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

generations. You can’t refuse to have Philip’s wife to parties. You don’t have to make a bosom friend of her, after all …’
    â€˜People with her attitude burnt my grandmother’s home to the ground in ’22,’ Maggie declared. ‘They brought her out with a gun in her back, a woman of seventy, and set fire to the place while she watched. She went home to England and died. No, I’m not having someone with Republican sympathies near me. And David won’t either, will you, darling?’
    â€˜We’ll see,’ her fiancé said soothingly. ‘Don’t get het up about it now, there’s a good girl.’ He didn’t share his future wife’s passionate feelings about the past. It amused him to think how much Maggie and Eileen Arbuthnot had in common, with their rooted prejudices. He loved his home in Ireland and got on with the people. But he was a newcomer. His father had bought a place in Kildare before the Great War. The Gibbses traced their family back to one of Cromwell’s captains. ‘Come on, Claudia, let’s dance,’ he said. ‘I love this record.’
    They circled a few times on the parquet floor in the hall. ‘Try and calm Maggie down,’ she said. ‘Don’t let her go round damning that wretched girl and starting a vendetta. I liked her; she’s going to find it difficult enough.’
    â€˜You like everybody,’ her partner said. ‘I’ll do my best, but I can’t promise. You know these Black Irish, they never forgive or forget.’
    â€˜I’ll have her to lunch,’ Claudia Hamilton said. ‘Maybe I can drop a hint or two and put her right, otherwise Maggie will have them both ostracized if she goes round saying that girl’s a Republican. The twenties aren’t all that long ago, you know. Thanks for the dance, David. You’re a divine dancer. I wish James would get on his feet sometimes. Let’s go and have a drink, shall we? And by the way, I’ve bought a marvellous young hunter from old Devlin. He won’t be ready till next season, but I’m really going to knock their eyes out with this fellow.’
    They went back to the drawing room and settled down into the sofa to talk horses. It was impossible not to like Claudia. Life in Ireland had rubbed some of the English corners down; she had adapted very quickly to the relaxed way of living, and proved herself a great sport who loved a party and hunted like a demon. People were expected to come on time, but that was accepted as Claudia being a bit eccentric. That particular party broke up at five, and two guests were persuaded to go to bed rather than drive all the way back to West Meath.
    Another day dawned and the mists from the river swirled and eddied round the banks and crept up to the house the Hanging Judge had built. In the bedroom on the first floor Philip woke as the sun came up. He slept with the curtains drawn back and the top of the window open. Eileen had been horrified, sure it would give them both their death of cold to let the fresh air in at night. He turned and looked at her sleeping beside him. He did love her so much. She was the most girlish girl he’d ever known. Small and soft, with little bones and delicate hands and feet. Most of the well-bred girls he knew were coarse as cows beside her. He loved her courage and her loyalty. Once committed to him, she had withstood her family and, even more difficult, the power of her Church. He regretted the Ryans’ intractability because he felt it made Eileen unhappy. They wouldn’t have been an embarrassment to have around. They were proud people in their way and would never have intruded.
    His mother was rather a stranger to him, so he didn’t feel the loss of her so keenly. Nurses had brought him up and by seven he was away at private school in England. She was a busy woman, much occupied with her garden and her charities. She had