The Find

Gail’s favorite pastime is browsing through to estate sales. Each sale afforded an adventure into another time.

Besides the good deals on antiques, there was something insatiably exciting about exploring a stranger’s past. The anticipation of a new sale never waned for her. Strolling amid tables of jewelry, books, old toys, record collections, little figurines, racks of clothing and furniture, she believed you never know what you’re going to find.

Even on vacation in England, she looked online for local estate sales. Knowing she couldn’t purchase anything big, she can’t resist the temptation when she sees a sale listed in a castle. But Gail’s husband Dean is tiring of her obsession.

“You want to go to an estate sale on vacation? Never mind the money you spend and the storage it takes, this quirky little interest of yours has gone too far,” he angrily accused.

“It’s not an obsession,” Gail insists. “Didn’t I find that great deal on those golf clubs you love so much from that one estate sale? And where else would I have found that perfectly working 8 track player so you can listen to those old 8 tracks from high school?

Dean sighs, exasperated.

“OK, I’ll admit sometimes you find something useful. But we’re gonna have to move into a bigger house to keep all the stuff you get. And how are we gonna get anything home in our luggage?”

Gail grins, victorious. He’s caving.

“I probably won’t get anything. And aren’t you curious what an English castle looks like from the inside? Think of it as a free full access tour. Maybe we leave in find hidden rooms behind strange bookcases.”

Dean smiles and nods in agreement.

The estate is out in the countryside, but luckily there’s a train closeby. And when they arrive at the train station, Gail is able to get a ride on her Uber app to the castle in the middle of miles of rolling hills of English countryside.

The castle was built sometime in the 1500s, but it wasn’t a castle like they’d seen in movies. There’s no drawbridge or moat and the stone walls on the outside changed to plastered walled rooms with spectacular decor inside. With wood panel walls and soaring ceilings, it’s like nothing they’d ever seen before.

Gail is giddy in expectation. She can’t believe that she can take something home that could be hundreds of years old.

Unlike the American estate sales she frequented, there are no tables or racks. Everything is pristinely kept just as it was left by the last owner.

Her eyes expand to saucers as they travel from room to room looking at everything from old leather-bound books and jewelry to crystal, china, silver sets and swords. She looks over at Dean, expecting the face concern at the shopping bonanza, but instead, his eyes dance like a kid in a candy store.

“This place is amazing. Did you see the swords?” he gushes.

At that moment, she knows there will be no problem from him.

“Go ahead and explore. I’m gonna look upstairs,” she says.

In the main bedroom, she finds a giant mahogany canopy bed surrounded by open dresser drawers and wardrobes. But as she browses through the clothing, everything seemed pretty contemporary—nothing she hasn’t seen before. And the jewelry, while nice, only appears to be about 50 or 60 years old.

Exploring the other bedrooms, she’s slightly disappointed to find the same. Sluffing down the winding wood staircase, she feels a little melancholy. Her expectations were so great and now they’re dashed aside.

Then she sees Dean running at her with a look of glee on his face.

“Come, quick,” he whispers. “You can’t believe what I found.”

He quickly escorts her into a library, which housed wall-to-wall bookcases with leather-bound volumes, as far as I could see.

He pulls her to a corner bookcase.

“Remember when you said there could be secret passages behind these bookcases?”

Gail holds her breath with anticipation.

“You found a secret passage?” She asks.

“No.” He shakes his head, nearly busting with urgency.

“I was looking all around pulling books everywhere to see if I could find a trigger to open a bookcase and look what I found hidden behind these books.”
He stands with his back blocking the view of other patrons and carefully pulls two books from the bookcase, reaches in and grabbed some ancient-looking papers, rumpled and yellowed by age with tattered corners.

Seeing he was extremely excited; Gail tempers her enthusiasm recognizing an obvious rookie mistake.

“These look really old. And the writing even appears as though it was drawn with an ink quill. But they’re probably just old letters or papers from one of the owners. I guess we could frame them, but they don’t have any value.”

Dean thrust the papers in her hand, quietly urging her to look closer.

“You don’t understand. Look at the name on this.”

Gail takes the papers and peers at them. The name reads “William Shakespeare.”

She gasps and stares at him in shock.

“You don’t think?”

Dean smiles with a Cheshire grin.

“I don’t know what do you think? Should we ask someone?”

Gail immediately nodded no.

“The first rule of estate sales is never let on that you know something may be more valuable. Then the price goes up. They probably don’t even know this exists.”

She carefully examines the papers, trying to read the words.

“It’s like poetry, I guess. I don’t understand most of the words. Didn’t Shakespeare write a lot of sonnets?”

“Yes, I think so. And I remember studying it in college English. You had to have a dictionary just to know what all the Elizabethan words meant. What if this is an unpublished sonnet? It could be worth millions!” Dean whispers quietly but could barely contain his exhilaration.

Gail shook her head again.

“There’s no way this could be an unpublished Shakespeare sonnet. I think we’re getting carried away. It’s a common mistake with estate sales. I’ve seen it a lot of times. Let’s get a grip.”

Dean looks as though he’s going to explode.

“OK, what do we do now?”

Gail looked around and thought about it for a few minutes.

“OK, let me go find the agent and ask them the price for the old papers? I’ll feign mild interest and tell him I like the parchments. I won’t show them the writing or the name. A lot of times they’re so busy with people they just don’t realize.

Dean follows her to the cashier station. As Gail predicted, the agents are very busy and distracted dealing with multiple people at a time.

“How much for these old papers? I really like the old parchment.” Gail calmly asks.

Barely acknowledging her, the estate agent abruptly says.

“Give me ten quid.”

Trying to keep her cool, Gail smiles and hands her a ten-pound note and quickly puts the papers in her bag and they leave the castle like Bonnie and Clyde robbing a bank.

Recognizing the value of their prize, they reluctantly remain silent on the Uber ride and the train back to their hotel, fearing someone will overhear and rob them of their precious cargo.

With pent up anticipation, they spread the pages out on their hotel bed and Gail looks Shakespeare’s sonnets on her computer.

“It says he wrote over 154 sonnets and it shows a couple of samples. They look like the same kind of writing and the words seem similar too. But I still can’t believe we found something so valuable.”

“Me either,” Dean says, practically jumping up and down on the bed.

Then Dean pauses pensively and picks up the page with the name on it.

“Just out of curiosity, how does it say you spell Shakespeare?”

Gail glared at him with confusion and anxiety.

“S-h-a-k-e-s-p-e-a-r-e.” She slowly spelled out the letters.

Dean’s face instantly droops.

“Are you sure there’s an E at the end?”
An overwhelming sense of panic engulfs Gail.

“Yes, there’s definitely an E at the end. Is there not an E at the end on the page? I thought I saw an E.”

She runs over to the bed and closely inspects the document.

“I thought it looked like an E, but now it looks like a swoosh. Oh no!” Gail lifts her hands up and places them on head.

“And there’s no S either! This says William Shakepeer. The flowery writing and ink has so many swooshes. I think we just assumed. It’s a joke!”

She plops down on the chair.

“It’s worthless. How could we have made such a mistake?”

Dean chuckles and pats her on the back to comfort her.

“It’s not worthless, honey. We had a great adventure and we can frame it on the wall and see how many of our friends figure out the puzzle. 10 pounds is worth a great story.”