The Pig Comes to Dinner by Joseph Caldwell

Author:Joseph Caldwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Delphinium Books
Published: 2010-09-16T04:00:00+00:00

9

If Lord Shaftoe had left the castle in a downpour, it was in a torrent that he returned. The sea was enraged and had persuaded the sky to join in its frenzy. The seething waves broke over the land, sending walls of water down upon the defenseless countryside; the clouds, rent by lightning and clamoring with thunder, had opened wide and emptied their full allowance of rain without discipline on the hills and steeples, the cottages, and, perforce, the castles. The water seemed to be responding to more than a gravitational pull; more than merely falling, it was hurling itself, as if shot from the exploding clouds that were doing battle among themselves for domination of the sky.

As ruthlessly as all of nature had turned upon itself, it was nothing to the devastation recently slammed down upon Kitty’s unready head. To her aghast amazement, the courts had ruled in favor of George Noel Gordon Lord Shaftoe— and against Caitlin McCloud and Kieran Sweeney. Proofs had been presented that the Shaftoes, from far Australia, had indeed paid their taxes faithfully and promptly, which meant that the title to Castle Kissane had never passed to the Crown, much less to the Republic, and least of all to Caitlin McCloud, despite her generous outlay in cash. Against this Shaftoe triumph, she had no appeal. Her clamorings could go forth to the gate of heaven itself, but they would achieve no more than desperate prayers sent in the same direction all those years ago when the county was being ravaged and the innocent strung up from the nearest height.

Having troubled deaf heaven with her bootless cries, she’d had to listen to her less impressionable husband when he pointed out that he lacked the means and the know-how to blow up the castle, as she’d threatened to do. Besides, since the castle was no longer hers to destroy, all the time she would spend in prison for its destruction might provide an uninterrupted opportunity to finish her correction of The Mill on the Floss and, possibly, depending on the judge, time to get busy with yet another correction or two.

That she would simply go mad was considered yet one more possibility. Kitty in her near derangement felt she was left with no recourse from this outrage but to do what any self-respecting free citizen of the Republic would do in the face of eviction: throw a great and festive feast, and everyone invited. As for Brid and Taddy, she would concern herself with their fate another day. Her mind could accommodate only so much, and it was already crowded with enough competing claims to suggest madness as a means of saving that very same mind.

But once the feast had been decided upon, she was given a purpose in life that not only mocked her reversals of fortune but also distracted her from all and any actions that might land her in jail or in the madhouse.

For the moment, she had to deal only with the

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