Hidden Places (29 page)

The first thing I did when I finally went back inside the cottage that morning was to open the bedroom drawer to retrieve my neglected manuscript. Except when I opened the drawer, it wasn’t there. Instead, I found a note:

Dear Missus Gibson,

I didnt steel this book frum you. Master Walter tole me to write this note and explane that he sent it to a publishur. He sed to tell you its reddy but he nos you wood never send it your self so he axed his lawyer to do it.

Peter

PS-He sed to add I love you (frum him, not me) and to tell you to start writing another book
.

About a month later, John Wakefield arrived at my door. I had closed up the cottage and moved back into the farmhouse with Father once Peter and his wife had returned home to Chicago.

‘‘Good afternoon, Mrs. Gibson,’’ John said, tipping his hat. ‘‘How are you today?’’

‘‘I’m fine, John. What’s all that stuff in the back of your wagon? You aren’t moving away from Deer Springs, are you?’’

‘‘No,’’ he chuckled, ‘‘This is your furniture, not mine. Where would you like it delivered?’’

‘‘Mine? What is it? Where did it come from?’’ I walked over to the wagon and lifted the tarpaulin to peer beneath it. Mr. Wakefield followed me.

‘‘According to the terms of your late husband’s will, he wanted you to have the desk and chair he used when he worked for his father. And he asked that I also purchase a typewriting machine for you.’’

The desk was made of cherry wood, with brass drawer pulls and a polished top that gleamed like a mirror in the sunlight. ‘‘It’s enormous!’’ I said.

‘‘Yes, it’s a beauty, all right. I wish I could afford a desk like that for my office.’’

The Remington typewriting machine looked incredibly complicated compared to a simple pen and paper. ‘‘Oh dear, John. I haven’t the faintest idea how to use that thing.’’

He smiled as he rested his briefcase on the wagon wheel and pulled a sheaf of papers from it. ‘‘Mr. Gibson said to tell you, and I quote—‘Learn how, Betsy. Your handwriting is atrocious’—end quote.’’

I laughed and wept at this message from Walter. It seemed to come from beyond the grave. ‘‘Were there any other orders from the boss?’’ I asked as I wiped a tear.

‘‘Yes, he retained my services as your lawyer.’’ Mr. Wakefield was trying to balance the briefcase and sift through the papers at the same time. I steered him to a chair on the front porch so his papers wouldn’t end up scattered to the four winds.

‘‘Mr. Gibson requested that I protect your interests,’’ he continued, ‘‘especially once you start receiving book contracts. I am to examine all your contracts thoroughly before you sign any of them.’’

‘‘You mean
if
I receive one.’’

‘‘No, Mr. Gibson seemed quite confident that you would. That’s why he paid me in advance.’’ He dug into the briefcase at his feet and handed me a thick, closed folio. ‘‘You’ll want to keep this in a safe place, Mrs. Gibson. It’s the title and deed to your house.’’

‘‘My house?’’

‘‘Yes, the little stone one down by the pond. Mr. Gibson arranged to purchase it from your father along with two acres of land. He intended to purchase the pond as well, but that belongs to Frank Wyatt and he refused to sell it—in spite of the very generous offer Mr. Gibson made him.’’ Mr. Wakefield dug into the briefcase again and retrieved another packet of papers. He handed them to me.

‘‘What’s all this?’’

‘‘These papers explain the details of the trust fund your husband provided for your support. The principal will be held in a bank in Chicago, but a very generous monthly living allowance from the interest payments will be deposited to an account that he set up for you here at the Deer Springs Savings and Loan. There are no restrictions whatsoever on that account. You may spend as much as you like, for whatever you like.’’

Mr. Wakefield’s eyes grew misty as he saw the tears rolling down my cheeks. He leaned over to take me in his arms and awkwardly patted my back. ‘‘He loved you a great deal, Betsy...and he left you very well-provided for.’’

Walter had a few more surprises for me. About six months after he died, I found a letter addressed to Betsy Gibson in my mailbox one morning from a New York publishing company. My hands trembled so badly as I slit it open that I nicked myself with the letter opener. I left bright red drops of blood on it as I read:

Dear Mrs. Gibson,

Congratulations. Your manuscript has been accepted for publication...

When I finally stopped whooping and shouting and dancing long enough to read the rest of it, I realized that Walter must have dictated a cover letter to accompany my manuscript when he submitted it. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the publisher’s words:
We also like your idea for a series of books for young ladies and would like to contract you to write four more novels....

‘‘A
series
!’’ I cried out loud. ‘‘What on earth were you thinking, Walter?’’

Of course, the series of books I wrote under my married name was published and became very popular. Then about two years later, when Father had his last stroke and became bedridden, I decided to read Walter’s travel journals aloud to him in the evenings. When I opened the first page, I was stunned to find another note from Walter, misspelled by Peter:

Dear Missus Gibson,

Master Walter sed to tell you that boys like exciting stories too and that you shud write sum. He sed he always wanted to be a brave hero and so plese make him a hansum one.

Peter

PS—He sed he loves you and dont forget that he rescues the princesses from the pie-rats
.

The first adventure story I wrote for boys began aboard the
S. S. Hibernia
as it sailed the high seas in twenty-foot swells and gale-force winds. Unlike Walter, the intrepid hero did not require a bucket. My publisher loved the book, but he thought the series’ author needed a masculine name. I chose ‘‘Herman Walters’’ in honor of my favorite teacher, Mr. Herman, and my real-life hero, my husband, Walter Gibson.

These books became every bit as popular as the girls’ series, and I lived ‘‘happily ever after’’ as they say, caring for my aging father and writing books in my secret writing haven in the cottage by the pond. Few people in Deer Springs ever knew I was an author.

After Father died I continued living in the farmhouse and writing down in the cottage, often until after midnight. If I needed to research a scene in one of my adventure stories, I would sometimes put on one of Walter’s old suits and tramp around in the woods by the pond to experience what it felt like for my hero to sneak around in the jungle in the dark. That’s what I was doing the night my father’s house burned down. I was on my way back to the farmhouse when I saw Frank Wyatt run out of my back door and hurry up the hill. A moment later I heard a big
whoosh
and flames shot out of my farmhouse windows.

Of course, there weren’t any telephones or anything, so the house burned to the ground before the volunteer firefighters could do much about it. I knew why Frank had done it. My father had deeded the house and his last few acres of land to me, but if I died without an heir, it would become part of Wyatt Orchards. Lydia had already died by that time, so Frank burned the house, hoping I would die, too. But I shocked the socks off Frank when I emerged from the woods still wearing Walter’s suit and stood beside him as the firemen doused the smoldering wreckage.

‘‘Betty! You...you’re alive!’’

‘‘Surprised, aren’t you, Frank?’’

‘‘I...you...Ithought...’’

‘‘I’m sure they’ll never suspect that you were the arsonist.’’

Even in the dim light I saw his face turn pale. ‘‘W... what are you talking about?’’

‘‘I saw you do it, Frank. You were hoping to kill me, weren’t you?’’

‘‘Kill you! You’re mad as a hatter!’’

‘‘Fine. You can tell the whole world I’m your crazy spinster sister-in-law if that makes you happy. And you can have the last of my father’s land, too. But I own the cottage and the two acres it sits on. They will never belong to you, Frank. Never. The deed is in my name.’’

Frank Wyatt never spoke a single word to me after that night.

Wyatt Orchards

Summer 1931

‘‘The day is thine, the night also is thine:
thou has prepared the light and the sun.
Thou has set all the borders of the earth:
thou has made summer and winter.’’

PSALM 74:6–17

CHAPTER TWELVE

W
hen Aunt Batty finished her story, I stared at her in wonderment. ‘‘
You’re
Betsy Gibson?
You
wrote all those books I loved so much when I was a girl?’’ Gabe and I had coaxed her inside the farmhouse to tell her tale around the kitchen table over a pot of coffee.

‘‘Yes, that’s my real married name,’’ Aunt Batty said. She always wore a thin gold chain around her neck, and now she pulled it out from inside her nightgown. A gold wedding band dangled from the end of it. ‘‘I like to wear Walter’s ring close to my heart,’’ she said.

‘‘And you’re Herman Walters, too?’’ Gabe said. He seemed even more flabbergasted than I was.

‘‘Yes...Ihope you’re not too disappointed to discover that Herman Walters is a woman?’’

‘‘Not at all! I’m just amazed to finally meet him...or her...Imean,
you
!’’ He sprang up from his chair and bent over tiny little Aunt Batty, hugging her like a long-lost relative. ‘‘Your stories saved my life when I was a boy,’’ he said, his voice husky with emotion. ‘‘I really mean that! They were the only escape I had sometimes— from...everything.’’

‘‘I’m glad I could help,’’ she said, patting his back.

I suddenly had an idea how Aunt Batty might save my kids and me, too, but I was scared to death to ask. What if she took offense and stormed out of the house and abandoned us? But if I didn’t ask, we might not have a house at all in another two days.

‘‘Aunt Batty, what ever became of the trust fund Walter left you?’’ I finally got up the nerve to ask. ‘‘Did it survive the stock market crash?’’

‘‘I don’t know and I don’t care. Walter left me more money than I ever needed. Especially once my books started selling like hot cakes.’’

‘‘Might some of it still be in Mr. Preston’s bank?’’ I asked.

‘‘Not on your life! I never trusted my money in that muleheaded man’s bank—or anyone else’s bank! The trust fund deposited it there every month and I withdrew it every month.’’

‘‘That turned out to be a wise decision,’’ Gabe said, ‘‘considering how many banks have failed this past year.’’

I pictured my kids and me living like hobos, and summoned all my courage to ask, ‘‘Aunt Batty, if you still have any of that money left...could I borrow five hundred dollars? I’ll pay you back just as soon as we harvest this year’s crops.’’

‘‘Sure, Toots! Take all you want. What on earth do I need it for? How soon do you need it?’’

‘‘Right away. Today. Now.’’

She stood up, pulling her coat off the back of her chair, and slipped her arms into it. ‘‘Okay, let’s go.’’

Gabe looked at me in surprise. ‘‘Shouldn’t you let her get dressed, Eliza?’’

I still wore my nightclothes, too, but I hadn’t removed my coat. ‘‘No, please, I’m afraid if we don’t go now...’’ I didn’t want to say that sometimes Aunt Batty’s memory failed her and that if we didn’t go while her memories were fresh, I was afraid she would forget where she kept her money.

Gabe frowned as I handed Aunt Batty her shoes. He was still scowling as he followed us two nightgown-clad ladies down the hill to the cottage. I was excited, yet afraid to get my hopes up. The money might be in gold doubloons or even Confederate money for all Aunt Batty cared.

Everything in her cottage was still topsy-turvy, but I was relieved to see that her parlor and her enormous desk were miraculously undamaged over the winter. We had removed all the books from the lowest shelves and they were still packed away, but Aunt Batty started scanning the remaining books, perusing the titles.

‘‘Look for stories about greed,’’ she said. ‘‘That’s where I keep the larger bills.’’

‘‘Here’s
Silas Marner
,’’ Gabe said, pulling it from the top shelf. He handed it to her. ‘‘Will this do?’’

‘‘Yes, that’s an excellent choice, Gabe.’’

She held the book upside down by its spine and ruffled the pages until the money that she’d hidden there fluttered to the floor. It was genuine! Aunt Batty scooped up three twenties, two fifties and a one-hundred dollar bill. My heart pounded with excitement as I turned back to the bookshelves. I’d never heard of half the books but I stopped when I found Charles Dickens’
A Christmas Carol
. ‘‘How about the Ebenezer Scrooge stor y?’’ I asked.