‘No,’ said Rupert. ‘I say, do you play chess, or draughts, or halma or anything?’
‘I could bring them,’ she said; ‘but I only know the moves at chess and when you bring down the Queen and the Bishop, and the other person is called the Fool’s Mate—only they always see it before you get it finished.’
‘I’ll teach you,’ said Rupert yawning. ‘I say, everything is pretty beastly, isn’t it? It’s jolly in India. I wish I was there.’
‘So do I,’ said Caroline. ‘At least I don’t mean that. But I wish you were not so mizzy.’
‘There ought to be a Society for the Prevention of Schools,’ Rupert went on; ‘then everything would be all right.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Caroline; ‘I think this is a dumpy day. I felt quite flat this morning, as if nothing mattered. But it got better. I’ll look in my book when I get back and see if there’s any flower that means cheer up. And if there is I’ll bring it to you, and perhaps it will work a cheering charm on you.’
Caroline herself, sitting among the straw, wrinkling her forehead in the effort to think of some way of cheering the prisoner, was almost a cheering charm herself. Rupert perhaps felt something of this, for he said:
‘I’m all right. Only I feel so jolly rotten.’
‘You write the letter,’ said Caroline. ‘I don’t feel half as flat as I did. I’ll think of all sorts of things to amuse the captive. And I’ll bring you——’
William whistled below. The two children stiffened to the stillness of stone and held their breaths. Voices. Mrs. Wilmington’s voice.