The Bone Garden: A Novel
Page 36
As the librarian walked away, Julia remained transfixed by the portrait of Aldous Grenville, the man who had been Sophia Marshall's lover. I now know what happened to Norris's mother, thought Julia. On a summer's evening, when her son lay feverish, Sophia had left his bedside and had ridden to Aldous Grenville's country house in Weston. There she planned to tell him that he had a son who was now desperately ill.
But Aldous was not at home. It was his sister, Eliza, who heard Sophia's confession, who entertained her plea for help. Was Eliza thinking of her own son, Charles, when she chose her next action? Was it merely scandal she feared, or was it the appearance of another heir in the Grenville line, a bastard who'd take what her own son should inherit?
That was the day Sophia Marshall vanished.
Nearly two centuries would pass before Julia, digging in the weed-choked yard that was once part of Aldous Grenville's summer estate, would unearth the skull of Sophia Marshall. For nearly two centuries Sophia had lain hidden in her unmarked grave, lost to memory.
Until now. The dead might be gone forever, but the truth could be resurrected.
She stared at Grenville's portrait and thought: You never acknowledged Norris as your son. But at least you saw to the welfare of your daughter, Meggie. And through her, your blood has passed on, to all the generations since.
And now, in Tom, Aldous Grenville still lived.
Henry was too exhausted to come with her to the airport.
Julia drove alone through the night, thinking of the conversation she had had with Henry a few weeks ago:
— You've taken the wrong lesson from Rose Connolly's life. —
— What's the right lesson? —
— To grab it while you can. Love! —
I don't know if I dare, she thought.
But Rose would. And Rose did.
An accident in Newton had cars backed up two miles on the turnpike. As she inched forward through traffic, she thought about Tom's phone calls over the past weeks. They'd talked about Henry's health, about the Holmes letters, about the donation to the Athenaeum. Safe topics, nothing that required her to bare any secrets.
— You have to let him know you're interested, — Henry had told her. — He thinks you're not. —
I am. But I'm afraid.
Trapped on the turnpike, she watched the minutes tick past. She thought of what Rose had risked for love. Had it been worth it? Did she ever regret it?
At Brookline, the turnpike suddenly opened up, but by then she knew she would be late. By the time she ran into Logan Airport's Terminal E, Tom's flight had landed, and she faced a crammed obstacle course of passengers and luggage.
She began to run, dodging children and carry-ons. When she reached the area where passengers were exiting customs, her heart was pounding hard. I've missed him, she thought as she plunged into the crowd, searching. She saw only strangers' faces, an endless throng of people she did not know, people who brushed past her without a second glance. People whose lives would never intersect with hers. Suddenly it seemed as if she'd always been searching for Tom, and had always just missed him. Had always let him slip away, unrecognized.
This time, I know your face.
— Julia? —
She whirled around to find him standing right behind her, looking rumpled and weary after his long flight. Without even stopping to think, she threw her arms around him, and he gave a laugh of surprise.
— What a welcome! I wasn't expecting this, — he said.
— I'm so glad I found you! —
— So am I, — he said softly.
— You were right. Oh, Tom, you were right! —
— About what? —
— You told me once that you recognized me. That we'd met before. —
— Have we? —
She looked into a face that she'd seen just that afternoon gazing back at her from a portrait. A face that she'd always known, always loved. Norrie's face.
She smiled. — We have. —
1888
And so, Margaret, you have now heard it all, and I am at peace that the tale will not die with me.
Though your aunt Rose never married or had children of her own, believe me, dear Margaret, you gave her enough joy for several lifetimes. Aldous Grenville lived only a brief time beyond these events, but he took such pleasure from the few years he had with you. I hope you will not hold it against him that he never publicly acknowledged you as his daughter. Remember instead how generously he provided for you and Rose, bequeathing to you his country estate in Weston, on which you have now built your home. How proud he would have been of your keen and inquisitive mind! How proud to know that his daughter was among the first to graduate from the new female medical college! What a startling world this has become, where women are allowed, at last, to achieve so much.
Now the future belongs to our grandchildren. You wrote that your grandson Samuel has already shown a remarkable aptitude for science. You must be delighted, as you, better than anyone, know that there is no nobler profession than that of a healer. I dearly hope young Samuel will pursue that calling, and continue the tradition of his most talented fore-bearers. Those who save lives achieve a form of immortality of their own, in the generations they preserve, in the descendants who would not otherwise be born. To heal is to leave your stamp on the future.
And so, dear Margaret, I end this final letter with a blessing to your grandson. It is the highest blessing I could wish upon him, or upon anyone.
May he be a physician.
Yours faithfully,
O.W.H.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
In March 1833, Oliver Wendell Holmes left Boston and sailed to France, where he would spend the next two years completing his medical studies. At the renowned École de Médicine in Paris, young Holmes had access to an unlimited number of anatomical specimens, and he studied under some of the finest medical and scientific minds in the world. He returned to Boston a far more accomplished physician than most of his American peers.
In 1843, at the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, he presented a paper titled — The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever. — It would prove to be his greatest contribution to American medicine. It introduced a new practice that now seems obvious, but which, in Holmes's day, was a radical new idea. Countless lives were saved, and miseries avoided, by his simple yet revolutionary suggestion: that physicians should simply wash their hands.
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