Neither Charles nor Charlotte could remember having promised.
‘Then here goes!’ said Caroline, pushing open the door. The candle they had put there in readiness gave them enough light to fasten the bolts by, and also to find the recess in the vault of the passage which they had decided to use to hide the rose leaves in.
They listened at the other door, got safely into the passage and up to their rooms. Caroline pulled off her wet things, put on her bath slippers, and crept down with her bath towel to rub away the water they had dripped on the floor by the door of the room where the secret staircase was. They feared so wet a patch might prove a clue to Mrs. Wilmington. But Mrs. Wilmington was with Rupert, putting cold bandages on a very hot head, and before she left him for the night, the stones were dry.
Perhaps you would not like to go down a secret staircase in the middle of the night and into an underground passage, even to fetch rose leaves to cure a sick friend? But the three C.’s were not afraid of the darkness. Their mother had always accustomed them to go about in the dark. It was a sort of game to them, to feel their way about the house without a light, and to fetch sweets which their mother would put ready for them. She used to tell them exactly where to find the little packets, and so the dark was always mixed up in their minds with sweets and expectation and pleasant things. And they only had to go down the house stairs in the dark. Directly they got to the secret stair of course they lighted the candle.
And now you see them in their quilted red dressing-gowns carrying up the wet sacks of rose leaves. They felt their way to Rupert’s room. In it a night-light was burning dimly. They lighted the dressing-table candles.
‘Hullo!’ said Rupert; ’who’s that?’
‘It’s only us,’ whispered Caroline. ‘Is the fever very hot?’
‘It is now,’ said Rupert; ‘it was cold just now. I wish I could go to sleep. I can’t though. I feel all hot and then all cold. It is beastly.’
‘We’ve brought you something nice and cool,’ said Charlotte. ‘You get out of bed and you’ll see.’