Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits - Donoghue [8]
The fish was sweet, flaking in his mouth. "Most excellent salmon, may I say," the captain told the woman, and she gave a brief nod.
The attorney was expounding on the multitudinous benefits of the late Union. "Ireland now shelters in the protective embrace of Britain, to their great mutual advantage."
"If only every Irishman saw it that way," sighed the parson.
"I was told—," said the young captain, stopping to clear his throat, "my superiors informed me on arrival, that is—that the rebels had been quite put down in this part of the country?"
"Well, yes," said Knox blandly, "but there'll always be troublemakers."
"Those who protest at paying tithes to God's own Established Church," complained the parson.
"And the occasioned hamstringing of cattle, as a consequence of evictions. Secret societies, and the like," contributed the attorney.
"I see," said the captain, pushing a bit of fish-skin round his plate in a disconcerted manner.
"As a crown soldier, you should mind your back on dark nights, hereabouts," said the parson with relish.
"And your throat!" Knox went off in a long guffaw.
The captain met the eyes of the woman, who shook her head a little as if to say they were only teasing him. She seemed weary, listless; her shoulders sloped, hiding her body from view.
"You like the look of my niece, young sir?" Knox called down the table.
The captain flinched, and looked away.
"You're not the first, nor will you be the last."
"Oh, aye?" said the attorney, with a titter.
The host gave his friend a belt on the shoulder. "Shush, you. How're your piles these days, by the way?"
"Very bad," said the attorney, sheepish.
"I'll roll you some more pills. And laudanum, that's your only man for the pain."
"I need another few bottles too, for my stomach," the parson put in.
"I'll send them over with Seán in the morning. But as you were saying, Captain, my niece is a treasure," he said, turning back to the visitor, "a prize beyond price, beyond rubies, as they say in the Good Book."
Miss Knox's eyes never lifted from the platter of roast beef that she was carving. Her fingers were very slim.
"Helps my lady wife run the household, so she does, not to mention sewing and spinning and all manner of feminine accomplishments, isn't that right, lassie?"
She gave her uncle a brief, unreadable look.
"You'll put her to the blush," said the parson.
"Oh, nonsense," said Knox, "the dear girl must know her own worth."
"I do," she said, very quietly, and the young captain almost jumped in his seat to hear her speak at last.
"Twenty-three years old, merely, and the wisdom of a grandmother!" boasted her uncle.
The captain said he did not doubt it.
The attorney whispered something in the parson's ear.
A little later, Knox burped, clapped his hands for the plates to be taken away and the bottles to be brought out. "You'll take a dram with us, young man." When he caught sight of his niece slipping out the door he bellowed out, "Miss! You'll not deny us the favour of your company tonight. Set yourself down there, in the empty chair."
She slid onto the seat beside the Englishman, blank-faced.
"She's only shy, don't mind her," her uncle assured the captain. "A little prey to melancholia, ever since she lost her parents, and she's not the only one whose spirits are depressed in these troubled times. I'm dosing her with salts; she'll be lively as a doe come summertime."
The captain smiled at Miss Knox. He wondered what it would take to make her smile. Kinder treatment than she got from these rough old men. Sympathy and sensitivity, from someone who understood the finer feelings of the soul.
"Will you have some parliament whiskey," the attorney was asking the young visitor, "or will you take some of the good stuff?"
He looked confused.
"Poteen, don't you know," contributed the parson in a loud