“The donkey-trap will bring your luggage,” she said. “It will be all right.”
She turned to the coachman.
“Drive easy now, James,” she said, “and mind you don’t let the cob shy when you come to the new drain that they’re digging outside the court house. There’s nothing worse for a broken bone than a sudden jar. That’s another thing that was in the Ambulance lectures.”
The car started. Priscilla rode alongside, keeping within speaking distance of Frank.
“But my ankle’s not broken,” he said.
“It may be. Anyhow I expect a jar is just as bad for a sprain. Very likely the lecturer said so and Sylvia Courtney forgot to tell me. Pretty rotten luck this, for you, Cousin Frank, on account of the fishing. You can’t possibly fish and the river’s in splendid order. Father said so yesterday. But perhaps Aunt Juliet will be able to cure you. She thinks she can cure anything.”
“I shall be all right,” said Frank, “when I can rest my leg a bit—I don’t think it’s really bad I daresay at the end of a week——”
“If Aunt Juliet cures you at all she’ll do it quicker than that. She had Father out of bed the day after he got influenza last Easter hols. He very nearly died afterwards on account of having to travel up to Dublin to go to a nursing home when his temperature was 400 and something, but Aunt Juliet said he was perfectly well all the time; so she may be able to fix up that ankle of yours.”
They have, so it is understood, tried experiments in vegetarianism at Haileybury; but Christian Science is not yet part of the regular curriculum even on the modern side. Frank Mannix had only the vaguest idea of what Miss Lentaigne’s beliefs were. He knew nothing at all about her methods. Priscilla’s account of them was not very encouraging.
“All I want,” he said, “is simply to rest my ankle.”