Page 135 of Ghost
Chapter Forty-Five
“It’s been so many years, but I held my tongue, mostly to protect you from your own momma.That isn’t the way it should’ve been, but it was.That woman was just evil.”Lizzie sat back and looked at Francis.“I knew in my heart that it was your momma who killed you.”She shook her head sadly.“I couldn’t protect you then.You was a grown man by then.You was a fine gentleman who should have had many more years that just the twenty-seven you had.”
“Thank you, Lizzie for all the times you did.”Francis looked as if someone had punched him in the gut and he was about to cry.
“Now,” Lizzie said sitting up, “where do you think your daddy is?”
Francis stood up and walked to the window, looking out onto the street.He turned back to look at those in the room.“My father and uncle had a terrible argument, and then a fight, right in the front yard.My uncle felt that he had the right to bury Aunt Agnes at their home, and father was adamant that she be laid to rest at the family home, Hobonny.It was well known that if my father were to die, I would inherit the plantation.”
“Wow, that’s just...just wow,” Mason said.
“Mother didn’t even wait until he was declared dead before she moved into town.”Francis shook his head.“My uncle expected me to stay and run the plantation, which also benefited him, since he was given a portion of the profits, if there were any.He didn’t want the responsibility of running a plantation and a law office.Of course, I had been helping run it with my father long before he went missing.”Francis looked at Lizzie and Ellen.“I only came to Savannah when I had to.Mother was impossible to deal with.The only time she wanted to see me was when she wanted money.What she didn’t know was that if anything happened to me, the plantation would go to my uncle, not her.”
“Do you remember the day she...killed you?”Ellen stood up and walked to stand next to Francis.
Francis lowered his head.“Yes.She had sent me a letter asking to see me.She was supposedly going to go back to Hobonny for my birthday and didn’t want to make the journey alone.I did not consider that she had ulterior motives other than asking for more money.”He raised his head to look at Ellen and then Mason.
“We had a brief chat and then she asked me to help her move an old stove away from the wall as she had sold it and wanted to have the new one installed before it was moved out of the house.When I bent over to get a good handle on the thing, she hit me in the back of the head with a large cast iron skillet.The front of my head hit the top of the stove hard and I fell over.The last thing I remembered then was her hitting me again on the forehead.That should have finished me off, but it only rendered me unconscious.”
Francis sighed heavily.“I awoke, not knowing where I was, and I do not know how long I had been unconscious.My hands and feet were bound, and a rag of some sort had been pushed into my mouth and secured.It was pitch black.I could not see nor hear anything.I remember that I was so very thirsty and hungry.Those are the memories I died with.”There were tears flowing freely down Francis’ cheeks.“My own mother left me to slowly die in what I now know was, behind a brick wall, a tomb of her making.”
“She made the trip to Hobonny for your birthday, as planned.”Ellen was standing in front of Francis now.“She said that you never arrived in Savannah and she thought you must have changed your mind, so she made the trip on her own.”
Francis only nodded.
“She stayed a few days and then left, returning to Savannah.”Ellen used her handkerchief to dab at her eyes.“Father found out a week later that she had left for France for an extended period of time.He searched and searched for you.He had this house inspected numerous times.He knew she had killed you but couldn’t prove it.”Ellen took a long drink of her lemonade.“She did not return for over a year.That’s when she started selling off bits and bobs from the house.She must have spent all her money and then found herself in dire straits.It makes sense that she would come back thinking that she could sell Hobonny and have money left over.”
Lizzie motioned for Fred to help her stand.She had tears on her own cheeks, which she wiped away with a hanky.“Pure evil, I say.I’ve always said it.”She stood next to Ellen.“She was always awful to mah Frankie.”
“So...do you know where your father is?”Mason asked gently.
Francis turned towards Mason.“I would be willing to bet that she buried him in the grave that my uncle had dug for Aunt Agnes.She would only have needed to cover his body enough to make it appear as if the grave were empty.”
Lizzie nodded.“Yep, I’d say that’d be about right.”
“But that house was sold ages ago,” Ellen declared.
Gerald appeared beside her looking quite upset.“Do we know who the owners are now?”He asked.
Lizzie chuckled.“I do indeed know.”She looked at Francis.“I do.I own it outright.Always have.”
Francis smiled at the old black woman in front of him.“When Uncle moved to Savanah when his law office moved, he put his former home up for sale.I had a solicitor purchase the property on my behalf.I then gifted it to my dear Lizzie.”
Ellen looked from Francis, then to Lizzie and then the rest of her family.She started to laugh.“Oh my, Imogene would have been furious.Fit to be tied.”Ellen clapped her hands together.“Well done, Francis, very well done!”
It wasn’t long before everyone in the room was laughing.
“No wonder your mother was so miserable,” Mason said, wiping tears from his face.“That would have frosted her ass that a former servant was living high on the hog while she was in poverty!”
Francis scowled and looked at Ellen.“What does ‘frost her...ass’ mean?”
Ellen was doubled over with laughter.“I’ll tell you later.”
