A String in the Harp (41 page)

“I hate to admit it,” said Jen reluctantly, “but we
were
better off without Peter here. It would have been worse if he’d stayed.”

David threw up his hands in mock defeat. “What chance does a parent have against the three of you? Why don’t we go have a proper tea in the kitchen and forget Dr. Owen for the time being?”

Jen waited until David left them and the three were alone, then got down to business with Peter. Whatever else, she was determined that he should know how his father had stood behind him with Dr. Owen. “He defended you,” she told her brother. “He told Dr. Owen that the Key was your responsibility and he trusted you to do the right thing with it. I wish you’d heard him.”

Peter made no attempt to hedge. “I couldn’t stay. I know it was wrong to run out on you like that, but I didn’t even know I was going to do it until the doorbell rang. I might have said just the wrong thing and I wasn’t sure of Dad.”

“You should have been,” Becky said a little impatiently. “He’s on your side—
our
side.”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“Well, you can be now. He’s trying his hardest to understand,” said Jen.

“So are you,” Peter said unexpectedly, looking straight at her. “And it will all be over soon, I know it will. I’ve just got to stay away from Dr. Owen long enough to finish it.”

“You’ve made a good start,” exclaimed Jen dryly but without anger. “I hope you’re right and it is over soon—it’ll be a tremendous relief.”

Peter agreed.

***

Sunday, after dinner, the doorbell rang. David found Rhian on the step, jiggling impatiently up and down. Beyond her the ancient Llechwedd Melyn pickup stood at the curb.

“Afternoon, Mr. Morgan! I hoped you’d be yere then.”

“Come in,” said David. “Jen? Becky! Rhian’s here. We’re just finishing the dishes. Is that one of your brothers in the truck? Would he like a cup of tea?”

“Never refuses,” said Rhian with a grin and darted back to ask. She returned, followed diffidently by Dai Evans. He wiped his gumboots carefully on the mat and pulled off his cap; he looked huge and awkward in the unfamiliar kitchen.

“Hullo,” said Peter, making a wad of his dish towel and tossing it in a corner of the sink. Jen gave an exaggerated sigh and spread it out again. “What are you doing here?”

“We came for you,” answered Rhian. “We’re off to Ponterwyd, me and Dai, to collect some of our sheep. John Ellis rang the Forestry yesterday to say he’d got some with our mark on, see. They’re some of his old lot that Da bought last year and they’ve gone off home again.”

“I didn’t think sheep were smart enough to do that,” remarked David, putting a mug of tea in Dai’s hand.

“Hill sheep. Aye,” Dai said, through a mouthful of biscuit.

“They know their own territory,” explained Rhian. “Da usually buys further away, but John Ellis Ponterwyd sold up last year and Da’s had his eye on them sheep for some time now. Went into building, John Ellis.”

“Good stock,” offered Dai, swallowing.

“Anyway, I was thinking did you want to come?”

“Can we, Dad?” Becky asked eagerly.

“As far as I’m concerned, if Dai wants to take you all,” said David. “Just remember why you’re going and don’t get in the way. And don’t be back late.”

“I told you we could use extra rock cakes,” said Becky to Jen, as she began to fill a paper bag. “How many?”

“Us and Gwilym. Met him going down to the shop for milk,” Rhian answered.

“Leave a couple for my tea,” put in David.

“If the weather doesn’t worsen and we have time, we might go up Pumlumon after we’ve got the sheep,” said Rhian.

Dai said, “It’ll hold for a while yet. Gray but clear with it.”

Ponterwyd was a handful of houses scattered on the main road east from Aberystwyth. Dai followed the bus route through Bow Street to Aberystwyth first to leave off a basket of eggs with one of Mrs. Evans’s customers, then turned the pickup left along the Rheidol and followed the river. Jen and Becky rode in the cab beside him, the other three in the bed of the truck. It was a novelty for the three Morgans to be driven anywhere, and Jen thoroughly enjoyed the feeling of excitement.

Near the tiny village of Goginan, tucked in a fold of the valley, the road climbed high up the hillside on a series of switchbacks. Rhian, Peter, and Gwilym in the back got a sudden glorious, wide-open view back down the Rheidol toward Aber and the sea: the river snaking across the plain it had carved, the great hills shouldering back from it, patched in dark and light green trees and fields of smoldering gorse, the sprinkling of cottages. Then they were over the crest of the hills and the valley was gone.

The cold damp air felt good against Peter’s face. There was too much of it racing past to make conversation possible, so he could sit with his back against the hard side of the pickup and his legs out straight and submerge himself in thought. Rhian was singing to herself, he could see her lips move without hearing the words. And Gwilym’s eyes were intent on the gray sky, searching patiently for hawks or buzzards, or with luck, a kite. Peter considered them, the three of them together: how unlike they were. Yet they’d grown familiar to one another and were comfortable. His fingers went automatically to the chain around his neck. It was all woven into the same pattern: Gwilym, Rhian, the Key, his own family, Wales, and a feeling sometimes so powerful it made the back of his throat
ache. The pattern was right, it was working itself out. People spent their lives weaving patterns, borrowing bits from one another, but making each pattern different. Peter was part of Rhian’s, she was part of his; they overlapped but didn’t match. It made him feel old to think that way.

At Ponterwyd, Dai turned left up a steep, narrow road, last paved many Welsh winters ago, that led back into the hills. Gwilym whistled and pointed and, looking up, Peter saw a pair of buzzards, circling slowly just above the horizon, great ragged wings extending in shallow arcs.

The cottage they pulled up in front of stood small and lonely on the bare hillside, its cluster of outbuildings huddled close as if for company. It looked like any of the other hill farms around except that next to it stood a large truck with a flatbed covered with piles of brick and lumber.

John Ellis came out to greet them, surrounded by large, hairy dogs. He was a big pleasant-faced man in overalls and gumboots, with curly red hair. He and Dai made a splendid pair, Jen thought in admiration. Both were the same size, the same age, one dark, the other fair. They were evidently great friends. Dai climbed out of the truck, and they conferred for a few minutes. John Ellis pointed downhill behind the cottage and Dai nodded knowledgeably.

“Come on!” cried Rhian, vaulting down. “We’ll all help!”

They piled out, stretching.

“Two of our ewes back in John Ellis’s pen,” said Dai. “He’s seen two more by the river this morning.”

“Is that all?” asked Rhian.

John Ellis nodded. “If you’ll spread out and work toward the river from yere, we should be finding them no trouble. And I’ve my dogs to bring them back then.”

“Shouldn’t take long,” Rhian predicted.

“Then we can go on up there.” Gwilym’s eyes were on the slopes of the mountain Pumlumon, north, rising sharp-cut against the sky.

“It doesn’t look like much of a mountain,” observed Becky.

“Highest in Cardigan,” Gwilym replied.

Peter said, “It looks old.”

They spread out as John Ellis instructed, eager to get the job done.

“What do you suppose you do if you find a sheep?” Jen asked Peter, as they set off.

“Stand and yell, I guess.” He flashed her a grin.

But it was Rhian and Gwilym who spotted the two strays, both ewes with lambs, huddled uncomfortably in the lee of a gorse bush, fleece matted, eyes wild and blank.

John Ellis sent one of his dogs along to take them back to the cottage. The three border collies were canny sheepdogs, even though they’d lost their own flock. Their instincts were as sharp as ever. John Ellis was too fond of them to think of selling them with his sheep.

At a whistle from him, the one called Gyp streaked off, away from the ewes, belly to the ground, and circled behind them. A short, sharp whistle dropped the dog to earth like a stone. The other two collies sat still beside John Ellis, ears up, trembling with eagerness to be off, but too well-trained to move. At another signal, Gyp began to creep toward the sheep, keeping low and stopping frequently. The ewes were nervous, making short runs first one way, then another. They scented the dogs and people. Then Gyp began to show himself, pushing the beasts gradually uphill toward the cottage, anticipating them each time they tried to bolt the wrong direction.

Coll and Nell were given the task of bringing in the two sheep from the pen by the river, and they were done. But on the way back, Becky found a fifth sheep, half in, half out of a clump of gorse, quite dead. Dai hurried over at her cry of distress and looked at the ewe glumly. “An old one, she,” he said, and bent and rolled her over. Half-crushed under the bulky body was a tiny white lamb, less than a day old by the look of it. It lay very still.

“Oh!” gasped Becky involuntarily. “Is it dead too?” It was so new to be lifeless; it had only just started.

Dai gathered it up, his big hands deft and unexpectedly gentle. He was frowning. Then they both saw the lamb’s eyes half open. Weakly it bleated—a thin, pitiful sound—and Dai and Becky smiled at each other.

“It’s milk she’s needing, this one. If we can get her warm and fed, she might do.”

“Can I carry her?”

“Aye.” With the same gentleness Dai put the lamb in Becky’s arms and she was enchanted.

“Bess’ll look after you,” said John Ellis, when he saw what Becky’d got. “She’ll find you a bottle and rubber teat around somewhere.”

The kitchen was warm, and very full when they’d all crowded into it. John’s wife, Bess, didn’t seem at all put out by the appearance of so many strangers, but then she didn’t look like the sort of person who could be easily upset by anything. She was a comfortable, calm woman with kind eyes and red, rough hands. She found what Becky needed and showed her how to coax the orphan to drink warm milk from a baby’s bottle. Two very small Ellises sat cross-legged on the hearth, watching and grinning like Jack O’Lanterns.

Dai saw the lamb was in good hands and turned to John to discuss dogs; they apparently shared a passionate interest in the subject. There was a man in Ponterwyd Dai was particularly anxious to see called Howell Pritchard, who raised some of the finest rabbit dogs in the county. His best bitch had just whelped, and Dai’s heart was set on owning one of her pups. John Ellis was only too pleased to have an excuse to pay Howell Pritchard a visit himself.

“So,” Rhian interrupted, “you won’t care if we be off for a couple of hours, will you?”

Dai frowned. “You’ll be back by tea.”

“Aye.”

“You going up Pumlumon, then?”

“We might do. We’ll go that direction, anyhow.”

He nodded. “I’ll not come hunting you, mind.”

“Are you sure you don’t need us still?” asked Gwilym. “We did come to hunt sheep after all.”

“And we have done!” exclaimed Rhian. “Them two won’t look any more—why should we? More than like, we’ve got them all now.”

At the door Peter paused and turned back. “Becky?” But she was settled happily on the floor near the fire, her arms full of lamb as Bess Ellis held the bottle for it. “I’ll stay.”

Peter went out after the others. Gwilym and Rhian were arguing amiably about the best way up the mountain, which they referred to as a hill.

“Well, of course, it’s best if you go up from Ponterwyd,” Gwilym was saying, setting his spectacles firmly on his nose.

“But we’re not
in
Ponterwyd then, are we?” said Rhian. “From yere, it’s much the best to follow the reservoir round to the right and go straight up. Quicker if you don’t mind a scramble. We’ve not got masses of time, see.”

Nant-y-moch, the reservoir, was like a sheet of tin foil blown into wrinkles by a chilly wind. It made a great “U” between the hills where small rivers had incised valleys, then been flooded to make the hydroelectric reservoir. The road met Nant-y-moch at the bottom of the “U” and water spread away from it to both sides.

They turned right off the road along a well-worn track between the shore and Pumlumon itself. Jen and Peter were accustomed to walking with the other two by this time and had no trouble matching Rhian’s pace. There were two streams to cross on overgrown footbridges, and they passed a deserted cottage. Jen spotted a kestrel just beyond it, standing on the air, its wings stroking fast, its tail angled downward and fanned to hold it still above some small creature. While they watched it, it closed its wings and stooped. When it rose
again a moment later, something limp hung from its talons.

“It’s sometimes called ‘windhover’ because it does that,” said Gwilym.

“Windhover,” Jen repeated. “That’s lovely.”

At the end of the reservoir the track led on under a dark, treacherous-looking slide of broken rock. Then at the next stream Rhian started up a footpath that followed the
cwm
onto Pumlumon itself. There was a magical feeling about setting foot on the massive bulk. They had been skirting it carefully until now—they hadn’t declared themselves. But once begun, they were committed to climb it. It had none of the rugged cliffs and pinnacles of the mountains further north, above the Dovey, but it had all the ancient force of a true mountain.

The going was steep, but moderately dry, and the path quite easy to follow. The stream came down out of a round little lake, Llyn Llygad Rheidol. Gwilym consulted their map. It lay at the foot of the cliffs that guarded the summit of Pumlumon Fawr, its waters the color of pewter, echoing the metallic sky, but not reflecting it. A patch of white gulls on the far side flawed the surface.

Rhian let the expedition stop to catch its breath here, before making the final ascent, and Gwilym declared he was starving to death. So Jen unpacked the rock cakes and Rhian dug four oranges out of her rucksack; Peter contributed a jacknife, and they settled themselves on a couple of boulders out of the wind. Jen and Peter cut holes in the tops of their oranges and squeezed the juice into their mouths.