Originally written for Marigold's Challenge: write a holiday story involving hobbits.

Title: Clearing the Heir
Author: Lindelea
Rating: G
Main Characters: Bilbo, Eglantine, Paladin, Pearl, Pimpernel, Pervinca, and a short visit by the Sackville-Bagginses
Disclaimer: The characters aren’t mine, but I sometimes sneak out with them for a cup of tea and a biscuit or two, or sit and watch them sleep.
Brief synopsis: How Bilbo decided to get himself an heir.

Clearing the Heir

Chapter the First: In which Bilbo has a Decision to make, and the Sackville-Bagginses come to Tea.

When the sharp rap came at the door, Bilbo had just sat down to consider his options, bolstered by a pot of tea, a seedcake that was a work of art, baked by his own hands for tea this day, and a few extra bits and nibbles to round out the meal.

 ‘Blast!’ he muttered to himself. He knew that imperious sound all too well, the sound of Lobelia’s umbrella leaving a dent upon the glossy green paint of his door.

 ‘Bil-bo! Bilbo Baggins! I know you’re in there! Now open this door!’

Hiding was not an option. There was undoubtedly smoke rising from the chimney into the bitter chill out of doors, and what reasonable hobbit would leave his smial with a fire going?

 ‘But I am not a reasonable hobbit,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Mad Baggins!’

 ‘Bilbo!’ the voice rose to a shriek. He debated with himself: would it be preferable to endure the rising tide of Lobelia’s ire, with its increasing volume and shrillness, or would it be better to endure the dubious pleasure of her company?

He sighed, considering the neighbours, and rose from his chair.

 ‘Coming!’ he bellowed, exhausting some of his frustration in the force of the cry. The teeth-grinding shouts ceased, though the sharp rapping continued, to encourage him to hasten in welcoming his unwanted guests.

Perversely he slowed his steps, taking deep breaths as he sauntered to the front door. He fumbled with the knob, rattling it impressively even as he rolled his eyes, muttered a few choice phrases, and finally, pulled the door open slowly and regally.

 ‘Lobelia!’ he said genially. ‘How nice to see you again! What brings you to my door, in this weather?’

 ‘I’d be freezing if you’d taken another moment to open to me,’ she snapped, pushing past him into the entryway.

 ‘Good afternoon, Bilbo,’ Otho muttered as he followed, pulling son Lotho after him. ‘Lotho! Mind your manners.’

 ‘Good afternoon, Bilbo,’ the tween sneered.

Lobelia advanced to the parlour and sat herself down in the best chair. ‘So nice of you to have us for tea,’ she said ungraciously.

 ‘I wasn’t aware...’ Bilbo said.

 ‘We need to make plans for Yuletide,’ Lobelia said. ‘I thought a nice, intimate supper... You can hire Mrs. Goodbody or whatever her name is to cook it up, and her daughters may serve...’

 ‘I had given them the week off,’ Bilbo said. ‘I won’t be at home for Yule. As a matter of fact, I have several invitations that I was just...’

 ‘Of course you’ll be at home!’ Lobelia simpered. ‘Ah, Bilbo, what a wit you have! Why, you’ll be celebrating Yuletide with your heir, of course, and...’

 ‘Heir?’ the old hobbit said, puzzled. ‘I have no heir...’

  ‘Precisely!’ Lobelia said brightly. ‘Which makes Otho, here, your heir. Now Bilbo, you’re not getting any younger, and we need to lay some plans... but I’m perishing for a cup of tea. What are we having?’

Such was the force of her personality that “Seedcake” popped out quite without Bilbo meaning to say anything of the sort. At the sight of his expression, Otho rose hastily from his chair. ‘Let me help you,’ he said, and taking the hapless Bilbo by the arm he steered him into the hallway and towards the kitchen.

Halfway there, Bilbo shook off the guiding arm. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, stiff with resentment.

 ‘You have it,’ Otho said. ‘I have to be ready to dispense pardon everywhere I go, the way things stand.’ Lowering his voice, he whispered, ‘She’s got a right bee in her bonnet, she does, and there’s no living with her unless I give her what she wants...’

 ‘And she wants...’

 ‘You know very well what she wants,’ Otho hissed. 

 ‘And how are you in a position to give it to her?’ Bilbo said in outrage. 

 ‘Just sign the papers she has had drawn up, Bilbo, for both our sakes. It’s the only way you’ll have any peace from my dearest beloved.’

Where’s that tea? Lobelia shrilled from the parlour.

 ‘Coming, dear!’ Otho called back, pushing Bilbo towards the kitchen. He saw the teapot and the cake and plate of sandwiches and bowl of pickled eggs and bowl of pickled vegetables and plate of nicely cut-up fruit set out on the kitchen table and said, ‘Well, I’m not sure it’s quite enough, but it’ll do for starters.’ He pulled a tray from the rack without further ado and began to load the food onto the tray.

 ‘Just make yourself at home,’ Bilbo said, and Otho nodded.

 ‘You bring along the cups and plates and such,’ he said as he lifted the tray. ‘And while we get started on our tea you can make up another platter of sandwiches, and open a few more jars of pickles while you’re at it. If you’ve no more cake, bread and jam will suffice, unless you’d like to stir up some scones...’

I wouldn’t, Bilbo muttered to his departing back, but he obediently built a pile of plates and saucers and cups, rolled silver in a stack of serviettes, and carried all to the parlour.

Otho took charge of the silver and plates and shooed Bilbo back to the kitchen. When Bilbo returned with another tray full of food, Lobelia was happily eating and drinking while her eyes scrutinised the parlour. Bilbo imagined she was mentally calculating the value of all she saw, or perhaps thinking of where best to place the portraits of her parents...

Bilbo put the tray down. ‘Do you have all you need?’ he asked, his voice rich with irony.

Otho bowed from his seated position in the second-best chair. ‘Thank you, Bilbo,’ he said.

 Lobelia, of course, did not have all she needed, and never would, in Bilbo’s opinion.

 ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, her mouth still half-full, and she dabbed delicately at her lips with her serviette. ‘Otho?’

Otho rose from his chair, walked to Lobelia’s side, and took some papers from the bag she’d laid with care beside her chair. ‘Here we are,’ he said, extending them to Bilbo.

 ‘Here we are – what?’ Bilbo said, eyeing the papers as if they might have teeth to bite him.

 ‘You’re not getting any younger,’ Lobelia said sweetly. ‘Just sign these, and we’ll avoid all sorts of unpleasantries.’

 ‘Unpleasantries?’ Bilbo echoed, slipping his hands into his pockets. His face cleared somewhat as if he found reassurance in one of them.

 ‘You know,’ Otho said. ‘If something were to happen – say, you were to die in your sleep, after a fine meal and satisfying smoke, well, it might take some time for all the legalities to be cleared up, without a proper Will or papers showing...’

 ‘Who says I don’t have a proper Will?’ Bilbo demanded. He didn’t as a matter of fact. Hadn’t even thought of making a Will. He felt as young as the day he’d returned to Bag End from the Wilderland.

 ‘You do?’ Lobelia purred. ‘Well, we ought to have a copy, you know, just in case...’

 ‘Just in case?’ Bilbo said, raising an eyebrow.

 ‘Why, with Otho your next-of-kin, he will be the one to discharge all your final obligations,’ Lobelia said. ‘These things must be done properly, you know.’

 ‘I see,’ Bilbo said.

 ‘Now,’ Lobelia said, ‘if you already have a Will, that’ll save us some time. On the other hand, we want to make sure that it’s up to date, and that you have a complete inventory of the contents of Bag End attached, for convenience’ sake, so we thought we’d spend the Yuletide here helping you to take stock...’

Before he’d sat down to tea, Bilbo had been deciding between spending Yule quietly at home, or accepting Mistress Lalia’s invitation to join the Tooks at the Great Smials, or if he’d go to Brandy Hall. He’d been leaning towards the latter: old Rorimac certainly set a fine table, following in the Brandybuck tradition. Now he was faced with spending the holidays with the Sackville-Bagginses... He shuddered.

 ‘You’ve not taken a chill, dear Bilbo?’ Lobelia said at once, her dark eyes glittering with hope and avarice.

 ‘No, but I...’ he said, only to be saved by a heavy knocking at his door.

Chapter the Second. In which more Unexpected Guests are announced, and the Sackville-Bagginses suddenly remember a Previous Engagement.

 ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ he said, jumping up from his chair. Well, old fellow, how are you going to get out of this dragon’s clutches?

He hurried to the door and yanked it open with a sense of relief. ‘Farmer Cotton!’ he cried, seizing that good hobbit’s arm and pumping his hand with vigour. ‘Come in! Come in!’

The good farmer allowed himself to be drawn through the door. ‘Thankee, Mr Baggins,’ he said. ‘I cannot stay... I just came to bring a message from your kinfolk.’

 More inconvenient kinfolk. None could be quite so inconvenient as the S.-B.’s however. ‘Yes?’ Bilbo said, putting on a cheerful expression. He couldn’t blame the farmer for being the bearer of bad news.

 ‘The Tooks,’ Tom Cotton said gravely. ‘Paladin Took was driving his family through Bywater, on their way to the Wilds o’ Buckland, I hear, and he fell right off o’ the waggon seat and into the Road. Like to have kilt himself, I heard.’

 ‘Fell off the waggon seat?’ Bilbo said, stunned. Paladin was not the type to be driving under the influence of drink, and besides, it was only teatime! He might have stopped at the Green Dragon for a hot toddy, perhaps, to ward away the chill before proceeding, but... falling off his seat?

 ‘The innkeeper don’t want to take him in,’ Tom said unhappily, twisting his hat in his hands, ‘seein’ as he has a high fever, and it’s Yuletide and all,’ he looked at Bilbo’s face and added hastily, ‘though he’ll take him, don’t mistake my meaning, sir, he’ll take him. But it’ll wreak havoc, you know, what with his best business being at Yuletide, sort o’ carries him through the slow times that come after, you know, and nobody’ll come in if there’s fever in the house...’

 ‘I quite understand,’ Bilbo said, nodding vigorously.

 ‘And so,’ Tom ploughed on, ‘seein’ as how you’re his kin, I said I’d trot up the Hill to ask if you might take them in... his missus wanted to drive him home, but it’s a long ways, in this chill, and like to kill him. We’d take him in ourselves but we’re full up at our house with visiting relations and all...’

 ‘I quite understand!’ Bilbo repeated. ‘You did the right thing, Master Cotton. Have a cup of tea to warm you, and then trot right back down the Hill, if you please, and tell them to bring Paladin and his family on. I’ll air out the guest rooms and have everything ready by the time they arrive.’

He brought the good farmer to the kitchen, poured him a mug of tea and sugared it well, and poured his own mug to keep Tom company. The tea, drunk standing up from one of his everyday mugs, tasted better than anything in a fine china cup with the likes of Lobelia for company.

After seeing Farmer Cotton out the door again, he returned to the parlour to meet Lobelia’s inquiring look. The food had all vanished away, but Bilbo hadn’t had much appetite, really, after his “guests” had arrived, and now he had too much to do in way of preparations to worry about eating.

 ‘It seems my close cousin is taken ill while journeying,’ Bilbo said, ‘and he’s in need of a bed and nursing. What a good thing you’re here, Lobelia! A feminine hand will be most comforting on his brow, I’m sure.’

 ‘Taken ill?’ Lobelia snapped. ‘And you invited him here?’

 ‘I was sure you wouldn’t mind,’ Bilbo said. ‘Plenty of guest rooms, after all...’

 ‘Taken ill with what?’ Lobelia demanded.

 ‘A high fever, I’m afraid,’ Bilbo said, shaking his head. ‘Probably quite catching, but what can one do? I could hardly turn him away...?’

 Lobelia’s expression seemed to say that he could do just that. She rose abruptly. ‘I’m sorry, Bilbo,’ she said. ‘I find it impossible to stay, with fever in the smial! I have my dear Lotho to consider... he’s delicate, you know.’

 Lotho, not at all delicate except perhaps in his mother’s mind, sniggered at the thought of Bilbo being left alone to nurse his unfortunate cousin. ‘I hope you have a pleasant Yule,’ he said.

Otho rose to help Lobelia on with her wraps. ‘We’ll have to take this up in the New Year,’ he said solemnly.

 ‘I’ll leave the papers with you,’ Lobelia said. ‘You can look them over, and I’ll send someone round to fetch them when you’ve signed them. Remember to get all the proper witnesses.’

 ‘I’ll remember,’ Bilbo promised, determination in his tone. He was determined, all right. He ushered the three to the door and waved as they trudged away, Otho and Lotho flanking Lobelia that she might not slip on the ice. With luck one would slip and carry the other two to the ground.

Bilbo shook his head and closed the door. The first order of business was to throw Lobelia’s papers on the fire. He watched them burn with some satisfaction, then collected the used plates and cutlery. There weren’t as many silver spoons as he’d remembered carrying to the parlour...

Chapter the Third. In which Bilbo acquaints himself with the Vagaries of Unclehood.

Eglantine apologised breathlessly as Tom Cotton and Hamfast Gamgee carried the unconscious Paladin from waggon to best guest bed with its freshly warmed sheets and bright fire on the hearth.

 ‘I’m so sorry... I’m so very sorry...’

 ‘Aggie, if you don’t stop apologising I’m going to turn you out in the snow,’ Bilbo said.

She looked at him in horror and burst into tears. Immediately it was Bilbo doing the apologising, putting his arms around her and patting her on the back. ‘Now, now, lassie,’ he crooned.

 ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

 ‘Healer saw him down at the bottom o’ the Hill already,’ Tom Cotton said. ‘She said she’d check in a bit later; got called away by a birthing, but she said to keep him warm and try to get some broth into him.’

 ‘What about his head?’ Bilbo said.

 ‘Landed in a bank of snow,’ Tom said. ‘Good thing it’s a white Yule this year! Had it been otherwise he’d’ve broke his neck!’

Bilbo gave Eglantine’s back another pat and stepped away. ‘You just tuck him up,’ he said, ‘and I’ll be right back.’

 ‘The children,’ she whispered.

 Bilbo put on a broad smile and said, ‘Don’t worry about a thing, cousin! Not a thing!’ He gave her a little push towards the bed and nodded to the two helpers.

 'If there's anything at all...' Hamfast said as Bilbo ushered them towards the entryway, and the good farmer added his own assurances.

 'Thank you, Master Hamfast, Farmer Cotton, but we'll be fine here,' Bilbo said. 'I know your own missus hasn't been well,’ he said to Hamfast, and to Farmer Cotton he said, ‘and I know my way around a kitchen, outstanding gossip to the contrary!' 

 ‘I’ll just see to the baggage and put the ponies away,’ Farmer Cotton said, and Hamfast allowed as he’d help carry in the bags. They wished Bilbo a good night and reiterated their willingness to help, should he need aught.

The little Tooks were shivering in the entryway, staring about with big eyes as Bilbo saw the farmer and gardener out the door. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Let’s get your wraps off. Are you hungry?’

He bent to help the littlest and was rewarded by a piercing shriek. The largest, so wrapped as to be difficult to distinguish whether lass or lad, stepped forward hastily. ‘Vinca!’ it scolded. The high voice was no clue, of course, for they were all fairly young. ‘I’m sorry, cousin,’ it added. ‘She’s shy of strangers.’

 ‘Vinca?’ Bilbo said, backing up a few steps. ‘Vinca? That’s a pretty name.’ He had seen Paladin occasionally, when he’d gone to Brandy Hall for Yule, for example, and at festive occasions at the Great Smials, but thinking back, Bilbo could only remember Paladin and Eglantine. The children had merged into an ever-changing blur with the children of the Hall or the Smials, busy about... busy about whatever it was that children were invariably busy about. He thought he remembered a little lass with Eglantine’s eyes, only much wider, of course, the last time he’d told stories at the Great Smials, or was it the time before that?

One child that had stood out, had caught Bilbo’s notice at Brandy Hall, was poor Drogo’s lad. Ah, Drogo. Bilbo missed him still, rued the stupid waste of his death, fooling about with boats. A Baggins ought to have known better! He’d thought of taking the orphaned lad on, for Drogo’s sake, but really, an old bachelor like him? What sort of home could he offer a child? Still, things didn’t seem to be working out all that satisfactorily for young Frodo. One of the worst young rascals of Buckland, he’d heard lately. His lips twitched. At least the lad had spirit.

The largest of the children was unwinding an incredibly long muffler from around the little one’s upper regions, and finally bright eyes and curls were revealed, but the eyes were full of tears. ‘Mama,’ the little one sobbed.

The big one caught her up in a hug. ‘There now,’ it said. (Bilbo was wracking his brains; he remembered that Paladin had sisters... did he have all daughters as well? Were any sons?) ‘Help me undo this muffler of mine, Vinca, there’s a dear.’

The little one gulped back her tears and began to pull at the knitted wool, with a great deal of circumspect help from the big one. Soon curls were revealed, long curls, another lass, then. The middle child, also a lass, had shed her outer garments without any help and now made a pretty courtesy. ‘Pimpernel Took, at your service,’ she said formally, ‘and that’s Pearl, and you already have met Vinca.’

 ‘Charmed,’ Bilbo said with a bow.

 ‘And yes, we are hungry,’ Pimpernel added.

 ‘Nell!’ Pearl said in warning.

 ‘And thank you for asking,’ Pimpernel added belatedly.

 ‘Come along,’ Bilbo said in his heartiest matter. ‘I’m sure we can find something or other to suit!’

He hung their heavy garments on the long double row of pegs alongside the front door.

 ‘You must have many visitors,’ Pimpernel observed. She was a candid lass, Bilbo decided, and if there was any news to be got, she’d be the one to ask.

 ‘I’m very fond of visitors,’ Bilbo agreed with a smile. ‘Come now, my ladies.’ He bowed them towards the kitchen, and soon he had them eating bread and butter, well smeared with jam, and had poured them cups of freshly brewed cambric tea.

 ‘He has real sugar,’ Pimpernel said behind her hand, and Pearl shushed her while little Vinca stared with wide eyes. When Pimpernel thought the old hobbit wasn’t looking, she licked her finger and put it in the sugar pot, stared at the grains that stuck, and slowly and thoughtfully licked her finger. Bilbo hid a smile.

 ‘Well now, young ladies,’ he said. ‘If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll just take some tea to your mum and dad.’

 ‘Da’s awful sick,’ Pimpernel whispered, and the little shoulders slumped, the wonder of real sugar forgotten.

Pearl put one arm about her and the other about Vinca and whispered comfort, then said, ‘We’ll be all right here, sir.’

 ‘Don’t you “sir” me!’ Bilbo said, rearing back at the term of respect. ‘You may call me “Uncle Bilbo” if you like, and if you don’t like you may call me something else, but do not call me such a thing as “sir”! Why, we’re cousins, you know!’

 ‘We are?’ Pimpernel said, while Vinca put her thumb in her mouth and stared with wide eyes. Pearl merely smiled in a superior manner, for she'd overheard Farmer Cotton talking with her mother, and so she revelled in possessing the knowledge before Pimpernel had found out.

 ‘We are indeed,’ Bilbo said, ‘and just as soon as I get back we’ll work out the connexion.’

Eglantine looked up as he entered with the tea tray, her eyes bright with unshed tears. ‘I’m sor—’ she began, before she blushed, bit her lip, and looked down. ‘We’re in your debt,’ she whispered.

 ‘Ah yes, and Paladin is not one to be in debt to anyone,’ Bilbo said. ‘His indebtedness to Mistress Lalia is onerous enough, I think.’

Eglantine took a shaky breath and looked away. Bilbo hastily set down the tray and took out a snowy handkerchief as he saw a tear spill over her cheek. ‘There now,’ he said in alarm. ‘No cause for that.’

 ‘He’s so... so hot,’ Eglantine said, taking the handkerchief and dabbing at her eyes, though one hand retained a firm grip on her husband’s. ‘He’s never been ill, not in all the time I can remember.’ She looked up at Bilbo with worried eyes. ‘Clementina, the next farm over but one, she died last week of a high fever, and the healer had them burn her bedroom furnishings and bedding and her nightclothes.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘We should never have come here, we ought to have turned around and driven straight through, home...’

 ‘Manage by yourself, you and three little daughters?’ Bilbo said. ‘I shudder to think.’

 ‘But if it’s that same fever,’ Eglantine said. She looked about the room. ‘All this lovely furniture, and putting you at risk, yourself. You ought not to be in this room at all. And the kind hobbits who carried Dinny in here, what if they take the fever, or someone in their families?’

 ‘You’re borrowing far too much trouble,’ Bilbo said gently. All the same, he’d heard about a nasty fever going round the Shire. It was no wonder that the S.-B.’s had taken themselves off so precipitously. Lobelia, had she been Mistress of Bag End, would have shut the door in this unfortunate hobbit’s face. Suddenly the resolution began to harden in Bilbo’s heart, that Lobelia would never have the opportunity to shut Bag End’s door in anyone’s face. He certainly hoped he didn’t catch the fever and die before he had a chance to draw up his Will and name an heir. Now who would be a proper one...? He patted Eglantine’s shoulder. ‘Let’s just take as much trouble as this day cares to offer, without looking for more.’

She swallowed hard and nodded.

 ‘Drink your tea,’ he said with a final pat. ‘Don’t let it go cold.’ He moved to the bed, to rest a hand on the burning forehead. Paladin was a sturdy hobbit, well-muscled from years of heavy farm work, but you’d never know it to look at him now. His face was pale and slack, his mouth partly open, his eyes rolled back in his head.

 ‘I’ll bring you a basin of water,’ Bilbo said, ‘and chip some icicles into it, to chill it well.’

Eglantine nodded again.

Bilbo was as good as his word, and it eased his heart to see Eglantine dip the cloth he provided into the icy water and lay it upon Paladin’s forehead. ‘That’s got to feel better,’ he whispered. ‘If there’s anything else you need, just call me.’

He returned to the kitchen, where the three lasses sat quiet as mice. The bread-and-butter had been eaten to crumbs, however, so they’d been busy as mice to all appearances. ‘So,’ Bilbo said, rubbing his hands together. ‘How about a story?’

Pimpernel’s eyes lit up. ‘About the dragon?’ she said eagerly. ‘And the Arkenstone, and the Battle of the Five Armies?’

 ‘My,’ Bilbo said. ‘It seems you’ve paid attention.’

 ‘She loves to hear stories,’ Pearl said in massive understatement. ‘The fancier the better. She’ll probably run off and have adventures of her own someday.’

 ‘I will not!’ Pimpernel said hotly.

 ‘I beg to differ,’ Pearl said with all the loftiness of the oldest sister. 

 ‘Well then,’ Bilbo said, staving off the incipient argument. He sat down on the other side of the table, facing the three lasses, all lined up in a row like the three little kittens in the picture book of his youth. ‘Let me see now...’

He told of the dragon as requested, suitably edited for the ears of the littlest, whose thumb never left her mouth. Indeed, she sucked that appendage harder at the exciting parts, and Bilbo began to fear she’d wear the skin right away, except for the fact that she fell asleep partway through, nestled under Pearl’s protective arm. ‘And he fell with a boom and a splash and a hissing of steam, right into the Lake, and that was the end of Smaug!’

 ‘And Lake Town,’ Pearl said, ever practical.

 ‘And what about the Battle of the Five Armies?’ Pimpernel said, eyes glowing.

 ‘That, my dear, will have to wait for the morrow,’ Bilbo said. ‘I do believe it’s time for young hobbits to seek their beds.’

Pimpernel groaned, but Pearl said, ‘He’s right, you know. Vinca’s asleep already and you’re yawning.’

 ‘I'm not,’ Pimpernel said, stifling a yawn.

 ‘Come now,’ Bilbo said, rising. He reached down for Vinca, and Pearl pulled her arm away as he lifted the little one. She nestled against him and he felt the soft sigh of her breath against his neck. A vague longing stirred in him then. He’d never had a little one of his own...

 ‘Come now,’ he repeated. ‘I’ve a bed all nicely warmed, and you can tumble into it together and curl up like a litter of pups. Chamber pot’s under the bed, if you need it, and there’s a pitcher of water and bowl for washing on the dressing table, and I do believe Master Gamgee brought your baggage in from the waggon whilst Farmer Cotton was putting the ponies away...’

He carried the littlest to the second-best guest bedroom and laid her on the bed, whispering to Pimpernel to follow him out of the room. They went to the entry, and Pimpernel showed him which bags contained the children’s clothing. Bilbo tucked one bag under his arm and picked up the other two, one in each hand.

 ‘Aren’t you awfully old to be doing that?’ Pimpernel asked, looking up at him.

 ‘You’re only as old as you feel,’ Bilbo said with perfect truth. He carried the bags to the bedroom, and after ascertaining that Pearl could manage putting herself and her younger sisters to bed, he lit the watch-lamp, blew out the lamps, and showed himself out the door with a quiet “Good night.”

 ‘Good night, Uncle Bilbo,’ Pimpernel whispered loudly. Bilbo smiled as he pulled the door nearly to behind him and went to fix a light meal, to coax into Eglantine, and a mug of broth for Paladin.

Chapter the Fourth: In which Bilbo discovers that Young Hobbits are to be Heard as well as Seen, has a Serious Discussion, and finds a Solution to a Problem.

A wailing sound wakened Bilbo from a sound sleep, and for a moment he lay blinking, wondering if perhaps Gollum had sneaked into the smial in the night in search of his Precious. A hand under the pillow reassured him on that subject. He dressed hastily, splashed water on his face, and went in search of the disturbance.

In the hallway he found the reason for the distressing sound. Pearl stood in the doorway of the little ones' guest room, holding tight to the littlest Took, while Eglantine peeped from the best guest room, trying to reason with the tot.

 ‘Stay away, Vinca,’ she said in obvious distress. ‘Da’s ill, and Mum mustn’t come near you, for I don’t want you to catch it!’

 ‘Come now, Vinca!’ Bilbo said in his cheeriest manner. He lifted the sobbing tot from her sister’s imprisoning arms and swooped her into the air. ‘Someone’s got to cook the breakfast, and I’m sure I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t have some help. Have you any idea about what’s the best thing to have? Steak and kidney pie?’

The little one reared back in astonishment, blinking at Bilbo. ‘Eggses,’ she said firmly.

 ‘Eggses!’ Bilbo said in astonishment. ‘The very idea! Why, I never heard of such. Eggses! You’ll have to point them out to me, and tell me what to do with them, my dear, for Mrs. Goodbody won’t be in today—I’ve given her the week off, you know, and I thought I’d have to go back on my word and call her in to keep from starving to death, but now you’ve come I have every confidence...’

Eglantine smiled through her tears as the old hobbit disappeared into the kitchen, still chattering away.

 ‘I like Uncle Bilbo; he’s nice,’ Pimpernel observed. ‘I don’t think he’s a cracked pot at all!’

 ‘Nell!’ Pearl scolded, but her mother wiped at her face and put on a bright smile.

 ‘I quite agree with you, Nell,’ she said. ‘Now you two go and see about breakfast.’

 ‘How’s Da?’ Pearl said, her wide eyes anxious. ‘Can’t we see him?’

 ‘He’s sleeping,’ Eglantine temporised. ‘He was asking after you earlier, and I told him I’d give him your love.’ In point of fact, Paladin had muttered his daughters’ names in his delirium, but she wasn’t going to worry them with that news.

Bilbo had somehow managed to locate and identify eggs, crack them into a bowl, and melt butter in the frypan preparatory to scrambling them, all following Vinca’s lisping directions. He set Pearl to toasting bread over the fire and had Pimpernel set their places at the kitchen table, all the while feeling like something the cat had dragged in.

Healer Grubb had arrived in the middle night, happily wearied (“a fine little lad, the image of his father!”), but her tired smile had changed to alarm when she examined Paladin. ‘He’s hotter than he was,’ she said, ‘and much hotter than is good for him! I’m all for letting a fever run its course, but this one’s like to bake his brains...’

Looking from Bilbo to Eglantine, she said, ‘Bring in a tub and fill it with cool water. We’ll see if we can bring his temperature down.’

 ‘Why not snow?’ Bilbo said.

The healer glared. ‘We want to cool him, not kill him,’ she snapped.

Bilbo nodded thoughtfully. The way Paladin had been heating up the cloths laid on his forehead, he wondered if a cool bath would do much good. He hadn’t had a day of sickness, himself, since returning from his Journey, and so he was rather dim about such details. However, he dutifully hauled the copper tub into the bedroom and the buckets of water to fill it, even one that he had put on the stove when the healer had arrived, to heat in case the healer needed it for whatever healers used steaming water, when Healer Grubb deemed that the cold water was too cold.

Eglantine undressed her husband, and Bilbo lifted him from the bed, staggering a little under his weight, and eased him into the tub. While Eglantine and the healer held the limp Paladin’s head out of the water, Bilbo changed the sweat-soaked sheets.

 ‘That’s better,’ Healer Grubb said after some time. ‘He’s cooler. Let’s get him out.’

Bilbo obediently lifted Paladin out, managed to get him to the bed without dropping him, and laid him down upon the towelling he’d put down on healer’s orders. Eglantine and Aspidistra Grubb dried Paladin, robed him in a clean nightshirt from the luggage, and tucked him up once more. He roused slightly with a questioning sound.

 ‘All’s well, love,’ Eglantine said softly, stroking a damp curl back from the forehead.

 ‘Broth!’ the healer hissed, and Bilbo jumped to obey. He had some broth already keeping warm on the stove, and Paladin was awake enough to take nearly the whole mug. He took some plain water as well, a good sign, the healer said. ‘Keep ‘im drinking,’ she said. ‘It’ll keep his innards from shrivelling to nothing.’ She arose, stretched, and said, ‘Well, I’ll be back later in the day.’ To Eglantine she added, ‘Try to get some rest yourself, dearie. You won’t do him any good should you fall ill.’

Bilbo walked her to the door, and fell into his bed about an hour before the dawn.

Now it was about an hour after the dawn, but he forced himself to eat heartily and pressed extra helpings on the little lasses, while recounting the feast at Lake Town after he and the Dwarves had escaped the Wood Elves.

 ‘It was my birthday, you know,’ he said, ‘and I had to give a speech, and I had the most shocking cold in the head you can imagine! About all I could say was, “Thag you very buch!” It looked to be a wonderful feast...’

 ‘Looked?’ asked Pimpernel.

 ‘I couldn’t taste a thing,’ Bilbo confessed. ‘I’ve often wanted to go back, just to find out what it was I missed. D’you suppose they’d throw another feast for my benefit?’ He was enveloped in a rising cloud of giggles.

 ‘There’s a grand sound,’ Eglantine said from the doorway.

 ‘Mother!’ the three little ones chorused, or rather, “Mother!” and “Mama” and “Ma!” all together in a jumble of excitement.

Bilbo held them back, even as Eglantine held out a restraining hand. ‘He’s better,’ she said with a tired smile. ‘The fever’s broken, and he’s asking for something to eat. Still, my darlings, stay away for a little bit longer, just until we’re sure the fever’s past catching.’

A babble of bright voices answered her, and Bilbo set them back down at the table with bread and butter and honey while he stirred up some more eggs for Paladin and Eglantine.

 ‘You do have honey!’ Pimpernel observed, pushing back a wayward curl with a sticky hand.

 ‘I do indeed; were you in doubt?’ Bilbo asked in surprise.

 ‘You have real sugar for your tea, just like they do at the Great Smials, and at Brandy Hall,’ Pimpernel said. ‘We have honey for our tea, from our own hives, and Da says that paying for sugar is a waste of good coin.’

 ‘Ah,’ Bilbo said, making a long face, as Pearl looked daggers at her sister. ‘But I have no beehives, and so I must buy my honey. And honey comes dear, you know. So I must settle for sugar in my tea.’

 ‘You must buy your honey!’ Pimpernel said in shock.

 ‘That’s the sad truth of the matter,’ Bilbo said, shaking his head.

 ‘Why, we’ve more than we need!’ Pimpernel said. ‘Don’t we, Pearl?’

 ‘We do, indeed,’ Pearl said.

 ‘Let’s give him some of ours!’ Pimpernel said.

 ‘Let’s, do!’ little Vinca piped.

Unexpectedly, Pearl was in full agreement with Pimpernel, for perhaps the first time since they’d arrived. ‘Yes,’ she said, with an emphatic nod. ‘Just as much as he wants.’

Pimpernel gave a nod of her own and turned back to Bilbo with an earnest look. ‘No one should have to take sugar in his tea for want of honey,’ she said.

 ‘Indeed,’ Bilbo said, and that seemed to be the end of the matter.

Paladin slept much of the day, a proper sleep, and Eglantine stretched out beside him on the bed to doze. Bilbo was left in charge of the little ones, and he rose to the occasion.

They took a brisk walk in the winter sunshine, made a row of snow hobbits, had a snowball fight with the young Gamgees from Number Three, and came back to eat heartily of the stew Bilbo had set to simmering before they left the smial.

After lunch it was time for the young hobbits to go down for a nap. Pearl said she’d watch over the littler ones, but when Bilbo peeked into their room not long after she’d finished singing a nursery-tune to her little sisters, he saw them all curled together on the bed, fast asleep. He smiled and sought his own bed, and gave himself up to a restorative nap.

In the afternoon he sat down with them on the study floor with pencils and sheets of foolscap and showed them how to draw simple pictures: flowers, birds, mountains, ponies, snow-hobbits and the like. Their eyes were wide at the expanse of paper... they were used to doing their lessons on smoothed-out brown paper that had come home wrapped around parcels bought at market or in one of the little shops in Whitwell, or drawing pictures with the burned end of a stick on the hearthstones.

They took tea all together, around the bed where Paladin sat propped up, and a merry occasion it was indeed. Of course, afterwards, Paladin was ready to sleep again, and after a time of story-telling, followed by a light supper, it was time to tuck the little ones into their bed once more. This time Eglantine was happy to do the honours, while Bilbo sat with his recovering cousin.

 ‘I cannot thank you enough for taking us in,’ Paladin said. ‘I don’t know what we would have done if...’

 ‘I cautioned your wife about borrowing trouble, earlier,’ Bilbo said. ‘I might say the same to you.’

 ‘How can I ever repay you?’ the farmer persisted.

 ‘We can talk about that later,’ Bilbo said. ‘Now tell me what you were doing, driving to Buckland while seriously ill?’

 ‘I didn’t think it was all that serious,’ Paladin said. ‘I cannot remember the last time I was ill. O aye, I had a headache, like as if one of the ponies had kicked me unawares, but... that was no reason... We always spend Yule at Brandy Hall, always. I promised my sister Ally we would, back when she was due to marry and be taken away to the Wilds of Buckland, away from her home and all her kin and all she loved, save that Brandybuck who’d stolen her heart away. She was in tears, I’ll tell you, the day before the wedding. “I cannot, Dinny, I cannot,” she sobbed. “Then don’t,” I says, for I’m a practical hobbit if naught else. “But I cannot live, not if it’s without him,” she says, and what am I to say to that? Either way, I’m to lose my sister!’

 ‘So what did you do?’ Bilbo asked.

 ‘I promised her, I’d visit faithfully every Yuletide and spend a month in the bargain,’ Paladin said. ‘There’s naught to be done on the farm, that time of year. Harvest’s in, and planting’s yet to start, and if I work at it I can have all the harness repaired and the plough oiled and ready to go on my return.’

 ‘And so you bring a little bit of Tookland with you when you come,’ Bilbo said. He thought of the musical lilt of the Tooks he’d heard in Esmeralda Brandybuck’s voice, and how it grew broader and deeper in the company of her brother, during those Yuletides he’d spent at Brandy Hall. It was true, every time he visited Buckland at Yuletide, Paladin was there with his family. He’d kept his promise.

 ‘Aye, a little bit o’ Tookland,’ Paladin said. ‘I’ve never missed a year since her wedding, not one.’ His eyes grew sorrowful as he thought of his promise, to be broken for the first time.

 ‘You might not have to miss this year,’ Bilbo said, patting his hand.

 ‘Ah, well,’ Paladin said, straightening, and deliberately changed the subject. ‘So, Eglantine told me you had visitors when we arrived.’

Bilbo laughed. ‘The Sackville-Bagginses,’ he affirmed. ‘So you see, you’ve already done me a great service, frightening them away with your threat of fever!’

 Paladin chuckled. ‘The Talk is,’ he said, ‘that Lobelia thinks to be claiming Bag End one of these years, rather sooner than later if she has her way. I’ve even heard Talk that she intends to move in to succour you in your declining years. Did she bring a measuring stick with her, to work out where to put all her furniture?’

 ‘She doesn’t know that I’m planning to rival the Old Took,’ Bilbo said in a conspiratorial tone. ‘Don’t let’s tell her; we’ll let it be a surprise.’

Paladin grinned, but the grin faded. ‘Well I know what it is, not to have an heir,’ he said. ‘We’ve tried for years, my love and I, and all but given it up.’

 ‘All but?’ Bilbo said.

Paladin shook his head. ‘The last one gave her such trouble,’ he said, ‘the healer warned us off having any more. I don’t know who’ll inherit the farm... perhaps I ought to just let Lalia have it. I’ve managed to scrape together enough each year to pay on our debt, but it’s a hard row to hoe. Fortinbras was always fair, but Lalia...’

 ‘Have you talked to Ferumbras?’ Bilbo asked delicately.

Paladin snorted. ‘That one don’t wipe his...’ he changed, mid-phrase, but Bilbo hid a grin, knowing what he’d avoided saying, ‘...his nose without her permission.’

 ‘I didn’t say I don’t have an heir,’ Bilbo said, for an idea had been growing in his mind at the thought of Buckland. Frodo Baggins. He’s already a Baggins, as it were. How much trouble would it be...?

‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘not to change the subject, but I was thinking of going to Brandy Hall myself for Yule this year. Why, Yuletide has barely begun. If we wrapped you up well and laid you in the back of the waggon with a lantern under the blankets to keep you warm, we could leave first thing! I could drive straight through, and we could be to Brandy Hall before they light the Yule Log...’

The End... or is it the Beginning?