But Providence, or a broken chain in the sequence of the Roope Christian Science treatment, came to her aid. On Saturday Anne was prostrated with headache.
“She has never been able to bear a railway journey.”
“Does she explain?”
“I went in to see her. ‘If only I had faith enough,’ she moaned, and asked me to send Mrs. Roope a telegram. I persuaded her to five grains of aspirin, but I could see she felt very guilty about it. She will sleep until the afternoon.”
“We can leave her?”
“Oh, yes! I doubt if she will be well awake by dinner, certainly not before.”
“Let us get away from here, from Carbies and Pineland....”
“Right to the other side of the island. We could lunch at Ryde. I’ll get a car.”
Nothing suited either of them so well today as a long silent drive. The car went too fast for them to talk. Retrospect or the comparison of notes was practically impossible. They sat side by side, smiling rarely, one at the other as the spring burst into life around them. The tall hedges were full of may blossom, with here and there a flowering currant, the trees wore their coronal of young green leaves, great clumps of primroses succeeded the yellow gorse of which they had tired, fields were already green with the autumn-sown corn, there was nothing to remind them of Carbies. For a long time the sea was out of sight. Never had they been happier together, for all they spoke so little.
At Ryde he played the host to her, and she sat on the verandah whilst he went in to give his orders. A few ships were aride in the bay, but the scene was very different from what she had ever seen it before, in Regatta time, when it was gay with bunting and familiar faces. Today they had it to themselves, the hotel she only knew as overcrowded, and the view of the town, so strangely quiet. And excellent was the luncheon served to them. A lobster mayonnaise and a fillet steak, a pie of early gooseberries, which nevertheless Margaret declared were bottled. They spoke of other meals they had had together, of one in the British Museum in particular. On this occasion it pleased her to declare that boiled cod, not crimped, but flabby and served with lukewarm egg sauce, was the most ambrosial food she knew.