Read Online Shamrock Green by Jessica Stirling - Free Book Online Page A

you’ve had enough.’
    He glanced at her, frowning.
    Sylvie said, ‘I’m quite worn out, you see. You’ve quite worn me out.’
    â€˜Have I?’
    â€˜Yes, darling, you have.’
    He turned towards her, a smile on his lips, slid beneath the sheet, put an arm about her and nestled her against his cold, white, hairless chest.
    â€˜You’re only saying that.’
    â€˜I’m not. I mean it.’
    â€˜Well!’ he murmured. ‘Well!’ and kissed her.
    *   *   *
    â€˜Do you think it will be making much difference?’ Jansis asked.
    â€˜What? The war?’ said Sylvie.
    While she had been making love to Francis Hagarty the parliament of Great Britain and Ireland had been leading the nation into war.
    â€˜Aye,’ Jansis said. ‘The war.’
    â€˜Certainly it will. How can it not? Look what’s happening already.’
    â€˜They say it’ll be over by Christmas.’
    â€˜Kitchener doesn’t think so,’ said Maeve.
    â€˜What do you know about Kitchener?’ Sylvie said.
    â€˜It’s all over the Progressive, ’ said Maeve.
    â€˜Why are you reading that rag?’ said Sylvie. ‘You didn’t buy it, did you?’
    â€˜No, I didn’t buy it. Mr Pettu gave it me.’
    â€˜Mr Pettu? Well, I am surprised,’ said Jansis. ‘I thought he’d more sense.’
    â€˜He’s not a revolutionary,’ said Maeve. ‘He buys it for the racing results.’
    â€˜I didn’t know Mr Pettu was a betting man,’ said Jansis. ‘And him so staunch in his faith too.’
    â€˜He has an occasional flutter,’ said Maeve. ‘Won four bob the other day.’
    â€˜You’ve become very pally with Mr Pettu all of a sudden,’ said Jansis.
    At one time Jansis had cherished a notion that the little widower might take a shine to her, court and even wed her, no matter that he was thirty-odd years her senior, but Mr Pettu had remained indifferent, not cold but disinterested. After his wife had died and his last surviving daughter had entered a convent, he had sworn a vow of strictest chastity – or so he told Jansis. Having no evidence to the contrary, Jansis believed him and refused to consider that little Mr Pettu with his peaky white face and bootlace moustache might be veering towards hypocrisy.
    â€˜We got talking, that’s all,’ said Maeve.
    â€˜Not up in his room, I hope,’ said Sylvie.
    â€˜No, not in his room,’ said Maeve, ‘though I can’t see any harm in—’
    â€˜Listen to your mother,’ Jansis said. ‘You can’t trust any man.’
    Maeve blinked her blue eyes and shook her chestnut curls.
    Sylvie studied her daughter warily. She had no idea what Maeve knew of life, of men and how they related to women, or if she understood that youth and innocence were no protection against predatory nature but rather an enticement to it. In four or five years, if they were spared, she would no more be able to hold Maeve back than Charlie McCulloch could hold back his brother Peter.
    It had been a hectic spell in the Shamrock and she could have filled the rooms twice. Whatever else Dubliners might say about the war it had brought trade to the city. Bank holiday visitors had been replaced by country lads lured to town by rumours that the ship repair yards were taking on apprentices and the government opening factories to supply the British army with everything from woollen drawers to pork-meat. Every traveller in Ireland seemed to have descended on Dublin, for on a buoyant market the commercials were first to reap the benefit.
    From one of the salesmen Sylvie had purchased six good, cheap lengths of curtain material to improve the top-floor rooms and in the quiet of the afternoon Maeve, Jansis and she were in the sitting-room sewing them up.
    Sylvie had felt like a traitor slipping off to Endicott Street when the Shamrock was