CHAPTER 2

Hyacinth folded the bedsheet she had just ironed carefully. Euphorbia was perfectly capable of making her do it over if it got wrinkled again.

She had thought herself so clever, when she had planted the idea of Pearl Took in Lalia’s mind. Knowing the old hobbit's impossible temperament, she had hoped to get Pearl disgraced, enough perhaps that Ferumbras could be brought to disown Paladin in favor of Reginard. But she’d scarcely had a chance to find out what would work with young Pearl when this accident had happened.

At first she’d been furious. Lalia had been her strongest ally in her efforts to supplant Paladin Took, and now she was lost.

On the other hand, perhaps she’d been provided with just the right circumstances to disgrace Pearl…

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Merry and Pippin followed Pimpernel and Pervinca towards the apartments that the Whitwell Tooks always used during their visits to the Great Smials. There were similar apartments set aside for the Brandybucks as well, located nearby. The Brandybuck apartments were actually larger and nicer, for they were also meant to accommodate the Master of Buckland, but Merry’s grandfather Old Rory and his grandmother Menegilda had not come. The Master of Buckland had not got on well with old Lalia, though he probably would have attended her funeral out of duty anyway--however, he had the excuse of his wife Menegilda’s poor health to keep him home.

"Frodo’s already here?" asked Merry, delighted.

"Yes," said Pimmie. "He arrived last evening. But he’s stuck with the Thain, along with the other family heads."

Merry was suddenly much less delighted. Since Bilbo was gone, Frodo was now the head of the Baggins clan, and that meant he’d have very little time while he was here to spend with his younger cousins, much as he might have preferred it.

Pippin caught his cousin’s dismay. "What’s wrong, Merry?"

"Frodo will have to be doing all the tedious grown-up stuff before the funeral," he said mournfully.

"Oh," said Pippin. "But we won’t, will we?"

Pimpernel turned to him. "You had better behave yourself, Peregrin Took! And that goes for you, too, Meriadoc Brandybuck! You'd better not be getting Pippin into mischief. Mother and Father have more than enough to worry about right now, with Pearl and everything!"

"What do you mean, Pimmie?" Pippin grabbed his sister by the sleeve.

"Never you mind!" she snapped, snatching free, but Pervinca answered for her.

"People are saying she’s the one who caused Cousin Lalia to fall!" Vinca's hand flew to her mouth as Pimpernel turned to scold her.

"Vinca!" Pimpernel turned on her younger sister, and said in a fierce hiss, "Don’t you ever think? If Mother and Father wanted Pippin to know they would tell him!" Suddenly she paled, and gulped. Now it was she who'd said too much, and she wished she could take it back the instant the words were out of her mouth.

Pippin and Merry both stared in consternation and shock, stopping short of the apartment door. Pimmie gave a great frustrated sigh, opened the door, and shoved them both gently. Vinca followed behind, chastened.

As she shut the door behind them, Pippin asked in a small frightened voice. "Are Mother and Pearl here?"

"No, they’re with the Aunties." Now, the Took children had a number of "aunties", including those who bore the title merely out of courtesy, but "*the* Aunties" meant Paladin’s two older sisters, Primrose and Peridot.

"Oh."

Merry glared at her. "The cat is out of the bag now, Pimmie. You might as well tell us what’s going on."

She sighed, as they went to flop down on one of the settees in the sitting room. "There is not that much to tell. It’s all just gossip, and no one seems to know who started it, but every time poor Pearl makes an appearance, suddenly everyone is staring at her, and whispering behind their hands…"

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"It’s really quite horrid for my poor lass," Paladin continued, as his sister and brother-in-law followed him to the Thain’s reception room. There, Ferumbras was receiving the condolences of the various family heads who had come.

"I suppose," said Esme, "that it’s only natural given the circumstances, that folk would speculate on who caused the accident--" Her voice trailed off as she saw the look on her brother’s face. "But you mean something quite different, don’t you?"

Her brother nodded. "Some of the gossip seems to insinuate that it was more than an accident."

"Who would dare such slander?" Saradoc exclaimed angrily, though he remembered to keep his voice low.

Paladin shrugged, and his pinched expression said more than words his own frustration and anger. "Cousin Ferumbras seems inclined to dismiss it, which is the important thing. The truth be told, I think he is as relieved as not that his mother is gone at last.

Saradoc and Esmeralda did not display the shock that they normally would have on hearing such a statement. No one had really liked Lalia, and in truth, most of the Tooks in the Smials would feel that way about her passing. Old Bilbo had once remarked sourly that he thought that Lalia and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins were in a competition to see which of them could be the most hated matriarch in the Shire. He had given the odds to Lobelia, he said, only because she afflicted him the most.

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"What do *we* have to do?" asked Merry.

"We have to wait here for our parents," Pimpernel answered.

Merry flicked a look at Pippin, who was beginning to get restless, fidgeting and jiggling his feet. Pimpernel knew what Merry meant by the look and caught his eye with her own. She needed a distraction for the younger ones.

"Pip, sit still!" ordered Pervinca.

"I’m not doing anything!" he protested.

"You’re jumping around like a grasshopper!"

"Am not!"

"Are so!" Pervinca sprang up angrily, her hands on her hips.

Pimpernel reached out and snagged Pervinca’s arm, jerking it to make her sit down.

Merry put an arm around Pippin’s thin shoulders. "Pip, why don’t you sing us a song?"

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Paladin, Esmeralda and Saradoc entered the Thain’s reception room. Ferumbras was comfortably seated by the fireplace, as folk came by, to speak to him and offer condolences.

Paladin noticed at once that his cousin Reggie’s wife had stationed herself behind the Thain. He did not care much for Hyacinth; she was a rather silly snob, who spoiled their three daughters shamelessly. She also hen-pecked poor Reggie dreadfully as well. He knew other hen-pecked husbands in the Shire, but most of them seemed more or less fond of their wives. Poor Reggie did not even seem to like Hyacinth any better than other folk did. Still, he remembered their wedding: Reggie had seemed to be as besotted as any groom. Paladin guessed that living with her shrewish ways day in and day out had worn the bloom off the rose.

"Cousin Paladin!"

He turned and smiled at the familiar youthful voice. "Frodo! It *is* good to see you!" He bit his tongue to keep from saying "my lad." Frodo Baggins had come of age less than ten months ago, and trying to maintain his dignity as the head of the family in spite of his youth was difficult enough.

"Aunt Esme! Uncle Sara!"

Esmeralda and Saradoc did not stand on any ceremony with their cousin. He had been their foster-son for years before old Bilbo adopted him, and they quickly enfolded him between them in a warm embrace.

"My goodness, Frodo, you do look handsome!"

Frodo blushed. He did look remarkably well, in his dark blue jacket, and the light- blue brocaded weskit. "You are as beautiful as ever, Aunt Esme!"

And now it was her turn to blush. "Flatterer!" she said with a laugh.

"Did Merry come?" he asked hopefully.

"Of course he did," replied Saradoc. "It took him only a second to realize you’d be here. Otherwise, I am sure he would have tried to find some reason to beg off."

Frodo shook his head ruefully. "I hope I’ll have some time to spend with him and with Pippin. But I am afraid it will not be as much as I would like."

"No, this business is likely to be remarkably dreary," said Paladin. He lowered his voice, though none were likely to hear in this murmuring crowd. "What makes it worse, is that no one is actually mourning her."

"No," said Frodo sadly, "I don’t think anyone feels anything but relief. That seems so sad, to be so unloved."

"She brought it on herself," snapped Esmeralda tartly. "If she had not been so greedy and grasping and unkind--"

"Esme!" Saradoc said softly.

She subsided.

"Where in all this crowd is Reggie?" asked Paladin, to change the subject.

"Over there," Frodo gestured to a group of hobbits in the far corner of the room., "as far from his wife as he can get." He shook his head. He was still young enough to appreciate his bachelorhood.

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Pippin had sung two or three songs when the door to the apartment opened and his mother entered. His face lit up, and he ran over to leap into her arms.

"Mother!"

"My Pippin!" She smiled and put him down, but not before giving him an affectionate squeeze.

"Hello, Children. Merry, where are your parents?"

"Uncle took them to pay their respects, Aunt Tina."

She nodded. "As well to get that out of the way as soon as possible."

Pippin looked up at his mother with a troubled face. "Mother, where is Pearl?"

"She’s staying with the Aunties right now, dearest." She studied his distressed expression. "What have you been told?"

His green eyes filled. "Mother, it *wasn’t* her fault, was it?"

Eglantine sat down in one of the chairs and took Pippin on her lap. "No, my dear, it was not her fault. Either the brake was not properly set, or it gave way; we are not certain which. But your sister had nothing to do with it."

Pippin looked somewhat relieved, but he was still troubled. "Then why would someone say it was her fault?"

His mother sighed and stroked the curls away from his brow. "It is a sad thing to say, Pippin, but sometimes people just want someone to blame when things go wrong. If there is no one to blame, or if they aren't sure who ought to bear the blame, then they will make guesses. And then when enough people repeat the guesses, then some people think them true."

"Oh." The young hobbit looked thoughtful. "Like last year, when some people said that Gandalf and Frodo made Cousin Bilbo go away? Because I *know* that wasn’t true!"

"Very much like that, my poppet," his mother said, injecting a bit of forced cheer into her tone, "And for very many of the same reasons."

"Well, it’s not very nice. I suppose I shall have to tell people they’re wrong if they say such things about our Pearl to me."

She gave him a hug. "Let us hope that they will have better sense than to repeat such things to her brother. But Pippin, dear, I don’t want you quarreling about this. Just pretend that you don’t hear. If you should quarrel for Pearl’s sake, it would make her very embarrassed." She glanced up and over at Merry, who had been listening very intently. "And Meriadoc, that goes for you as well. I know that you will want to protect Pearl from such gossip, but anger will not serve here."

"I understand, Aunt Tina." But from the look on his face, Eglantine knew at once he had made no promise. She sighed. Merry would have to be Saradoc’s and Esmeralda’s problem.

She put Pippin down. "Children, you need to wash and get ready to go down to supper in the main dining hall. They will be serving you young ones early, for there are a good many adult guests and they will be needing the tables and the extra room."

"Yes, Mother," said Pimpernel. She and Pervinca got up to go and change.

"Merry, is Pippin’s travelling case here?" asked Eglantine.

"No, Aunt Tina. I think it was placed in our quarters with the rest of our luggage."

"Please do me a favor, then, lad, and take Pippin to get cleaned up and changed."

"Yes, Aunt Tina" Merry turned to his younger cousin and forced a bit of enthusiasm into his tone. "Come on, Pip! Let’s go. The sooner we get ready, the sooner we eat."

The mention of food cheered Pippin immensely, and he leapt up to follow Merry.

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