Eternity Ring by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page A

likeness.”
    Monica sighed. Those nursery days seemed far enough away.
    “Oh, yes—it’s Cicely at seven. It’s very like her still, only— she doesn’t look happy any more.”
    “No—”
    “She’s had a quarrel with her husband—I expect Frank told you. I don’t know why one has children, I’m sure—and they go on and on about putting up the birthrate! If she would only tell us what it’s all about, we might do something to help her, but she won’t say a single word. When you think of its being the creature you used to wash and dress, and put in the corner, and slap when it was naughty—though I don’t believe in slapping children, it spoils their tempers—well, it’s simply devastating. But she always was the most obstinate creature, even when she was six months old. Rather sweet, you know, but definitely aggravating.”
    Miss Silver knitted.
    “And you have no idea at all of the reason for the quarrel?”
    “She won’t say a word, and he won’t either.”
    “But sometimes one may have an idea. Is it at all possible that there was—another woman?”
    “I don’t know—I don’t think so. But, oh dear, of course there’s always another woman if you look hard enough—one just can’t afford to go hunting for skeletons in cupboards. I mean, it was too soon after they were married for there to be anyone fresh— at least you’d think so, wouldn’t you? Only three months, and they seemed so happy! But of course if you go delving into the past—” She leaned forward and spoke impulsively. “The plain fact is, I don’t know. Cicely has locked herself up, and I don’t know anything. But if I were to start guessing I should say it wasn’t another woman. But it might be the money—Cis has rather a lot, you know.”
    “So Frank informed me.”
    Monica’s eyes sparkled.
    “Reg’s mother left the whole lot past him to Cicely. Outrageous, isn’t it? And the worst of it is, the child used to be too much with her grandmother. We were abroad, and she spent all her holidays here.” She hesitated a little. “I may be wrong, but sometimes I think being here so much she may have got rather a wrong idea about the importance of money. You see, Lady Evelyn thought that everyone else was as much taken up with it as she was. She believed we were all counting on it and wishing for it, and she thought she would punish us by leaving it to Cicely—and now I’m wondering whether she just didn’t punish Cis.”
    Miss Silver coughed.
    “You mean?”
    “I don’t know what I mean,” said Monica Abbott in rather a distracted voice. “She’s bitter about the money—you can’t help seeing that. You know—” she hesitated again—“she couldn’t look less like her grandmother, but she’s got a streak of the same old obstinacy, and—oh, Miss Silver, I’m so unhappy. She doesn’t eat and she doesn’t sleep, and she doesn’t tell us anything. She’s such a warm-hearted child really—at least she used to be until she froze up like this. She doesn’t even stay here because she wants to be here—she just stays because she won’t let him drive her away. ” She produced a handkerchief and passed it rapidly over her eyes. “You must think me quite mad, talking to you like this when I’ve never seen you before, but I can’t talk to anyone in the village, and you don’t know what a relief it is.”
    chapter 7
    “Well, this is the place,” said Frank Abbott.
    Miss Silver alighted from the car and looked about her at Dead Man’s Copse. The thought which immediately sprang to her mind was that it was very well named. She had never seen a gloomier wood or driven over a rougher track, and it did not surprise her at all that the place should be very little frequented. Something about the lie of the land and the way the road dipped to this hollow made the place even darker than it should have been. The trees were not so very thick, and they were not large—a few straggling pines; a dense hump or two