Chapter 19. Tea and Trouble

Woodruff was not in the smial when Pippin knocked; no, indeed she was not. As a matter of fact, she was taking tea in the little tea shop in Whitwell with a solicitous Mardibold. He had come whistling from the livery, having completed his chores for the afternoon, and found her just after Pippin had left her, sitting upon the doorstep with the battered ball of pansies still cradled in her hands.

 ‘Mistress?’ he said, vaulting over the low gate. ‘Mistress, are you ill? Did you fall and turn your ankle?’ He bent at once to make an examination.

The face she raised to him was wet with tears and smudged where she’d wiped a cheek with a dirty hand. ‘I am well,’ she said, but sorrow and forgotten hurt mingled in her eyes.

 ‘O the teapot’s broken!’ Mardi said, realising. ‘What a pity!’

 ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Woodruff said numbly.

 ‘Of course it does!’ Mardi huffed. He took the dirt-and-flowers from the hands of his Mistress and laid them gently down, and then he urged Woodruff to her feet. No use fanning the flames of gossip, having the healer seen weeping on her doorstep.

He walked her in, sat her down in the best chair, patted her arm and told her to stay. He hurried to the kitchen to put on the teakettle, and while waiting for the water to boil he tidied away the mess on the doorstep. Bits of broken teapot went on the rubbish heap, the mortar and pestle were restored to the work-table, and he found a dusty old flowerpot in the shed that would do for the pansies, for the nonce, until he could come up with something better.

The teakettle was just coming on the boil as he entered the kitchen. He warmed the pot, set the tea to brewing, sliced a loaf and brought bread, butter and jam, teapot, plates and cups and all to the sitting room where Woodruff sat, staring at nothing.

Taking a dampened cloth, Mardi began to wipe gently at the dirty hands. Woodruff roused at his touch, taking the cloth from him to wipe away the dirt. ‘Your cheek,’ he said, touching the spot on his own cheek as if he were a mirror. His Mistress smiled and cared for the smudges and put the cloth down.

 ‘Thank you, Mardi, very thoughtful,’ she said. ‘I oughtn’t to have fallen to pieces like that, but...’

 ‘I thought, perhaps, you’d turned your ankle and fallen on the teapot,’ Mardi said.

 ‘No... no,’ Woodruff said vaguely. ‘It was the teapot that met the first mishap,’ she added.

 ‘It was a pretty planter, but I’m sure we can find another at the jumble shop,’ Mardi said, ‘and just as pretty.’

 ‘How silly you must think me, with my tears for a trifle,’ Woodruff said, pulling a clean handkerchief from her sleeve to dab at her eyes.

 ‘Not at all...’ Mardi said, but his Mistress wasn’t finished. He found himself listening to the story of the early days of Woodruff’s apprenticeship, indignant and wondering by turns, and wishing he’d not come too late to know Sweetbriar.

When Woodruff reached the part of the story where Sweetbriar pronounced the pot of flowers a “nice homely touch, just right for our home” she dissolved once more into tears as her loss washed over her again in a great wave of sorrow. ‘O Gran,’ she sobbed, over and again.

Mardi got up from his chair and put his arms around his Mistress. ‘She was a wonderful hobbit,’ he said. ‘Just wonderful. It is no wonder you loved her so...’

 ‘Love...’ sobbed Woodruff from within the circle of his arms. ‘Love...’

It was a real pity that Ted reached the doorway at that moment and heard only the last two words spoken. As Ted hovered undecided in the doorway, Mardi spoke gently.

 ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Love. A thing to celebrate, don’t you think? I tell you what... we’ll go to the Rose and Briar for a proper tea, shall we?’

Ted did not stay to hear the rest; he took himself off again directly, and neither Woodruff nor Mardi knew he’d been there.

 ‘A proper tea?’ Woodruff said, raising her head and straightening her shoulders. Seeing these signs that she was regaining her self-possession, Mardi stepped back.

 ‘Aye,’ he said again. ‘A proper tea! My treat! A token of my regard for the healer... and her apprentice.’

 ‘Go on with ye now, ye daft Took,’ Woodruff said. ‘What ever will Beryl say, you taking me out to tea? It would hardly be proper!’

 ‘Very well then,’ Mardi said amiably, offering Woodruff his arm. ‘Your treat!’ And as she stared at him in astonishment, he laughed. ‘A Mistress may, on occasion, show kindness to a lowly apprentice, after all, if she’s been working his fingers to the bone, and he has not shirked his duty, not one whit...’

 ‘Not one whit?’ Woodruff said.

 ‘Not a one,’ Mardi said. ‘As a matter of fact, I gathered a basket full of the tenderest young nettles you ever saw, and a few fine mushrooms for your dinner, while I was at it, not to mention the watercress that I noticed as I splashed across a little brook...’

 ‘Bless you, Mardi,’ Woodruff laughed, the tears still sparkling on her cheeks. ‘You truly have gone and done a great deal more than you were asked to...’

 ‘Come along, then,’ Mardi said, and rising, Woodruff took his arm. They stopped at the looking glass long enough for her to wipe away all traces of sorrow, and then they had a fine tea, indeed, with all the trimmings, at the Rose and Briar, and toasted with their teacups the healer of Whitwell and her apprentice (and if Woodruff was toasting Sweetbriar, and Mardi was toasting Woodruff, well, no one will ever know for sure).

***

In the meantime, Pippin had tried every means he knew to piece the teapot back together again, to no avail. Even with the glue in the clay jar on a high shelf of the kitchen, and the stronger glue on the high shelf in the barn, he’d have two pieces stuck together, or so he thought, only to have them come apart again as soon as he tried to add a third. In point of fact, there was more glue on his hands and in his lap than in the jar, by the time he gave it up as a bad job all round.

He capped the jar and climbed up on the rickety stool, reaching as far as he could to place the sticky container back in its proper home. He didn’t want his father finding the glue lying about. He was in enough trouble as it was, for having pitched the stone that made the healer cry, whether or not the healer ever told his parents. He figured she wouldn’t, but someone else might. Not that it mattered. He almost wished for punishment, really, if it would only dispel the guilt that haunted him.

He didn’t want to put together the teapot, just to get himself out of a scrape. O no! It was really that... when he thought of Woodruff, just sitting there, her usually cheery countenance washed in tears as she cradled the forlorn pansies in her hands... No, it wasn’t fear of consequences, or even punishment, but something else. Woodruff was his friend, even if she had given him a nasty-tasting draught a time or two, and that because Pippin’s parents had insisted. No, she was his friend, and she’d lost her smile, and it fell to Pippin to find that smile once more. But how...

He was thinking so deeply that when the stool wobbled he was slow in catching his balance. He threw out his arms in a wild attempt to save himself, but there was nothing to catch hold of, to prevent a backwards fall. He felt, for just a moment, as if he were floating on the air. Just for a moment, though, for the ground came up to meet him with bruising force that first knocked the wind from him, and then, as his head cracked against the flagstones, he saw stars dance briefly against the blackness that swallowed him whole.

Merry, brushing his pony, heard something at the other end of the barn, though his pony snorted at the same moment, and so he wasn’t sure just what he’d heard. Putting the brush down, he looked around but saw nothing. ‘Hullo?’ he called. ‘Ferdi, was that you?’

 ‘Was that I—what?’ Ferdi said sleepily, from where he reclined in a pile of straw, his hands comfortably supporting his head.

 ‘I heard something,’ Merry said. ‘A cry, I thought...’

 ‘Most likely one of the cats caught a mouse,’ Ferdi said, but he stretched and sat up.

 ‘Sounded like Pippin,’ Merry said, ‘but he wouldn’t be out here...’

 ‘He’s supposed to be washing the kitchen flagstones,’ Ferdi agreed. ‘After he dropped nearly a full jar of marmalade, while helping clear away. Have you never seen such a mess?’ Why, Pimpernel had been close to tears, for it had been her task that morning to wash the floor, and it had been wondrously clean up until teatime’s aftermath.

 ‘He went to it, easily enough,’ Merry said. ‘Didn’t even put up a fuss as to its being “unfair” and he ought to be able to go out to the barn to “help” us brush the ponies, and all that.’

 ‘You’re surprised?’ Ferdi said, cocking an eye at his older cousin.

 ‘Pippin, and soap?’ Merry countered.

 ‘Pippin? And water?’ Ferdi said, his lifted eyebrow adding emphasis to the last word.

Merry laughed. ‘You have a point,’ he said, picking up his brush again to run it over the pony’s rump. Nearly finished with this side... and then there was the other side yet to go. He sighed.

 ‘What’s that about?’ Ferdi asked with a yawn.

 ‘Come along, you lazy Took,’ Merry said. ‘I’ve still the other side to brush before I’m done. You could take the cloth and polish this side for me...’

 ‘What cloth?’ Ferdi said, looking into the grooming box. ‘I don’t see any here.’

 ‘I suppose you want me to fetch one for you,’ Merry said.

 ‘Very kind of you, Cousin,’ Ferdi replied with a bow.

Merry snorted and patted the pony. ‘Just you wait,’ he said, and then turned to walk down the length of the barn to the supply room, offering strokes and cheerful greetings to the half-dozen ponies, with their out-thrust heads, waiting for their supper in the stalls that lined one side of the barn. It would be Ferdi’s task to feed them, soon, but since his father demanded that all things be done on a strict schedule, due to “ponies' delicate digestions”, he had accompanied Merry to the barn “to help him with the grooming” while waiting for the ponies’ suppertime.

 ‘Help with the grooming, indeed!’ Merry snorted to himself.

 ‘What was that, Cousin?’ Ferdi called after.

But Merry, reaching the storeroom after the last stall, had stopped short at the sight of his young cousin, stretched out on the ground, ominously still. ‘Ferdi!’ he hissed, going to his knees beside the little lad, taking up a hand and chafing it. ‘Ferdi!’

 ‘What is it now, Merry?’ Ferdi began, jogging down the line of stalls. He stopped at seeing fallen Pippin.

 ‘Run!’ Merry cried. ‘Run and fetch Uncle Paladin! Quickly!’ But Ferdi was already out of the barn and halfway across the yard.

***

When Pippin wakened, all was dark and quiet. He looked up to see Woodruff’s sober face.

 ‘What is the time, and where am I?’ he said. To his horror, his voice was thin and quavery.

 ‘You’re in your bed, young master,’ Woodruff said. ‘How are you feeling?’

 ‘My head aches awfully,’ Pippin said, and he could not keep the whine from his voice. ‘What happened? What time is it?’

 ‘You fell, and knocked yourself into tomorrow,’ Woodruff said gently.

 ‘It’s tomorrow?’ Pippin said, confused.

 ‘It is,’ Woodruff said. ‘You’ve slept through supper, and nearly to breakfast, and given us all quite a turn, I might add.’

 ‘I’m sorry,’ Pippin whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to do it.’

 ‘Of course you didn’t, lad.’ Woodruff said. She looked over her shoulder then, and said something that Pippin, with his ringing head, didn’t catch, and in another moment his mother and father were there, beside the bed, speaking in soft voices filled with love and worry.

 ‘Do you think you could eat something?’ Eglantine said, taking her son’s little hand, that had been so frightfully limp and unresponsive through much of the night.

 ‘No,’ Pippin murmured. He tried to shake his head, but that was a bad idea.

 ‘He’s not hungry?’ Eglantine whispered, troubled, her eyes seeking the healer’s face.

Woodruff attempted to smile, but Pippin saw the truth in her face, lines of strain and weariness born of long watching. He couldn’t know she’d slept little, the past few days, what with three babes being born, one after another, and a string of minor mishaps that had kept both Woodruff and Mardi busy, save their brief celebratory tea the previous day. ‘He’s jarred his brains,’ she said, ‘and likely the thought of food is less appealing than sleep at the moment. But I think the danger is passed,’ she added, looking from the farmer to his wife. ‘I’ll watch with him until the dawning, and then Mardi will take my place, at least until the lad regains his appetite.’

Turning back to Pippin, she said, ‘Sleep now, lad. Sleep is the best thing for an aching head.’

 ‘I’m sorry,’ Pippin said again, but looking up at the faces made him dizzy, and so he closed his eyes. His mother began to croon a lullaby, and he felt himself drifting towards sleep.

Even as he relaxed, his resolve was strengthened. He’d had the right of it; Woodruff had lost her smile because of him, and he was honour-bound to bring it back again. And as he slipped into a dream, he smiled, for the thought came to him, how he might make good.