Chapter 5 - The Colour of Rain

She returned to Great Smials the secret way, along farm trails and overgrown paths to the hidden door at the edge of the Green Hills.  It led to a tunnel that came up into damp, disused smials under the pantry.  The entrance was well hidden from either end and none were supposed to know of it save the Thain and his agents.  Pearl wasn't sure if the Thain did know of its existence, but she knew Lalia did.  Her people used it often.

In the hollow under the stairs, she donned her blue dress and folded the carefully patched trousers and shirt before tucking them into a fold of her cloak.  With luck, no one who saw her would notice that she wore the same gown she had the day before.  With even greater luck, she would make it to her small chamber in the Thain's apartments without being seen at all.  Word would reach Tuckborough of Frodo Baggins' late night visitor soon enough.  She wanted rest and to nurse her wounded heart before she had to face the tumult that would soon ensue. 

Lalia, who kept a close eye on comings and goings in her realm, was likely already aware of her absence and would be watching for her return.  She would be furious, no doubt.  If Pearl had been in better spirits, she might have enjoyed watching her mistress sputter with rage.  Lalia had always placed particular value on Pearl's virtue and, until now, Pearl had given her mistress no reason to think it at risk, being singularly disinterested and disdainful of Tuckborough’s lads.  But last night had changed all that.  The dame would keep a much more vigilant guard on her from now on. 

When the voices in the room above faded into distance, she climbed the musty stair.  No one was in sight, but the chatter of a sunny breakfast spilled into the hall from a nearby dining room.  To the right lay the banquet hall.  The passage leading to it was dark.  Folk whose rooms opened onto that corridor were either still sleeping or at breakfast already. 

She darted into the shadows and made her way to the Thain's back stair.  Pearl's little room was the first one on the windowless side of the main corridor.  Deep in the centre of the smial and directly above the arch of the great banquet hall's roof, it was her only sanctuary at Great Smials.  But even there she couldn’t be completely unguarded.  Sound travelled almost as well as gossip in a crowded warren such as Great Smials as many years of Clayhanger mockery had warned her.  She'd since learned how to weep in silence. 

She had proven herself a fool before, but never quite so eloquently as she had this night.  Seven years.  Perhaps some part of her had known that having so much faith in any hobbit was folly, but she had waited, hoped and endured because he had asked her to.  Looking upon his coming of age as her salvation had kept some spark of her old self alive, but after seven years, especially these last seven years, how could she have been so gullible? 

She came to the top of the stair and rounded the corner silently.  No one was in this hall either.  She crept down the corridor and eased open her door.  It was dark inside her room.  She slipped quickly in. 

Pearl loved the dark.  Hobbits are generally at ease in the underground, but Pearl was so habituated to the blackness that she rarely used a candle in her inner room.  Darkness was her only remaining friend at Great Smials, the only one left she could trust with her secrets and her sorrows.  She let it flow around her like a familiar embrace, but this time, rather than filling her with its cold comfort, it wavered and fretted, as if disturbed by a single shuttered candle… 

Pearl stilled.  She was there, waiting.  The need to weep that had seemed overwhelming a moment before was shunted aside in an instant.  Pearl's guard snapped into place with a swiftness that would have impressed a seasoned warrior. 

"My Lady?" Pearl asked, her voice pitched to the softly cultured tone her mistress had taught her and perfectly under control.

A candle shade was lifted and a pool of yellow light spilled onto the night table. 

"A late evening," the dame snapped.  Lalia Clayhanger Took emerged from the waiting dark like some kind of venomous spider.  Great wooden wheels creaked as she rolled forward.  Lalia was so large that her legs could no longer support her bulk and she had taken to being pushed around in the chair that her late husband, Fortinbras,had used near the end of his life.  It took up most of the floor space in Pearl's tiny room.  Behind it stood Lalia’s diminutive footman and frequent companion, Bart Clayhanger, his cold, black eyes glittering beneath heavy lids. 

"Or an early morning." 

Lalia dismissed Pearl’s suggestion with a derisive snort.  "Dressed like that?" she asked.

If fighting men fought with sword and spear, Pearl Took had learned to do battle with words.  Though her combat was bloodless, it was just as fierce. 

"You were settled for the evening."  She straightened defiantly.  "And Peony was across the hall.  I had thought my duties well discharged."  Her perfect emotionless mask betrayed none of her inner tumult, but she knew better than to lie outright to Lalia.  "Or has a Took no right to visit family?"  He was a cousin after all.

"Took," Lalia hissed.  "You use that name as a slight, as if I cared that I was not born of this house."  The old dame rocked her great bulk in agitation.  "I am just as much mistress of it, am I not?"

Pearl did not rise to the goad.  Lalia both loved and hated the great family, but it would always rankle her that she was not born one of them.  The point was Pearl's. 

"Where were you?" Lalia growled, returning to the matter at hand.  "You were seen leaving before dusk and did not return till this morning.  I could scarcely believe my ears when I heard of it.  You might be known for your temperance, but do you think you can spend your evenings abroad, unattended and not risk your reputation?  Let alone your virtue!"

Despite her control, Pearl felt daggers of cold anger rise in her belly.  "Is it not MY virtue to risk, my lady?"

"Whoa ho!" Lalia waved Bart to light another candle.  "Well, now.  It seems we've touched on something, haven't we, my girl?"  She studied Pearl in the brighter light, her eyes glittering intently. 

“It’s rare that someone pulls the wool over my eyes, but I begin to think you might have managed it.  Have you finally been trying out your femininely wiles?” said Lalia.  Pearl knew it was not a question that required her answer.  “Very interesting," the dame murmured.  "Though you hide it well, I sense mortification rather than triumph in you.  Perhaps the evening did not go as planned?”  Pearl looked away to avoid her mistress’s gaze.  A heavy silence grew between them.  At last, Lalia spoke again.  “Not like you thought it would be, was it?” she said sounding strangely distant and almost sympathetic.  “Nothing like it is in those silly stories ladies tell across the quilt*?" 

Pearl shivered under the dame's assiduous and piercing inspection.  Lalia might have been old and fat, but she was as cunning as a fox.  And, as much as Pearl hated knowing it, Lalia did understand her.  They were, in fact, so frighteningly alike that it was almost as if the older hobbitess could read Pearl's thoughts.  Almost.

"Be that as it may,” Lalia continued, "while you are in my charge, your virtue IS my concern.  Your parents entrusted you to me and I take that responsibility very seriously."

"Virtue," Pearl muttered.  "I'm damned sick of virtue."  She met her mistress' eye again.  "I am twenty-six years of age.  Isn't it time I got something from this 'virtue' everyone seems to value so highly?  You were courted at my age, weren’t you?"

Lalia's eyes narrowed in thought.  "I wasn’t as young as you are and when I married it was to keep a roof over my head.  You have no such worries.”  She sat back in her chair and laced her fat fingers together over her ample belly.  “My, this is an unexpected change.  I'd never have thought my prudent Pearl to become so suddenly interested in the lads.  And yet, for all your talk, I suspect you still remain… untouched?"  The smile that crept across the older lady's face made Pearl's blood boil, but she reined her fury back with an effort.  Lalia laughed.  "My, my.  Things did not go as planned, did they?"

"I'm very tired, my lady.  May I rest?"

The old dame continued to study her for several more minutes.  "Of course, child," she answered.  "Far be it from me to keep you from your rest.  But, as you no doubt expect, I will require you to spend your nights here from now on.  With the door locked, if necessary."

"May I not even visit my family?"

"Your family?"  Lalia's voice took on a sadder, almost caring tone.  "Take care, child.  I now know what you were trying to do.  You think your virtue is all that I value, so you would throw it away to spite me."  Lalia shook her head.  "You misjudge me, Pearl.  In my own way, I care for you deeply and, unlike your family, I appreciate the sacrifice you have made.  My concern is for you.  This isn't a game you are dabbling in.  Reputation is the only thing one can possess that is truly one’s own.  If you continue on this path, you may one day ‘succeed’, but your fortunes will be inescapably damaged if you do."

"You taught me to be most careful, my lady."

"I didn't teach you how not to get yourself with child,” she snapped, leaning forward and wagging a finger at the girl.  “I didn't think it necessary yet!  You've always been such a good girl, so quick and clever…"  She again peered into Pearl's face as if trying to delve the events of the evening from it.  "Perhaps it is time for those lessons," she sighed sounding genuinely sad, and then she sat back and rearranged herself in the chair.  "Until that time, you must be in this room after ten o’clock each evening.  Do I make myself clear?"

Pearl didn't answer.

"I have ways of assuring your obedience in this, girl.  Mark me."

"I am tired, Lalia.  May I please rest?"

Silence again filled the space between them. 

"Of course, child.”  The dame finally answered.  “Have your rest.  Bart will see to me today.  Take your ease for as long as you need."

Pearl made no reaction.  Even if her mistress knew this reprieve was welcome, Pearl refused to show her how much.  She stepped away and held the door for Bart to push the great lady's rolling chair through. 

"Sleep well," Lalia called over her shoulder.

Pearl slowly eased the door shut.  The sound of her mistress’s progress faded into distance.  She moved toward the bed and, with bare fingers, snuffed out the candles Lalia had left. 

The tears she had wanted so desperately to shed wouldn't come.  She felt detached and numb, as if observing the wreck she had made of her life from somewhere beyond it.  In the restored sanctuary of darkness, she stood, removed her cloak and began undoing the laces of the fine dress.  Her motions were mechanical, automatic, detached. 

A curfew was no hardship on her.  She had expected it.  There had only ever been one place she had needed to be able to go on her own.  And now… 

The laces came undone and she pulled the garment down her arms.

What had she truly expected of him?  She'd thrown herself at him shamelessly when she was nineteen, but had not been really able to speak with him since.  And yet, she had dreamed of him welcoming her with open arms so often that she had almost come to believe that he would.  The costly dress slumped into an unheeded mound at her feet.  What a fool she was.  A gullible, desperate, idiotic fool. 

She let out a long, trembling breath into the silence.  This agony was her own doing.  She could no more fault Frodo for it than she could blame her disastrous apprenticeship on Lalia.  The great lady had promised to teach her the ways of Great Smials and she had done exactly that.  Quite well, in fact.  It was pigheaded stubbornness and a need to be loved that had caused her to view Lalia as she had - as someone who really cared for her, as a friend, or even daughter - as Pearl had wanted to see her and not as she truly was.  A tear fell from her eye at last and slid down her flushed cheek.  Lalia wasn’t even motherly toward the Thain.  Pearl stepped back and picked up the dress. 

Lalia's favour was a fickle thing.  It was given grudgingly, if at all, and only where it could be used to her advantage.  Pearl had served the Thain's mother for months before she’d finally been able to face that truth.  And now that stubbornness and desperation had caused her to make the same kind of mistake with Frodo Baggins.  She had created a champion of him, one who would save her if she could but endure until he came of age, but unlike Lalia, his reality had not been there to shatter the image desperation had created. 

But she remembered a bright spring day when her dreams had not seemed so impossible.  The feel of his kiss had been burned into her mind and heart.  The touch of his hand, the warmth of his skin, the hungry purpose with which he moved; nothing had ever felt so magical or perfect or so utterly right.  She had built a fortress on that memory and it had protected her spirit for many years.  Pearl stroked the cooling silk, heedless of the tears that now streamed silently down her face.  Even if such protection had been built on hope alone, it had been a way to escape Lalia. 

The old dame kept an iron grip on all those who surrounded her.  She had a talent for reaching inside of people, even those who did not share her jealous temperament, and wringing truth from them, controlling them with their deepest desires and fears.  Pearl’s love for Frodo had kept her strong because it was secret, a truth Lalia couldn't know and so could never use against her or take away.

But Frodo himself could take it with one dreadful 'I'm sorry'.

The sobs escaped before Pearl could control them.  She crammed tear stained silk into her mouth and bit down hard. 

Why did she go to Hobbiton?  It had been a month since his coming of age and, other than a perfunctory appointment that Lalia had prevented her from keeping, he had not attempted to call on her again.  Even had they more than a one sided promise between them, any lass with sense would have understood what his lack of notice meant.  But Pearl was a fool and had to have the truth battered into her.  He didn't love her.  He never had.  She had founded her hope on a construct of lies and had saved herself for a love that would never be. 

Sobs kept coming, racking her body, but barely a whimper emerged from her mouth.  She stumbled back onto the bed and buried her torment into the silky fabric.  Lalia could not know her pain.  She would use it to torment her.  Pearl gripped the blue silk till her knuckles turned white.

He didn't love her.  The truth was inescapable.  At least it hadn’t taken months for her to begin to understand it.  But despite the pain of that realization, she could not find it in her heart to hate him.  He had never promised her anything in return for her vow.  He had behaved as a gentlehobbit, nothing more, protecting her virtue when she had been too dim to know it was in danger.  She released the dress and drew in another trembling breath.  Frodo had kissed her out of kindness, nothing more.  This heartache was her doing not his. 

She curled up, exhausted and pitiful, on her bed.  She had used him selfishly, putting his face and his name on a paragon that no hobbit could live up to.  It was no wonder she had fallen in love with it.  But no matter how desperate her need, that alone could not make dreams into reality.  Reality was a flesh and blood gentlehobbit with his own mind and heart.  He was not her fantasy and he did not love her.

The trouble was that the reality of him was even better than her fantasy had painted him.  Memory had not recalled the velvet clarity of his voice, or the heady feel of his arms holding her body.  At their cousin's eleventy-first birthday, she had drunk in the sight of his elegantly noble face, the soft, mahogany brown curls, and eyes so clear and bright in the sunlight, they shone as if they glowed, but last evening, his scent, native and intimate, had bound her heart as surely as that springtime kiss so long ago; tobacco and leather, books and something indefinable and mysterious.  It lingered in her memory like a sweet and forbidden song. 

But it did not matter.  Even if her pain was the bitterest pill she had ever had to swallow and despite the fact that she knew he did not love her, she could not change the cruellest reality of all; she was completely and hopelessly in love with him.

TBC