The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits: Stories Page 3

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 whisper; "there's not a hill in Mayo without a few stills speckled across it! Sure, on this land, few could pay the rent without the cash it makes them, and the landlords know it."

  "Half the price of the taxed stuff," commented Knox, "and besides, stolen water is sweetest, as the proverb tells us."

  "Mayo poteen, now, is nearly as good as the Donegal, which is agreed to be the best, especially if it's from Inishowen," the attorney told the captain.

  "I beg to differ. Mayo's better by far," said the parson hotly.

  "Maybe our guest will take a dram of both, " suggested Knox.

  "Parliament whiskey and Mayo poteen, or Inishowen?" demanded the attorney.

  "All three, for a true comparison," decided Knox.

  The first hit of poteen shook the young captain like a dog. "My God," he coughed. "I heard the rebels were mad with drink, by the time the French landed; was it this stuff they were on?"

  "Not at all," said Knox in outrage; "it was Scotch whiskey they'd looted from some squire's cellar. Poisonous stuff!"

  The second toast was to the King, and the third to the Union; the captain could hardly refuse. He couldn't tell the Inishowen from the Mayo poteen, no matter how many times his host made him try; he lacked an Irishman's palate. When the young man attempted to pass on the bottle, next time around, the parson took offence. "Didn't Jesus himself drink wine with his friends?"

  "No sober man's long welcome in Ireland. Don't tell us you're on milk and tar-water, for your health!" said the attorney in amusement.

  "He is not," said Knox, topping the visitor's glass up; "nary a bit of harm a drop of the cup that cheers will do him."

  An hour later the captain felt like the conqueror of the world. The room swam around him. He saw kindness on every man's face. Miss Knox's white throat seemed to him to be like a swan's. She sipped a small glass of poteen, and kept her eyes on the table. He felt he knew the shadowy thoughts of her melancholic mind, the secret motions of her bosom.

  "I think the lady likes our young Englishman," said the attorney with a grin.

  "I think she does! There are certain unmistakable signs, to a trained medical eye. And sure what lady wouldn't," said Knox, slapping the captain on the nearest shoulder. "The young are drawn to each other, as natural as magnets."

  The parson proposed a toast to young love.

  The attorney followed it up with a toast to young lovers, naming no names, wink wink.

  "How well I remember my own dear departed wife, your aunt," said Knox, with a nod in his niece's direction, "on the day I met her, and her barely home from school in Dublin. Ah, marriage," he extemporised, "that shelter from every storm, that medicine for every ill, that cornucopia of delights!"

  "I tell you this much," the attorney breathed heavily in the captain's ear, "if you were to make your proposals to young Miss Knox there, this very night, I don't think you'd be shown the door!"

  The captain let out a shriek of laughter. "Do you think not?" he whispered back. "I mean, do you think so?"

  The attorney threw his arm round the visitor. "Hem, hem," he said loudly, chiming his fork against his glass. "Our young visitor has something to say."

  In the long silence, the captain felt panic bubble up in his head. He threw Miss Knox a wild glance. "Oh no," he stuttered, "I was just saying, I mean..."

  "What the young gentleman in question was wondering," said the attorney, "was whether our generous host would ever consider ... surrendering his lovely niece?"

  Knox threw up his hands in delight. The woman shot to her feet, but her uncle had a hold of her wrist. He pulled her down again, bent over her as if in an embrace, whispered fondly in her ear for some time.

  The captain watched, frozen. He didn't know what he hoped or dreaded. His vision was blurred; his head was a burning bush.

  "Fear not, my boy," hissed the parson.

  When Knox sat down again, his niece's face was very still. He spoke with a calm grin. "In answer to your question, my dear young sir, I believe I'll follow modern custom and let the lady answer for herself."

  She turned her head to the captain; her milk-white face was only inches from his. She nodded, just once.

  A cheer went up from the three older men.

  "You do me the greatest honour, Miss Knox," the captain babbled, and took another long swig of poteen to steady himself. "We could wed next week, perhaps, at St. Michael's in Ballina."

  "Sure what need a moment's delay, when Providence has so arranged it that we've the holy vicar of St. Michael's sitting here across the table?" said Knox, pointing with an air of wonder. "He could do it right this minute. It's the Irish custom, you see," he explained, "to many at home."

  "Tonight?" faltered the captain. "But—" He turned towards Miss Knox.

  Her uncle creased his brow and put the question to the attorney. "Here we have two young Protestant persons of sound mind, past the age of majority—it'd be legal enough, surely?"

  "Indeed, indeed so." The attorney nodded over his glass.

  "Let's do it, then," said Knox, leaping to his feet and tugging open a bureau drawer. "You can draft them a simple contract; here's a clean sheet of paper. Of course," he threw in the captain's direction, "the poor sweet girl is sowerless, and I couldn't rob my own, but as the poet once said, Do phósfainn—hey, how does it go?"

  He appealed to the attorney, who recited sonorously,

  Do phósfainn-se gan feoirling thú

  Is nl iarrfainn ba ná spré

  "Beautiful," sighed Knox.

  "Is that Gaelic? What does it mean?" asked the captain, bewildered.

  "I'd wed you without a farthing, and ask no cow nor dowry," Knox translated. "Such a noble and timeless sentiment! Tell you what," he added suddenly, "tell you what I'll do, I'll pay the marriage dues out of my own pocket this minute."

  "That's very handsome of you, Knox, " said the parson.

  "No bother. Sure don't I love the girl like my own? Start up now, Reverend, now's as good a time as any. Do you, etc...."

  At a gesture from her uncle, Miss Knox stood up. The captain clambered to his feet beside her. He couldn't stop giggling; his cheeks were hot. He had never thought to be married before tonight. It was all so fast, so funny, so unexpected, and yet, as the apothecary said, so clearly destined by Providence.

  The parson said no more than a few fluent lines. The groom hiccuped in the middle of his I do, but the words came out clearly enough. The bride murmured her answer without moving her lips. He was too drunk and excited to read the contract; it looked well enough. Their signatures on the bottom of the page almost touched.

  "I give you a toast, now," Knox roared, when the brief ceremony was over. "To a most glorious union between two young persons, two families, two nations under God!"

  In the morning light the young captain thought his head would crack open. He was lyin
g in a strange room, sunken into a very bad mattress. There was a dark shape, a woman sitting on the edge of the bed, with her back to him. He remembered now. He leaned the other way, tugged the chamber pot towards him, and threw up violently, spattering the floor. "Pray excuse me," he gasped. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. And remembered the rest of it.

  She turned her white face to him, and it was traced with faint lines around the eyes, around the down-turned mouth.

  "You're no twenty-three." In his wretchedness, it was all he could think to say.

  "I am thirty-four years old." Her voice was low, but clear.

  "What's your name? I don't know your name, even!"

  She watched him coolly.

  "I was drunk. I was poisoned with that foul poteen," he ranted. "I didn't know what I was doing. I only rode over from Ballina yesterday for some medicine." He bent and scrabbled for his clothes on the floor. "That was no valid wedding!"

  "You gave your consent. There was a parson," she added, "and an attorney."

  "Oh, how damnably convenient! Does your uncle invite that pair to dinner every night, just in case a suitor for his spinster niece might ride by?" And then as the young captain heard himself say those words, the truth hit him. He looked into her pale eyes. "It was a trap."

  She did not deny it.

  "Knox only sent for his friends once he knew I was staying for dinner. An innocent stranger who might be tricked into taking a burden off his hands! The parson to wed us and the attorney to call it legal. You were all in league against me from the first mouthful of soup."

  "Not I," she said austerely.

  He slammed his hand on the mattress. "What in hell d'ye mean, not I?"

  "I was not party to the plan."

  "Weren't you desperate to get your claws into me the minute I rode up to the door? Isn't every spinster hungry for a Husband?"

  She narrowed her eyes to slits. "I'd have to be a deal hungrier before I'd take you. If you think," she spat, "that I'd give a farthing for a pox-ridden Englishman—"

  He blinked at her. "What? It's not—"

  "It's syphilis you've got," she told him flatly. "If Knox told you not to worry, he was lying. In the end, it'll rot your balls, and then your brain."

  He wanted to throw up again, but he was empty.

  "Maybe your brain's rotted already. You still don't understand, do you?" She spoke with a cold impatience. "The only reason I took part in that charade of a ceremony was because my uncle told me this was me last chance, and if I refused, I'd never sleep another night under his roof."

  The captain took a moment to absorb this. "You could have said no, even so," he raged at her. "Surely you could always find work—spinning, even—"

  "Tuppence." Her arms were folded. "Tuppence a day, that's what a woman makes by spinning. So don't tell me what I should or shouldn't have done, Captain."

  He stared at his bride for some time. Finally he spoke in a hoarse whisper. "What have we done?"

  One of her faint eyebrows lifted. "Nothing much," she said.

  "I absolve you of blame," he told her. "I admit you're as much your uncle's victim as I am."

  Her eyes were cool.

  "If I've, if it turns out that I've infected you, I beg your pardon," he said, knowing he sounded like a boy. Then a dreadful thought occurred to him. "And if there should be other consequences—a child—I'll make provision—"

  For a moment her face relaxed, and sweetened, and she laughed.

  The young captain blinked at her.

  "There'll be no consequences," she told him. "Nothing happened, if that's what's woriying you. I sat here all night and listened to your snoring. We've never so much as shaken hands."

  He should have felt relieved. He got off the bed. As he was pulling on his regimentals, he wondered why a weight still hung on him. "I'll go, then."

  She nodded, indifferent.

  "I expect to be posted back home shortly."

  She nodded again.

  "I'll never speak of this to anyone," he said, tugging on his boots. "And 111 make this bargain with you"—turning to her—"if you agree never to claim me as your husband—never kick up any fuss, or come to England—"

  "What would take me to England?"

  "Well, if you promise not to, I'll send you an allowance every year. Not much, now," he added nervously, "but perhaps enough to give you a little independence."

  Miss Knox considered the matter, her eyes lidded. "I'll be a sort of widow," she said at last.

  "That's right. Only, if you should ever wish to remarry—"

  "I won't." Her face was as set as a statue's.

  He didn't understand this woman, but on an impulse he held out his hand. "Until we meet again?"

  "I think we never will." His hand was starting to tremble by the time she shook it.

  Downstairs, the servants claimed that Mr. Knox was out attending to a dying man in Killala, and wouldn't be home all day. This time the young captain knew he was being lied to; he thought he would always recognise the sound of it from now on. He got on his horse and set off back to Ballina. His head pounded like a drum in battle. He looked over his shoulder once, at the window of the room where he had spent the night, but there was no face at the glass.

  Note

  "Acts of Union" is based on an anecdote about two unnamed people—a niece of an Ardnaree apothecary called Mr. Knox and a visiting stranger—in Elizabeth Ham, by Herself, 1783–1820 (written in the 1840s, published 1945). Elizabeth Ham, an English writer, was living in Ardnaree around 1810 when she saw Knox's niece and recorded the gossip about her. According to Ham, the husband went on to become Aide-de-Camp to a Royal Duke, and never saw his bride again.

  The Fox on the Line

  Any other June, we would be in Hengwrt by now. I would be waking up with the white-topped mountains ringed around me. Cader Idris, where the giant once sat, would raise its stony shoulder between me and all harm. Sitting under the snowy cherry tree I would keep one ear cocked for the brook that sounds so much like a woman singing, you have to lay down your book and go and see.

  But we are trapped in London, waiting to make history.

  Keeping a diary is a monstrous waste of rime. But I cannot seem to help it. Without words, we move through life as mute as the animals. Of course I burn these jottings at the end of each year. What I should keep instead is a daily memorandum of my dearest Fá and all her works. Posterity will not interest itself in me; I am only her friend. Her Mary.

  On the first of June 1876, then, our Society commenced business with a General Meeting at the Westminister Palace Hotel, Lord Shaftesbury presiding, myself (Miss Mary Lloyd) taking minutes. Cardinal Manning defied the Pope and spoke in our favour. Fá (Miss Frances Power Cobbe, I should say) eloquently proposed a resolution in support of our Bill, which was passed with the utmost enthusiasm.

  I break off here to remark that it cannot go on—the evil, I mean. We spill their blood like water. There is so much we could learn from them: devotion, patience, the fidelity that asks no questions. The men of science say they pick only the useless ones, but who is to decide that? And what are we to think, we old maids who have so often heard ourselves called surplus?

  It stands to reason that those who assault nature will suffer at her hands in the end. I read these stories every other day in the Timed. A boy was beating a plough-horse with the stock of his gun. The gun backfired and took his arm off.

  Do I sound uncharitable?

  It has been a long year.

  Every week, our Bill creeps a little further through the House, progressing like a pilgrim under the flag of Lord Carnarvon. I try to steady my heart. I work a little every morning in my sculpture studio at the bottom of the garden. My hopes shoot up and down like a barometer. But we walk by the Thames when the sky has begun to cool, and Fit ends each evening by convincing me all over again. The great sacrifice she made last year, when she laid down all her other causes and writings, will be rewarded at last. Every newspaper sup
ports our Bill. The Queen is reported to be most impressed by its wording.

  In the veterinary schools they reckon on sixty operations for each horse before it is used up or dies of its own accord. The professors set students to do things that have been done a thousand times before, that could as easily be done on corpses. They practice finding nerves. They burn the living horses, make them breathe smoke and drink spirits, pull out their guts, carve off their hooves, pluck out their eyes, peel back their skin. Still living. If that can be called living. My hand shakes on the chisel when I think of it.

  Fá has on her bedroom wall a text that her great-grandfather the magistrate had on his. Deliver him that is oppressed from the hand of the adversary.

  I am attempting a cocker spaniel in brown marble. My master when I trained in Rome was John Gibson—a Welshman, but a Greek in soul. He always encouraged me to be mythological, and I did once try a Niobe, but the swell of her marble breast disconcerted me. I cannot believe in anything I have not seen. All I make these days are dogs and horses.

  Kitty brings the letters to me as soon as they arrive, so I can remove the hateful ones. I can tell by the handwriting. They call Fá a stirrer-up of sentimental old women, despite the fact that there are rational people of both sexes in our campaign. If they only knew how little of an extremist she is; she laughs at faddy vegetarians and hunt protestors. All she means to do is control a necessary evil—to minimise pain, to make the men of science accountable. They call her a squeamish coward, but where is the courage in what the vivisectors do? Boys pulling wings off flies.

  The day our Bill becomes law, no experiment whatsoever may be performed on a living cat, dog, horse, ass, or mule, nor on any other animal except (in almost all cases) under conditions of complete anaesthesia from beginning to end. The reign of terror is almost over.

  I wish we were in Wales. It is easier to believe in a state of nature there.

  No news.

  Last year Fá and I passed through the Vale of Llan-gollen and visited the pretty house where the Ladies lived. It is said the two of them never slept a night away from home. Nothing parted them; nothing disturbed them. They supported no causes. They took no part in public life. They did nothing; they were ladies in the old sense. They looked no farther than the ends of their aristocratic noses.