No Enemy but Time (7 page)

‘I'm dying to go, darling.' The girl who had stared so hard at Eileen darted through and closed the door.

Claudia patted the bed beside her. ‘Do sit down. And may I call you Eileen? And you must call me Claudia. Lady Hamilton reminds me of my mother-in-law, God forbid!' She laughed and patted Eileen's arm.

Why, Eileen wondered, is it all right for her to say that about her husband's mother, and wrong for me to tell the truth about Mrs Arbuthnot? The other women laughed and an older one, a Lady something, she couldn't remember a single name, said, ‘Don't be naughty, Claudia. She's not as bad as all that.'

‘She's ghastly,' Claudia insisted. ‘She rings up and complains to James that she hasn't any money and she wants this and she wants that. She's not getting a penny from me, I can promise you.' She turned to Eileen. ‘My dear, you're lucky. I had to
heave
the old hag out of the house when I got married. Imagine, she expected to live with us!' Eileen didn't know what to answer. A lot of people's old mothers lived with them when they married. No man would turn his mother out of her own house on account of his wife. ‘Mind you,' Claudia went on, ‘Blanche isn't bad. She's a bit of a 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.

‘Do you smoke?'

‘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.

‘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.

‘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.'

‘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.'

‘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.

‘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!'

‘I don't want one,' Eileen protested, but he didn't even listen. He was drunk and irritated. He wanted to pick a row. It's not just the Paddies who like a fight, she thought bitterly. My father's never sworn at my mother in a public place in his life.

‘Oh, shut up, James,' Claudia called from her seat across the room. ‘Not everyone wants to get tight, you know.'

She wasn't even embarrassed. Eileen couldn't believe it. Philip got up. ‘I'm afraid we must go. I've a very early start in the morning. I've got to see the men and then go up to Dublin. It's been a lovely evening. Come along, darling, we must say goodnight.'

She thanked Claudia Hamilton. ‘It's been lovely,' she echoed. ‘A great party. Thank you so much.'

‘So sweet of you to come. I'll ring you up, we must have lunch one day soon. 'Night, Philip darling. Let's all get together over Christmas. It'll be such fun.'

He helped put the wrap over her shoulders and she was silent on the short drive home. She felt degraded and diminished without being able to isolate a single snub except that one word, Paddies. But didn't that say it all? Didn't it put the viewpoint of these people towards the Irish? The real Irish.

‘It wasn't too bad, was it?' Philip asked her when they got home.

She didn't want to hurt him. She didn't want to disappoint his hopes that she would integrate and enjoy being with his friends. She loved him too much to tell him the truth. ‘It was nice,' she said. ‘I was a bit shy of them. But they were all very nice to me. Philip, what's this talk about a war?'

‘Don't bother your head about it,' he dismissed it lightly. The men had talked of nothing else when they were alone. ‘How's the headache, by the way? You're not getting a cold are you, darling? Stay in bed tomorrow if you think one's coming. I'll be out all day, you can stay cuddled up till I get back.'

‘I'll see,' she said. She hoped he wouldn't make love that night. She felt too cold and empty-hearted to respond. ‘I have a little headache,' she admitted, and that was the third lie she had told him that night.

Over at Half House the party was going strong. Whiskeys and brandies were poured and drunk, cigars pierced and lit, some not too steadily. There was a lot of laughter. James Hamilton had passed from aggressiveness to fuddled good nature, calling everyone his best friend, pressing more drinks upon them. Claudia called for champagne and someone else suggested they put on some records and dance in the hall. And naturally they gave their opinions on the new Mrs Arbuthnot.

‘I think she's quite sweet,' Claudia said. ‘A bit gauche, but really rather nice.'

‘Damned pretty girl,' several of the men agreed.

‘I don't think she's nice at all,' Maggie announced.

Claudia spoke up. ‘I heard you say something about Paddies. Whatever made you do that?'

‘Because she had the bloody cheek to say no one should fight for England if there's a war,' Maggie said. ‘We all know she's bog Irish, but she should keep those sort of remarks to herself. I wasn't going to stand for it anyway. We were all very friendly and nice and you made a big effort, Claudia darling, but I don't think it was appreciated one bit. Personally I thought she was hostile and chippy. I love Philip, he's a dear, but I'm not having her in the house.'

‘Don't be silly, Maggie, you can't take that attitude.' The woman whose title had baffled Eileen waved her hand at the other girl dismissively. She felt that Maggie Gibbs had gone too far. Of course the girl was gauche and tactless, but that was no reason to be unkind. ‘You can't say things like that,' she repeated. ‘The Arbuthnots have been here for 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 …'

‘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?'

‘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.'

‘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.'

‘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 more time for dogs and horses than for children. She'd call on them one day, he was confident of that. When there were grandchildren, she'd reconcile herself completely. She was old and a snob. He didn't blame her; he didn't really care enough to be hurt.

He missed his father, though. They had been friends when he was grown up. They hunted and fished and went racing together, and there was a gap when his father died. He would have warmed to Eileen had he lived long enough to get to know her.

He did want her to settle down and find her place now that they were married. He couldn't instil enough confidence into her, that was the trouble. On the surface he'd helped her to adjust, and a woman less sensitive and intelligent wouldn't have accepted him correcting her speech and table manners. But in his heart he sensed that she was lonely and ill at ease. The servants weren't a problem any more. It wasn't just fear of him that made them change. They respected Eileen. And in spite of themselves they were proud of her. She had dignity, and natural grace. Like tonight, faced with the ordeal of going to a grand dinner party with people who all knew each other and were far removed from her experience, she had acquitted herself proudly and well. If war broke out he'd have to join his father's regiment, but he wasn't going to tell her that. He wasn't going to let anything worry or unsettle her. What she wanted was a baby. He could leave her if there was a child; and he knew, as all his friends agreed that night, that if England went to war with Germany, Ireland might remain neutral, but they could not. He woke her gently, and as the mists sank back into the river in the sunlight, they made love.

But it was two long years of disappointment before she conceived.

She felt so sick that it was lunchtime before she could drag herself out of bed and come downstairs. Doctor Baron reassured Philip.