A String in the Harp (13 page)

“Well, yours has a crooked top.”

“That one looks much too dry, Peter.”

“No branches on the bottom of that!”

At last Becky found one they could all compromise on, with a little traditional grumbling. It was as tall as she was, and very full, though a bit sparse at the top, as Peter pointed out.

David paid for it, and they all took turns lugging it up the hill to Bryn Celyn. “Thank goodness you didn’t pick a bigger one!” David panted as he and Peter set it down on the doorstep.

“What do we do about the roots?” Becky asked.

“What do we do about the
tree?”
Jen asked. “We don’t have a stand, do we?”

“Wait.” Peter was back in a moment with a bucket. “There’s that.”

“Mrs. Davies’s floor-scrubbing bucket,” warned Jen.

“It’s a Christmas tree stand,” said David with an unexpected grin. “Good idea! Go ahead, Peter, we’ll fill it with dirt to prop the tree up.”

Once they’d installed the tree in the lounge on the coffee table, David disappeared into his study. “Don’t forget to water it,” he called from the hall.

***

The next item on Jen’s list was food. But Mrs. Davies had already decided the menu for them. “Since I’ll be getting it, I’ll have me own say about what it is I’m getting!” she declared. “None of your fancy American food, thank you—a good plain Christmas dinner.”

“What do you suppose she means by that?” Becky asked, when Jen reported this to David. “Hamburgers?”

“It’ll be traditionally Welsh, I suppose,” said David.

“English,” corrected Becky. “She isn’t Welsh.”

“Only by a few miles,” objected Jen. “It isn’t that far.”

“Doesn’t matter. Ask anyone.”

“She’s ordered a turkey, so that’s all right,” resumed Jen, “but she didn’t mention desert.”

“Oh!” David clapped a hand to his forehead. “You’ve just reminded me—Mrs. Rhys is sending us a Christmas pudding and her special family recipe for hard sauce. Tell Mrs. Davies, will you?”

Jen nodded and put a check mark beside “Dinner” on her list.

“I expect we ought to give Mrs. Davies a Christmas present,” said Becky.

David sighed. “I hadn’t thought of that, but you’re right. Jen, can you find one somewhere?”

“Cross one off, add another,” said Jen, writing “Mrs. Davies” at the bottom. “Anyone else? You’d better think fast because there isn’t much time.”

“No. If you need extra money, let me know—within reason, of course. No sterling silver for Mrs. D., just something small!”

***

Becky wanted to make Christmas cookies, but Jen wouldn’t. She told Becky she hadn’t any idea how to begin, they had no recipes, no equipment, and no practice. That family tradition would just have to wait for another year before she’d attempt it. The memory of the Amherst kitchen full of the warm spicy smell of gingerbread and honey cakes, and of their mother, long brown hair tied back, humming carols and slapping lumps of dough out on the counter, was still too sharp to touch. Jen shook it away and Becky stopped coaxing.

Instead, they climbed the hill to Llechwedd Melyn with Rhian one afternoon and spent hours helping Mrs. Evans make mince pies and jam tarts. She taught them to make pastry dough and sent them home full of tea with a huge warm mince pie to share with David and Peter. And before Jen and Becky started back, Mr. Evans took them down into the wooded
cwm
to cut fresh holly and mistletoe. He did not mention the Old Ones.

Peter didn’t go. He spent the afternoon curled in the armchair in the lounge, with a supply of chocolate biscuits and a book that he pretended to read. But his eyes rested on the bay, not his book. It was hazy and distant through the white net curtains; the light made patterns on the water so that he almost fancied he could see villages and trees among the waves. He turned the patterns over and over in his mind, wondering if there really were villages and forests under the water.

It was possible to remember the song of the flood now without sickening panic sweeping over him. The hard knot
that had twisted in Peter’s stomach during the storm was beginning to come undone. He had lost his fear.

But
why
had it happened? And where? And why had he seen it? Throngs of questions without any answers crowded his head. Why did the Key sing only to him? But whatever the answers might be, the Key continued to sing.

The song had changed since the night of the flood: it was no longer dark and full of violence, but teasing and cheerful. It came in snatches—quick, bright phrases that showed Peter glimpses of the other world. The Key sang often, and he saw the man, Aneirin, with his heavy, dark-colored harp slung across his back, and Taliesin, the boy, carrying his smaller one. And he saw, too, the shining silver harp key hung about Taliesin’s neck—the key the woman Caridwen had given him when she had given him his name.

Aneirin and Taliesin were good companions. Peter was glad to see them and disappointed that the song never lasted more than a minute or two. They had left the flooded country behind and traveled through land that was peaceful. There were untidy clumps of huts by the road, villages where the two stopped to spend a night. Children and dogs tumbled around them in the dust, men and women made them welcome with what little food and shelter they had. In return, Aneirin would unsling his harp and sing to them: strange songs of wild places and battles, of heroes and kings and great deeds. Sometimes Taliesin, too, would sing, his voice still un-practiced, but true and clear. And the people listening would see pictures in the songs.

As well as rough villages, the Key sang glimpses of the great halls of kings, like that of the golden king, long and full of firelight, men, and hounds. No matter where the travelers stopped to ask lodging, they were granted it gladly and admitted to whatever company was there. All men’s dwellings, rich or humble, were open to the bard and his boy, and always the two paid in songs and tales.

Peter’s own time meant nothing to the Key. In the space of a few days he saw the changing seasons in the colors of the country and changing weather. While it rained in Borth, sun fell in drifts of gold between the trees Taliesin and Aneirin walked under. The sky was a clear, uncomplicated blue, high and full of skylarks. When a watery sun turned the bay beneath Bryn Celyn green-blue, a cold northeast wind would drive sheets of rain across the country of the Key, causing the two companions to draw their heavy cloaks tight, muffling their faces and protecting their harps.

Taliesin grew older. His face changed, understanding deepened in his eyes and voice, and his hands became sure on his harp strings. He would never be as tall a man as Aneirin, but the weeks, months, years they spent wandering together toughened his body and weathered his skin so that he resembled Aneirin. When Aneirin spoke, Taliesin listened to him, and always his eyes and ears were greedy for the world around him.

But for Peter nothing changed. He was still twelve, still in Borth, and it remained December. He discovered it was awkward having to straddle two times as he did. He wished the Key would be a little more careful about picking its moments to sing, especially when other people were around. He wasn’t quite sure what happened to him at such times and it made him rather anxious.

One moment he’d be with his family, quite normal, and then the next he wouldn’t, and when he came back again, he’d find David or Jen or Becky looking at him impatiently, demanding to know why he didn’t pay attention when he was being spoken to. If he hadn’t been so enchanted by the Key, it would have worried him more.

As it was, Becky was the first to worry. She kept well out of his arguments with David and Jen, so it was she who first concluded that there might be more to Peter’s odd behavior than just being difficult. She broached it to Jen when they were alone, doing their last-minute shopping in Borth.

“Jen—” she began, twisting a long strand of brown hair through her fingers.

“Mmm?” Jen was working out how much money she had. The coins still baffled her.

“It’s about Peter.”

Jen sighed. “Why is it that, whenever anyone has a problem, it always begins, ‘It’s about Peter—’ What’s the matter now?”

“It isn’t that he’s done anything,” said Becky. “It’s more the way he’s been acting. Don’t you think it’s peculiar?”

“Not specially. As a matter of fact he’s much pleasanter than he’s been for days. I haven’t even heard him complain lately.”

“That’s kind of what I mean. Don’t you think that’s funny?”

“I think it’s a real relief. He’s finally decided to grow up.” Jen gave up and dumped the change back in her pocket. “Let’s get some Welsh cakes for tea.”

But Becky was persistent. “No, wait a minute. Haven’t you noticed that sometimes, when you’re talking to Peter, he goes blank? He’s never done that before. It’s as if he didn’t see you or hear you or even remember you’re there, and you have to repeat everything. He’s done it to all of us.”

“So?” Jen stopped and looked at Becky.

“He’s never done it before,” she repeated.

“Maybe it’s a new plan of attack,” Jen suggested.

“Can’t be,” said Becky. “He’s not that dumb—all it does is make people mad at him without getting him anywhere. And what about the toast yesterday? That was the same sort of thing—what good did it do him to just sit there and watch it burn? He never even tried to pull it out, and he was really surprised when Dad yelled at him.”

“All right, that was peculiar,” Jen conceded. “Maybe he isn’t feeling well.”

“No good. He’d tell everyone if he was sick.”

Jen knew Becky was right. Peter hated being ill, and he
was always quick to complain whenever he was. “What do you think it is then?”

“I don’t know. I thought maybe you would. You know, it’s just since the storm that he’s been funny.”

Jen didn’t like being reminded. The whole business of the storm had left her with an odd and unpleasant sensation and she only wanted to forget it, but Becky’s words brought back the dark kitchen and Peter’s pale, urgent face in the candlelight. “If you’re so worried about Peter, you ought to talk to Dad, not me,” she said irritably.

Becky grimaced. “What good would that do? Dad and Peter have been arguing ever since we got here. Dad hasn’t got any patience with Peter, and he’s not going to listen to me if I try to tell him what I’ve told you. Peter won’t talk to him.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Jen, exasperated. “Peter wants me to get Dad to take us all home. Dad wants me to make Peter more reasonable.
You
want me to find out what’s wrong with Peter. Well, I can’t do any of it! I thought I was here for a vacation, not to straighten out everybody’s messes!”

Becky looked glum. “I only thought you’d help. I don’t know what to do.”

Jen was about to ask, “why do anything?” when she felt suddenly guilty. Becky was only ten, after all, and she had to struggle with the same problems the rest of them did. They all thought she adjusted so well—was that the truth or was it an excuse for them not to worry about her? Jen was ashamed to realize that she hadn’t any idea what Becky was really making of all this, or if her younger sister was ever lonely or homesick. She said, “What do you think I can do, then?”

“I’m not sure. I guess I thought Peter might have talked to you.”

“He’s tried,” Jen admitted. “About going home mostly. But I really don’t want to get mixed up in that argument. It’s
between him and Dad. It’d be so much easier if he’d just give in for the year.”

“He won’t,” Becky said.

“No. If it’ll make you happier, I can try to find out what’s wrong with him, but he may not tell me. I don’t see what else I can do.”

“Maybe if he thinks we want to help . . .” Becky brightened visibly.

The day before Christmas was dismal. David stayed in Borth with his children, clearly because he felt it was expected, but he was obviously not sure what he should do with them. The weather was awful: high winds drove patches of fierce sun, drenching rain, sleet and snow across the bay in rapid succession, making it impossible to go for a walk. The tree had been decorated already, presents were wrapped, the dinner prepared for. Jen’s lists were covered with checkmarks, and she’d run out of made-up things for them to do.

The night before David had taken them to a carol service in the little old church at Llanbadarn Fawr, a village a few miles inland. The service couldn’t help but remind each of them of other carol services, and yet it hadn’t made them sad. The service was simple, a mixture of English and Welsh, carols and prayers, many of them unfamiliar, but telling a familiar story. The solid, stone church had smelled of dampness and musty books and candles. And for the space of an hour or two Jen remembered how it felt to be part of a family.

That was the way Christmas Eve Day should have been but wasn’t. The closeness wasn’t there. David prowled up and down, looking irritably out windows as if hoping the sun would be shining into one of them if he could only find it. Peter buried himself in a book in the lounge and ignored everyone. Becky nearly drove Jen wild by asking repeatedly if there weren’t something she could do to help, and Jen was feeling irritable anyway because the day was going so badly and she couldn’t find any way to change it.

Finally, David gave up and went back to work on his article for the
Amherst Quarterly,
and Becky settled in front of the television to watch mindless Christmas specials. By supper, everyone was dismal and homesick.

Mrs. Davies only made it worse by talking briskly about how much she still had to do and how hard it was, after all, with the whole family home and two babies in the house. Both her daughters were visiting with their husbands and children, and there was that much to be done, she was sure she didn’t know how she’d manage.

“Not like us,” said Becky glumly, when Mrs. Davies had departed. “We can’t think of enough to do. Maybe we should offer to help?”

Peter looked horrified. “You’re kidding!”

“Well, why not?” Becky defended herself. “It’d be better than sitting around. The Christmas programs on television are just as bad here as at home. Some are even worse!”