No matter how early we arrived for work, or how late we left, someone was always there before and after us. The ladies who cooked breakfast were there before the earliest waitresses, who sometimes arrived when it was still as dark as the middle of the night. But even they were never the first, since the general manager and a caretaker both lived in houses on the property, within sight of the main house. In the evenings, the chef always (depending on the chef), stayed until all the wait staff had gone home. It was the house man who stayed the latest, turning out all of the downstairs lights and locking the doors.
Sometimes, the wait and kitchen staff would be having such a good time with each other that we would sit around in the staff room or outside the back door for awhile after our work was finished. When the office was located in the main house near the front door, sometimes we would stay to chat with the house man and drink 'leftover wine.' It was often during these late-night sessions that strange stories would be told, and sometimes, when unusual things would happen, between the front door and the back of the service wing. In the dining room, especially, things would move. Silverware, glasses, even food from the tables would slide, fall, disappear or become airborne, usually when there was no one nearby who could possibly be responsible. Sometimes the strange and unusual events, while eerie, would have a perfectly earthly origin--- like the eerie screaming from the direction of the cemetery, which only meant that a deer had gotten stuck in the fence. Surrounded by acres and acres of rolling fields, themselves bordered by miles of woodland belonging to the State of Maryland, the spot is an island of quiet, undisturbed nature that often seems outside of the reach of time.
