about things they hadn’t had time to discuss for years. But the days went too quickly, and they were over almost before they knew it.

Their evenings were spent dining in either the main
dining saloon or the even more elegant A la Carte Restaurant, where the Winfields were introduced to the Astors by Captain Smith on the second day of the trip. Mrs. Astor commented to Kate about their lovely family, and from several things she said, Kate deduced that the new Mrs. Astor was expecting. She was considerably younger than her husband, and they appeared to be very much in love. Whenever Kate saw them together after that, they were always talking quietly or holding hands, and once she had seen them kissing on their way into their stateroom. The Strauses were a couple Kate had decided she liked too. She had never seen two people so compatible and so obviously in love after so many years, and during her one or two conversations with Mrs. Straus she had discovered that she had a wonderful sense of humor.

There were three hundred and twenty-five first-class passengers in all, many of them interesting, some well known, and she had particularly enjoyed meeting a woman named Helen Churchill Candee. She was a writer, and had written several books, and seemed interested in a wide variety of subjects. A wide variety of “subjects” were interested in her as well. And Kate had noticed repeatedly that the attractive Mrs. Candee was seldom surrounded by fewer than half a dozen men, some of them the most attractive on the ship, with the exception of Kate’s own husband.

“See what you could have done with your life, if you weren’t stuck with me,” Bert teased as they wandered past Mrs. Candee’s deck chair, where a group of men were waiting breathlessly for every word, and Kate could hear her elegant laughter ring out as they walked away. But she could only laugh herself. It was something Kate Winfield had never even thought of. The very thought of leading a life like Mrs. Candee’s only made
her smile. She loved her own life, with her children, and her husband.

“I’m afraid I’d never do as a femme fatale, my love.”

“Why not?” He looked hurt, as though she were questioning his taste. “You’re a very beautiful woman.”

“Silly thing.” She kissed his neck and then shook her head, with a girlish grin. “I’d probably always be running around with a handkerchief, blowing someone’s nose for them. I think I was just destined to be a mother.”

“What a waste … when you could have had all of Europe at your feet, like the illustrious Mrs. Candee.” He was teasing, but he was also very much in love with her, as she was with him.