1464 SR

The breeze from the river was delightfully cool and Daisy Gamgee shook her curls as she sat in the Brandy Hall herb garden, carefully making notes for Uncle Merry's book. The lazy buzzing of the bees and the twittering of birds were the only sounds to break the silence of the Afterlithe afternoon.      A shadow fell across her notebook and she glanced up.

       "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." The soft voice of the Master's second son.

       "That's alright, Frodi, you didn't."

       "Do you mind if I join you? I'd like to do some sketches of those foxgloves."

       "Not at all. It's lovely out here. Yes, they are quite spectacular, aren't they?"

       Frodoric nodded and spread an old blanket, similar to the one on which Daisy was kneeling, on the thyme and chamomile lawn. He plomped himself down and began to sort out his chalks and pastels, while the scent of thyme rose around them. For the rest of her life, Daisy never thought of this day without remembering that smell.

       "I wonder why they're called foxgloves?" she mused. "I can't imagine a fox wearing gloves, can you?"

       Frodi laughed. "Oh yes, I think I could imagine that." He drew rapidly on his sketch pad for a few minutes and then handed her the finished drawing. She gasped. He had drawn a fox standing on his hind legs and dressed like a dandy, with silk britches, a splendid plum-coloured jacket, a lilac-grey waistcoat and carrying a silver-topped cane. He held a pair of pink gloves and wore a monacle.

       "That's is wonderful! I wish I could draw properly." She admired the picture for some minutes before handing it back.

       "Keep it, Daisy. Nice to know that someone likes my 'comical efforts' as Da calls them."

       "Well keep it safe for me until we go in. It might blow away otherwise." She returned it and Frodi tucked it safely in his sketchbook.

       For some time they sat in companionable silence, Frodi drawing and Daisy checking her herb samples. She loved gardening and had always been interested in herbs. For years she had grown them at Bag End, experimenting with different conditions in the research for Uncle Merry's great work on herblore, and Merry had invited her to spend some time at Brandy Hall.

       She watched Frodi as he concentrated, sometimes examining the plants through a magnifying glass. He was a scholar like his namefather, fluent in Sindarin. He even looked a bit like Frodo, with light chestnut hair and the refined Tookish features which he had inherited from his two Took grandmothers. He had, much to his mother's relief, failed to inherit the Brandybuck nose but he had his father's twinkly grey eyes and he had also acquired Merry's artistic talent. Unlike Merry, however, he was patient and enjoyed producing botanically correct drawings and paintings of flowers and trees. His illustrations would be perfect for his father's book.

       "Have you heard from Theo lately?" she asked.

       "You know what he's like for writing letters - always too busy, always intending to do it and never quite getting round to it. Too busy Rangering I supose. It drives Mum to distraction. Yet when he does write he usually sends several long letters all at once."

       "All or nothing - sounds like a Brandybuck," Daisy said with a laugh.

       "Impatient, determined and ready to fight at the drop of a hat - isn't that what Uncle Frodo says?" Frodi said, his eyes sparkling with amusement.

        "Does he manage to write to Athelas? I doubt she'd be pleased if she had to wait weeks for a letter."

       "Even Theo isn't going to cross the lass he's about to wed. Mind you, she and Aunt Di are in a pre-wedding frenzy at the moment, and Mum's nearly as bad. Dad and Uncle Pip have suggested Mum goes to stay at the Smials and Uncle Pip and Fari can come here until the wedding, just to get away from the incessant chatter about dresses, flowers, bonnets and bottom drawers!"

       Daisy chuckled. "And I don't suppose Goldie is averse to joining in with all the wedding plans - it's not so long since she and Fari were wed."

       "I wonder why lasses are so keen on weddings," Frodi murmured. "I can't see what all the excitement is about."

       "Look at that cat." Daisy pointed to where a rather fat tortoiseshell and white cat was rolling ecstatically in the catmint.

       Frodi squinted. "That's Pansy - she looks very happy but won't the plants be squashed?"

       Daisy shook her head. "No, it'll bounce back. We have a big patch at Bag End because Da and Uncle Fro like to see the cats happy. It never seems to suffer from all the attention."

       "Aren't the Bag End cats descended from the ones here?"

       "Yes. The kittens were born just before Uncle Fro's parents died. I think the mother's name was Petunia. She was a tortie and white too."

       "There's always a Petunia at the Hall - it's a sort of tradition. I think the first cat in Buckland to approach Gorhendad Oldbuck was named Petunia and there's been one ever since. The current one was sprawled on top of the wall in the rose garden when I came out."

       "All the Bag End cats are orange - although we had Sooty at one time and we've had a couple of grey tabbies too. Toffee is our current one - he's about three years old now and such a good-natured old silly. Dear old Rufus lived to be over twenty - he was so clever and knew everything we said to him. Then there was Custard, who loved food more than anything."

       "Some folk say cats aren't as clever as dogs but I think they're just as smart - they just don't do what they're told. Dogs want to please but cats do what they want, when they want to do it. I admire that."

       Daisy wondered if he admired that in a lass too and thought that he probably did. Frodi had resisted the attentions of some of the most empty-headed lasses in Buckland and the Shire since he was twenty.

       While Daisy had been watching Frodi, the young lad had been observing her. He noted her tip-tilted nose with its sprinkling of freckles, and her curls, neither brown nor blonde but a strange and ever-changing mixture of the two. Her hazel-green eyes were fringed with lashes which seemed to have been sprinkled with pollen - or gold dust. She was quite an unusual lass, the Mayor's fourth daughter.

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       Merry looked in on his younger son on his way to his own room. He missed Theo charging about the place. It was strange when hhis eldest son was away, and when he returned in a few weeks he would have only two weeks as a batchelor before they all went to the Smials for his wedding to Pip's daughter Athelas. They were all growing up so quickly, Merry thought ruefully.

       Frodoric was much quieter than his brother. He was a studious lad whose nose was hardly ever out of a book. He was asleep, his book lying open and face down on the counterpane. Merry smiled to himself and turned out the lamp above the bed. As he turned to leave he noticed the sketchbook on the chest of drawers, and the little caricature of the fox propped up against the wall behind it. Daisy had forgotten to take it and Frodi had set it aside to give to her in the morning.

       Merry flipped through the drawings, marvelling at their accuracy and perfection. Each part of the plant was named and shown, often enlarged to show the tiny stamens. The last picture showed the foxgloves in all their glory, bees bumbling in and out of the bells. Smiling through the blossoms was a pretty hobbit lass with curls not quite brown and not quite blonde, and lashes which seemed to have been brushed with gold dust.

       The Master tip-toed out of the room and closed the door. He wore a very large smirk. What was Sam Gamgee going to think?