A String in the Harp (9 page)

Hunching his shoulders against the wind and bending his head, Peter walked along the path that led south, the path he was beginning to think of as his. He tried unsuccessfully to ignore the soft, insistent humming of the Key.

He was gone a long time, chilling himself thoroughly, struggling with his fears. He wanted company very much but didn’t know how to find it.

In the Bryn Celyn study, Becky turned the lights on and closed the curtains against the storm.

“I suppose Peter’s all right.” She sighed. “I wish he hadn’t gone out in it.”

“He ought to be able to look after himself,” said Jen with more conviction than she truly felt. Storms didn’t bother her particularly, but she could hear the window panes rattling in their frames and feel the house shudder under the tremendous buffeting. It would have been rather exciting if she weren’t actually worried about where Peter was and about being the eldest of them and therefore responsible. Becky had already tried his room, but it was cold and dark; he hadn’t slipped in unnoticed. Jen hoped her father wouldn’t suddenly come home and demand to know why they’d let Peter go off on his own with a storm coming.

Rhian was unperturbed by the gale. “Me Da says you’ve to expect the worst storms from the southwest, but up by us we don’t get much blow. We’re in a valley, see, and the hills keeps us sheltered. Not to worry, he says, town’s been yere longer than us and hasn’t blown away yet.”

“I’ve been in a hurricane,” volunteered Becky. “It blew down the telephone lines and we didn’t have lights for a whole evening. It was like this.”

“Our electric goes off a lot,” said Rhian.

For something to do while the storm rose, the three of them sat on the floor in front of the gas fire and played Hearts. Rhian won consistently. Jen’s mind wasn’t on the game; she kept listening for someone at the door. Halfway into the third hand, she heard the sudden heavy splatter of rain against the window as it was driven sideways by the wind, and at the same moment they all heard the front door blow open.

“I hope that’s Peter,” said Jen fervently.

“Who else would it be, then?” demanded Rhian.

“Dad,” said Becky, following Jen’s thoughts. “He might be home early.”

Jen scrambled up and went into the front hall. It was Peter, his wet hair plastered flat to his skull, his nose red and
running. She bit her tongue on the furious question she wanted to ask. With unaccustomed good sense she realized it would do no one any good to start a fight, even though Peter was eyeing her defiantly, daring her to. It was a long-standing family rule that none of them ever went anywhere without telling someone else first, and he had obviously broken it.

“Your jacket will never dry if you hang it up like that,” said Jen at last. “Put it in by the fire.”

A sudden frantic gust of wind hurled itself at the front door. The latch hadn’t caught and it flew open. Jen and Peter both moved to close it at the same moment and swung it shut together.

“What’s it like out there?”

Peter shivered involuntarily. “I could see the line of rain come across the bay—one minute it was dry and the next minute it was pouring. The waves go right up to the sea wall.” Was it the sea wall? Or was it the dyke? He couldn’t remember and shivered again.

“You ought to change your clothes before you catch cold.”

He nodded and disappeared. In a few minutes he joined the others in the study.

“Hullo,” said Rhian. “Want to play Hearts with us? I shouldn’t half have fun getting home this afternoon.”

“Maybe it’ll clear after a bit,” suggested Jen.

“Not likely. Sounds as if it’s setting in proper. There is someone at your door.” Over the noise of the wind and rain it was just possible to hear a muffled thumping.

It was Gwilym this time, mac streaming with water, drops running down his nose, chin, and spectacles. “Mum sent me round to see if you were all right,” he shouted, standing on the doorstep.

“Yes, I think so!” Jen shouted back. “Do come in so we can close the door.”

“Have you checked all the doors and windows? And chimney?”

Becky shook her head. “Should we?”

A puddle grew around Gwilym’s wellingtons as he stood in the hall. He nodded, as if to say I thought as much—no idea how to look after themselves. “Good job Mum took in your towels before lunch or they’d be halfway to Snowdon.” He went into the lounge, Jen, Becky, Peter and Rhian trailing behind him. To Jen’s horror she could see a dark stain spreading across the carpet from the fireplace.

“It
leaks?”

Gwilym shook his head with exaggerated patience. “Flue’s open. You ought to keep it closed when there’s not a fire. You’d best get a pan to put under the drip till it’s dried out.”

Room by room, he checked the house, with the rest of them following like a small parade. Most of the window frames were all right, but the ones in the empty rooms on the second floor, where the rain and wind hit hardest were already very wet. Gwilym showed them how to put towels around the cracks.

“It’s very simple,” he said—unnecessarily, Jen thought. As if we’re a bunch of half-wits.

Water was also coming in under the kitchen door. Rhian mopped it up, and they improvised a dam around the sill.

“That’s it,” said Gwilym, when it was complete to his satisfaction. “If you’ve more trouble, come round and get me.”

“Thank you,” said Jen primly.

Instead of slackening, the rain came down harder as the afternoon wore on. It sounded as if it were being emptied out of the sky in bucketfuls. From the upstairs window they couldn’t even see as far as the cliff edge.

“It
can’t
keep on this hard for much longer,” Jen exclaimed, but an hour later it still hadn’t slackened. They had all retreated again to the study. Rhian was teaching Becky a very complicated kind of solitaire she said her brother Aled had learned in Swansea. Jen was beginning to wonder how on earth they would get Rhian home again if the storm kept on. There was no telephone in Bryn Celyn. When Jen had asked
why not, David had told her there was no point: phones were installed by the Post Office, and there was a waiting list of more than a year for installations. But it would have made no difference now in any case, because Rhian had informed them that her family had no phone either. Rhian was surprised Jen thought that strange. Jen felt unfairly burdened with responsibility.

Peter sat in the rocking chair by the window, rocking himself slowly back and forth. At first he watched the game progressing by fits and starts and with much good-humored bickering, but gradually he became aware that he was losing sight of it. The cards were blank squares of white, the voices faded. Frightened, he tried to shut out the singing, but it grew relentlessly inside him. He had thought he’d be safe with other people around—it had always come when he was alone before—but he was helpless to stop it. His hands gripped the arms of the chair and he went on rocking, back and forth, back and forth, automatically. The study vanished.

In its place, Peter saw the country called the Low Hundred lying flat under the hammering rain. Wind tore through the bare limbs of the rowans and birches, bending them double, causing the heavy oaks to creak and groan in anguish. Great branches were ripped from them and hurled crashing to the ground. People crouched shivering in their frail wood huts, waiting for their roofs to be blown away or trees to fall, smashing them to bits. The Key sang a wild and ominous song that wove through the gale inexorably, showing Peter a series of painfully vivid images.

Above the flat land of the Hundred, near the coast, rose a long, low mound, around its slopes a jumble of huts within the shelter of an earthen dyke. And beyond loomed the bulk of the great sea dyke. Atop the mound, on the highest part, stood the Great Hall, Caer Gwyddno, built of the best and strongest timber. Within the Hall, in the warmth and firelight, there were people feasting at a long, cluttered table, swarthy, dark-haired
men who drank and laughed and called up and down the table to one another, feeding the hounds that circled them, alert for handouts. At the end of the table, on a platform, Peter saw a big golden man, the yellow hair of his mane and beard and the down on his great, muscular arms shining in the flickering light. His head was inclined toward the stocky, fair young man on his left, who was gently fingering a small harp. And sitting on the edge of the platform was a boy of about thirteen, whose gaze never left the harp strings. Peter knew him as the boy whom Caridwen had named “Taliesin.” The three might have been alone for all the notice they appeared to take of everyone else. With the abruptness of a candle being blown out the picture was gone.

Peter blinked at Becky and Rhian, still absorbed in their cards and at Jen on the hearthrug, her hands clasped around her knees, watching them with a worried frown. The clock on the desk said ten past four.

“Jen! Peter! Where are you?” David was home at last, drenched and anxious.

Jen sighed with relief. She could let him worry about Rhian now. “In the study,” she called. “I’m so glad you’re back!”

“What’s wrong? Are you all here? Becky, Peter—hullo, there’s an extra one of you. Who’s this?”

“Rhian Evans,” said Becky. “We’re all right. Gwilym’s been and helped us stop the leaks. But we’re not sure how we’re going to get Rhian home again.”

“Where do you live? In Borth?” David struggled out of his soaking overcoat.

Rhian shook her head. “Farm above Tre’r-ddôl.”

“Good lord, where’s that? What a storm. Two of the buses have broken down or I’d have been here sooner—I had to wait almost an hour at the station. I’ve never seen it rain so hard!”

“I don’t mind,” said Rhian. “Gotten wet before, me.”

“You’d be washed away,” David declared. “Have to walk all the way—out toward Machynlleth, isn’t it? No buses going that way until it lets up. Can someone come and get you?”

“No phone,” said Jen.

“They’ll be too busy getting the sheep out of the
cwm
in case it floods. It won’t matter to me, honest, Mr. Morgan.”

“Well, it will to me,” David declared, pulling off his wet shoes. “Becky, move away from the fire a bit, will you? I’m wet through. Good, that’s fine. Look, I can’t take responsibility for letting you go out in this, Rhian, and heaven knows when there’ll be another bus to Machynlleth. I doubt I could find anyone to drive you for love or money tonight. Jen, what about putting the kettle on? I need something hot. Has Mrs. Davies been in today?”

“This morning, but not since,” said Jen.

Over cups of steaming tea and chocolate biscuits—Peter suddenly remembered he’d missed lunch and Becky caught him helping himself to four at once—they discussed what to do about Rhian.

“You’re bothering too much,” she maintained.

David shook his head. “It’s practically dark now and the storm’s as bad as ever. You can’t go alone, and if I went down with you, I probably wouldn’t get back again tonight. I can’t leave the rest of you. There must be some way of getting through to your family.”

“You mean she’ll have to spend the night?” Becky looked hopeful.

“Mam will have fits if I’m not home.”

“Isn’t there some way to send a message?” asked Jen.

“There’s the Forestry Commission. They have a telephone in their house up by us in the valley. They might take a message down,” said Rhian. “They have done before when our Aunt Gwen was ill, see. Of course, they may not be there.”

“It’s worth trying, certainly.” David sounded relieved.
“I’ll go down to the call box at the corner when I’ve finished my tea and see if I can get through. You can all figure out where Rhian’s to sleep.”

Mrs. Davies came in as usual at half-past five, dressed in Gwilym’s long yellow mac and oilskin hat. She had a little trouble with the barricade at the back door, which had gotten quite soggy.

“It was good of Gwilym to look in this afternoon, Mrs. Davies. Thank him for me, please.” David was just off to try the Forestry Commission number.

“I thought it best to see everything was all right, Mr. Morgan. Children don’t think of things, you know, and them being here alone and all.”

“Yes,” said David, beating a hasty retreat before she went further.

“What have we got for supper?” Peter wanted to know.

“Boiled beef and cabbage, I’m afraid.” Jen prodded a lump in the inevitable steaming pot. “I should think you’d be starved by now.”

“I am,” he agreed, patting his stomach.

“You ate almost a whole package of biscuits at tea,” observed Becky. “Let’s put one of the spare beds in our room for tonight, Jen.”

“I suppose we could.”

“Much better than not being together. Come on, Rhian, let’s try moving one.” The two of them disappeared, pounding up the stairs.

“It’s a good thing the lights haven’t gone off,” remarked Peter. “I haven’t seen a single candle in the house.”

“Oh, cripes! I hadn’t even thought of that!”

“Well, we’ve got the stove and heat anyway if the power lines go down.”

“Great.”

“Better than nothing,” Peter countered.

“What were you doing outside this afternoon?”

“Walking. I went down the cliff path a bit and the rain came faster than I could get back.” He watched his sister warily. “Are you going to tell?”

“I suppose not.” She knew perfectly well she would have told already if she’d been going to. “What were you going to tell me this morning? You said it was only partly about going home.”

He hesitated only a second, then said, “It wasn’t important. I don’t feel like arguing again.” He had a momentary vision of himself pulling the Key out and trying to explain it to Jen as she stood with her fork in a kitchen smelling of boiled beef and cabbage, and he knew it was impossible. She gave him an exasperated look. “You can’t say I didn’t ask,” said Jen.

Overhead, a loud crash followed by a shriek made them both jump.

“Oh, lord!” exclaimed Jen. “There goes the bed!”

“I’ll go and see,” Peter offered, glad of the excuse to leave her. “I just hope it isn’t bloody.”

***

In spite of the thoroughly boiled supper, everyone had an appetite. David was damp but triumphant, Becky very pink in the face, and Rhian had lost the elastic off her braid. It was a much livelier meal than usual. Even Peter was particularly talkative, and discussion ranged from the problems of moving furniture to the difficulties of using Welsh telephones, to hurricanes, gales, floods, tornadoes, and other natural catastrophes.