Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2012 15:32:46 +0200
From: Amy Redek <adultreading@gmail.com>
Subject: Ghost. Chapter Nine.

    This story is for persons of eighteen years or over.  All comments,
good or bad, are welcome and all will be answered.

			       Chapter Nine

   They all began to talk at once as soon as it sunk in that it appeared
that Hugo was correct in his assumption of where my remains were
lying. Sophie went to one of the bell pulls and rang for a servant and
asked him to fetch six men and some heavy hammers and meet Mr Hugo out by
the kitchen.

   She took charge and instructed Elaine, Mary, Anne and the children to
remain downstairs, except Richard, who as Earl, had the right to do as he
wanted. She then went upstairs with Richard, Hugo, Peter and Percy to
Hugo's room where he then opened the secret panel and they all looked at
the brick wall with some awe that would soon be torn down to see if Hugo
was right. Hugo himself then went down the stairs with a lit candle and
opened the panel below much to the surprise of the men waiting down
there. There was much whispering by them at seeing this secret staircase
and slowly followed Hugo back up to the bedroom. There was much forelock
touching as they crowded into the room where Sophie then gave them their
instructions. One man to wield the hammer and as the bricks were removed,
were to be passed down the stairs to be thrown outside. So one man was
chosen for the task of knocking down the wall while the others stationed
themselves at intervals on the narrow staircase to pass the broken bricks
on down.

   `I do so hope you are right Hugo,' Sophie said at the first hammer blow
to the wall.

   `So do I, so do I,' he said in a hushed voice. I was yelling fit to wake
the dead as I knew he was right. It took several blows to loosen the first
brick but that fell inside and couldn't be recovered, but with that first
brick out, the rest were easy to remove as the holding mortar was broken
and brick by brick, the hole was enlarged until there was enough room for a
person to put their head and shoulders through. That it was a sealed up
room was evident and the air became musty after a couple of bricks had come
away, plus there was a lot of mortar dust floating about in the air. When
the hole was large enough for someone to look through, the man was told to
stop and step back for a moment.

   `Now for the moment of truth,' Sophie said. `One of us has to look and
see if Hugo is correct.'

   `Let me mother,' said Richard expectantly.

   `No,' she said, and Hugo put a hopeful expression on his face. `I think
it should be Percy,' whose face took on a look of astonishment. `No
disrespect to you Hugo, but if Richard really is there behind that wall, I
want the room blessed before we go any further.' So a candle was lit and
put into the shaking hand of Percy who mumbled his thanks, not really
wanting the honour but was bound to follow the wishes of Sophie. He
approached the hole and putting his arm through that held the candle, then
put half his shoulder through before putting his head there to look inside.

   `Mother of God!' came the outburst from him as he quickly withdrew his
body and made the sign of the cross directed at the hole in the wall. `May
the good Lord give that poor being inside the blessing of the church and
your protection, and that we may remove his remains for him be buried
properly in hallowed ground and that you can then receive his spirit for
him to dwell in your house forever.' Nearly everyone in the room made the
sign of the cross and all said amen at the end of Percy's short prayer.

   `There's no doubt then?' Sophie said to Percy as he handed back the
candle and brushed dust off his sleeve.

   `Well, there are remains in there, but not until we can remove them will
we know if it is Richard or not,' he replied. So the signal was given to
the man with the hammer to continue and clear all the remaining wall that
was my first tomb. In thirty minutes, the wall was down and gone and then
stood there awaiting further orders.

   `Please wait,' she told the man. `There will be a keg of ale for you all
to share once we have the remains brought out, but first we will view
them.' She took the candle and surveyed the small chamber, looking down
especially at my skeleton that had been thrown in there to lay alongside
the chest that had held my clothes.

   `May God have mercy on your soul,' she said as she looked down at was
left of her uncle, me. Next came young Richard who was wide eyed at the
sight of inner parts of the ghost he so vividly remembered. Then all the
others in turn looked, some muttering prayers as they did so.

   A sheet was taken from the bed and laid out on the floor and then two of
the men had to fit themselves into that narrow space to try and bring out
my remains in one piece which wasn't practical, but remove them they did,
placing them in roughly the right order on the sheet until all my bones
were there for them to see all too clearly. There were still remnants of
cloth covering some of my bones of the clothes I had worn when I was
murdered. It was then covered up by another sheet and the men were thanked
before they made their way down the stairs, their grisly job done for the
time being.

   `Percy. Will you see to having a coffin brought up here and have him
placed inside and then taken to the chapel?'

   `Of course Sophie,' he replied and then left the room.

   `What else is there in that room?' she asked, and Peter took the candle
and went inside.

   `There's a travelling chest that must have been his, and,' we heard him
curse as he hit something as he tried to move around in that small
space. `There are several other chests at the back wall but I can't get at
them properly. They should all be brought out so that we can see them
properly.'

   `Would you give him a hand Hugo please,' Sophie said, and so he went
inside and dragged out my old trunk to be followed by my sword, the tassels
still there, faded, but still showed a slight colour. Richard opened the
lid to see my uniform that had been hastily thrown in and so it was badly
creased, but still had a magnificent look to it as it hadn't faded in the
slightest even after having lain there for so long.

   `There's four more chests in here,' came Peter's voice, `but they're too
heavy to lift. We'll have to drag them out. Can you lend a hand Richard?'
He was only too eager to go inside to see the interior, memorising all that
he saw so that he could regale the others later at having seen it all. The
faint light from the single candle showed the two others sweating as they
tried to pull the first chest out and Richard jumped in to help. Being
smaller, he was able to get behind and add his weight by pushing as they
pulled.

   It took them a good fifteen minutes to get the chest out and into the
bedroom where it could be properly inspected. It had an old cumbersome lock
on it and they looked round for something which could be used to break or
prise it apart.

   `I don't think this is fit to be fired again,' said Richard as he pulled
an old smooth bore pistol out of the trunk. `The barrel is narrow enough I
think.' He passed it to Hugo who inserted the barrel into the hasp of the
lock and gave it a twist. The lock broke and they were then able to remove
the broken piece and lift up the lid.

   There was an almighty collective gasp from the four of them and one from
me as the opened lid revealed that the chest was full of gold coins. I'd
been lying there with a fortune and hadn't known it.

   `Oh my God,' breathed Sophie. `I heard about the family fortune when I
was a little girl, but nobody had ever found it.' Richard was down on his
knees and running his hand through the shiny gold pieces and let them
trickle through his fingers.

   `You know what this means to the estate mother?' he asked, his eyes
shining as he looked up at her.

   `Yes. It's saved. Oh how I wish we'd found it much sooner and then your
father might still be alive,' she whispered, tears coming to her eyes and
beginning to flow down her cheeks.

   `I've never seen the like before,' said Peter in an awed voice.

   `Spanish doubloons,' commented Hugo, `and made from pure gold by the
look of them.'

   `And there's another three chests in there,' exclaimed Peter. `What if
they are as full as this one?'

   `Then this family will never be in need again,' she said
fervently. `Peter!' Sophie said, rising up from her knees and closing the
lid. `Get the men back up here and have them carry this and the other three
chests to the master's room.'

   `Certainly,' he said, and promptly disappeared back down the hidden
staircase to look for them.

   I was certainly miffed at them paying more attention to the chest of
gold than of my remains that they had originally gone looking for, but, it
was only human nature I guessed. I was just a pile of old bones while they
were looking at their future and that of the estate, but I was miffed all
the same.

   There was a knock at the bedroom door and in came Percy followed by four
of the men who been handling bricks, carrying a crude coffin which I hoped
they would change later for a more decent one that befitted my notoriety.

   The bottom sheet was lifted up and my bones deposited into the coffin
which really only needed two men to carry and so the other two were
detailed to get the chest that was there in Hugo's room to Richard's
room. Sophie went along with them because it was open and so Richard, Hugo
and Peter were left behind to instruct the men to get the other three
chests out from the priest's hole and get them along to Richard's room.

   I didn't bother following the coffin because I knew where that was
going, so I followed these other chests as they were finally put down next
to each other. One of these was surprisingly lighter than the others and it
was guessed that it didn't contain any gold bullion. Percy had gone down
with the coffin and so it was just Peter and Hugo that were there along
with Richard and Sophie.

   `Thank you gentlemen. Today's efforts and especially yours Hugo, will
not go un-noticed and we will see that everyone is suitably rewarded, but I
think that these three other chests are for the eyes of myself and the Earl
only, so we would be most obliged if you would retire and we will go into
further details over dinner.'

   There was nothing else they could do, especially by her making the
reference to Richard as the Earl, they had to withdraw and let them open
and inspect the contents in the privacy of his room. I wasn't asked to
leave as they didn't know I was there and so I stayed and watched as
Richard used the pistol barrel again to break the locks on the three
remaining chests. Two of them revealed their contents to be much the same
as the first one, full of gold pieces but the third one only contained
paper, and it was this one that took much time for them to study and go
through.

   There were many letters and documents that had been written up to nearly
two hundred years ago. Some were signed by King Charles the First. These
were for Land grants in the family's support in the Royalist cause during
the Civil War.

   A few by Cromwell in reference to the support he'd received from certain
members of the family. It appeared that one Stapleton or another had fought
on both sides just to ensure that one of them would benefit from whoever
won. Those that were signed by King Charles the Second were of land grants
in Jamaica. A lot of these documents were deeds granted to the family that
amounted to many thousands of acres. In terms of monetary value, they were
incalculable and all it would need was for a member of the family to go
Jamaica and claim that land with these signed documents that themselves
were worth a lot of money to whoever possessed them.

   I wished that I had known of these before I was murdered for it could
have made all the difference, but it seemed that the secret of these
documents and the gold were a secret that was only handed down from the
Earl to the eldest son and the first hiccup had occurred between Cecil and
my brother Edward. The second hiccup was that he failed to remember in his
haste to kill me that he had walled up the family fortune with my body and
had no means of recovering the gold and such like without revealing my body
to the world. It was what is now know in the modern world as him being in a
Catch 22 situation. What with me driving him mad and him knowing that he
couldn't get at the gold, he couldn't even reveal the secret to his son and
therefore had almost doomed the family to financial ruin.

   Dinner was a gay affair though it was tainted by the discovery of my
remains, I became a part of history as of that night as they were more
concerned over the future of the family with the finding of the
gold. Richard and Sophie did not tell them of what and how much that had
been found but assured everybody that they didn't need to worry any more
about how the estate would survive and that they would all have a share.

   It was dispiriting to see that for nearly sixty years people had sought
to solve the mystery surrounding Stapleton Hall's ghost but to find that
now I had been found, I was almost forgotten in that first night of
discovery. But such is life for the living, the dead are dead and there's
nothing anybody can do to try and bring them back.

   Though low in spirit for myself, I was pleased that the family fortune
had once again been restored and that I would finally be placed with the
rest of my family and I just wished and prayed that they wouldn't place my
remains next to that of my brother Edward.

   The official interment took place a few days later and I must say it was
a nice turn out to place a body in the vault of a man who had been dead for
over sixty years. There even were a few tears and I heard one of the young
girls ask if it was the end of Stapleton Hall's ghost as she shed a flood
of tears, and what better epitaph could anyone want when she said, `He was
such a nice ghost.'

				*    *    *

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