Thank you Feline; you're very perceptive, but I assume you already know this. The first happy part of the story was written some time ago as a Halloween story, but I struggled as to what to do with these two characters after they got settled into their new home. A more playful symbiotic kind of relationship between the living and the unliving was actually my preference (as it initially started out with the ghostly John) but a very human lustful desire for a blood heir to properly inherit the magnificent home that the Remington family built was where I eventually went. John's blood lust had been horrifically sated, but Betty was left nothing but bitter.
Robert Remington selected this couple specifically knowing that the house held some secrets, that they were young and had no children of their own yet, and also that the happy former occupants demise wasn't all that happy, that he himself had a hand in that. Maybe they were "who'll ever know" good intentions on his part even, but when his brother John eventually discovered what happened at one time behind his back, he still lost his mind and acted.
The horror of being walled up alive certainly isn't a new concept, so I shamelessly borrowed that. I of course left it a bit vague as to if the real Betty was still hanging in the dungeon, or is she were eventually found and interred next door with her husband.
The spirits were of course still hanging around because of unfinished business, kind of a theme in these kinds of stories...
Thank you for your honest feedback, Jackie.