Eternity Ring (23 page)

Miss Silver made her farewells. Chief Inspector Lamb paid a state call upon her before returning to London, remarking that they didn’t live so far from each other in town, but they generally seemed to meet in the country.

Miss Silver coughed, smiled, and enquired after his family in detail.

“I hope Mrs. Lamb is very well?… I am so glad. Last time we met she had had a troublesome cough. I hope it has quite gone?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“And the daughters? Lily is very happily married, I know. Her baby was a boy, was it not? He must be seven months old.”

Lamb’s official manner was thawing fast. His daughters had always done what they liked with him. He said,

“Nearly eight months, but you’d think he was quite a year. Lil says he’s like me.”

“How very delightful. And Violet?”

“Going to be married at Easter. He’s a very good chap—in a house-agent’s office. The trouble is to find somewhere to live. It isn’t a good plan to start at home with Mum and Dad, though my wife would like it.”

Miss Silver hastened to agree.

“Oh, no—you are very wise—young people should be independent. And Myrtle? Is she engaged?”

Lamb grunted. Myrtle was his youngest and the core of his heart. He didn’t want to part with her, but he wasn’t easy in his mind. He found himself telling Miss Silver all about it.

“She gets engaged, but when it comes to the point she doesn’t want to get married. Likes her own way—likes being independent. My wife can’t understand it—says she ought to marry a nice boy and settle down to raising a family—says I’ve spoilt her.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“And have you, Chief Inspector?”

He said, “Well, well—” and then, “I daresay I have. But she’s a good girl and we’re not all made alike.” He got up to go. “I’m glad those young Hathaways have made it up. Too many marriages on the rocks these days, and mostly for the want of a little sense. Funny how hard people will work at their business or their pleasure, but they won’t do a hand’s turn towards making a good job of being married. Well, I must be off. I’ve to thank you for your being right on the spot with Harlow when he dropped in to see you and made the slip which put us on to him. And the Hathaways have to thank you too. That was a narrow escape she had.”

“Providential,” said Miss Silver.

She parted from Monica Abbott with sincere regret, and received a warm invitation to come again.

From Cicely she refused a fee.

“No, indeed, my dear. The case was solved before I had any opportunity of working on it.”

Cicely looked at her with a warm light in her eyes.

“I think you saved my life.”

Miss Silver smiled.

“I hope it will be a very happy one.”

To Frank Abbott she did not say goodbye. When, a day or two later, he dropped in he found her unpacking a parcel. It contained a silver rose-bowl large enough to accommodate the pot of blue-and-white hyacinths which had arrived separately from a florist. The effect of the flowers in the bowl was all that could be desired. Contemplating it in a place of honour on the top of the walnut bookcase and immediately under a reproduction of “The Soul’s Awakening,” Frank wondered whether it was Grant or Cicely who had been inspired to select a gift so perfectly and solidly Victorian. That Miss Silver was very much gratified was apparent. The card with its charming inscription, “Our love and our very great gratitude,” the handsome proportions of the bowl, its weight, the graceful flutings which adorned its surface, the charming addition made to it by the flowering hyacinths, all contributed to give her the greatest possible pleasure.

With an appreciative cough she turned to Frank Abbott.

“So very good of them. I am really quite touched. Such a fine bowl, and the flowers—so really beautiful. And the two together—so harmonious. Will you think me fanciful if I am reminded of Lord Tennyson’s comparison, woman set to man ‘like perfect music unto noble words’? Those hyacinths—so fragile. And the bowl supporting them—so strong.”

Frank had thought he knew his Miss Silver inside out—her intelligence, her high principles, her competence, her sentiment—but on this occasion he was rendered speechless. For the rest of his life his cousin Cicely would present herself to him as a hyacinth supported by a bowl of durable metal and handsome design. Nor would he scruple to tell her so. He enjoyed the pleasures of anticipation, and throwing over all the resources of his mother tongue, fell back upon the French language so often reprobated by Chief Detective Inspector Lamb.

“Le mot juste!” he said.

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