And he went, leaving Mrs Scarfe decidedly mystified.
Jeffreys and Scarfe occasionally met during the next few days. Jeffreys was rather relieved to find that his late schoolfellow seemed by no means anxious to recall an old acquaintance or to refer to Bolsover. He could even forgive him for falling into the usual mode of treating the librarian as an inferior. It mattered little enough to him, seeing what Scarfe already knew about him, what he thought of him at Wildtree. On the whole, the less they met and the less they talked together, the less chance was there of rousing bitter memories. The Scarfes would hardly remain more than a month. If for that time he could efface himself, the danger might blow over, and he might be left at the end of the time with the secret of his bad name still safe at Wildtree Towers.
Kennedy’s prophecy of a hard frost turned out to have been a knowing one. All through Christmas week it continued with a severity rare even in that mountainous region; and when on New Year’s Day the report reached Wildtree that a man had skated across the upper end of Wellmere it was admitted to be a frost which, to the younger generation of the place at least, “beat record.”
Percy was particularly enthusiastic, and terrified his mother by announcing that he meant to skate across Wellmere, too. Raby, though less ambitious, was equally keen for the ice; and Scarfe, indolently inclined as he was, was constrained to declare himself also anxious to put on his skates.
A day was lost owing to the fact that Percy’s skates, which had lain idle for two years, were now too small for him and useless.
Mrs Rimbolt devoutly hoped the ironmonger in Overstone would have none to fit him, and used the interval in intriguing right and left to stop the projected expedition.
She represented to her husband that the head gardener was of opinion that the frost had reached its height two days ago. She discovered that Scarfe had a cold, to which exposure might be disastrous. Raby she peremptorily forbade to dream of the ice; and as for Percy, she conjured him by the love he bore her to skate on nothing deeper than the Rodnet Marsh, whereat that young gentleman gibed. The Overstone ironmonger had skates which fitted the boy to a nicety, and by way of business sent up “on inspection” a pair which Mr Rimbolt might find useful for himself.
“You surely will not allow Percy to go?” said the lady to her husband, on the morning after the arrival of the skates.
“Why not? He’s a good skater, and we don’t often have a frost.”
“But on Wellmere! Think of the danger!”