by Lynn Austin
‘‘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 ifI 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. Hiberniaas 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 whooshand 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
When Aunt Batty finished her story, I stared at her in wonderment. ‘‘You’reBetsy Gibson? Youwrote 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.
‘‘Even better. Open it up and see, Eliza.’’
I turned it upside down and rifled through the pages as she had done.
‘‘Merry Christmas! And God bless us, every one!’’ Aunt Batty cheered as three one-hundred dollar bills floated out. We had found more money than I needed in only two books!
‘‘Well, would you look at that?’’ Aunt Batty said suddenly. Gabe had pulled Treasure Islandoff the shelf and a letter had fallen out of it.
‘‘What is it?’’ I asked her.
‘‘Remember that last letter from Matthew you asked me about? Here it is! I hid it in one of his favorite books.’’
The envelope she handed to me was limp and as thin as tissue paper. Matthew had written it on stationer y from a hotel in France:
April 14, 1918
Dear Aunt Betty,
Thank you for writing and telling me the news about my mother.I’ve seen so much death over here that I suppose I should be used to it by now, but I’m not. I loved her. And she never stopped loving you and me, did she? Please take care of Sam for her sake, okay? And for my sake, too. Don’t let his father destroy him like he destroyed everyone else.
Love now and always,
Matthew
But finding the letter wouldn’t help me unravel the mystery of whether or not Gabe was Matthew Wyatt. Except for the signature, the letter was typed. I slid it back into the envelope and tucked it inside Treasure Islandagain.
‘‘Here’s your money, Toots,’’ Aunt Batty said, pushing the bills into my hands. For a moment I was too overwhelmed to speak. I had enough for the mortgage! More than enough.
‘‘I...I’ll pay you back. I promise....’’
She waved me away. ‘‘Oh, I don’t want it back.’’
‘‘No, I can’t take this unless you make it a loan. I intend to pay you back just as soon as I sell our fruit.’’
She walked away from Gabe and me and stood gazing through the front window as if deep in thought. ‘‘Tell you what, Toots,’’ she finally said, facing us again. ‘‘I’ve always wanted to own Walter’s Pond. Will you sell it to me for five hundred dollars?’’
‘‘Gladly,’’ I said, wiping tears of relief. ‘‘You have a deal.’’
That’s when I took a good look around for the first time and noticed that Gabe had finished the kitchen roof and cleaned up the mess. The wainscoting could have used a coat of paint, and Gabe’s carpentry would never win first prize at the county fair, but Aunt Batty could use her kitchen again.
‘‘How long ago did you finish here?’’ I asked Gabe.
He shrugged. ‘‘Month or so ago.’’
I stared at Aunt Batty in wonder. ‘‘Yet you didn’t leave me? You stayed with me?’’ That seemed like an even bigger miracle to me than finding the money.
‘‘You needed me, Toots,’’ she said. ‘‘You and those wonderful kids of yours. How could I leave all of you?’’
‘‘But...but you’ve worked so hard for me all this time...and you didn’t have to.’’
She pulled me into her arms. ‘‘It isn’t work when you love someone.’’
On the day that the mortgage was due, I walked into Mr. Preston’s bank and handed him the $528.79 Frank Wyatt owed him. Mr. Preston looked shocked. And a little disappointed.
‘‘Well, Mrs. Wyatt, how about that? Frank Wyatt must have kept a few extra bills stuffed under his mattress, eh?’’
I remembered finding the money amongst the pages of Ebenezer Scrooge’s story and smiled. ‘‘That’s really none of your business, Mr. Preston.’’
I drove home feeling happier than I had in a long time. But trouble was determined to hound me. Wouldn’t you know that as soon as I overcame one crisis, the next one would rear its ugly head? This time the weather turned against me. Gabe had loaded Aunt Batty’s radio onto the pickup truck and driven it up to my house for all of us to enjoy. That’s how we heard the announcement— the weather bureau had issued a frost warning for our area that night.
‘‘Uh-oh, that’s bad news,’’ Aunt Batty said, shaking her head. ‘‘A frost could kill the blossoms. And no blossoms means no fruit.’’
‘‘Smudge pots!’’ I said, remembering. ‘‘My father-in-law used to set up smudge pots in the cherry and pear orchards if there was going to be a frost. He’d fill them full of oil, float a corn cob in each one for a wick, and let them burn all night.’’
Gabe was already on his feet. ‘‘I guess we’d better get started before the temperature drops.’’
All six of us bundled up and set to work. Becky and Aunt Batty gathered up corn cobs while the rest of us hauled hundreds of pots out of the attic of the apple barn and loaded them onto the back of the truck. But when we went to fill them from the big fuel oil tank we discovered that it was nearly empty. There was no place to buy more oil this time of night, either. I was so upset I couldn’t think straight.
‘‘Listen, it’ll be all right,’’ Gabe soothed. ‘‘We don’t have to light them yet, and we don’t have to fill them to the top. We’ll just put a little oil in each one and I’ll stay up and refill them when they start to burn out.’’
I remembered the story in the Bible about the widow and her kids who were in as big of a fix as I was in. God told her to have faith and just keep filling all the jars she had with oil, and the jug didn’t run out until she was al
l finished. I guess Aunt Batty’s prayers must have helped us that night because that’s exactly what happened with my oil barrel. Gabe kept filling smudge pots about half full, and even though I kept expecting the big drum to run dry any minute, it never did. We set out all the pots near the most vulnerable trees, then I sent Aunt Batty and the kids to bed. Gabe and I each had an extra gallon container full of oil and after lighting the pots sometime after midnight, we stayed up all night refilling them.
The hardest part was staying awake. By five o’clock in the morning I felt tuckered out. I topped off all the pots that needed it, then climbed into the pickup truck to rest for a minute and warm myself up. I had just leaned my head back and closed my eyes when Gabe opened the passenger door.
‘‘May I join you?’’ he asked, rubbing his hands together to warm them.
‘‘Sure, climb in.’’ I started the engine and let the heater warm us both up. ‘‘You’d better talk to me,’’ I said, closing my eyes again, ‘‘or I’m going to fall sound asleep.’’
‘‘Why don’t you go home and go to bed, Eliza? I can finish by myself. It’s nearly dawn.’’
‘‘No,’’ I yawned. ‘‘We’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel now, and it’ll be a regular juggling act for you to keep all those fires burning by yourself.’’
Gabe chuckled. ‘‘There were times tonight when I felt like one of those guys in the circus who has to balance a dozen plates at a time and keep them all spinning.’’
‘‘While riding a unicycle,’’ I added, laughing with him, ‘‘and not letting any of them fall and break.’’
‘‘But we did it,’’ he said with a contented sigh. ‘‘We should congratulate ourselves.’’ He stuck out his hand, waiting for me to shake it. I hesitated, then stretched out my own hand and gave his a quick shake. Gabe’s skin was rough and calloused, his grip rockhard. We touched only briefly, but it sent a shiver through me that went all the way to my toes. I hoped he hadn’t noticed how rattled I was.