Chapter 5. All Through the Night

Very early next morning, about half way between middle night and the dawning, the Thain rose from his bed, dressed soundlessly by the meagre light of the watch lamp, and started to tiptoe from the room.

 ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ came a sleepy voice from the bed.

The shadowy Thain started in surprise. He turned to the bed and whispered, ‘My dearest, I did not want to disturb you.’

Diamond sat up, or at least she tried to sit up. Her mountainous middle proved too much of an obstacle. ‘Pippin, help!’ she said, just before dissolving into laughter.

Her husband crossed to the bed in an instant and was beside her, gently easing her into a sitting position and propping the pillows behind her so that she might sit in comfort. ‘There you are, my dear,’ he said tenderly. ‘And how are we all this morning?’

 ‘We danced half the night through,’ Diamond said with a hand on her protruding middle, ‘and hardly slept at all!’

 ‘Who needs to dance at a wedding?’ Pippin said, gently patting the bulge. ‘We can kick up our heels at our own convenience and never stir from home.’

 ‘O my love,’ Diamond said, laying her head against his shoulder. ‘How I wish I could come with you.’

 ‘Do you want me to stay, dearest?’ Pippin said softly, stroking the tumbled curls.

 ‘What?’ Diamond said, sitting abruptly upright. ‘And miss the wedding of Mayor Sam’s oldest boy?’ she scolded.

 ‘I hate to leave you, especially now,’ Pippin answered. ‘Sam will understand. Merry can do the honours.’

 ‘The babes are not going to be born this day,’ Diamond said firmly. She looked down at herself and wagged a stern finger. ‘Do you hear?’ she said to her middle. ‘Not today, of all days!’ Looking back to her husband, she added, ‘and if they disobey, well, I’ll send a fast rider to Hobbiton to fetch their father to deal with them!’

 ‘These are undoubtedly the last,’ Pippin said. ‘I wouldn’t want to chance missing their first song.’

 ‘You won’t, my love,’ Diamond said with a smile. She chuckled. ‘To think we thought I was past it!’

 ‘If it were just one babe, we could name it “Surprise”,’ Pippin said with a grin.

 ‘But it’s two... so that’s out of the question,’ Diamond said. ‘Thankfully!’

 ‘No, we could name the other “Prize”,’ Pippin replied with a thoughtful look. He stroked his chin. ‘I rather like the sound of that. “Prize” and “Surprise”.

 ‘Don’t you dare! They’re to have proper hobbit names!’ Diamond said, scandalised.

Pippin chuckled. ‘Like “Faramir” I suppose.’

 ‘Hah!’ Diamond said. ‘I was young and foolish then, and thought it best to give my wild pony his head in such matters.’

 ‘And now you have the reins firmly in hand,’ Pippin said, ‘and the pony bows to your every command.’

 ‘Ponies don’t bow,’ Diamond said.

 ‘Whatever you say, my dear,’ Pippin answered softly, kissing her fingertips.

 ‘Go on with you!’ Diamond said, snatching her hand away. ‘If you do not leave soon you’ll be late for the wedding breakfast, and that would never do, when you’re performing the ceremony! Have a lovely time at the wedding, and bring me back some food!’

 ‘What would you like?’ Pippin said, rising from the bed.

 ‘Anything... so long as it has no acquaintance with birds or eggs,’ his wife said. After Diamond had nearly died with the previous set of twins, Healer Woodruff had hit on a new theory for sustaining expectant mothers. Since chickens laid an egg a day with no apparent troubles, Woodruff had decided to feed prodigious quantities of eggs and fowl to her charges, hoping that the same benefits would be transmitted to the consumers. Diamond and the other expectant mothers at the Great Smials, despite their protests, were forced to eat heaps of eggs in every form and guise, and chicken, duck, pheasant, goose, partridge, and quail in as many ways as the cooks could devise to vary them. Woodruff was quite pleased with the result. In the past few years she had not lost a single mother and babe to the swelling sickness. Whether the expectant mothers were quite so pleased was beside the point.

 ‘Not a feather nor shell!’ Pippin promised. With a sweeping bow, he said, ‘Farewell, fair lady!’ and in the next moment was gone.

In the courtyard before the Great Smials stood many coaches and waggons, all rapidly filling with hobbits. Pimpernel walked out of one of the lesser entrances with Ferdibrand on her arm and their children following; it was easier than dealing with all those steps down from the Great Door. ‘Here we are, my love,’ she said. ‘Our coach is ready and waiting for us.’

 ‘Tell me of the sky,’ Ferdi said, stopping and turning his face upwards. ‘The air feels soft.’

 ‘It’s early,’ Nell said, squeezing his hand. ‘The stars are still dancing above; the Moon has nearly drunk his fill and smiles down in satisfaction from his high perch. The Sun has not even thrown her promise into the sky as of yet.’

 ‘Mmmm,’ Ferdi said, his eyes seeming to seek the heavens that he had not seen in some years. ‘I love this time of the day.’

 ‘Shall we go, my love?’ Nell said after a moment. The children waited silently.

Ferdi shook himself. ‘Ah, Nell my own, what are we waiting for? There’s a wedding to be celebrating!’

She placed her husband’s hand on the door handle and waited while he opened the door and handed her in. The children followed, piling into the coach, now chattering cheerily despite the early hour.

Pippin entered the first coach in the line, wherein his children were already seated and waiting. He looked about, counting noses in the torchlight from the courtyard. ‘All present and accounted for?’ he asked. ‘Where’s Merry?’

 ‘I think he said something about...’ Beregrin piped up helpfully.

 ‘...riding with Uncle Ferdi and Auntie Nell,’ Borogrin said. The twins often finished each other’s sentences, speaking as if with one voice, though one was quiet and thoughtful and the other invariably found mischief to stir up.

 ‘Ah, that’s right,’ Pippin said, ‘I remember now.’ Merigrin had said something to that effect the previous evening at early supper. ‘Well then.’ He stuck his head out of the coach and called to the driver. ‘Drive on! We’ve a wedding to celebrate!’

The Thain’s coach started with a jerk that soon smoothed out into a steady rolling along the road through Tuckborough, turning onto the New Road that led to Bywater. A cheer and then a song went up as the rest of the conveyances followed, a long line snaking its way through the predawn darkness.

***

At about the same hour the coach belonging to the Master of Buckland was just pulling up before the Green Dragon Inn in Bywater. The repair to the coach had proven more difficult than expected, and they had got a very late start indeed, driving through the night to reach Bywater so as not to miss the wedding breakfast which would start, now, in only a few hours. The coachhobbit alighted wearily and stuck his head in at the coach door. ‘Wait here a moment, Mistress,’ he said. ‘The night air’s a bit chilly, and I don’t want you standing about waiting for the innkeeper to waken.’

 ‘Thank you, Hays, that’s very thoughtful,’ Estella said, stifling a yawn.

Hays nodded, closed the coach door, and turned to the front door of the Dragon. It was bolted, of course, as had become more common among hobbits during the time of the Troubles and even after the ruffians had been thrown out of the Shire. He pounded on the door until he heard a sleepy voice saying, ‘Coming!’

The innkeeper opened at last, clad in nightshirt and nightcap, a candle in his hand. ‘What is it?’ he asked groggily. ‘What do you want at this hour?’

 ‘You have a room reserved for my Master and Mistress,’ the driver said.

 ‘We’re full up,’ the innkeeper said. ‘No rooms left.’

 ‘A room was reserved,’ the coachhobbit insisted.

 ‘What is the trouble, Hays?’ Estella said softly, stepping out of the coach that held her sleeping children.

The innkeeper’s eyes widened as he recognised her. ‘Mistress,’ he quavered. ‘I’m that sorry, but when you hadn’t arrived by midnight we thought perhaps you weren’t coming, and...’ How in the world could he say he’d given up the Brandybucks’ rooms to some of the hobbits crowded into the common room, sleeping on the tables and benches there, not to mention the floor?

Estella’s last hope sank. She had half-expected Merry to be here before her. But no, if he’d arrived and she and the children were not here, he would have ridden along the Road in search. She hoped he was merely delayed by those Rohirrim, and not... She took herself firmly in hand. Worrying did no good. If Merry were still missing on the morrow, knowing Pippin and Sam as she did she knew they’d take off as soon as Frodo and his Daisy were joined, in search of Merry though it be a search for the proverbial needle in a haystack. The Thain and Mayor would ride all the way to the Golden Hall if need be, and Estella vowed to be right behind them.

 ‘We have your room,’ the innkeeper’s wife said behind him, roused with her husband by the pounding on the door. With a quick glance out the window, seeing the fine coach and matched team of ponies in the brightly moonlit yard, realisation had struck quickly and she'd whirled to snap out swift instructions to the yawning tweens behind her. ‘Just come with me, Mistress, if you please.’ Her daughters were rapidly stripping the sheets from the big bed in the innkeeper’s private quarters as she spoke, making it up with fresh linens, fluffing the featherbed and plumping the pillows.

Hays carefully picked up one sleeping child. The innkeeper handed the candle to his wife and picked up the other. By the time the weary family of the Master of Buckland reached the room all was ready for them.

The innkeeper and his wife slept the remainder of the night wrapped up in blankets on the floor before the kitchen fire.