I often wonder if the early days of our engagement would have been less stormy had I been more nearly Harry’s intellectual equal or else a different type of girl altogether. But Harry had no time for the “take-care-of-me” kind of female, and I believe he thoroughly enjoyed our heated arguments. After we were married we drifted into an always interesting and exciting existence, and life was well worth living.
We were married at St. Peter’s Church, Ealing, on November 14th, 1917. Just before the appointed hour, I sent a message round to the church to see if Harry was there, as he so easily forgot the times of his engagements. But his brother, who was to attend him, had rounded him off the aerodrome at Brooklands, where he had completed the testing of a machine in the morning, and hustled him into the awful clothes and awful hat customary at wedding ceremonies, which he wore for the first time. My first sane memory after the ceremony and reception were over was of a most appalling noise issuing from the room in which Harry was changing, and eventually some object was kicked into my room, which turned out to be the poor old hat in tatters!
For months Harry had been saving petrol from all quarters,—the restrictions on that commodity being very severe then—in order that we might spend our honeymoon on a motor tour. But motoring with petrol became quite prohibited, so Harry had a large stand built on the Grégoire to hold a gas-bag. We tried it a day or two before we were married and found we could run a matter of about four or five miles on the whole bag, which did not look very hopeful for a journey down to Cornwall. Anyway, we started with the gas-bag up and the petrol tank full and a few extra tins of petrol in the back, since it was our intention to proceed by petrol except for an occasional mile or two by gas for appearances’ sake. We filled up at Exeter, and arrived at Launceston the next day in time for lunch. A dear old waiter, very interested in us and our fearsome erection, related for our benefit some incidents he remembered connected with the appearance of the first motor-car in Launceston. He asked us how far we could go with a bagful of gas. Harry said: “Oh, eighty or ninety miles.” The waiter said someone had told him that gas-bags were no good, as they could only do about ten miles. But Harry informed him we carried compressed gas in an aluminium case, which assertion completely satisfied him and left him with the idea that he had just seen the last word in gas-propelled vehicles! The gas-bag was a nuisance, however, and we should have done just as well without it, despite the remark of the “bobby” inspecting petrol licences at Exeter. When he saw us coming out of the gas company’s premises, he said with a grin: “Ah! I see you have the laugh of the petrol restrictions!”
All the horses shied at the wretched thing, and we were hung up half an hour in a very narrow lane near Penzance owing to a horse which had shied, fallen, and refused to get up again through fear of our conveyance.
It was at this period that Harry’s back started to give trouble. A week or so before we were married he was flying a machine to France and had to make a false landing into thick snow for some trivial cause. Not being able to speak any French to explain his presence there, and being in civilian clothes, he was taken into custody by the French authorities and placed in the guard-room. He was due to arrive at his destination—Villacoublay, I think it was—before dark, so the delay was serious. He managed to get away on a passing English lorry, and with the assistance of two men he got the machine out of the snow and arrived at Villacoublay before dark. In moving the machine, he strained his back, which since his crash in 1913 was always apt to give trouble under a great strain. It did not get better, and a month later he went to bed for a time on his doctor’s order. The treatment gave him no relief, so that after a fortnight he decided to get up and let his back cure itself, which, for the time being, it did.
He had no trouble of any description until two years later. One day, when he had been doing some heavy lifting in his workshop, he came in and complained once more of the pain in his back. It grew worse and worse, until he could not stoop or bend his back at all. He was then advised to consult a famous bone-setter, who told him his trouble was an adhesion of muscles which would have to be broken away, an extremely painful process, but that when it was completed there would be no further trouble. Harry said, “Go ahead,” and every week he received the treatment and every week he seemed to get stiffer and to suffer more pain. He persevered with the treatment for some weeks, often in great pain, until I persuaded him to have further advice. He consulted a back specialist in London, who, after having seen the X-ray photos of his back, gave the verdict that two courses only remained open to him. The first was to be flat on his back for two years; the second, an operation, by which new bone was to be grafted into the spine, followed by twelve months on his back. He was told that there was no alternative to these two remedies, as if his back were left in its present condition it would gradually grow worse until he could not move at all. Poor Harry! This was the greatest trial of his life.
A few days later he was persuaded to have Christian Science treatment, and by a strange coincidence Commander Grieve wrote to him on hearing of his trouble, telling him in his blunt way to “Give Christian Science a go.” He told of cures that had been effected in the case of his own relatives, and said he firmly believed that their lives were saved through Christian Science methods. Harry read out the letter, saying: “Well, if it’s good enough for old Mac, it’s good enough for me!” and at once received the treatment which he had been advised to take, and made a study of the Science. The result was magical. The pain in his back went away, not gradually, but immediately, and never to the end of his life—only a year it is true—did he have any further trouble, although that last year was filled with greater physical strain—track-racing—than any other year of his life. He was able to bend his back to do anything, put on the weight which he had lost during the painful two months, and was his own cheery self again.
I have written here just the bare truths of Harry’s back trouble and cure, making no attempt to round it off with suggestions that the cure may have been the effect of his first adviser’s treatment (just for the benefit of those sceptics who will smile), since it was his firm opinion that the Christian Science treatment did for him immediately and permanently what no one in whom these sceptics put their faith could do. We all know so little and profess so much, and yet ninety-nine out of a hundred Christian people will back any guessing human doctor against their God when bodily adjustments are necessary, and smile with amusement when the odd one seeks and receives his Maker’s help.