68 Marlborough Street

Boston, Massachusetts, USA

15 September 1916

Dr. Mary Blythe slipped a letter opener under the flap of a heavy, cream-colored envelope. After slicing the paper in a single, even stroke, she set her blade down next to her egg cup and pulled the embossed invitation from its sheath. Her eyes slid over the elaborate calligraphy and she let out a groan.

Gilbert looked over the top of his newspaper, his eyebrows raised in inquiry. It was his third newspaper of the morning; ever since the beginning of the war, he had arranged for daily deliveries of the Washington Post and the Toronto Star in addition to his usual Boston Herald. Bundles of week-old editions of the Times arrived from London on Saturdays. For the past three months, all their headlines had blared of the Somme offensive on the Western Front.

"It's a dinner invitation," Mary grimaced. "From Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Cabot."

"Really?" Gilbert asked, surprised.

"Who's Dr. Cabot, Mother?" Joy asked, nibbling at her toast.

"He's someone we knew at Harvard," Mary replied, frowning at the invitation.

"Is he the one who . . ." Cora began, but stopped herself when she remembered that both of her grandchildren were listening attentively.

Gilbert cleared his throat. "He's the one who was injured in the explosion in the lab, Mother."

"Oh, yes, that's what I was wondering," Cora nodded, grateful for the rescue. "I take it he recovered fully?"

"Yes," Mary said. "And now we are invited to . . . Elmhurst . . . for dinner on Thursday, the 21st of September."

"What's Elmhurst, Mama?" asked John.

"An ordeal, I'm sure," she muttered.

"Now, now, Mary," Gilbert chided. "I never heard that you had any quarrel with Dr. Cabot. Elmhurst is Dr. Cabot's house, John. I'm sure it's . . . very impressive."

"The house has a name?" John asked, wrinkling his nose.

"Sure, like The Excelsior, dummy," said Joy, naming a boarding house in Copley Square.

"Not quite like The Excelsior . . ." Gilbert corrected, but Joy wasn't listening.

"Is it a fancy dinner party, Mother?"

At twelve, Joy had recently become enamored of all things "grown up" and longed with all her heart to wear dainty evening dresses and go to parties. No one but Cora knew that she dreamed of someday having beaux — in the plural at that! — though anyone might have guessed it if they thought of her as anything other than a little girl.

"Will there be dancing?" Joy asked, enchanted at the idea. "Oh, Mother, what will you wear?"

"Nothing," Mary answered, stuffing the invitation back into its envelope.

"My, won't you make a splash!" Gilbert smirked.

Mary hid a smile behind a scowl. "I will not be wearing anything to Elmhurst because I will not be going to Elmhurst."

"No?" Gilbert asked. "Why not?"

"I could live several lifetimes without attending another Harvard event, or any event that is likely to be made up of similar company." She fixed Gilbert with a pointed look. "I have no interest in being forced to make pleasant chit-chat with Dr. Lowell."

"Who's Dr. Lowell?" Joy asked.

"Never mind," said Gilbert, Mary, and Cora as one.

"What does Cabot want with us, anyway?" Mary asked. "We haven't heard from him in, what? Fourteen years?"

"That isn't true," Gilbert replied, shifting uneasily in his seat. "You see him at vaccine conferences every now and again. And I saw him when I presented that paper on public clinics to the Board of Health. He's always been friendly enough."

"Nodding across a lecture hall is one thing," Mary huffed. "Going to Elmhurst, however . . ."

"Who's going where?" asked Mrs. Milligan, entering the dining room with a tray of pastries.

"Mother and Dad are going to a dinner party. A fancy one!" Joy burbled.

"Are they now?" Mrs. Milligan said, not much impressed. "Would you care for a danish, Dr. Blythe?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Milligan," said Mary, taking a warm pastry from the platter.

"Me too!" John piped up. He reached for two frosted buns, but caught Cora's disapproving glance and took only one.

"What's that it says, there?" Mrs. Milligan asked, leaning over Gilbert's shoulder to read the latest from the Somme. "A new offensive?"

"It seems there's been another burst of fighting this week," Gilbert replied gravely, indicating the map on the front page of the Star. "The Canadian Corps has been very heavily engaged here and here — near Flers and Courcelette."

As Mrs. Milligan studied the map, Mary caught Gilbert's eye and held it. It had been two years since anyone had truly slept well, but these past few weeks had left heavy shadows under Gilbert's eyes. Mary knew it would be too soon to have heard any news of the boys they loved — of Gordon and Olly Blake, of Fred and Jack Wright, of George and Harmon Andrews and a dozen other boys from Avonlea, and Edgar Wilson, Jr. from Montreal. All were "somewhere in France," all in harm's way.

"The Canadian boys will punch through, Dad," said John with considerable enthusiasm. "They'll break the Hun line for sure!"

Gilbert reached over and ruffled the boy's brown curls, devoutly thankful that he was nowhere near old enough to go, even if Woodrow Wilson ever got around to doing anything other than writing notes.

It was a complex emotion — how could he admit to himself being grateful for anything connected with losing Anne? But over the past two years, he had thought often and oftener of the sons he might have had in another lifetime. Sons who would have been old enough to go off to war beside Phil's boys and Diana's and Dora's. He thought of Davy, whose letters held a creeping fear that the war would last until Harry was old enough to enlist. Gilbert closed his eyes and said a brief but heartfelt prayer for all the Canadian boys he loved, and all those he didn't know, going "over the top" at Courcelette today.

"Hush, John," said Mary, though not harshly.

"It's high time you two were off to school," said Cora, rising from the table. "Joy, go find your books. And John, go with Mrs. Milligan to fetch the lunches. I will meet you in the hall in three minutes."

The children obeyed at once, eager to be off.

"And wash your hands!" Cora called after them.

Cora stepped lightly toward the hall, pausing by Gilbert's chair to lay a hand gently on his shoulder. "There's nothing we can do for them but pray, dear."

"I know," he said, attempting a smile. "Though I think I'll write a few letters this morning before I make my rounds. Let Phil and Jo and Diana and Fred know that I'm thinking of them all."

Cora planted a tender kiss on the top of his head and walked on. Grief and worry, worry and grief. There was a drop of bitterness in every cup, and lucky people had friends who knew the taste and could hold their hands when it came their turn to drink.

When Gilbert and Mary were alone at the table, she stretched out her hand and took his.

"I'm sorry to pout over a dinner party," she said, genuinely contrite. "I'll go if you want to."

Gilbert set down his newspaper, ran his free hand through the streak of silver at his temple. "I suspect you'll want to avoid it even more once you know a bit more about it."

"Oh?" Mary asked, suddenly on guard.

"I heard last week, but didn't think much of it at the time. It didn't seem worth mentioning."

"Gil . . ."

"It's Dr. Cabot. I heard he has a new job." Gilbert looked up and met Mary's eye as steadily as he could. "He's got a commission from the War Department. He's a Colonel, I think. In charge of building a vaccination program for the American army."

. . .

Author's Note:

Let me tell you a ghost story.

I was working on a Marbert update even before I finished posting the final chapter of "The Sun and the Other Stars." Nothing big, just a note or a snippet of an idea here and there. For one scene, I needed to give the Marlborough Street house an actual street number for an address. So I fired up Google Street View and took a virtual walk down Marlborough Street until I found the house that matched my imagination, and said, "That's it!" It was #68 Marlborough Street, and I wrote it into my scene.

Then I started worrying. It's one thing to say the house is on Marlborough Street, but when you put an exact address on it, that's some real person's house. I started fretting — who really lived there in 1902? Whose house was I stealing for my story?

So I decided to look it up. Marlborough Street is in an historic district called the Back Bay and there is a lovely website (backbayhouses dot org) that compiles the history of each house from deeds and directories. So I went and clicked on #68 Marlborough.

And about fell out of my chair.

In 1902, #68 Marlborough Street was owned by Dr. Grace Wolcott.

As you may have gathered, there were not so very many female doctors in Boston in 1902. But several of them lived at #68 Marlborough. Dr. Wolcott bought the house in 1886. She lived there with Dr. Lena Ingraham. Together, Dr. Wolcott and Dr. Ingraham staffed a clinic called Trinity Dispensary that specialized in the care of working women, staying open late so that women could visit without losing wages. In 1891, Dr. Wolcott and Dr. Ingraham founded a hospital called Vincent Memorial that was staffed entirely by female physicians. One of the staff doctors, Dr. Ella Dexter, even moved in with them at #68.

Vincent Memorial grew and grew, and eventually merged with Massachusetts General Hospital — today it is one of the premiere women's health centers in the United States.

I looked up Dr. Grace Wolcott's obituary in the New England Journal of Medicine — here is the final paragraph:

"She was pre-eminently a physician alike of bodies and souls. Radiantly alive herself, she rejoiced in all forms of life; and her keenest pleasure lay in spending herself that she might give fostering care to all living things from the blade of grass through all nature up to humanity. Strength mated with tenderness, faith and joy, boundless courage, unstinting devotion, marked her glowing personality, filling her with the life abundant, and so making her communicative of it to all who came under her care and influence. She had not been well for some time and had decided to spend the winter at Heath. There her earthly life came to an end; and with a swiftness and directness characteristic of all she did, she passed into eternal rest."

At this point, I was weeping at my desk and questioning my commitment to atheism.

When I had gathered myself together a bit, I began to wonder who lived next door to #68. So I clicked on #66 Marlborough Street.

Guess who lived there?

#66 Marlborough Street was the home of Dr. Israel Tisdale Talbot and Emily Fairbanks Talbot. You may remember them as the founders of the New England Female Medical College (later Boston University School of Medicine) and the Boston Girls' Latin Academy, Mary's alma maters (as discussed in "Playing Cards for Money"). The Talbots were so important to Mary that I had already named Gilbert and Mary's son John Talbot Blythe. They lived next door to Dr. Wolcott.

I know this sounds fake, or like maybe I read it somewhere and knew it subconsciously or something. But I didn't. I picked Marlborough Street way back in the summer, just because it was close to Harvard Medical School, but not too ritzy — "doctor fancy," not "shipping magnate fancy." I picked #68 just because it looked like the house I had imagined. I had never heard of Dr. Grace Wolcott. And as much research as I did, I never thought of looking up the Talbot's home address. (Also, one of the servants listed in the 1920 census record for #66 Marlborough was named Mary O'Connor because of course she was. I chose the name in part because it was common, but still.)

Long story short: I thought I was writing fanfic, but now I am entertaining the possibility that I am being haunted.

As for the family that lived on the other side (#70 Marlborough) in real life . . . well, someday you'll get a chance to know them, too. I certainly have — they won't leave me alone either.

This chapter is just a tease. Dispatches will continue on its regular schedule as news spreads and characters react to Walter's death. Meanwhile, I'm going to take my time writing more Marbert. I have lots of bits and pieces, but I want to get it right, rather than rushing it. There's still a lot more war over in Dispatches, and NaNoWriMo Carl and Shirley ("The Happiness We Must Win"), and maybe something for Young Dad Gilbert, and whatever prompts you decide to throw at me . . .