Chapter 18. Bed and Breakfast

Pandemonium reigned when Ossilan returned from Merimac’s apartments. He’d been surprised that Saradoc had not followed, and not a little concerned, knowing the Master’s troublesome heart. Truly he feared to find yet another stricken hobbit, but no, Saradoc was standing in the group of hobbits ringing the tub, all apparently trying to speak at once.

 ‘What is going on here?’ the old healer bellowed, when a more temperate query went unanswered.

The Master turned, his face a mixture of joy and grief. He raised his own voice to shout for silence, and was rewarded.

 ‘Saradoc, is it well with you?’ Ossilan said, stepping forward. ‘When you didn’t follow...’

 ‘Merimac?’ Saradoc said in reply. Receiving Ossilan’s head-shake, he nodded sadly. ‘He had his mother’s heart,’ he said, ‘as I do, and yet he lived a full life in spite of it.’

 ‘He did at that,’ Ossilan said, coming forward to take his arm. ‘Now, Master, if you please...’ He caught a glimpse of Pippin, sitting up in the tub, and staggered. It was Saradoc who took the healer’s arm, escorted him to a nearby chair, sat him down and called for a glass of water.

 ‘He’s—he’s—not—’

 ‘No,’ Saradoc said simply. ‘He’s not.’

Pippin resumed his plaint, which had gone unheard in the babble. ‘I’m freezing,’ he said. ‘Is this some sort of jest? The bath is stone cold!’

 ‘We had to bring your fever down, cousin,’ Estella said practically.

Pippin turned a sceptical eye on her. ‘This is exactly the sort of joke you perpetrated on Frodo, that time he visited Budge Hall,’ he said. ‘He told me all about it.’

 ‘All about it?’ Estella said, affecting surprise. To her relief and gratification, Merry began to chuckle, and the chuckle grew into a laugh.

 ‘The cold bath!’ he gasped. ‘I remember!’ On a winter visit to Budge Hall, after a strenuous afternoon of building snow-smials and throwing snowballs, Frodo had fallen asleep while reading in a tub half-full of steaming water, and when Freddy had told Estella, she’d persuaded him to add several buckets of snow to the water. Very quietly, of course. And then they had pretended that he’d slept in the tub so very long, and that was why the water had gone cold. ‘It wasn’t funny!’

 ‘Of course it wasn’t,’ Estella said primly. ‘Why, he nearly caught his death of cold... but he didn’t fall asleep in the bath ever again, and spoil one of Father’s books!’

 ‘So you added ice to my bath?’ Pippin said. Ossilan had got up from his chair and crossed the room and was now conducting an examination, or trying to, what with Pippin brushing him away as best he could.

 ‘Just well-water,’ Estella replied. ‘Quite cold enough, I think, to do the trick, wouldn’t you say, Ossilan?’

 ‘The fever’s broken,’ Ossilan answered. ‘At last!’

 ‘Then either add boiling water, or get out of the room and let me climb out of this ice-cold spring,’ Pippin said. ‘I’ve drunk water bubbling from the ground that was warmer than this!’

 ‘We’ll draw you out of the well, cousin,’ Estella said. ‘You know, you really ought to stop falling into wells; it’s not good for your health!’

 ‘Estella,’ Merry said, pulling her away and pushing her towards the door.

Esmeralda took the hint, and seeing that her husband wasn’t about to expire from all the excitement and difficulty of the night and early morning, said, ‘Come along, my dear. We’ll see what sort of breakfast we can find for all these wide-awake hobbits.’ Still talking, she escorted Estella from the room.

 ‘I’m absolutely starving!’ Pippin called after them. ‘I want a proper breakfast, mind! No custard, no gruel! Eggs, and toast, and bacon, and potatoes—’

 ‘They’re gone,’ Merry said.

 ‘I hope they heard me,’ Pippin grumbled.

 ‘If they didn’t, I’ll give you my breakfast and eat yours,’ Merry said.

 ‘I’ll hold you to it,’ Pippin warned.

Merry laughed again, falling to his knees beside the tub to hug his cousin. ‘I know you will,’ he said. ‘And welcome.’

Saradoc, ever practical, had taken up a large towel and was holding it near the tub. ‘Let us get him out of there,’ he said, ‘and bundle him back into the bed.’

 ‘Bed!’ Pippin protested.

 ‘Bed,’ his uncle said firmly. As the others lifted Pippin from the tub, he wrapped the towel around his nephew and stepped back so they could ease him down on the litter and cover him with blankets.

 ‘A litter!’ Pippin said. ‘What do you think I am? I can walk...’

 ‘You can,’ Ossilan said, ‘but you mayn’t.’

 ‘Diamond!’ Pippin said, to no avail.

 ‘O Pippin,’ Diamond said, wiping at her eyes. ‘We thought we’d lost you!’

 ‘Lost me? In a tub?’ Pippin said, amazed. ‘You weren’t looking very hard, then.’

 ‘O Pippin,’ Diamond said again.

Ossilan took her by the elbow. ‘Come along, lass,’ he said. ‘No pangs, I hope?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s astonishing, but no. All’s well.’

 ‘I could have told you that!’ Pippin said. ‘Of course all’s well!’ His voice subsided to grumbles as the watchers lifted him, something about “litter” and “perfectly all right” and “lot of nonsense” and “bother”.

 ‘I must see to Merimac and his family,’ Saradoc said.

 ‘That’s right, I thought Merry was to meet Merimac in the Woody End,’ Pippin said. ‘Did he decide to come to the Hall in search of his errant nephew?’

 ‘Something like that,’ Merry said lightly, though his heart was hollow with grief at losing his beloved uncle. He clung to the fact that he hadn’t lost his cousin as well, in the same night.

 ‘Well,’ Pippin said, ‘Give him my best!’

 ‘I will,’ Saradoc said, whereupon he made a hasty exit. He did not want to burden Pippin with the news of Merimac’s passing until the lad was a bit stronger.

 ‘Do you know, Merry, I had the oddest dream,’ Pippin said when they had settled him in the bed again, and Diamond had gone to see why breakfast had not yet arrived. Merry dismissed the watchers, who went off to their own breakfasts in amazement mingled together of joy at Pippin’s miraculous recovery and sorrow at the sudden loss of Merimac.

 ‘What? I thought you never remember your dreams,’ Merry said.

 ‘Well, almost never,’ Pippin said.

 ‘So what was special about this one, that you remember it?’

 ‘Since I don’t remember the others, I cannot tell you how this one was special,’ Pippin said, ‘but it was troubling, to say the least.’

 ‘Troubling?’ Merry said, sitting down in the chair next to the bed. ‘Well, tell “Uncle Merry” all about it then, and let him sort it out, lad.’ He swallowed hard, thinking of Merimac, but Pippin was busy rolling down the coverlet to his satisfaction (why did folk think they had to cover you up to your chin?) and didn’t see.

 ‘It was,’ Pippin said, and hesitated.

 ‘Tell away, cousin,’ Merry said. ‘Perhaps I’ll match you, dream for dream.’

 ‘Well, you were in the dream,’ Pippin said at last.

 ‘Was I?’ Merry said. ‘A voice of calm reason, I hope, and a shoulder you could lean on.’

Pippin’s mouth twisted in a wry grimace and he fell silent for the moment.

 ‘So you’ve forgot the dream after all,’ Merry observed, settling back. ‘Ah, well, breakfast ought to be arriving at any moment to entertain us instead.’

 ‘No...’ Pippin said slowly. ‘It’s just very odd, that is all. I was on my way to Tookland...’

 ‘That is odd!’ Merry said, ‘...seeing as how you swore you’d never darken the Great Door again...’

 ‘...and you were with me,’ Pippin said, his eyes seeing something far away. ‘You were arguing with me about something, I don’t remember what it was, saying I wasn’t fit or some such, and we were on the Ferry...’

 ‘Seeing how you ran the Ferry aground the last time you steered it, I’m not surprised,’ Merry observed, crossing his arms.

 ‘But the Ferry hit a floating log,’ Pippin said, ‘and for some reason I lost my balance, and fell, and...’

 ‘And?’ Merry said after a pause.

 ‘You grabbed for me, of course,’ Pippin went on.

 ‘Of course,’ Merry said. ‘One of us has got to keep a cool head in an emergency.’

 ‘And you fell,’ Pippin said, ‘and you hit your head in going over, and there we were, the both of us, in the River... and the Ferry floating out of reach with our ponies staring at us in astonishment, and...’

 ‘And...?’ Merry prompted again. ‘Sounds quite exciting.’

 ‘I grabbed at your collar and started to swim,’ Pippin went on, slower, ‘but the bank kept getting farther away.’

 ‘You were probably swimming for the wrong bank, then,’ Merry said lightly, for he could see that his cousin was troubled.

 ‘It was so real, Merry! I couldn’t tell I was dreaming; it felt as if it were really happening. My arms and legs were like lead, and the water was so dreadfully cold...’

 ‘Must have been the bath water,’ Merry said reasonably. ‘You weren’t aware of much of anything when we put you in, drowning in delirium as you were, and hot as a furnace—’

 ‘Drowning, yes, that was it,’ Pippin said. ‘I was drowning, and that meant that you’d drown too, knocked on the noggin as you’d been, and...’

 ‘It didn’t happen, Pippin,’ Merry said, uncrossing his arms to put a reassuring hand on Pippin’s arm. ‘It was just a dream.’

 ‘But it was so real,’ Pippin insisted. ‘I wonder what it means?’

 ‘Does it have to mean something?’ Merry asked.

 ‘If it’s the one dream I’ve remembered, in all my years of dreaming—and you say I dream, you and Diamond both have told me that I talk in my sleep...’

 ‘Almost as incessantly as you chatter in your waking hours,’ Merry said agreeably.

 ‘So I wonder...’ Pippin said. He rubbed at his head, and Merry could see that an ache was settling in there.

 ‘It means that you’re not to go back to the Tookland any time soon, I guess,’ he said, keeping his tone light. ‘Which is a good thing, seeing as you’re resolved not to go back there.’

 ‘I could go back...’ Pippin said. ‘I could... I’m doing well as steward, or so your father and Uncle Badger say... but then Uncle Badger says I need more tempering before I go back to face my father and his demands.’

 ‘And he’s right,’ Merry said. ‘You’ve managed your temper remarkably well, but then you’ve been among Brandybucks and not stubborn Tooks...’

Pippin’s mouth twisted again. ‘Uncle Badger caught me last week, having acted without thinking and losing my temper at the consequences,’ he said.

 ‘You see?’ Merry asked. ‘He was right. You could use a bit more tempering. If you lose your temper, dealing with old Paladin, you’ll lose yourself.’

 ‘Aye,’ Pippin said softly, the lilt of Tookland stronger in his voice. ‘He seeks to make me over, to drum all the dreams out of me, that I might be all practical and prudent.’

 ‘Nothing wrong with prudence,’ Merry said.

Pippin sighed. ‘Naught,’ he agreed. ‘But to be a solid and serious, unimaginative hobbit... to leave all dreams and imagination behind... ‘twould take all the joy out of life.’

 ‘You, serious?’ Merry said. ‘I cannot imagine.’

 ‘Nor can my father... imagine, that is, and that is all the trouble,’ Pippin said. ‘He used to tell such stories, Merry! He used to dream, but the Thainship drummed all that out of him. Now he’s like an old plough-pony, walking with his head down in the furrows, too bowed down to see the sun on the daisies.’

 ‘Pippin...’ Merry said.

 ‘Probably would plough the daisies under, as a matter of fact,’ Pippin said, ‘useless bits of brightness; why not, when the field could better grow barley instead?’ He looked up in one of his lightning changes of mood, with a laugh, saying, ‘So I’d better not go back to the Tookland, at least not right away! Too many daisies in Buckland, and not enough barley! I’ll have to remedy that before I go.’

 ‘Mercy,’ Merry said under his breath, but he chuckled as he realised Pippin was joking.

 ‘Breakfast!’ Estella caroled from the doorway, Diamond on her arm. ‘We have worked our fingers to the bone, slaving over a hot stove, to bring you such a breakfast as you’ve never seen!’

Behind them servants carried loaded trays, enough for six hobbits, for Master and Mistress would join them for breakfast.

 ‘Seedcake!’ Pippin said, his eyes lighting with joy. ‘Who ever heard of seedcake for breakfast!’

 ‘And eggs, and bacon, and potatoes, as ordered,’ Estella said. ‘The seedcake is compliments of your wife, who knows you adore the awful stuff.’

 ‘Stayed up half the night baking it for you, my love,’ Diamond said with a blush.

 ‘My darling!’ Pippin said. ‘Now I know all over again why I married you and not that other wench my father picked out for me to marry!’

 ‘Hmph!’ Estella (as “the other wench”) said. ‘At least I have a sensible husband who likes apple tart as much as I do!’

 ‘Apple tart for breakfast?’ Merry said.

 ‘Well, it was to be for tea,’ Estella said, sobering slightly. Apple tart, being Merimac’s favourite, had been planned for teatime to welcome him home. Brightening determinedly, she said, ‘but it’s always best when still warm! So when we saw some on the cooling trays, we just added it to the breakfast plates!’

 ‘Eminently sensible,’ Merry said, getting up to put an arm around his wife. ‘I can see I married the right lass.’

 ‘And I,’ Pippin said, holding out his hand to Diamond. ‘And I.’