A String in the Harp (11 page)

“You don’t know what you’re—” Just then their eyes were overwhelmed with light, blinding and stark. It filled the kitchen without warning. Jen’s heart seemed to stop for a moment before she realized what had happened. The electricity had come back on, and they had forgotten to turn the switch off when they left the kitchen after supper. Peter looked dazed and miserable. They both heard footsteps on the stairs, and Peter thrust the Key back inside his robe.

“What in God’s name are you doing up at half-past two?” David demanded, his voice thick with sleep.

“I couldn’t fall asleep, so I came down to make some cocoa and Peter heard me.” Jen was very much aware of Peter’s eyes on her, but she wouldn’t look at him. “It’s the storm,” she said deliberately. “It gave us both bad dreams.”

Peter slumped back in his chair overcome with relief. At least she wasn’t going to tell David about the Key. That much was all right.

“In my overcoat yet! What about Becky and Rhian?”

“Out cold.”

“Which is what you two idiots will be tomorrow if you don’t go back to bed right now.”

“The electricity came on,” said Jen unnecessarily.

“I know. I left the lamp on in my room so it would get me up and I could turn the other lights off. Come on now, both of you. Go!”

T
HE FARM WHERE
R
HIAN LIVED
, Llechwedd Melyn, was set in a cleft on the northern side of the valley, a collection of buildings huddled together: farmhouse, cowbarn, sheds, with the hill rising steep behind it, and stands of wiry, wind-twisted fir on either side. It was built of stone, whitewashed recently, and it seemed rooted, low and solid in the raw winter ground. Two great chimneys rose at either end of the farmhouse’s slate roof.

About a mile below the farm, the valley turned a corner, shutting off the view out over the Bog and estuary and protecting the farm from the worst of winds and storms. The land was, as Rhian had said, not much good for crop-growing; the hillsides were steep and rocky and disappeared into a narrow, tree-filled
cwm.
The sound of the river at the bottom of it filled the valley with noise.

There was an awful lot of mud everywhere. Although the rough lane was paved, the asphalt was invisible under great welts of glutinous brown sludge. It sucked hungrily at wellingtons and made walking that much more difficult. Both Jen and Becky were panting by the time they came in sight of the farm, but the stiff climb didn’t seem to bother Rhian in the slightest.
She walked with long quick strides like a boy, impervious to the steady drenching rain. Normally, Jen reflected, the rain alone would have kept her indoors. Thank heavens she’d thought to borrow Peter’s boots.

“I am soaked,” announced Becky between puffs. “There hardly seems to be any point in wearing a raincoat!”

“What does it matter?” called Rhian over her shoulder. “You’ll dry right enough and we’re almost there.”

There was water everywhere. The lane ran with it, it came in gouts off the hillside above them, the turf along the track was sodden, and still rain poured out of the sky. In the early hours of morning the wind had dropped—the sudden silence had woken Becky who in turn had woken Jen, so the day had begun at the first gray light in spite of a restless night. Jen’s eyes still felt gritty. But the rain showed no signs of stopping. Even Rhian remarked that it seemed heavier than usual.

David had been a bit reluctant to let Jen, Becky, and Rhian go up to Llechwedd Melyn by themselves, but as Becky pointed out the only real danger was that of drowning, and both she and Jen could swim.

Peter went off by himself after breakfast, so they hadn’t even asked him to go along. Becky, for once irritated with her brother’s unsociability, had declared, “He’s no great loss, really. I don’t see why he’s
always
in a bad mood!” Jen had said nothing. The picture of herself and Peter drinking cocoa in the candlelit kitchen, the story he had told her, had assumed an unreal, dreamlike quality. She wondered if it had really happened at all, as she thought about it now and tried to pull her hands further up the sleeves of her raincoat with a shiver. She’d begun by putting them in her pockets but had found that the rain simply ran down her sleeves like gutters and had collected in the pockets half-an-inch deep. She was wet with perspiration inside and rain outside and wishing she’d never left Bryn Celyn, when she looked up and saw the tail of
Rhian’s mac disappearing around the corner of the farmhouse.

“No wellies in the house, Mam’s rule,” she informed them. “She says there’s more than enough without mopping up all the time.”

They pulled off their boots in a kind of rough porch that had been tacked onto the back of the house. “Da and the boys’ll all be out, then, checking sheep.”

“How can you tell?” asked Becky, glancing around.

“No boots, see?” She pulled open the heavy door and they stepped right into the kitchen, which was warm and dim and smelled of baking. It was a shock after the cold, fresh air.

“Come in then, come in with you, and close door. You’ll have all the heat outside, indeed to goodness!” Rhian’s mother, small and dark like her daughter, stood at the kitchen table, hands covered in flour, a smudge of it white on her cheek. She looked up from the lump of dough she was kneading and smiled at them. “And no need to slam it, Rhian, you’ve woke Gram!”

“Sorry, Mam. It’s Jen and Becky Morgan with me, from where I stayed last night. They’ve come up to see the farm.”

“Picked a grand day for it, you did,” said Mrs. Evans with a laugh. “We’re like to lose ourselves in mud this day!”

“I hope you got my father’s message last night,” began Jen anxiously. “He wasn’t sure they’d get it to you. But there weren’t any buses this way last night.”

“Oh, aye. Mr. Robb from the Forestry came down with it. There is good you were to keep her. She was no trouble, I hope?”

“Oh, Mam!” exclaimed Rhian.

“Wondering how she’d get back, Gram and me, weren’t we, Gram?”

Now that her eyes were used to the dim light, Jen could see a little old woman sitting in a straight-backed chair by a cavernous fireplace. She was so tiny her feet didn’t reach the
floor, but rested instead on a carved footstool. She smiled at them toothlessly.

“Our Gram Jones,” Rhian explained. “You must say hello to her, she loves a bit of company now and then, don’t you, Gram? She’ll not answer, she don’t speak English, Gram don’t.”

“Really?” asked Becky fascinated.

“Never been the need,” declared Mrs. Evans. “Nor did I speak it then until I were sixteen and working at the inn in Machynlleth.”

Jen and Becky both said hello to little Mrs. Jones, Jen feeling rather selfconscious, but the old lady smiled harder and nodded, her eyes bright with interest as she peered at them.

Mrs. Evans went on with her kneading, her hands quick and deft at the thump, push, and fold over. “Sit down by fire and dry out, you should.”

They were glad to. The scrubbed stone hearth had a small iron grate on it, heaped with glowing coals that gave off a comforting heat. And while she sat on the edge of an old wooden settle, close to the warmth, Jen had a chance to look around her at the farm kitchen. She’d never in her life been in one before and she was curious. In Llechwedd Melyn, the kitchen obviously did the service of several rooms. It was good-sized and furnished with an assortment of chairs, the settle Jen sat on, and a low wooden bench along one wall. Six plain wood chairs stood around the huge, scarred table at which Mrs. Evans worked. On the wall next to the door they’d come through was a high Welsh dresser on which a set of blue and white china was carefully arranged, and a big, coal-burning stove sat back in one corner next to an enamel sink and drain board. A little door opened off to the right, and a larger one on the left, both closed to hold the heat in the kitchen. The ceiling and walls were whitewashed plaster with dark, heavy beams. Very little light came through the two small windows that
faced the valley; the wall they were cut into was almost a foot thick.

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.”