Read Online No Enemy but Time by Evelyn Anthony - Free Book Online

battleaxe, but I don’t suppose she’ll be a bother to you. Maggie, hurry up, what are you doing in there?’
    The bathroom door opened and the girl identified as Maggie came out. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Anyone else?’
    Eileen got up, glad to escape. She shut and bolted the bathroom door. The bath and basin were pink and there were bottles and jars of bath salts and essences she’d never even heard of. Beautiful towels, as soft as swans-down, with initials embroidered on them. She ran some water and washed her hands. She could hear voices, but not loud enough to distinguish what was said. ‘Eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves,’ her mother used to say. Eileen didn’t try to listen. She flushed the lavatory, although she hadn’t used it. She looked pale and tired; there was nothing she could do about it, because she’d left her handbag with her makeup behind on the bed. When she opened the door, they stopped talking, so she must have been the subject.
    Claudia got up, opened the door and led the way out. ‘Let’s go and have our coffee,’ she said. ‘I know James will keep the men in there for hours.’
    They disposed themselves in the drawing room. The girl called Maggie had no alternative but to sit in a chair close to Eileen.
    â€˜Do you smoke?’
    â€˜No. I never did.’ She shook her head. What did Claudia Hamilton mean by ‘hours’? How much longer would she have to sit with these women before Philip came in and they could decently go home?
    Of course she didn’t smoke, she thought, watching them lighting up and puffing away. It wouldn’t have been tolerated in her family. Tobacco was for men and a few old tinker women who sucked on a pipe.
    â€˜How long have you been married?’ She knew that Maggie was being polite, trawling for subjects to pass the time till she could safely move away.
    â€˜Nearly a year,’ Eileen answered. ‘You’re engaged, I see – when’s the wedding?’
    God, Maggie thought to herself, she makes it sound like a wake. I wish the men’d hurry their damned port and come back. ‘Next spring,’ she said. ‘Of course, if this beastly war breaks out we’ll have to make it earlier. Maybe it won’t, and my father says it’ll be over in six months anyway, so none of them will have to go.’
    â€˜I don’t see why anyone wants to fight for England,’ Eileen said. ‘Not now we’re independent. I won’t let my husband go joining up.’
    â€˜My brother can’t wait,’ was the answer. She said it quite casually, as if everybody went to war. ‘But men are so silly, aren’t they? I don’t think you’ll keep the Paddies out of it, they love a fight. Ah, here come the chaps. There’s my fiancé, do excuse me.’
    The Paddies! Eileen had blushed scarlet at the contemptuous word, and the equally contemptuous way it was said. I’m a Paddy, she wanted to stand up and say. And proud of it. To hell with the lot of you.
    But she stayed in her chair and Philip came over to her. He noticed that she looked very flushed. He bent and kissed her lightly on the forehead.
    â€˜Hello, darling. Sorry we were so long. Are you all right?’
    She told the sort of feeble lie she would have despised in someone else. A little social lie, which one of those drawling females would have used. ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache,’ she murmured. ‘I wouldn’t want to stay too long.’
    He nodded, taking the empty seat beside her. ‘We won’t. Just a few minutes more.’
    James Hamilton came over. She noticed that he moved unsteadily; his face was very red. ‘Whiskey, Philip? Hasn’t your wife got a drink? Claudia … what the hell are you doing? This poor child hasn’t got a drink!’
    â€˜I don’t want one,’ Eileen protested, but he didn’t even listen.