by Bond, Nancy
Mrs. Evans gave the dough a final smack, rolled it over, and cut it neatly in half. “Rhian, your Da and the boys are down by the cwm hunting out strays. They’ll be in to dinner in a bit, you can peel potatoes.”
“We really ought to start back in a few minutes,” Jen began.
“Indeed not!” declared Mrs. Evans. “You’ll have your dinner first. There’s plenty to go round and I’ll not be having you leave wet and hungry!”
“Thank you very much,” Jen responded meekly, glad to sit back and steam by the fire. A sleek marmalade cat appeared suddenly beside Becky and began to give itself a good wash. In her chair, across the hearth from Jen, Gram Jones sat and nodded, a smile still on her seamed old face. How odd not to understand things that were said in your own house, Jen thought, meeting her bright gaze for a second.
Mrs. Evans talked on cheerfully about the storm as she set her bread to rise on the back of the stove and began laying the table for lunch. Jen offered to help but was firmly turned down. “You sit.” She felt pleasantly drowsy, with Mrs. Evans’s voice drifting further away, and rested her head against the back of the settle, watching the coals flicker with heat.
She came back to herself with a jump at the sound of heavy feet on the porch outside and the rumble of men’s voices.
“There is Dai’s stomach for you!” said Rhian with a grin, glancing at the black iron clock on the mantle. “It remembers meals on time without a clock.”
Mrs. Evans snorted. “You’re not often late yourself, I am thinking, Rhian Evans! We’re needing three chairs more.”
Mr. Evans and his sons Dai, Evan, and Aled filled the kitchen, bringing in with them a damp, rich earth smell, chilly air falling from their clothing. It was a little overwhelming to be suddenly faced with four large hungry men Jen had never laid eyes on before. And for their part, as soon as they saw there was company at Llechwedd Melyn, they fell silent, looking at Jen and Becky not quite straight on.
Two of Mr. Evans’s sons were the image of himself: strongly built, fair-haired, with pleasant, open faces, and big red hands. They were introduced as Evan and Dai. The third—Aled—was dark and slight and clever-looking like Rhian. He didn’t look much like a farmer, Jen decided.
“There is cold the shepherd’s pie will be if you don’t wash up now, you,” scolded Mrs. Evans comfortably. “Don’t keep company waiting, isn’t polite, is it, Gram?”
The old lady smiled and nodded.
“These are the girls from Borth, where our Rhian stopped last night,” explained Mrs. Evans.
“Oh, aye? Morgan, Mr. Robb said your name would be?” Mr. Evans’s voice was oddly high-pitched for such a big man, and it had the same musical rise and fall Jen found in most Welsh voices.
“I’m in school with Rhian,” Becky volunteered. “I’m Becky and that’s Jen.”
“From Ameryca, you are then? Rhian has told us about you.” He beamed at both girls warmly. “And what are you thinking of Wales?”
Jen was devoutly glad Peter hadn’t come at that moment.
“I like it,” Becky answered, grinning back at him.
“Not like what you’re used to, I’m thinking,” put in Aled unexpectedly. His brothers were very busy washing their hands. “I’ve heard lots of stories about America, then. Knew an American sailor when I was in Swansea.”
“From where?” Becky asked.
Aled shrugged vaguely. “Seattle, could it be?”
“Oh, well,” said Becky. “That’s all the way across the country from us.”
“Long way, is it?”
“As far away from where we live as Wales is,” said Jen. “Three thousand miles anyway.”
Aled was silent, contemplating the size of America.
“Rhian, Dai, Aled, come and sit!” commanded Mrs. Evans, putting a vast, steaming pie on the table. “Evan, you bring Gram, there is good of you.” The Evanses came at once. Mrs. Evans obviously ruled the kitchen and was used to being obeyed. Jen and Becky were put with their backs to the fire between Mr. Evans and Dai, then everyone joined hands and Mr. Evans said grace in Welsh. Mrs. Evans dished up mounds of shepherd’s pie on each plate, together with brussels sprouts and boiled potatoes. It looked like an immense amount of food to Jen, who was wondering how she’d get through it all.
But she was hungrier than she’d realized, and for a while all conversation stopped as everyone attended to eating. The pie was minced lamb with a crust of mashed potato browned with butter, and it tasted marvelous.
“Well,” said Aled finally. “What is your part of America like then?” His eyes were fixed on Jen.
“How?” she asked, at a loss.
“That it’s different from Wales,” replied Aled unhelpfully.
“It’s not nearly so wild,” said Becky rescuing her. “And we don’t have mountains like you. We’ve got bigger towns and highways and lots of woods.”
“You said it was farming where you live,” objected Rhian.
“Well, there are farms, too, but not like yours,” Jen said.
“Like what, then?” asked Mr. Evans.
“They grow things like corn and tomatoes and tobacco. And lots of apple orchards.”
“Our houses look different, too. They’re mostly made of wood or brick. You hardly ever see stone ones.”
“No sheep?” asked Dai, surprised.
“Not really,” said Becky. “Cows, though.”
“Dairy cows,” Jen added.
“And what about the ones that aren’t farmers, then?” Aled wanted to know. “What do they do?”
“Well, in Amherst, the town we come from, there are two big universities—”
“Two is it?” exclaimed Mr. Evans.
“Yes, and three more very near. So there are lots of professors living in the town, and other people work in offices and libraries and banks and hotels.”
“Like Aberystwyth, you mean,” said Rhian.
“Well, no, not really,” hedged Jen, jolted by the comparison. Amherst was so different, but she didn’t think she could begin to tell them why. She was afraid she might say something they would interpret as an insult.
“More money,” said Aled, saving her the trouble. “In America everyone has lots of cars and color telly and dishwashers and that.”
“Not everyone,” Becky contradicted. “We only ever had one car and a black and white television.”
“What about gangsters?” asked Dai eagerly. “Do you have them in Amherst?”
Becky giggled. “Only in movies. That’s Chicago.”
Jen wanted to give her a kick under the table, but hit the table leg by mistake.
“Oh,” said Dai, evidently disappointed.
“And there are lots of cowboys and Indians out west,” continued Becky.
“Becky!” said Jen.
“Well, there are.”
Mr. Evans nodded knowingly. “I’ve seen them on telly. We know about that.” Jen let it go, her sense telling her it was pointless to argue that Becky was exaggerating. “What about Wales?” she changed the subject. “Does it ever snow here in the winter?”
“It snows in Ameryca,” Mr. Evans stated.
“Lots,” Becky agreed.
“Not by yere,” said Dai. “We don’t get snow much yere.”
“North in Snowdonia they do. Blizzards they have. And further east away from the sea,” Aled told Jen. “It won’t be cold enough yere, see.”
“It snows up by Arwell Jones past Bont Goch,” offered Evan.
“Aye, he’s east then, isn’t he?” said Aled impatiently.
“No snow this weather you can be sure,” said Mr. Evans. “River’s way up the cwm after last night, and still there’s rain.” He leaned back in his chair and lit a tiny cigar. “Should think Cors Fochno’d be under water this time.”
Mrs. Evans whisked the empty plates off into the sink and put another huge, hot dish on the table, this one full of rice pudding, with a pitcher of thick yellow cream and a stack of brown bowls.
“
Gram, it was, saying the last storm this bad was all of six years past when the dam up by the Electric broke and John-the-Hill lost his cow byre. Weren’t you, Gram? Pass cream, Dai, don’t sit like a lump looking at it!”
“Aye, a night that was,” said Mr. Evans remembering. “The Electric just new up there and half swept down the valley it was. Of course, they had no business putting the dam there in first place. I said that then.”
Aled gave his father a scornful look. “We’ve heard that before, Da.”
“And no one to prove me wrong, either,” returned Mr. Evans warmly. “None to say there weren’t something in the hills tried to stop them.”
“And that something John-the-Hill himself! Never wanted the dam there, he didn’t.”
“Weren’t John-the-Hill.”
“What was it?” asked Becky intrigued.
“Now, Evan,” warned Mrs. Evans.
“Things as can’t be explained by the likes of him,” indicating Aled, “things best not talked of too much. There are creatures back there it’s best we have nowt to do with, my little one,” he said gravely.
Aled snorted, Mrs. Evans shot him a quelling look, and he kept his mouth shut.
But, “The Old Ones,” said Rhian.
“If you’re through pudding, Rhian, you can clear table,” said her mother.
This time Jen and Becky helped, and before long were drying dishes, trying to keep up with Rhian who was washing. The little door in the right wall opened into a stone larder, Jen discovered when Mrs. Evans opened it to put the leftover food away.
Evan settled Gram again by the fire where she took up a ball of red yarn and a crochet hook, and the four men stretched themselves in chairs around the hearth. The marmalade cat sprang into Aled’s lap and made itself comfortable, closing its yellow eyes, and he hunched over it, tickling the fur behind its ears.
“Will it rain much more then, Da?” asked Rhian, scowling as she scoured the pudding pot.
“Be steady through till morning, shouldn’t wonder.”
“There’ll be a high tide at Borth tonight,” said Aled.
“The waves were right over the sea wall yesterday,” Rhian told him.
“Aye. Some smashed windows, I’d guess. Sea heaves fair big stones up in storms like this. But wind’s dropped anyway.” Mr. Evans breathed a cloud of blue smoke. “This’ll be a storm like the one flooded the country yere about thousands of years ago.”
“A flood,” said Becky. “Does it happen often?”
Mrs. Evans was putting away the crockery. “Nay, it were thousands of years, if you can believe the story.”
“Like the Electric,” said Aled darkly.
“It’s true enough, the flood,” Mr. Evans said severely. “Even your scientists have been finding traces of it, see. And if you know where to look, happen you can find bits of the old land when the tide’s right.”
“The flood never went down?” asked Jen in a curious, choking voice.
“Not all of it did. It were out by Borth where it flooded according to the legend. A land called the Low Hundred, in Welsh Cantrev y Gwaelod, it being so flat. The sea just came over the sea wall in a storm like this and the land vanished, see. I’ve heard some say you can hear bells ring under the water out by the river mouth—sixteen towns were lost.”
“What can you still see?” Becky demanded. “Can I see any of it?”
“That you can, if you know the spot. There’s a great piece of the sea wall comes up out of the bay between Borth and Aberystwyth. Goes straight as an arrow from by the cliff, it does.”
“And it is a very good story, Da,” said Aled. “But there are other explanations for that heap of stones.”
“Aye, and I’ve heard them,” declared Mr. Evans, pitching the last scant quarter inch of his cigar into the fire. “You can believe what you like, Aled, lad. And I’ll be believing what I like. You’re not changing my mind.”
Mrs. Evans noticed Jen’s white face. “Enough talk of floods and all, I should think,” she said briskly.
“Time we were back to work,” said Mr. Evans. He got up reluctantly.
“And we should be getting back to Borth, I think,” said Jen, pulling herself together. “It was very nice of you to let us stay, Mrs. Evans.”
“Not a bit,” replied Mrs. Evans warmly. “You’re welcome here when you can come, you both. Does Gram and me a world of good seeing new faces, don’t it, Gram? Here, you Aled, you can walk down the hill with them, just to see them on their way. They won’t be familiar with the track.”
Aled made no protest, just shrugged his narrow shoulders in assent. They waited until Mr. Evans, Dai, and Evan had pulled on their boots and macs in the little porch and gone before they went out.
It was raining just as hard. Jen thought it would go on forever. The sky was swollen and heavy with it.
Aled looked at it and nodded. “Rain till morning easy,” he predicted gloomily.
“Do you lose any sheep when it’s like this?” Jen asked out of politeness.
“Sometimes. They get mired, and some get caught in the cwm when the water rises.”
“Why don’t you think it’s true about the flood and the sixteen towns?” asked Becky, matching Aled’s long strides with trouble. He was small, but he walked like Rhian with quick, swinging steps.
“Superstition, that is,” he said scornfully. “There is lots of people believing superstitions around here. They’ll tell you the most wonderful stories, they will, and when you’re asking for proof, it’s then you find they can’t give it. Nothing to show. Long as they believe that stuff they won’t get ahead any. Like the Electric. They think that’s special country up there, magic, and they’d have kept it out. But we’d not have lights at the farm without, see.”
“But what about the walls your father said he could see?” Becky persisted.
“If believing makes them walls.” Aled shook his head. “More likely the sea made them, not men at all. Bloke at the University says they’re natural, and he’s the one can show you proof, not Da.”
They walked on in silence. In what seemed a very short time, they reached the bottom of the hill and the tiny cluster of houses and pub called Tre’r-ddôl. Here Aled left Jen and Becky and, without a backward glance, strode back up the hill toward Llechwedd Melyn. The two girls found shelter from the rain in the entry of the pub until the bus came and they could climb into its dry, lighted warmth and be carried back to Borth.
5
* * *
A Not So Very
Merry Christmas
THE VISIT TO LLECHWEDD MELYN had not been entirely successful. It disturbed Jen more than she liked to admit to think of Mr. Evans’s story about the flooding of the land called the Low Hundred. She sifted it vainly for some word or phrase that would prove he did not really believe it himself, just considered it a good story. And she drew back from making the inevitable connection between that story and Peter’s.
Mr. Evans was a kind of person entirely new to Jen. She found him unsettling. He was an adult who still believed in magic and superstition and in the power of creatures Rhian had called “the Old Ones.” They were things for children, things you outgrew like Santa Claus and fairy tales. Mr. Evans ought to know better—his son Aled certainly did.
And Becky was no help at all, Jen thought crossly. She liked the story of the flood. She said she could see no reason why it couldn’t be true. “After all, look at the Bog, Jen. If the Low Hundred was land like that, it’s no wonder it flooded.”
It was a relief to concentrate instead on Christmas, which was practically on top of them, and Jen plunged into it almost fiercely. There hadn’t really been any Christmas last year, because Anne Morgan had been killed only two weeks before and they had all been in a state of shock, too numb and unbelieving to celebrate anything.
Whatever could be salvaged of the holiday, Aunt Beth and Uncle Ted had valiantly pieced together for the children, especially Becky. David was beyond reach. He had shut himself off fro
m them all like someone in a dream. He was unwilling or unable to respond, unconscious of all that went on around him. It had been a nightmare time of Santa Clauses and Christmas cards, and notes of sympathy and flowers. People had tried so hard to help, but they didn’t seem to understand that there was nothing they could do.
A great aching hole had been gouged in the family that no one could fill, and, like a vacuum, it sucked them all into a void. There were presents, a few very good friends, snow on the ground, the College carol service. Jen could still feel the horror that had overcome her at seeing her father cry during that carol service. It had frozen her, made her unable to think or to move. She had not soon forgiven him for it because she couldn’t bring herself to reach out and say or do something that would comfort him. He should have been comforting her.
And Becky and Peter? Jen didn’t know what they felt. She was struggling too hard with her own feelings to be aware of theirs.
Looking back on that Christmas, Jen discovered little of it was clear. It had become a disordered muddle of isolated moments, the sight of the family car hideously flattened, the heavy, waxen lilies in the chapel, shaking hands endlessly and listening to people say “I’m so sorry . . .” Bewilderment, hurt. But it was odd that the details were not all sharp in her mind.
The hole where Anne had been was still there, its edges a little less jagged now, but Christmas had to be Christmas again for the rest of them. Jen was determined and there was a great deal to be done first.
“You’re making lists just like Aunt Beth,” Becky observed across a pile of breakfast dishes the day after Llechwedd Melyn. “I thought she was the only one of us who did it.”
David lifted his head from the essay he was marking. “So she always has been. Must be a latent family characteristic passed obliquely through the females.”
“Go ahead and make fun,” Jen retorted. “You don’t realize how much there is to do!”