A String in the Harp (28 page)

“You’ll get left behind, Peter, if you don’t hurry,” said Jen, and Peter couldn’t bring himself to say that he wouldn’t mind being left, so he took a deep breath and tried to ignore the warning.

In the main hall, David found a guard to ask about Dr. John Owen. The man nodded gravely and led them off rapidly, like a small parade, down corridors, around corners, up stairs and through exhibit halls. The museum smelled of dust and floor polish.

They came to a halt at the door of an office. “This will be Dr. Owen, then,” the guard informed them and left, touching his cap to David’s thanks.

David knocked and a preoccupied voice said, “Come?” Behind the door lay a small, tidy office, furnished with a rug and several comfortable chairs and lined with shelves full of
small objects in neat arrangement. The man at the desk was deeply absorbed in the typescript he was reading and for several moments, while the Morgans stood uncertainly in the doorway, he didn’t look up.

“Yes?” he said at last, looking inquiringly at David. “Can I help you?”

“Dr. Owen?” The man nodded and David introduced himself and Jen, Becky, and Peter.

“Indeed yes.” Dr. Owen smiled in recognition. “Gwyn Rhys told me you were coming.” He rose and came around the desk to shake hands with them all, disregarding Peter’s obvious reluctance. He was a slim, sandy-colored man with a sharp, clever face, obviously younger then Dr. Rhys, and dressed in a brown corduroy jacket with leather elbow patches and a dark green turtleneck sweater, very cool and polished.

“From America, Gwyn said, didn’t he? Ah, yes. He said you were spending a year at the University. Like it, do you? It’s quite a decent school, all things considered, though Aberystwyth is
rather
a dismal hole, don’t you find? Why on
earth
they put the National Library there, I cannot fathom—so damned inconvenient to get to. Sit down, do. Have we enough chairs for you? Yes, good.” He spoke in a smooth, precise way, giving various words particular emphasis, which made everything he said sound significant. He had only the faintest trace of Welsh inflection. “Now then, what can I do for you? Have you been round the Museum?”

“Not yet,” said David. “We were hoping you would be able to tell us what we ought to see, so we came here first.” He added, with a glance at his subdued children, “We don’t have a great deal of time, I’m afraid.”

“That is too bad.” Dr. Owen knit his long fingers together and rested his chin on them, regarding his visitors with pale green eyes. “We have quite a
lot
of very fine stuff here. I don’t know what Gwyn has told you, of course, nor what
precisely
you’re interested in.”

“We’re open to whatever you’d recommend,” said David. “Just point us in the right direction.”

Dr. Owen looked thoughtful. “Well
actually,
as it is, I can spare you an hour myself. Show you a few of the
highlights
as it were. Not terribly satisfactory, I know, but better than nothing, and it wouldn’t do to tire your—to tire
you.”

Jen and Becky exchanged an apprehensive glance. Something about Dr. Owen made them acutely uncomfortable. Peter had sunk down in his chair, his face expressionless, and seemed to be pretending he wasn’t there. The office felt very small and close. David must have noticed it, too, for he said quickly, “That would be very good of you, Dr. Owen, but we don’t want to disrupt your schedule. I’m afraid you must be very busy.”

Their hopes were short-lived. “Oh, goodness, I can
certainly
take an
hour
or so to pilot you about. After all, Gwyn’s friends. I can’t have you thinking us inhospitable,” he said firmly. “But I do think we’d better get right to it if you don’t mind. We’ve an enormous amount of
ground
to cover. It’s David, isn’t it? Do call me John.” And he led the way out of his office without waiting for a reaction. David shrugged apologetically at his children—it couldn’t be helped, they’d have to make the best of it for an hour.

Once set in motion, Dr. Owen was evidently difficult to stop, and the Morgans could only trail behind him, looking attentively at the objects he pointed out and pretending to absorb with interest everything he told them.

Much to Jen’s relief, Dr. Owen addressed his remarks almost without exception to David. She and Becky were glad to let their father cope, for they were both somewhat in awe of the sharp, confident Welshman. Peter simply shut everyone out completely. He stayed as far from Dr. Owen as he could manage and looked at anything but what he was supposed to. This man was a threat; in what way Peter wasn’t sure, but he knew he wanted no part of Dr. John Owen.

Archaeology was Dr. Owen’s special field of study; he
could apparently talk with authority on it for hours. He took his captive audience through halls lined with cases displaying shards of pottery and glass, ancient weapons, rows of black and pitted iron objects, silver jewelry wrought in curious knots and woven patterns. All the while a battle raged in Peter’s head: on one side the power and magnetic attraction of these objects, and on the other the disturbing negative presence of Dr. Owen. He longed for freedom to wander through the rooms on his own, submerged in time. The layers were here, just as they had been in the Castle. Unobtrusively, Peter began to edge away from the others.

“One of the fascinating things,” said Dr. Owen, “is that new objects are
constantly turning up,
often in the most unexpected places. The countryside is full of them, but the real trick is in
unearthing
them once someone’s made the discovery. There are scandalously few people with the training and experience to tell really valuable stuff from the junk, do you see. But it’s rather
exciting
to go into a farmhouse at the back of
beyond
—the hills of Brecon or up some valley in Carmarthen—and see something like
this.”
He indicated a large silver bowl that stood by itself in a glass case. Jen and Becky had been admiring its shape and intricate design.

“Yes,” said David, “it must be.”

“That was on the mantlepiece in a farmer’s cottage in Merioneth. The man had not the
slightest idea
what he had, of course, no idea at all. He couldn’t begin to tell me its age or value, only that he’d found it behind his cowbarn and he
rather liked it.
He kept fruit in it.” Dr. Owen shook his head in amusement. “An eighth century chalice full of apples and bananas tarnishing in a two-room farmhouse. If I hadn’t seen it there, it would conceivably have been lost to historians forever.”

“But if he found it,” objected Becky, “shouldn’t he have been able to keep it if he wanted? I mean, if it was behind his cowbarn?”

“Keep it?” repeated Dr. Owen, looking at Becky as if
he hadn’t quite heard right. “Good heavens, something like this doesn’t belong to any one person, you know, it belongs to
Wales.
It’s an important piece of history to be preserved and studied. It would be selfish to withold an object like the chalice.”

“But what about the farmer?” Becky persisted in spite of a frown from David. “Did he get anything?”

Dr. Owen gave a short, unamused laugh. “Oh, I see. Yes, he was
compensated,
of course, and that’s his name on the card: Ivor Davies, Abergynolwyn. And he has the satisfaction of knowing that he’s made a unique contribution to his country, which is no small reward in itself. This” —he looked fondly at the chalice—“is where it belongs, and he has something quite
adequate
but slightly less
exotic
to put his oranges in.”

Becky opened her mouth and David said quickly, “What about these brooches over here? They look old.”

“Indeed yes.” A nod of approval. “Exceptionally fine examples of late twelfth-century work. But you evidently know something about metalwork? It’s rather a pet subject of mine. I located three of those myself eight years ago on a working holiday in Cardigan.”

“What if the farmer didn’t want a reward,” Becky whispered indignantly to Jen. “Suppose he just wanted the bowl?”

“Shhhh,” hissed Jen. “He’ll hear you.”

“No, he won’t. He’s much too busy talking to Dad. I wish we could get away from him before he ruins the whole day. I think we make him uncomfortable.”

“He seems to like Dad,” said Jen, “and there’s nothing we can do. It’s nice of him to spend time with us when he’s probably got hundreds of other things he’d much rather be doing this afternoon. You’ve got to pretend to be interested even if you aren’t.” Jen felt strangely raw, irritated, herself, at the way the trip was turning out, aware they couldn’t change it,
but cross. Becky always put her feelings into words before Jen could and that irritated her, too.

And Peter. Jen glanced around for him and saw that he had wandered off to the other side of the gallery and was ignoring them. David was too busy listening to Dr. Owen to notice, and Becky was looking glum. It was unfair of Peter to escape.

“Go tell him to come back here,” she ordered Becky.

“What?” Becky followed her stare. “He’s being smart.”

“He’s being rude. Tell him to come back before Dr. Owen misses him.”

“But—” Becky was going to argue, but one look at Jen’s face and she went. Jen watched the two of them talking earnestly together. Peter glanced in her direction, then quickly away when he saw her looking. She felt left out. A brown head and a coppery one bent together in front of jagged chunks of rock, carved with strange symbols, and she, Jen, didn’t know what they were saying. For heaven’s sake, all Becky had to do was bring Peter back with her, thought Jen resentfully. But at last they came, Peter with reluctance, looking over his shoulder, then at his feet, never at Dr. Owen. Becky was composed.

“What took you so long?” demanded Jen in a furious whisper. “What were you doing?”

They weren’t going to tell her, and her resentment increased. Dr. Owen’s voice went on and on, quiet, self-assured, explaining the process of dating silver, and the day that had begun so beautifully was ending horribly. Jen didn’t want to let Peter and Becky off; she didn’t like herself much and she felt very isolated. They trailed behind the two men, from room to room.

“And these are examples of early musical instruments. Some of the best in the British Isles. It’s rather a superb collection, don’t you think?”

Jen sighed and glanced resignedly at the cases of crude
flutelike instruments and small drums. Then a click in her mind; beyond the cases was a low platform on which were mounted harps of different sizes and shapes, the very simplest to the most elaborate.

David noticed them, too, and remarked.

“Ah, yes. But the earliest instruments are in the cases. Nothing among the harps earlier than seventeenth century, and precious little that old. They’re
wretchedly
perishable, of course. So far we’ve had to be content with descriptions and stone carvings, nothing more substantial. But, of course, that’s part of the game, isn’t it? There is always a chance something will turn up. Bit by bit, we’re completing our picture.”

“I thought harps were Irish,” said David. “I mean originally.”

“In derivation perhaps, David, but they’ve been used in Wales since the third and fourth centuries. At a conservative guess. Welsh harp music is quite famous, I’d have thought. And the bardic tradition is
very strong
here.”

“Of course.” David nodded as if he should have known.

“Not much of interest here actually,” said Dr. Owen, moving quickly down the row of harps. “Those on the end are
quite
modern. One needn’t look hard to find any number of them.”

“What are these?” David paused in front of a case that displayed some small miscellaneous-looking objects.

Jen’s heart gave a sickening lurch when she saw he was looking at half a dozen metal keylike things. Peter and Becky came close, as if drawn by a magnet. Becky bit her lip nervously, and Jen could feel the tension in Peter like a sudden charge of electricity.

None was exactly like Peter’s, but the three children knew before Dr. Owen answered David’s question that they were looking at harp-tuning keys.

“Modern tuning keys,” said Dr. Owen, without much interest. “For tuning harp strings. We have them here
simply
as illustration. It’s unlikely that they’ve changed a great deal
through the centuries, but somehow we’ve never been able to locate a truly old one. God knows they should be relatively
indestructible,
but whether because they’re so
small
or because they were important enough to be buried with their owners, we haven’t turned any up.”

“Perhaps they didn’t have them?” suggested David.

“Oh, indeed they did, David. They appear in one of the earliest codes of Welsh laws. It was criminal to steal the tools of a man’s trade, do you see, and harp and tuning key were the tools of a bard’s trade. We
know
they existed.”

Jen stared at the keys with unwilling fascination. Dr. Owen was right—they had changed very little. None of these were as elaborate as Peter’s, but the size and shape were right: three hollow metal arms joined in the middle to form a Y.

How on earth had Peter found one? Where had it come from? Was it really old? Jen had to concede he knew what he had now, the proof was irrefutable.

“Jen?” David was calling her from a great distance. “Dr. Owen has to get back to work. We all appreciate the time he’s taken with us, and I’m sure you want to thank him.”

A hard, cold knot tied itself in her stomach. If she could just bring herself to do it, Jen could solve the problem of Peter’s key once and for all, right here, right now, with Dr. Owen. Very quickly, without turning around, she said, “What if someone found an early harp key? Could you tell how old it was?”

“Jennifer—” began David.

“Well, of course, we could tell how old it was. We have very sophisticated dating methods for pinpointing such things
exactly.
I ought to be able to tell within say
fifty years
myself merely by looking. It would be quite a find, but so far nothing.”