Adeline laughed, though she surrendered herself to skate with him. "I’m glad you have told me", she said. "At any rate, I hope I shall be easier to manage than Nero was".
"You need not rub that in", he returned.
As they left the pond and moved slowly up the river, he began to lecture her on the care she should take of herself. She drew sharply away from him. She exclaimed:
"Very well. If you are going to be disagreeable to me I shall skate by myself". She took a long, sweeping stroke for which she had not the skill and would have fallen had not Wilmott, now skating with Mrs. Pink, glided forward and caught her. She clung to him, laughing into his face.
"For heaven’s sake, take me away", she implored. "Dr. Ramsay is a tyrant! Mrs. Pink, would you mind changing partners? Dr. Ramsay and I have had a falling-out".
"I shall be quite glad to", said Mrs. Pink. "Mr. Wilmott is too fast for me".
"It’s the speed of the imbecile", said the doctor under his breath.
The poplar trees by the river’s edge now began to cast long, blue shadows across the ice. The snow, piled high at its verge, lay like ruins of some marble tower that had fallen in its first white splendour. The reddening sun lowered toward the pines. Tite and the farmer’s wife were carrying about hot broth and scones, baked on the bricks. On a table, covered by a cloth of red-and-white check, were a huge jug of coffee, cups and saucers, plates mounded with cinnamon drops and plum cake. Inside the house was a bowl of punch, to be served later.
Adeline hovered near the refreshments, anxious for Wilmott’s sake that all should go well. Indeed, all had gone well. The innovation had been a success. The company wore an air of unaffected jollity. Most of them were gathered about the table where the cake and coffee were, but a few of the younger ones were still on the ice. One of these was young Guy Lacey who was taking lessons in figure-skating from Daisy Vaughan and, with a sailor’s abandon, eating a slice of plum cake at the same time. Daisy could give him her whole-hearted attention, for Dr. Ramsay had taken his leave. Not long before this the children’s nurse had appeared, having pushed the white sleigh brought from Quebec all the long way from Vaughanlands with Augusta and Nicholas in it. They had been greeted with delight and instantly supplied with cinnamon drops. Now the younger Busby boy was propelling them, with somewhat reckless speed, over the ice. Nero, escaped from Patsy O’Flynn, bounded joyfully at the side of the sleigh, now and again uttering a deep-throated bark.
As the punch was being drunk and pronounced excellent, Wilmott said to Adeline:
"I think everything has gone off fairly well, don’t you?"
"Everything has been perfect", she declared, looking at the snow through the redness in her glass. "I don’t know when I have had a better time. And look at Philip, as blithe as a schoolboy".
"He will catch his death of cold. He should not have taken off his cap in this temperature".
Philip held his mink cap in his hand and his light-brown hair stood up in moist waves. His expression was one of staunch assurance that the system under which he lived was perfect, and a serene belief that the future would hold nothing which Adeline and he could not cope with.
"Put on your cap!" she called out.
He pretended not to hear.
"Your cap!" she repeated. "You’ll take cold".
"Tommyrot! I never take cold".
Lydia Busby firmly possessed herself of his cap and standing on tiptoe placed it on his head, herself blushing furiously at her own temerity.
"Too far back!" cried Adeline. "It looks like a baby’s bonnet".
Philip instantly assumed an expression of infantile innocence. Lydia, blushing still more, drew the cap forward on his brow.
"Horrible!" declared Wilmott. "He now resembles a dancing dervish with a mop of hair in his eyes".
Philip quickly changed his expression to one of barbarous ferocity.
"Oh, Captain Whiteoak, how you frighten me!" exclaimed Lydia. She snatched the cap from his head.
"Lydia", called out her mother. "That’s enough".
"Try again, Miss Lydia, try again!" urged Philip.
This time she placed it jauntily to one side.
"Will that do?" she asked.
Philip winked at her.
"Perfect!" cried Mrs. Pink. "Perfect!"
"Lydia", called out Mrs. Busby. "That is enough".
But now Adeline was looking toward the gate. Two men had alighted there from a hired cutter and were paying the driver. Her eyes widened. She stared, scarcely believing their evidence. Then, as the men approached, she turned to Wilmott.
"It’s Thomas D’Arcy", she said, "and Michael Brent! Whatever are they doing here?"
Wilmott gave them a look of apprehension, almost panic. "I won’t see them!" he exclaimed. "Not after what has happened. Oh, Adeline, why did you tell them about me?"
She could not answer, for the Irishmen were upon them. She hastened forward. "Don’t say a word about James Wilmott’s wife", she warned them, giving each a hand. "How well you both look! And what wonderful new hats! You bought them in New York, I’ll be bound".
"We did indeed", said D’Arcy. "You yourself are looking superb, if I may make bold to say so".
"What luck", said Brent, "that we should arrive in time for a skating-party! We can skate too. Have you some skates to spare?"
"We have just come from Niagara Falls", interrupted D’Arcy. "Superb in winter-time. Really superb. We heard the jolly noises when we arrived here and we said at once, ’This is Jalna!’ You see we remember the name. So we told the driver to put us down on the spot".
They shook hands with Wilmott.
"You here too!" said Brent, with a roguish look. "What good fortune!"
"This is my own home", Wilmott returned, rather stiffly. "You are very welcome".
"Then it’s not Jalna! But our luggage has been put off at your gate! Never mind, we shall carry it to Jalna".
D’Arcy said, out of the side of his mouth, to Wilmott, "We got rid of her for you. She’s off to Mexico. What a tartar! I don’t blame you. I’d have done the same myself".
Wilmott, with a set face, stared straight ahead.
Philip now discovered the visitors. They were provided with refreshments and, after that, with Mr. Pink’s and Wilmott’s skates. Wilmott and Tite went to the gate where their luggage was and carried it into the house. Philip met them there and it was decided that Wilmott could give them his room for the night and himself sleep in Tite’s bed. Tite should sleep on the floor.
While they were talking Captain Lacey joined them. He declared that, if Wilmott could put the two Irishmen up for the night, they would be welcome in his house after that, for his son was leaving the next day to join his ship and it would be a good thing for himself and his wife to have such lively company to cheer them up.
XV. In Wilmott’s House
The skating-party was over and the farmer’s wife had, more or less, tidied up after it. Fiddling Jock had all but finished the punch and gone back to his hut in the woods, singing "Loch Lomond" at the top of his lungs. There was bright young moonlight. The wild things came out of their burrows and there were cries of terror as the stronger seized the weaker.
It was hot inside the house, for Wilmott had heaped up the logs. The two Irishmen, Philip, Adeline and Daisy were gathered about the fire while the travellers poured out their adventures in the States. Adeline had tried to persuade Daisy to leave with the others but it had been impossible. Daisy was in a state of high exhilaration at being part of so unconventional a gathering. D’Arcy and Brent had racy tongues. It seemed that they had done everything there was to do in New York and Chicago. They were enthusiastic about life in America. Then the conversation turned to the voyage from Ireland on the Alanna, the stay in Quebec. There was so much to talk of, yet all the while Wilmott and Adeline were thinking about Henrietta. Quite suddenly Daisy exclaimed: