Chapter 3. An Un-Expected Party

Opening the door, he found Doderic and Ilberic Brandybuck standing soberly on the doorstep, flanking their sister Celandine. 'Hullo, Pippin,' Doderic as the eldest brother and thus spokeshobbit, said gravely. 'We are here, as you invited us to be... Father's down with fever, as you know, and Mum didn't want to leave him, so I've been given leave to hear you out.'

'Hear me...' Pippin echoed, and couldn't help looking towards Freddy and Estella before looking back to his newly arrived guests.

'Well?' Ilberic said. 'Are we going to conduct this business here on the doorstep? I know Crickhollow is rather set back from the lane, but...'

'Come in, come in,' Pippin said hastily, opening the door wide. He pointed them to the sofa on the other side of the hearth, and his heart sank to his toes as Celandine's bonnet came off to reveal a brilliant bouquet of bobbing, curling ribbons.

'Cellie,' he said with a gulp, and went to pour out more tea. Merry had put out a goodly quantity of cups, not knowing just what sweet young creature might be coming and how many in her family might accompany her... He turned back to find Celandine watching him eagerly, and had the disconcerting impression that she was hanging on his every word as he inquired whether they would take cucumber or watercress sandwiches, and if they preferred the chicken or the potted ham?

'O Merry, halloo!' Ilberic called, half-rising to wave at the figure hovering in the doorway. Estella blushed prettily and Celandine simpered. Doderic cleared his throat impressively, and his younger brother sat himself down again.

'I'm just taking care of a few things,' Merry said. 'Are you needing more hot water?'

I'm in plenty of hot water as it is, Pippin muttered under his breath, but he forced a smile and a gay tone and said, 'I'll just come and fetch the teakettle, to freshen the pot, shall I?'

He bowed to all and sundry and hastened to the kitchen, closing the door behind them. Taking Merry in a desperate grip, he hissed, 'What ever am I going to do?'

Merry took up a towel, picked up the whistling teakettle, and thrust it at Pippin. The younger cousin had to take the kettle or risk boiling water sloshed over his toes. 'I say, Merry,' he protested, 'what are you about?'

'I was about to ask you the same,' Merry said glacially. 'You asked two lasses to marry you, last night? This is not Far Harad...'

'I didn't!' Pippin protested, and then mended his words, '...at least, I don't remember...' he added lamely, and finished up with a reiteration of his first question. 'What am I to do?'

'I haven't the faintest,' Merry said crisply. 'Here the lasses are, their hearts light, wondering all night why you asked them and their families to tea and told them to wear ribbons in their hair (as if they were brides) and now you've two of them sitting across from one another. Perhaps each expects the other to be asked to fill in as an attendant in the wedding party...'

'I'll just find a way to explain it all away. It was a simple misunderstanding, that's all it was...'

'Really?' Merry said, drawing out the word as he drew himself up and stared down his nose at Pippin, a tactic he'd learned from Reginard Took, and wonderful at discomfiting the target of his gaze.

'Really,' Pippin said. 'I don't know why you're all put out about it; it's my problem...'

'It certainly is,' Merry drawled, but Pippin forged ahead with determination.

'And I'm going to take care of it.'

'How?'

'I don't know yet, but I am. And bad as the situation is, I'm sure it could be worse...'

Fatal words, which should be stricken from the vocabulary. Pippin ought to have known better.

The doorbell jangled merrily, and there was a flurry of knocking at the door.

Pippin jumped. Fortunately the water in the kettle was not-quite-boiling-anymore, but that which sloshed over his right foot was still hot enough to make him yelp and hop and the next thing he knew he'd dropped the teakettle with a clang and a splash and a sharp yell from Merry.

Sudden silence in the next room was not noted by the two cousins in the kitchen, for Merry had grabbed up the cloth, dipped it in a bucket of cold water standing by, fresh from the well, and slapped the icy-cold wet cloth on Pippin's scalded foot, wrapping it around the reddening ankle. Pippin gasped and then bit his lip, hard, to keep a cry of pain from escaping.

When at last he had control of his voice, he said, 'That tears it...!' and gasped again as Merry pulled the cloth away to look at the skin.

Blisters were rising in places, and the skin was reddened, and Merry said, 'Perhaps we ought to have this looked at...'

'Just what is it that you are doing now, I might ask?' Pippin gritted.

Finished looking, Merry soaked the cloth afresh and applied it, dripping, to Pippin's foot.

The kitchen door opened and Ilberic poked his head through. 'Everything all right in here?'

Even as his eyes widened and he swung the door wider to step in, Pippin was answering, 'Couldn't be better!' and Merry was nattering on about everything being under control and nothing to worry about.

'Do you want some help, or something?' Ilberic said. Being a year younger than Pippin and not as well-travelled, he was still something of an empty-headed tween, but he meant well.

'Perhaps you might answer the door?' Pippin said through his teeth, though the knocking had stopped.

'O Dod's already seeing to it,' Ilberic said casually, adding, 'Well, if there's not anything...' and closing the door behind him.

When Merry helped Pippin hobble into the sitting room, foot bound up, there were exclamations of concern from the four hobbit lasses there. Yes, four, for Merimas Brandybuck had arrived escorting his sisters Melilot and Mentha, both somewhat older than Pippin, but sporting a profusion of ribbons. Melilot, as a matter of fact, had been promised to Fredegar, but he'd released her from her obligation during his recovery from his sufferings in the Lockholes. It was rumoured that he was not long for this world, poor lad, his heart strained and his health ruined by his treatment at the hands of Sharkey's ruffians.

Freddy was looking remarkably calm and well at the moment, though, sipping his tea and chatting with Merimas whilst the lasses whispered and giggled.

'Please,' Pippin said, half raising a hand and nearly losing his balance, but for the firm grip Merry had on him. 'Please don't get up. All's well, really it is, just a little mishap in the kitchen...'

He might as well have saved his breath, for all four lasses gathered with oohs and ahs of concern, escorting him to the sofa, helping Merry settle him with a cushion at his back and more for the poor injured foot, and competing to bring him a plate of tea treats. But of course the teapot was empty...

'That's all right,' Merry said, trying to shoo them back to their seats. 'I've just put the kettle on, and it'll be some time before it boils.'

'I'm fine. Really. Thanks. Just fine,' Pippin was saying, his teeth locked in a smile and a muscle jumping in his cheek. It seemed to him as if a dozen lasses with bright ribbons were gathered round, but it was really only Melilot and Estella sitting to either side, crowding close, and Mentha standing before him with a plate, coaxing him to eat, and Celandine behind him, rubbing his shoulders to help him relax.

At last he could not bear it any longer, the soft twitters as of birds surrounding him, sounding in his ears, confounding his thoughts, whilst the males in the room talked of solid, satisfying things such as hunting, fishing, planting and digging. Pippin sat abruptly upright, shouting, 'Stop!'

And of course, everyone did, and looked full at him.

He drew himself up as best he could, in a seated position, and cleared his throat. All eyes were on him.

'I...' he said, and then plunged on. 'I suppose you're wondering why I asked you here today...?'

'You said you had a proposition to make,' Freddy said into the silence that followed.

Not a proposal? Pippin wondered wildly to himself. Not a proposal of marriage?

'A proposal it was, rather,' Merimas said, glancing from one sister to another.

'For some reason you wanted Cellie to don her prettiest frock and deck herself out with ribbons as if she were a bride,' Ilberic said helpfully. 'Don't you remember, cousin?' Doderic, the older brother, simply gestured to Celandine to come out from behind Pippin and stand next to him, which of course she did, the better to see Pippin's face.

'Of course,' Pippin said, fighting the urge to put his hand to his head.

'Well?' Merry said, most unhelpfully to Pippin's way of thinking.

'I asked you to come, and to don your prettiest frock and wear ribbons in your hair...' Pippin said, looking from one lass to another. Four lasses! You fool of a Took!

'I remember telling Merimas, here, that the prettiest lasses in the Shire were all in the room at one time, at the party last night,' he went on, feeling his way. As a matter of fact, he did remember making such a comment, shortly before starting on his second glass of homebrew.

What day is it today? he muttered to himself under his breath, and with the sudden thought, he brightened. 'As you know, the First of May is just round the corner,' he said, 'and in Tuckborough we don't just have May baskets and dances on the green, but we have a Maypole as well, and hobbits come from all over Tookland just to see the pretty sight!'

'A Maypole!' Celandine said, clapping her hands together. The tween had actually seen a Maypole once, when she was but a little child, and had been enchanted by the beauty of the dance and weaving ribbons.

'Well, I said to myself, said I, "Why is it that there is no Maypole in Buckland? With all these fresh and pretty lasses to dance with ribbons in their hands, and flying from their curls?" '

'Why indeed?' Ilberic cried, fully in the spirit of things, and Pippin looked at him with satisfaction.

'So you called us together to organise a Maypole dance?' Freddy said quizzically, exchanging glances with his sister.

But Melilot and Mentha gave cries of delight, and Celandine was in raptures.

'A Maypole dance,' Merry mused, and then smiled. 'Yes, very pretty indeed,' he said. 'I do hope all of you lasses will consent to help us organise everything, and that you will dance yourselves, for you look so well in ribbons...'

Estella smiled suddenly, dazzlingly, and said, 'O yes! What fun!'

And every year on the First of May there is a Maypole dance on the green verge by the River, just by Brandy Hall, and now you know how it all came about, courtesy of Captain Peregrin Took, of the Travellers' fame, you know.

As to who finally married whom, well, that is another story. Indeed.