When the doctor had paid his visit they were allowed to see Rupert for a few minutes before bedtime—not in the straw-loft as they had expected, but in the blue room, which is hung with tapestry, and has blue silk curtains to windows and four-poster.
‘They brought me in at tea-time,’ Rupert told them. ‘That Mrs. Wilmington of yours is first-class. I don’t know what you meant by saying she was a rotter. And your uncle—isn’t he a brick?’
Charles was glad he had thought of that word himself, Rupert’s using it showed it was the correct thing to say.
‘I’m jolly glad you told him,’ Rupert went on. ‘Of course we couldn’t have gone on the other way. And he’s sent a telegram a mile long to my people in India to ask whether I mayn’t stay on here till school begins again.’
‘How splendid,’ said Charlotte, awe-struck; ‘how awfully splendid! I didn’t think uncles could be like that.’
‘Uncles are all right,’ said Rupert, ‘if you treat them properly.’
Then he began to cough, and Mrs. Wilmington came in with lemonade and honey, and told the others that they were tiring him, and it was bedtime anyhow.
‘If you treat them properly,’ said Charlotte dreamily, as she brushed her hair, ‘uncles are all right. Do you think he would have been all right if we hadn’t treated him just as we did?’