The Invention of Miracles by Katie Booth

Author:Katie Booth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2021-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

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Alec’s side may have launched a surprise attack, but there was still a long trial ahead. During February and March, the Bell Telephone Company strengthened from within by merging with the New England Telephone Company. Together, they formed the National Bell Telephone Company. Alec rallied for Gardiner to helm the combined company, but Colonel William H. Forbes took it over, and management of the National Bell Telephone Company slipped almost entirely from the Bell Telephone Company owners. Gardiner remained involved to some extent, staying on the five-person executive committee; Thomas Sanders had already resigned his position as treasurer, but he, too, joined the executive committee; Thomas Watson, young and now rich, began to move on to other ventures—he would try his hand as a farmer before pivoting to building steam engines, founding the Fore River Ship and Engine Building Company in 1884; and Alec finally received one piece of his request to put the telephone behind him—he was left off the executive board.

The same action that Alec once thought would free him—removal from the helm of the company that bore his name—actually meant that he was now fully freed to devote his time to his invention’s defense. This was Alec’s life now: trial. Work with the deaf was replaced by meetings with lawyers and appearances in court. Alec split his time between Boston, where the Bell Telephone Company was headquartered and where the case was being heard, and Washington, DC, where the Hubbards had moved, and where he and Mabel rented a home at 1509 Rhode Island Avenue, within walking distance to Mabel’s parents.

As Alec traveled between the two cities, Mabel sat in his study and wrote to him. She had cleaned the study, then immediately wished she hadn’t, that she’d left the clutter of her husband to surround her. “I miss you dreadfully every moment,” she wrote from his desk. Even the rare moments when she felt okay would crumble when she thought of just how often and how long he would be gone, “and then my heart and courage go down into my boots.”

The separation wore on Alec, too: “Don’t let us consent to being separated any more; help me darling to prevent it now. Let us lay it down as a principle of our lives that we shall be together, that we shall share each other’s thoughts and lives—and to be to one another all that a husband and wife could be. Letters cannot speak as we can face to face—heart to heart.”

In March, Alec was back in Washington with Mabel again, but even then he was preparing to leave for Boston, reading through old letters for anything that could be used in court. His secretary copied anything he found, and Mabel packed and unpacked Alec’s trunks. Elsewhere, Thomas Watson prepared models of telephones for the trial. In the coming months, Alec would present his own testimony.

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