The Judas Gate by Jack Higgins

looked at Justin in his cot and destroyed any hope his daughter might have had left for a future relationship with her father.
    ‘A bastard, is that the best you can do? At least he’s a Protestant; I suppose that’s something. I’ve got things to do. I’m meeting people at Westminster. I’ll leave you to your mother.’
    After he had gone, Mary Ellen said, ‘is he a Protestant?’
    ‘Justin begged me to have him baptized in the faith. What could I do? He was dying. Do you hate me for it?’
    ‘My darling, I love you for it. It was the decent thing to do.’ She embraced the baby. ‘But I’d make it our secret, if I were you. If they had even a hint of it on the estate, it would be all over Kilmartin.’
    ‘All over County Down,’ Jean had said. ‘And what about my son?’
    ‘Don’t tell him, either. It’s a burden to tell a child and expect him to hold it secret. One day in the future, when you think it’s right, you can tell him. So what will you do now?’
    ‘I intend to continue my work. At the Slade they feel that I have a gift for portraiture, and I intend to concentrate on that.’
    ‘Excellent, but you’ll need a home. I’ll stay a bit in London and we’ll find you a house. In Mayfair, I think, and we’ll need a housekeeper and a nanny.’
    ‘But what will he say?’
    ‘He’s left everything to me. We can afford it, dear. I don’t think you’ve ever appreciated how wealthy you and Justin will be one of these days, whether you like it or not. Talbot money is old money—and you’d be surprised how much property we own in the West End of London. In fact, now that I think of it, there’s a superb Regency house on Marley Court off Curzon Street, very convenient for Park Lane and Hyde Park. Let’s take a look.’
    Marley Court it was, and her beloved son had grown up there, and gone to school as a day-boy at St Paul’s—she couldn’t bear the thought of sending him away. His visits to Talbot Place were frequent, of course, particularly during the long summers, for his grandmother adored him and his grandfather grudgingly admitted he was a fine rider.
    He was also popular with the estate workers and the locals, but their respect for Mary Ellen ensured that anyway. Through the long, hard, brutal days of the Troubles, Talbot Place had remained inviolate because of her. It was remarkable when you considered that most Catholics in the area were Nationalists, and the Provisional IRA was so powerful that the countryside from Warrenpoint as far as Crossmaglen in County Armagh was designated bandit country by the British Army.
    Talbot Place could have been burnt to the ground, not astick nor stone left standing, and certain extreme elements would have done exactly that, but local opinion stayed their hand. Half the village was employed on the estate, and Mary Ellen and the boy were inviolate—which also meant that Colonel Henry’s life was spared as well; though it wasn’t deserved, many people would say.
    There had been a problem in August 1979, when her son was fifteen, when the British Army had suffered its worst defeat in the Troubles, that terrible ambush only a few miles away at Narrow Water, near Warrenpoint. That many of the local men were IRA did not surprise her. It meant that some of her workers would be, too. But she had been shocked to hear that a nineteen-year-old stable boy named Sean Kelly, son of Jack Kelly, publican of the Kilmartin Arms and a great friend of her son’s, had been killed in an exchange of fire with wounded soldiers at Narrow Water.
    Justin had been at Talbot Place for the summer holidays and she had joined him for a couple of weeks before returning to London for the start of the autumn term at school. He had been terribly upset at the death of his friend. There was no question of them attending the funeral; even Mary Ellen admitted that. The deaths of all those Highlanders made it impossible, and yet Justin had gone of his own accord, had stood at Sean