A String in the Harp (20 page)

Taliesin nodded. “I have. But I am alone now, and I have lost much.”

“You speak to me of loss?” demanded the man.

“To you of all people,” was the reply. “You have lost a kingdom; I have lost a friend and the son of a friend, the boy whose care I was charged with.”

Gwyddno Garanhir nodded. “Tell me,” he said, and Taliesin told him of the time he had spent in the Kingdom of Urien Rheged, as teacher to the king’s son Elphin, and of the Irish sea raiders who had taken Elphin and Taliesin prisoner, of his escape and of washing ashore in Gwyddno’s fish weir. The old king listened in silence, his eyes lost on the distant sea horizon where once had been his kingdom, the drowned Low Hundred.

And when Taliesin had done, he too fell silent. Then Gwyddno called the fair-headed young man from the group of fishermen.

“You,” he said to Taliesin, “are welcome here. You have, I think, been sent to me. I, too, have a son and his name also is Elphin. We live here in the hills and make our living from the fish weirs on the Dyfi. I ask you to live among us and to be teacher to my son, Elphin, son of Gwyddno.”

Taliesin looked from the old man to the young man. “If I have been sent, I do not yet know for what purpose. But I will stay.”

***

“He looked right at you,” said Becky. “I saw him.”

It was after dinner. Jen, Becky, and Peter were cleaning up. It was the first chance they’d had to talk alone since coming down Foel Goch.

“But he didn’t see me,” said Peter. “He went right on, didn’t you see that, too?”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t see you,” Becky persisted. “It just means he didn’t show it.”

“Well, why shouldn’t he have seen Peter?” asked Jen with a trace of impatience. “He was there, after all.”

But Becky paid no attention to her. “And that was the boy from the coracle, wasn’t it? There’s something funny about him—do you know what it is?”

Becky’s face was intent, eager; Jen’s was closed. Peter looked from one to the other with a frown. This wasn’t the way he’d thought things would work out. He’d picked Jen for his ally and he’d been wrong. It was Becky who was willing to listen and to believe. Jen was afraid. He’d been afraid, too, when he’d first learned what the Key did, but he wasn’t any more; he was too involved in it.

There was a purpose in what the Key was doing. He didn’t know what it was yet, but the pattern was growing; it was catching other people besides Peter himself.

“Do you remember,” Peter began, “that night we were at the Rhyses’ and Dr. Rhys was talking about the Welsh bards?”

Becky nodded.

“One of the bards was a man called Taliesin. Dr. Rhys said he was the most famous of all of them.”

“What’s this got to do with anything?” demanded Jen.

“Do be quiet, Jen, and let him finish. I want to hear. Go on, Peter,” cut in Becky. Jen was too surprised to answer back.

“Well, Taliesin spent quite a lot of his life around here. I’ve got a book from Dr. Rhys that tells about him—the story’s a fairy tale, really, but there are some notes about him in the back of the book. He was a real man and he did live here, near Borth for a while. There used to be a kingdom that belonged to a man named Gwyddno, only it was flooded and sixteen towns were drowned.”

Jen’s hands were clasped tight on the dishrag. “You and Mr. Evans would make a good pair,” she exclaimed. “You
could tell each other stories. Next you’re going to say that man on the hillside was Taliesin!”

Peter and Becky both looked at her in silence.

“Well?” she said hotly. “For heaven’s sake, Peter, it’s bad enough your making up things like that without your getting Becky to believe them!”

“Was it?” asked Becky softly.

Peter shrugged slightly. “A lot of it fits together if it was.”

“I suppose you’re going to say it’s all because of that thing you picked up off the beach, Peter.” Jen’s voice held scorn. “I think I liked it better when you complained all the time. Making up stories is all right, but not when you start
believing
them.”

“What did you find?” asked Becky.

Peter made up his mind. He took out the chain and the Key and held it for her to see. “It’s the tuning key of a harp,” he said. “Howell Roberts had one at the concert. Taliesin had one, too.”

S
CHOOL STARTED
again Monday, and Jen was left on her own. She hadn’t really thought about being alone until she watched Peter and Becky go off down the hill a few minutes behind David. The house was suddenly very empty.

David had said, “I hope you won’t find it too dull by yourself,” sounding faintly concerned.

“Of course not,” Jen assured him. “I have dozens of things to do before I go back.”

But, now she had the time, she couldn’t settle. It was pointless to write the letters she’d neglected—she’d get home before they did now. Her handful of school books lay unopened. American history and French were somehow irrelevant in Borth. And the Sunday crossword was much too difficult to hold Jen’s attention.

She made her own bed, then Becky’s, then slowly straightened their room. It was a relief to see Becky trudging up the walk at 12:30 for lunch.

“It’s so quiet with everyone gone,” Jen exclaimed, as they made sandwiches.

“Do you mean you really missed us?” asked Becky with a grin.

“Well, we’ve been together so much for the past two weeks, the silence is unnatural!” Jen answered lightly.

Becky’s grin vanished. “You won’t be here much longer, though. Are you glad you’re leaving Friday?”

“It’ll be nice to get home and see Aunt Beth and Uncle Ted and everyone at school. Yes, I suppose I am glad.”

“Home,” echoed Becky. “Not sorry to leave us? I wish you weren’t going.”

“Of course, I’m sorry to be leaving you,” said Jen hastily, annoyed with herself for having blundered. “I’ll miss you very much.”

“Then
stay!
Oh, please, Jen!”

“But—” The fierce intensity in Becky’s voice and face caught Jen unprepared. She groped for the right words, startled. “But it’s all arranged. My ticket and the Sullivans to meet me in London.”

“I know. It’s just—I thought once you were here you’d want to stay. I thought you’d understand.”

“Understand what?” asked Jen more gently.

“That we need to be together.”

“Becky—”

“We do. I can’t explain it, but it’s important. Don’t you feel it at all?” Becky’s eyes searched her face.

“But it’s just not possible!” Jen protested, uncomfortable. “Even if I did want to stay, you know Dad wouldn’t hear of it. I’ve got to go back to school next week.”

“Talk to him,” urged Becky. “I don’t think he wants you to go either, but he won’t say it unless you do.”

“How do you know?” Jen demanded. Becky’s words upset her, and she was angry with herself for allowing them to. What business was it of theirs to question their father’s arrangements?
He
was responsible for making the decisions and for taking care of them all. They could protest, but they shouldn’t try to take responsibility on themselves. “I’d miss half a year of school—he’d never agree to that. And Aunt Beth would raise the roof.”

“But she couldn’t do anything, if Dad told her he wanted you here.”

“I don’t see why you think he does. It isn’t as if I could keep house for you. What difference does my being here really make?”

“A lot to me,” said Becky in a low voice.

Oh, damn, thought Jen. She really did care about Becky. Jen knew there must be times when her sister was lonely and unhappy and needed a family. At the moment, there wasn’t much of one for her.

“Anyway.” Becky looked up defiantly. “Why
couldn’t
you keep house? You could learn and I’d help. I’m sure Mrs. Davies could teach you, and it wouldn’t be that hard.”

“Scrubbing floors and doing laundry and cleaning up after you? Instead of going back to school?” Jen sounded incredulous. “And what about cooking? I don’t know how to cook!”

“You’ll have to learn sometime. Couldn’t you just talk to Dad? I don’t think it would be so awful and we could all be together.”

After Becky had gone back to school, Jen pulled on her jacket and walked down into Borth, ignoring the spits of rain. What was Becky doing to her, she asked herself furiously. What made Becky think she, Jen, had the power to change what was already decided? Why would she want to anyway? She would climb on the train Friday on schedule, and fly home from London the next day. She’d go back to being an ordinary high school student, with nothing more important to worry about than what to wear tomorrow and an exam on Thursday. It wasn’t her job to worry about the family, it was their father’s. Becky wasn’t fair to push her into a corner and ask her to do things she couldn’t.

But when Jen thought of her father she rememberd Christmas Eve. He had said, “I’m just not used to being responsible for the whole show.” For the first time, she won
dered uncomfortably if that weren’t too much responsibility for one person alone to have to take. She saw them all locked into their private miseries: Peter, Becky, herself—and their father, too. They needed someone to pull them back into shape, make them part of each other again.

“I can’t do it!” she said aloud, desperately, and was startled at the sound of her own voice. The gulls drifting along the beach paid no attention. Jen sighed. How could she blame Becky? It was she herself who wanted to escape, to go back to Amherst and pretend life hadn’t changed, when she knew perfectly well it had.

She longed for her mother to talk to. She walked along the sea wall, her eyes fixed on the distant mountains, trying to imagine what she would say. It was Becky she heard, her mother’s voice speaking Becky’s words: “We should all be together.” Whether in Wales or Amherst, being together was the most important thing.

***

“What do you mean, you don’t think you want to go home Saturday?” David looked blankly at his daughter across the untidy desk. “I don’t understand.”

Jen cleared her throat nervously. “I just think it would be better for all of us if I stayed here with you.”

David frowned. “It’s all set for Friday—the Sullivans expect you, Beth and Ted are waiting in Amherst, your plane ticket’s been confirmed. Why on earth would you want to stay longer anyway? There isn’t anything for you to do, with Peter and Becky in school all day.”

“Well, actually,” Jen began, “I’ve been thinking. There’s a lot I could do. I could look after the house for you and I could learn to cook. I could even do some independent studying.”

“Mrs. Davies does the housekeeping,” said David impatiently. Then the full import of Jen’s words hit him. “Wait a minute, do I understand you, Jennifer? Are you proposing to
stay on, not for just another week or two, but the rest of the year? Is that right?” He stared at his eldest daughter in genuine astonishment.

“Umm, I guess I am. Yes.”

“Good God in heaven!
Why?
What’s possessed you? You don’t honestly expect me to—what’s to become of your schooling, may I ask? And all of Beth’s careful plans?”

“May I sit down?”

“You might as well.” David sighed. “It sounds like a long evening.” He pushed aside his papers and leaned his elbows on the desk. “You’ve got my undivided attention.”

Jen took a deep breath. “I think it’s more important for me to be here with the rest of you than to go back to school. I think we need to be together. It sounded all right last year when you said I could stay in school at home and live with Aunt Beth and Uncle Ted. I thought it would work. But it didn’t. Last semester wasn’t very good. I did pretty badly.”

“Maybe you weren’t trying hard enough, Jen.” David sounded tired. “It isn’t easy adjusting, believe me I know. But we have to adjust, we haven’t been given a choice. If it’s bleak sometimes, we just have to stick with it and be willing to accept new responsibilities. The three of you have got to grow up a little faster than your mother and I would have liked.”

“But that’s just it. I want to stay so I can help, so I
can
take responsibility, Dad. Let me prove it. I can learn a lot, just from being here, that I wouldn’t get at all in school.”

“What? Housekeeping?” David was unbelieving. “Do you know what that amounts to, Jen? Your mother used to say it would drive her wild if she hadn’t had other things to do as well. It’s dull and repetitive and it has to be done. You can’t stop because it bores you. You may think it would be fun now, but in a couple of weeks, when you’d had enough—what happens then?”

“I’m not offering because I think housework sounds like fun!” Jen protested hotly. “I’m offering because I want to
help.”

David pushed his hand back through his hair. “I’m sorry, Jen. I didn’t say it very well. What I mean is that it’s serious, hard work, and I have too much else to worry about right now. I appreciate your offer, I do, believe me, but it’s not practical.”

“You don’t think I can do it, do you?” Jen said, looking her father in the eye. “Well, I can and I’ll show you. Becky’ll help and I asked Mrs. Davies if she’d teach me about shopping and show me what has to be done in the house.”

There was a long, brittle silence. “And what,” said David at last, “will Mrs. Davies say when she finds out you’re after her job?”

Jen’s heart began to slam against her ribs. “Her daughter Susan is having a baby next month,” she said cautiously. “Mrs. Davies will be busy helping her. She’d be glad of the time off.”

David’s eyes rested on Jen’s face, troubled and thoughtful. “I only wish I knew,” he said softly. “Do you really want to stay? Or do you feel you ought to. If your mother—”

“Mother would have wanted us all in one place.” Jen interrupted with all the conviction she could muster.

“Would she? Your school bothers me most. I don’t know anything about schools for you here, and I don’t know that it makes sense for you to start one now anyway. You’d have to repeat a year.”

“You could tutor me,” Jen suggested tentatively.

“In all my spare time!” David shook his head. “It’s not the same as proper school.”

“No, but I’d have the experience of learning about another country by living in it. You told Becky and Peter that last summer, before you came.”