This story references events in “Moon Over Tookland”, “Pimpernel, Pervinca and Pearl’s Perfectly Plotted Prank” and “What Goes Around”, and serves as a prequel of sorts to “The Trouble with Love”, but it will not be necessary to have read those to understand anything that happens here.

Written for Marigold’s Tale Challenge #44: “The moral of the story is…” My moral was “The empty vessel makes the most noise.”

Much Ado About Nothing

Wedmath 1415 SR
Cedric and Pimpernel are 36, Everard 35, Aidan 33, Ferdibrand 32, Mora 31, Pervinca 30, and Pippin 25 (or 23, 22, 21, 20, 20, 19 and 16 in Man years)

  
 
Part I

On the top of a little hill about a quarter-mile from Great Smials could be found four friends of the prosperous Took family. They were reasonably sensible lads during the best of times, but too much time on their hands combined with the unrelenting heat wave of late summer could cause even the most level-headed of young hobbit lads to find practicality in the most inane of pastimes, and these friends were no exception.

They were all cousins to one degree or another and they had grown up together since they were bairns crying in their cots. Their leader, and the eldest, was Cedric Briarmoore. Cedric was a real tease with the lasses, and if rumors were to be believed, he did far more with them than just tease. His second-in-command – and some would say the true leader – was Everard Took. There was no one better than Everard at hatching schemes and seeing them through to their usually successful ends. Everard and Cedric didn’t always see eye to eye on things, but their daring was perfectly matched. Rounding out the group were Ferdibrand Took, Everard’s closest friend, and Aidan Chubb, two very agreeable lads whose laidback manners often kept their more hot-headed companions from going too far with their antics. ‘Often’, sadly, did not equate to ‘always’.

On this particular day, the four friends were clustered together under the shade, vainly attempting to get away from the sweltering heat. They soon realized that this plan was not going as well as they had hoped.

“It’s hot,” Everard declared, quite unnecessarily after an hour of sweaty torment. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand and wiped his hand on his trousers, his shirtsleeves and handkerchiefs now being too grimy with dried sweat to be of any use. He frowned down at his favorite shirt and wondered what he had been thinking when he put it on that morning.

“It’s very hot,” Ferdibrand agreed, rolling up his shirtsleeves for the tenth time with frustrated little jerks. He was close to yanking his shirt off entirely, but considering that he would look like a wet noodle if he did so, especially whilst in the company of his more robust companions, he resisted the temptation.

“It’s too hot,” Cedric joined in. He had all of his Took mother’s wiliness, but none of her looks, taking instead after his brawly Northfarthing father, much to the delight of the lasses all over Tookland. However, the muggy heat was proving disastrous to his usually handsome visage. He ran his fingers through his russet curls, but they remained stubbornly lank and limp, drooping around his chiseled yet clammy face like so many wilting flowers in a vase. He sighed, defeated: the lasses wouldn’t look at him twice with his hair in such a pathetic state.

“It’s abominably hot,” Aidan backed them up, just in case anyone was of the mind that he refuted this fact. He lifted the water bottle to his lips only to find it empty. He tossed it to the ground and looked around, as though he hoped to magically find a source of cool, refreshing water nearby. The only thing he saw was a rock baking in the sun on an adjacent hill, and he imagined he could even see the heat rising up from the rock’s flat surface. “This must be what the inside of an oven feels like.”

“I pity bread and all things that bake inside ovens,” Ferdibrand said.

“Only the things that bake?” Everard asked.

Ferdibrand considered the question for a minute before amending, “Broiling can’t be much fun either. Nor frying, for that matter.”

“I bet we could fry an egg on that rock over there,” Aidan suggested.

“You think so?” Cedric asked, his interest peaked. He nudged Aidan on the shoulder. “Go get an egg then and we’ll find out.”

“Me?” Aidan asked, suddenly unenthused by the experiment.

“It was your idea,” Everard pointed out.

“But that would involve going into the sun again,” Aidan said, forgetting for the moment that the shade was hardly any cooler.

“Actually,” Ferdibrand said with an ominous voice, “I just remembered hearing a story about a lad over in Tookbank who tried to fry an egg on a rock once.”

“And?” the others asked.

“It worked. The egg fried almost instantly, but then it caught fire and exploded. A piece of the yolk burned itself into his eye and to this day, the healers can’t get it out,” Ferdibrand elaborated with much gusto.

“What?” Aidan asked in disbelief as the other two barked with laughter. “That wouldn’t happen.”

“It’s true,” Ferdibrand said. “It really happened.”

“Then how it is none of us ever heard of this before?” Aidan shook his head. “I never heard of an egg exploding, much less of some poor lad walking around with a yolk for an eye. Who told you this story?”

Ferdibrand thought hard, as it had been a good many months since he first heard this cautionary tale of curious lads and poultry products. “Pippin,” he finally answered.

Now Aidan joined in the laughter, and soon the three friends were lying upon the ground with tears of mirth running down their faces and stitches forming in their sides. Ferdibrand, not understanding what the joke was, waited patiently until his friends were coherent again. When they were finally able to reduce their laughter to the occasional snicker, Everard sat up and choked out, “And you believed him? Ferdi, he’s even more gullible than you are.”

“And I bet I can tell you who fed him that piece of nonsense,” Cedric said with certainty.

“Merry Brandybuck?” Ferdibrand wagered. “What would he know of anything happening in Tookbank, real or not?”

“Absolutely nothing. No, this culprit is much more devious and diabolical than good ole Merry. In fact, even Merry doesn’t dare cross paths with this schemer,” Cedric said.

“Who then?”

Everard and Cedric met eyes and winked knowingly. “Pervinca,” they said.

Pervinca Took was a foil to all lads living in and around Great Smials. She wasn’t a typical lass. Sweet and complying, eager to please, prim and proper would not be the words that came to a lad’s mind when he thought of Pervinca Took. Cold and calculating, shrewd and shrewish, an insufferable know-it-all, immune to the charms and flirtations of lads everywhere, she was every chap’s worst nightmare: an uncompromising lass. Her determination to reduce unsuspecting lads to a nervous bundle of tears or a hollow shell of his formerly-confident self was known far and wide, and there wasn’t a lad within a ten-mile radius who knew what it meant to be targeted by her wrath. She has outsmarted, out-pranked, and outdone every lad who has ever had the nerve (or idiocy) to go up against her. Every lad, that is, except one.

He never talked about it overly much, but they all knew that Everard had once waged his own private war against Pervinca, a war of wills and imaginative pranks and just plain luck. He had never sought his friends’ help, but he had always briefed them once the dust from the latest engagement settled. The war had lasted many long years, spanning through most of his teens and tweens, and involved many inspired feats, such as putting a grass snake in Pervinca’s bed to get back at her for pouring sugar over him while he dozed in the afternoon sun, so that he woke up covered in ants and melted sugar. They also enjoyed the tale they called Blue Teeth, No Hair, in which Pervinca had managed to put food dye on the rim of Everard’s teacup, turning his lips and teeth blue. Everard had retaliated by putting glue in Pervinca’s shampoo bottle, so that she lost much of her luxurious, voluminous curls attempting to comb it out. She had repaid them all well for that, biding her time over the following year until the perfect opportunity presented itself, and in this her true genius shined through. She had merely to plant the seed, and the others had fed it on their own. The next thing they knew, Everard, Ferdibrand and even poor unsuspecting Pippin, who had nothing to do with anything except being in the wrong place at the wrong time, found themselves mooning The Aunts whilst in a drunken stupor at the Harvest Moon dance, a spectacle of which they were still reminded every year come Harvest time.

As eventful and inspired as their war often was, there had also been various truces and stalemates over its unpredictable course, coming usually, though certainly not always, when one or the other needed something. In this way, they had come to hold the record of the fastest three-legged race in the Free Fair’s history. Everard’s friends had quickly come to realize that his war with Pervinca had been ruled by laws they could not comprehend. There had been a rhyme and reason to it that only the participants understood, so that they could be at each other’s throats one day, and happily ignoring each other or even getting along like old friends the next.

Everard claimed it was the onset of adulthood that had caused him to raise the banner of truce and leave it up these last two years. Certainly, coming-of-age had a maturing effect on him that none of them could have predicted, least of all Cedric, who seemed determined to hold onto his tweens for as long as he could. While Pervinca was still three years from her majority, everyone knew that lasses matured faster than lads and she was more than happy to leave the old pranks behind. Yet the newfound tranquility between the life-long foes was a deceptive one at best. Both Everard and Pervinca were competitive by nature and it seemed to his friends that their war had simply evolved from pranks to debates. Considering all that he had lived through, it was no wonder that Everard was considered as something of a hero amongst the lads of Tookland.

Now Cedric turned a calculating eye on his friend, a plan quickly forming in his mind. Everard’s intimate knowledge of Pervinca’s strengths and weaknesses would prove indispensable, and since Everard was his ally, he would have to disclose any information he had of their common foe. This was, after all, for the greater good of all lads everywhere.

Cedric slapped the ground with his hand and stood up to give more emphasis to his words. “My good lads,” he began in his most commanding and inspiring voice, “I for one am tired of tiptoeing through Great Smials in fear of rounding a corner to find Pervinca breathing down my neck. … Although, that really would depend on the manner of her breathing.”

“What’s your point, Ced?” Everard asked.

“It’s time for Vinca to be put in her place,” Cedric announced, “and we’re the chaps who are going to do it.”

Everard, Ferdibrand and Aidan exchanged doubtful glances. They looked up at their leader with a growing sense of alarm, wariness and foreboding as they slowly began to realize that he was actually being serious. In the half-minute it had taken Cedric to pinpoint the culprit of the frying egg tale, he had pieced together some nefarious plan that he believed would forever liberate the lads of Great Smials from their fear of the notorious Pervinca Took.

Everard wasn’t so sure, but it took the silent urging of Ferdibrand and Aidan for him to speak. “Are we now? I wasn’t aware that Vinca had lost her footing,” he said.

“Come off it, Everard,” Cedric said. “You hate her just as much as I do.”

“I don’t hate her,” Everard refuted.

“Fine, you don’t hate her, but you can’t deny how impossible she is, going on and on about anything and everything that pops into her head, whether she knows what she’s talking about or not. You know that better than anyone,” Cedric persisted. “It’s the empty vessel that makes the most noise and she’s the loudest one of all.”

“I guess,” Everard replied.

“Then you’ll further agree that something has to be done to silence her,” Cedric continued with absolute confidence.

“Is this because she wouldn’t agree to court you?” Everard teased.

They had all been surprised when Cedric had not only asked Pervinca to the Spring Fest but had been truly upset when she turned him down. He had carried a grudge ever since, as he had been convinced that there was no conceivable way she would say no. After all, none of the other lasses had ever denied him the pleasure of their company, and he was always certain to tell his friends just how pleasurable that company had been. His most enjoyable courtship thus far had been with Mora Took, one of old Isembold’s many descendants, who could do things with her tongue that were to be marveled at, or so he claimed.

“I would never court that shrew,” Cedric retorted heatedly, in vagrant denial of the truth, “especially not when I can have my pick of any lass I set my eyes on.”

“Except Pervinca,” Everard amended, but Cedric ignored this.

“We have been living too long in fear, my friends,” Cedric began anew, pacing back and forth on the edge of the shade. “To have our freedom, our right, to be boisterous and frolicsome held hostage by one lass is a crime too grievous to allow it to continue any longer. We cannot rely on the help of the Thain and Took in this matter, since the culprit is his own daughter and in his eyes, she can do no wrong. No, it is up to us to liberate our fellows from this She-wolf of the Smials.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Aidan asked.

“The simplest approach is often the best one,” Cedric informed them knowledgably. “Therefore, I propose that we gather the bravest of our fellows behind the stables and lure Pervinca there. Once we have her surrounded, we will simply inform her that we will not be intimidated by her anymore and make her admit to her crimes against us and promise to be submissive to us from here on out.”

Stunned silence followed this proposal as the others attempted to understand why Cedric thought this was a good idea. The moments stretched into minutes but this did not sway Cedric in his conviction. He was standing before them, bouncing on his feet with a smug, all-knowing smirk, and he was looking down at them with eager anticipation, absolutely certain they would all come to the conclusion that he was right. Again, Everard, Ferdibrand and Aidan exchanged skeptical glances. Ferdibrand gave the smallest of shrugs.

“And how do you propose we do that?” Aidan queried again.

This was the question Cedric had clearly been waiting for. He bounced on his feet with extra zest and curled his fingers around the inner edge of his waistcoat as old Thain Ferumbras used to do when making his celebratory speeches at banquets. “First, we’ll have to gather data and determine the location and condition of our mark. Second, we’ll need to decide on the course of action that has the best success ratio of getting Pervinca where we want her. Third, we put our plan into motion and await the triumphant results,” he informed them with a nod of finality.

“And we’re going to do all this before supper?” Everard asked.

Cedric shrugged carelessly. “I don’t see why not.”

“We best get started then,” Everard said, and with him onboard, the others fell into line.    

Just a short distance away in the marketplace of Tuckborough was a little fabric shop, its walls and tables clustered with fat, round bolts displaying a rainbow of fabrics. Customers bustled in and out all day, taking various bolts outside to see the fabric in the full light of day, or discussing and comparing in pairs or groups the quality and prints of the cloth.

Pimpernel and Pervinca entered the shop in a gust of warm air, but they were too deep in speculation to notice the complaints aimed in their direction when they didn’t shut the door right away.

“Where do you think they’re going to send us?” Pimpernel wondered with a somewhat dreamy air. She had spent much of the day, indeed most of the last six months since she accepted Fendon Burrows’s proposal, in a near constant state of wonder and awe, mixed occasionally with nervous excitement. She breezed through the shop to the table filled with bolts of yellows, leaving Pervinca to trail along behind her with plodding steps.

“I don’t know, Nell, and you have no hope of finding out until the day,” Pervinca repeated for what was easily the fifth time since leaving their mother and Mistress Burrows in the teahouse two minutes ago. “There’s at least a dozen smials to choose from. Maybe they’ll send you to the same one they sent Pearl.”

“Wherever they send us, I hope it’s not too far away,” Pimpernel said, instantly beginning to shuffle through the disorganized rows of bolts. “I don’t know if I could spend a whole month away from home.”

“You could do what the working-hobbits do: spend a week at an inn somewhere, but then you’ll have to worry about a gaggle of pranksters finding you to ruin your first night of passion,” Pervinca said, reaching her sister at last and watching her work her way through the bolts. Pimpernel paused only long enough to favor her sister with a trying look but Pervinca did not relent. “That’s what they do. One of the sempstresses told me. On her wedding night, a group of tweens followed their wagon to the inn where they were staying and waited outside until the lights in their room went out, then they started making all sorts of racket, hooting and hollering and making lewd noises for hours. Then in the morning, when they came out of their room, the tweens and all the patrons of the inn were waiting in the common room to give them equally kind and polite morning-after greetings.”

“That’s awful!” Pimpernel exclaimed with horror.

Pervinca only shrugged. “She said she couldn’t complain really. She’d done the same thing to all her older cousins when she was a tween.”

“Well, Mum and Mistress Burrows won’t let that happen to Fendon and me,” Pimpernel said with confidence.

She was, of course, correct. Only the most affluent families could afford to give their children a true honeymoon, sending the newlyweds to an undisclosed location where they could spend their first month of marriage in absolute privacy, so that they could truly get to know each other and learn how to live together without all the pressures and prying eyes of their families upon them. There were various secluded smials tucked into the hillsides all about Tookland that served just this purpose, and only The Took’s Lady knew where they were all located. She alone was responsible for reserving the smials, and in this way it was ensured that the smials’ locations were relatively secret and that no one need worry about arriving for their honeymoon and finding another couple already there. Luckily for Pimpernel, her mother was The Took’s Lady, so that meant one less person who would know where she and Fendon would be staying.

Once The Took’s Lady decided on a location, after having received all the necessary information and been informed of the couples’ wishes (which were usually for the smial to be somewhere far enough away that they won’t have to worry about trespassers but still close enough that they could visit their families or go into market when they needed to) she would then take the mothers of the couple to the chosen smial. It was then the mothers’ job to stock the smial with food and prepare it to greet the new couple on their first night together. The only other person who knew of the smial’s location would naturally be the coachhobbit driving the carriage and he was paid very handsomely to keep his mouth shut.

“So you’re set on a cream-colored dress?” Pervinca asked, still standing back and watching her sister make her way through the various fabrics. “The wedding will be at Yule, and blue is so much better for your complexion. I think a soft powder blue or periwinkle would be better for you than a cream.”

“Fendon will be wearing a deep violet for the breeches and jacket, fern green for the waistcoat and cream for the shirt and scarf. My dress will need to be cream, it’s only proper. You’ll also need to work in some deep violet as well,” Pimpernel said.

“But why cream?” Pervinca pressed. “Can’t his shirt be periwinkle?”

“Because Fendon likes that color,” Pimpernel answered.

“Fendon likes it?” Pervinca repeated. “So everything you do from here on out is going to be because he likes it or he wants it?”

“The wedding corset is also cream, Vinca,” Pimpernel responded as calmly as she could. After thirty-two years, she knew better than to get into an argument with her sister when she was in a combative mood.

“So? Any color you wear will conceal the corset. No one’s going to see that except Fendon, and then he’ll get what he wants anyway,” Pervinca pointed out, somewhat lewd herself.

Pimpernel stifled a sigh before turning to her sister. “If you’ve changed your mind about making the dress, just say so Vinca, and I’ll find another sempstress.”

“I want to make it,” Pervinca insisted.

“Then stop arguing with me. Don’t you know the bride is always right?” Pimpernel said with a teasing smile. “Now help me. I was thinking cotton for the underskirt, and silk for the dress.”

Conversation lulled and for the next ten minutes they sorted through the bolts on the tables and walls and tucked into the cubbyholes of the booths. Most they dismissed on sight or upon testing the texture of the material. Others they put aside to compare later, but none of the fabrics caught Pimpernel’s eye until she made her way to the other side of the table.

“Vinca!” Pimpernel called triumphantly, shocking the nearby customers and making Pervinca jump. Pimpernel held up a bolt of woven plaid of moss green and champagne. “What do you think of this? It’s lovely!”

Pervinca ran her hand lightly along the material and gave it her fair if brutal appraisal. “It’s good material, and the colors blend well, but it’s not meant for a dress. Besides, it’s far too thin. You’ll be blue in the face and shivering by the time you even reach the front of the aisle – not a very appealing sight for your prospective groom.”

Pimpernel raised her eyebrows.

“What? You’re the one concerned about what he wants,” Pervinca pointed out.

“So you think it’s too light?” Pimpernel said, wisely ignoring her sister's more scathing remarks to finger the bold lines with longing. “Perhaps we can use this for my wedding handkerchief?”

“I doubt they’d cut us just a block of this,” Pervinca said. “We can get a couple of yards and I can save the rest for something else, that is, if you don’t fall in love with another fabric first.” She put the bolt back in its cubbyhole and looked around some more.

“I’m not so fickle as all that, sister,” Pimpernel replied lightly.

“We’ll see,” Pervinca said. “Besides, it’s quite busy for a handkerchief. It might distract Fendon from saying his vows.”

Pimpernel sighed. “Vinca,” she started.

“Nell,” Pervinca cut in, softening her tone. “I’m just thinking of what’s best for you, love. Unfortunately, you insist on getting married anyway.”

“You’re too harsh in your opinion of lads,” Pimpernel said, despite her earlier conviction that she would hold her tongue. Now it was Pervinca’s turn to raise her eyebrows. “You are,” Pimpernel continued. “Not all lads are mongrels, and the ones who are eventually grow out of it. They’re really very sweet when it comes right down to it. If you want to know the truth, I think they’re even more vulnerable than we lasses are. You should have seen how nervous Fendon was when he proposed. We’ve been courting for years, and he knew how I love him, but even so he was terrified I’d say no. I think he cried nearly as much as I did when I accepted.”

“He must be the exception then,” Pervinca said, not swayed in the slightest by this heartfelt argument. She turned her attention back to the fabric and selected a silk chiffon the color of fresh buttermilk that made Pimpernel all but swoon. “I was thinking of doing a pimpernel motif, especially since Fendon’s colors are going to be green and purple. Blue pimpernel is close to deep violet. I was going to have the stems of the flowers growing up out of the hem of the dress and climbing into to the blossoms halfway up the skirt.”

“That would be lovely!” Pimpernel exclaimed. “Fancy, but not overly so, which is ideal. I’ll be able to wear it for other occasions.”

“I know,” Pervinca replied with pride. “It would look much better on a periwinkle though.”

“It will look just as lovely on this, I’m sure,” Pimpernel said, taking the bolt from her sister to hug it to herself. She carried it over to the shop owner and plopped it on the counter. “Seven yards please.”

“We still need material for the underskirt, and a sash for your waist would be ideal, I think,” Pervinca said, still standing amongst the tables and booths. “White would be best for the underskirt; the cream is so light that anything else will just bleed through. We should get deep violet for the sash, and perhaps periwinkle for the handkerchief. I saw a linen sprigged with pimpernels the last time I was here. That’s what got me thinking of trying it on the dress.”

“But I do like the champagne-and-green plaid for the handkerchief. Fendon will just love that,” Pimpernel said.

“Who cares what he loves,” Pervinca replied crisply.

Pimpernel eyed her younger sister with exasperation. “I care. I am going to marry him come Yule. And might I add that one of the things he loves is me.”

“Oh good, I do so love it when you two get along so nicely,” Eglantine greeted them as she entered the little shop, making the sisters jump with surprise. Only then did they notice that every other shopper in the store was watching them with much amusement. They had the decency to look abashed as Eglantine examined the silk the shop owner was measuring.

“That’s a lovely selection, Nell. Now, what did you have in mind for the handkerchief again?”

Pimpernel showed Eglantine the plaid while Pervinca quickly hunted down the sprigged periwinkle linen. She considered them both carefully before saying, “It’s up to you, Nell, but traditionally, the handkerchief should be white with lace trim. If you want to embroider your name-flower onto the corners, you can to that.”

“You’re right, of course, Mum,” Pimpernel agreed. “I still want a few yards of the plaid. I can make a scarf for Fendon.” Pervinca had to struggle to not make a face. “White linen and lace for the handkerchief would be quite lovely, I think.”

“I suppose,” Pervinca relented. “But are you sure Fendon wouldn’t rather have cream instead of white? We must do what Fendon wants.” She pivoted on her heel and returned the rejected periwinkle to its table.

“You’re the one who insisted on teaching her to talk,” Pimpernel teased gently when Eglantine rubbed the bridge of her nose, a tell-tale sign she was developing a headache.

“It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” Eglantine replied. She laughed ruefully and took the bolt of plaid from Pimpernel to take to the shop owner for cutting. “Go pick out a fabric for the underskirt and find a handkerchief and whatever trimmings you need, and do try to keep your voices down.”

“Yes, Mum,” Pimpernel said and weaved her way around the booths to join her sister.

To be continued...

GF 9/19/07