Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/184

 It was plain that the way was not much traveled, although Jessica knew that without looking. A car line ran from Hampton to Newport News. There is nothing between these two cities, if a few solitary farms be excepted, farms that are reached by another road. This road led only to the Pomeroy property and nowhere else, which was the reason for old Peter Pomeroy’s locating there. He liked solitude, especially when certain horses were to be tried out. In this spot there would be nobody who did not have special business there. Pomeroy had found that he liked horses better than he did men—and having an intimate knowledge of both, probably he had good reason.

With the exception of Germinal Washington, who had spent many years there, it would have been difficult to induce a negro to go near the Pomeroy grounds—and even Germinal would, under no circumstances, approach the old house itself. It was said, on good local authority, that the place was haunted. Screams had been heard there late at night; lights blew out suddenly; there was the clanking of chains; all the good old supernatural standbys were “present or accounted for,” to lapse for an instant into army phraseology; long, thin ghosts pointing lean, skinny fingers were said to have been seen. At any rate, the Pomeroy house was haunted, and it was only upon being assured that Jessica and her servant intended to inhabit the caretaker’s lodge that Germinal consented to become a member of the party. He liked Jessica Pomeroy, having known her since she was a baby; but these ghosts seemed to have a certain preference for black men.

The small, compact lodge, of course, would be better for two unattached women. In the first place, it was