A String in the Harp

by Bond, Nancy

  “What do you do all the time then?” asked Jen, a little shaken by the intensity of this outburst.

  Peter glanced at her quickly, then away again. “Not much. Read, or go for walks by myself when it’s dry enough.”

  It was hard for Jen to picture her popular, active younger brother wandering around alone or sitting still long enough to read a book. He’d always been the center of activity in Amherst, surrounded by friends his own age, constantly in motion. They were silent for a while, each thinking.

  At last Peter said, “I was sure when we got here and saw the house and the town that Dad would come around. He’d have to understand we couldn’t be expected to live here for a whole year in a place without heat in the middle of nowhere. But all he said was that he had a commitment and he didn’t see why we couldn’t manage perfectly well. And every time I open my mouth I get the ‘Of-course-it’s-different-but-we-all have-to-be-willing-to-adjust’ speech. You’ve heard it. He hasn’t listened to anything anyone’s said to him since—since Mom died.”

  “That’s not fair,” Jen protested. “It isn’t easy for him either.”

  “But he’s grown-up. He’s responsible for us,” countered Peter. “He’s just made it harder, dumping us here.” He pushed his hand through his coppery hair, making it stand on end, as he always did when he was upset or miserable. “I thought maybe—” He paused.

  “What?” Jen thought she knew what was coming.

  “Maybe you could talk to him for me. Tell him I can’t stay.”

  “How? He won’t send you back by yourself, I know he won’t, and he’s not going to leave in the middle of the year. I think you’re just going to have to make up your mind to stick it out, Peter. It’s only another six months.”

  “Six months!” he said bitterly. “And you can go home in three weeks.”

  Jen was growing impatient. “Grow up a little, Peter! If he won’t listen to you, Dad’s not going to listen to me, either. I’ll just make him mad at me and that won’t do anyone any good.”

  “Then you won’t try?”

  “I don’t see how I can,” she snapped.

  “All right, then.” Peter’s face hardened, became impassive. “Do what you want, but don’t count on me for anything.” And with that he closed himself off. He might as well have gotten up and left the room, and she could only stare at him in irritated frustration. They said no more to each other, but Peter went off to bed shortly, saying a stiff good-night.

  Well, honestly! Jen thought to herself after his door closed. No one can be as difficult as Peter. She was baffled by Peter’s complete refusal to accept a situation he must have realized he couldn’t possibly change. All he did was to make everyone cross and unhappy. Jen was glad Becky seemed to have decided to stay clear of the arguments, but then she hated family disputes. It was no good trying to stay up any longer, Jen decided, and turned off the kitchen light. There goes our good day.

  ***

  It hadn’t worked. It wasn’t fair. Peter lay awake glaring into the dark, long after he heard his father go upstairs. There was silence in Bryn Celyn, and outside the never-ending noises of wind and surf. So he’d spent the whole day being cooperative—really trying to be pleasant—and it had gotten him nowhere. And he’d come to bed angry without even brushing his teeth: his mouth tasted awful.

  He had no idea how long he’d lain there before he was aware of a sound other than those of sea and wind—minutes? Hours? He was suddenly alert, every muscle taut, ready. Ready for what? He waited. The new sound seemed not to come to him from outside, but rather from within himself, and he’d heard or felt it before.

  Not at all sure he wanted to, he got cautiously out of bed and tiptoed across to his bureau. The Key lay warm and hard where he had left it among his shirts, and he took it in his hand, looking at it intently. It was no more than a dark shape against his white fingers.

  The humming spread around him, growing deeper, fuller, and again he felt the room slide out from under him. The darkness wavered and faded and the sun was warm and gold, afternoon sun. Woodsmoke spiced the air and somewhere among the reeds on the lakeshore a moorhen called “curruc, curruc” in alarm. Peter recognized the island and the group of boys, all about his own age. But this time they stood in an orderly semicircle on top of a small hill, facing a round wooden hut. They were bareheaded, barefoot, wearing loose, bright-colored tunics that reached to their knees and were caught at the waist with belts of tanned leather. They were quiet, their faces expectant and a little apprehensive. All around, the waters of the lake lay still, reflecting the autumn sky, the forests beyond flushed faintly with color.

  Near the doorway of the hut stood a tall, bearded man, his lined, timeless face quiet, his eyes dark and unseeing, quite blind.

  Although Peter saw everything as if he were standing on the hill himself, he had no place there. He could only watch unseen without taking part.

  There was movement in the hut, and the deerskin that hung across the opening was pushed back. Into the light and air stepped a tall, black-haired woman. Taller even than the blind man, she was slim and proud, her head high. She wore a long, loose-fitting robe of fine woven stuff that shimmered first blue, like the dome of sky, then the green of new grass, then the firey gold of gorsebloom. But it wasn’t the gown that held Peter’s eyes, it was her face. Such a face that it made him unable to look away, even had he wanted. It was perfect and complete; she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, beautiful in a way that frightened him even as he was drawn to her. Without taking his eyes from the woman, Peter knew that all the boys were staring as he was. If none of them saw her again, ever, they would not forget. Without hearing her name, Peter knew it. She was Caridwen.

  At her side stood a sturdy, fair-skinned young man whose quizzical blue eyes studied each boy in turn, looking for something. A faint smile touched his mouth. He did not see Peter.

  The blind man spoke without moving from his place by the door.

  “This is the hour at which one of you will be chosen to go from here with the Bard, Aneirin. He who is chosen is he who has learned from this place all it can teach; but his learning will only have begun. With Aneirin as companion and guide, his thoughts will be shaped by wandering the world until he, too, can be called ‘Bard.’ From among you there is one who is ready for such a beginning.”

  Only one of the handful. They would have cast sidelong glances at each other if they could have looked away from the eyes of Caridwen, eyes that seemed to see them all without looking at any one of them.

  Slowly the old man called each boy’s name, pausing after each.

  “Gwyn.”

  Silence.

  “Elvan.”

  Silence.

  “Huw.”

  Silence.

  “Owain.”

  Silence.

  “Gwion.”

  At this name Caridwen smiled a distant, triumphant smile and held out her hand. The boy who must be Gwion could not but step forward. That it was he whom she had chosen, there could be no question. The blind man called no more names, he too knew.

  In Caridwen’s outstretched hand was a silver tuning key, a harp key that shone in the light, and she said, “You are Gwion no longer. Henceforth you shall be Taliesin.” Her voice filled the waiting air. It reached the listeners from within, it was felt rather than heard.

  The island, lake, and sky spun together in a dizzying spiral, the wind rose over the song of the Key in Peter’s ears, and he was a perfectly ordinary boy standing shivering in his flannel pajamas in his dark bedroom with a curious tarnished object in his hand. Even after he’d gotten back into bed under the covers he lay ice-cold, eyes as blind as the old man’s, sure he had learned something important, but not yet able to grasp what.

  3

  * * *

  Storm and Flood

  PETER WOKE to hear someone banging around in the kitchen. Through his window he could see a rag of the same gray sky that had hung over them all day Monday. His mo
uth tasted even worse this morning. He got up and dressed and went out to find his father rummaging for breakfast. David looked rumpled and sleepy, as if he’d spent a restless night.

  “Morning,” said Peter noncommittally.

  “Good morning. You’re up early, aren’t you? For vacation? No one else is stirring yet.”

  “Felt like getting up.”

  “Good enough reason. Have you got anything special planned for today?”

  “No.”

  “I thought maybe you and the girls would like to come in to Aberystwyth and meet me for lunch somewhere.” He glanced at his son, but Peter’s face was carefully blank.

  “All right,” he said without enthusiasm. David sighed.

  Often, when he was alone, Peter imagined sitting down and really talking to his father. He would tell him why he was unhappy and explain why he had to go home. David would listen to him sympathetically and reasonably and would offer help. They would be friends and they would understand each other. But somehow, whenever he was with his father, it didn’t happen. Peter couldn’t make himself say the right words and David wouldn’t listen properly, and they’d end by getting furious with each other.

  Jen and Becky arrived after the gas for the grill was safely lit and the kettle boiling, Jen still shivering from her stint in the bathroom.

  “I never would have thought you could take a bath in steaming hot water and still get goose-pimples while doing it! The bathroom is unquestionably the coldest room in this house,” she declared.

  David smiled at her. “That’s to keep you from staying in it too long. Do you all want toast? I was suggesting to Peter before you came down that you might come into town this morning and I’ll take you to lunch.”

  “Good,” said Becky. “We need money for Christmas decorations. We don’t have any at all.”

  “Money,” asked David, “or decorations?”

  “Either one.”

  “All right. You can show Jen the sights and shop while I’m working.”

  “That should take about five minutes,” muttered Peter, out of his father’s hearing.

  They caught the bus at ten past ten. There was a stop outside Mr. Williams’s store. Jen was beginning to think Mr. Williams’s store was the hub of Borth. Hugh-the-Bus was driving, cap tilted to the back of his head, whistling through his teeth. He was a big, gentle-faced man with snow-white hair, a wide, amused smile, and very blue eyes. “Morning,” he said to Jen when Becky introduced them. “Going to town, is it? Good day for that.”

  “I’d like to see them all together,” Jen whispered as they sat down. “Gwilym and Mrs. Davies and Hugh-the-Bus, I mean.”

  “And Susan and Sheila,” added Becky with a giggle. “I know. It’s too bad Gwilym doesn’t look like Hugh-the-Bus.” She voiced Jen’s own thought. “Hugh-the-Bus is real Welsh, but Gwilym’s only half Welsh because his mother’s English.”

  “So?” said Peter.

  “It makes a difference,” Becky informed them. “He doesn’t quite belong, and she doesn’t at all. Oh, she fits in, but she doesn’t belong.”

  Under the low sky the air was clear and the feet of the mountains stood out in sharp detail though their shoulders and tops were shrouded in thick rolls of cloud. Jen hardly glanced at the little bungalows that lined the road out of Borth. Her eyes went instinctively to those dark, wild slopes, scattered with sheep and boulders. She listened with half her mind to Becky, who was listing all the decorations they needed, and said, “Yes” and “I don’t see why not” at the right moments, but she was watching the hills.

  In twenty minutes they reached the top of Penglais Hill in Aberystwyth. The hills were gone, and Jen paid attention to Becky who was pointing out the landmarks.

  “All the buildings on the left are the new University buildings where Dad teaches. His office is down in the old building, though. You’ll see it later.”

  “Inspiring, aren’t they?” commented Peter.

  Jen had to admit they weren’t really handsome. They were gray concrete and still raw and new looking. Below the University was a big, fortresslike building that, Becky told her, was the National Library of Wales. Very grand. No, they’d never been inside, but their father had. But what really fascinated Jen, as the bus paused, shuddering, at the top of the hill for passengers to get on and off, was the town of Aberystwyth below them: a cluster of buildings, spread across the mouth of the River Rheidol, like flotsam carried down to the sea by the river and left stranded on the fan-shaped estuary. Thousands of years the Rheidol had worn its way among the hills, weaving back and forth across its valley, and now it was invisible, lost among the tumble of slate roofs and steeples, channeled away among the railway sidings and bridges and stone walls of the harbor.

  “And that?” asked Jen, pointing across the town. “What’s that tower?”

  “Pen Dinas,” Becky answered. “It’s a monument of some sort. Dad says there’re the traces of an ancient hill fort near it.”

  Pen Dinas stood like a sentinel guarding the southern side of Aberystwyth, a dark, straight finger pointing at the sky on the crest of a rounded hill.

  Jen shook her head wonderingly. “It sure isn’t like home.”

  “No,” agreed Peter.

  They got out at the Aberystwyth railway station. “You can go and do what you want. I have an errand,” Peter announced.

  “What kind?” Becky wanted to know.

  “Private.”

  “Well, I only asked. Anyhow, I have private shopping to do, too. We’ll meet you at Woolworth’s in an hour for the decorations.”

  Peter was about to say he didn’t care about the decorations, then changed his mind and walked quickly away.

  Jen and Becky spent a happy hour poking about in the little shops that lined the narrow streets. Aberystwyth was much livelier than Borth; none of the buildings seemed to be closed for the winter and the sidewalks were full of people. Jen had a great deal to see for the first time and Becky was quite content to wander.

  The main street was very broad, with shops at the top and guest houses and flats at the bottom. A sign on the corner pointed down a side street and said simply, “To The Sea.”

  “But not now,” said Becky. “It’s time to meet Peter. We can go out on the Prom after lunch.”

  Peter was already at Woolworth’s, looking impatient. “I’ve been waiting ages. What took you so long?”

  “We said an hour and that’s what it’s been,” Jen declared. “It’s not our fault you got here early.”

  It was after twelve when they’d settled the problem of decorations to Becky’s satisfaction. They had to decide whether to buy inexpensive lights or the ones that blinked and whether to have a star or an angel for the top of the tree. In the end they got blinking lights and a star and colored balls and icicles and red plastic bells.

  When it was all paid for, it was nearly time to meet David, so Becky struck out at a brisk trot for the old University building with the other two following close behind. David was leaning against a pillar at the entrance when they got there.

  “Sorry we’re late,” said Jen breathlessly.

  “You’re not—I’m early.”

  He took them to a little cafe nearby where he said he often had his lunch. It was dark and crowded with tables and there were artificial flowers in the windows.

  Peter dared Jen to order oxtail soup, and she accepted his challenge. When it came, it was thick and dark brown like gravy and steaming hot. Peter and Becky and David all had plates of savory mince, which looked like spaghetti sauce, and baked potatoes.

  “Well?” asked Peter, when Jen had tasted her soup.

  “It’s good. What’s it made of?”

  “Oxtails.”

  When Jen looked at him blankly, David laughed. “He’s quite right, it is.”

  Jen swallowed another spoonful carefully. “I guess so long as I don’t have to see them it’s all right,” she conceded.

  “Hello, Mr. Morgan. I had not expected to see you
at College this vacation.” A thin little man in a well-worn suit had come to stand by their table. He wore wire-framed spectacles, pushed down on his nose.

  David got hastily to his feet. “Dr. Rhys! I thought actually that with the students away I could get some of my own research done.”

  “Ah, yes.” Dr. Rhys gave a thin, quick smile. “Welsh language, isn’t it? Yes, indeed, it’s blessedly quiet now without them cluttering up the libraries and interrupting with questions every time one settles down to work. I quite agree. It is so difficult to do research in term time.” He spoke quickly, but Jen could detect the cadences she was beginning to identify as Welsh. He seemed to notice the three younger Morgans for the first time. “And this must be your family, is it?”

  “Yes, of course. Forgive me. Peter, Jennifer, and Becky.”

  Dr. Rhys shook hands with each of them gravely. His grip was light and dry.

  “But you should not let me keep you from your lunch now, please.”

  “Won’t you join us?” David invited him, and the three children held their breath. But Dr. Rhys shook his head. “Oh, no, no, thank you very much. I, too, have much to do this vacation, you see. I shall read this report”—he indicated a massive sheaf of paper tucked under his left arm—“while I have my lunch. I really must. So nice to meet you.”

  He left them and settled at a narrow table at the back of the room. There he bent to his report like a thin crow roosting on it.

  “Should think he’d get indigestion,” muttered Peter rudely. Luckily David didn’t hear him, but Becky giggled.

  David looked at her severely. “Dr. Rhys is a well-respected member of the University faculty and he’s been very helpful to me these past months. If you ever know one-half as much as he does, I’ll be very proud of you,” he said, carefully pitching his voice so it wouldn’t carry beyond their table.

  “What’s his subject?” asked Jen.

  “He’s the head of the Welsh Studies Department, and he’s written several very good books on language and folklore.”