The eighth of February had come. Kester was beginning to think that it was about time his visit to Park Newton should be brought to a close. He had two horses in training at Chantilly, on which he based some brilliant expectations, and his heart and thoughts were in the stable with his pets. Every day that he prolonged his stay at Park Newton merely served to deepen his hatred of the place. “I shall have a fit of horrors if I stay here much longer,” he said to himself. “I’ll invent some important business, and try to get away the day after to-morrow. I must persuade the old boy to come and spend a month with me at Chantilly when the spring sets fairly in.”
Dinner that day was quite an hour later than usual. General St. George had been to see an old friend who was ill, and he did not get back till late. Contrary to his usual practice, Richard Dering sat this evening with his uncle and cousin, after the cloth was removed: He sat drinking his wine in an absent mood, and scarcely joining in the conversation at all. By-and-by Pearce brought a note to the General on a salver. He put on his spectacles, opened the note, and read it. Then, with a little peevish exclamation, he tossed it into the fire.
“Another of them,” he said. “We shall be left before long without a servant to wait on us. I certainly did not anticipate this annoyance when I came to live at Park Newton.”
“What is the annoyance of which you speak?” asked Kester.
“Why, that fellow Finch has just given me notice that he intends to leave this day month. That will make the sixth of them, man or maid, that has left me since I came here; and I hear that the rest, old and new, are all likely to follow suit before long.”
“You astonish me,” said Kester. “You have always seemed to me the most indulgent of masters. If anything, too lenient—excuse me, sir, for saying so—and I can’t understand at all why these idiots should want to leave you.”
“Oh, it’s not me they want to leave: it’s the house that doesn’t suit them.”
“The house! And what have they to complain of as regards the house?”
“They swear, every man jack of them, that it’s haunted.”
Kester’s pale face became a shade paler. He fingered his empty wine glass nervously and did not answer for a little while.