Chapter 5. Of Endings and Beginnings

Thursday, the Twenty-second of September, dawned as fair and clear as it had long ago for Bilbo’s infamous Party. Of course, everyone at Whittacres had been up hours before the Sun kicked off her coverlet and peeped smiling over the Green Hills, joyously welcoming the new day. There was still a chill in the air as Paladin and the hired hobbits returned from the barn and their early morning chores to the welcoming smells of bacon and mushrooms briskly frying and bread baking. But that was later...

Eglantine, on arising, had brushed out her hair rather thoughtfully this morning. It was one of her best thinking times, a short space of time when all was quiet, before Paladin’s soft breathing was interrupted by a wakening snort and not long after the business of the day was underway. It hardly seemed seventeen years since they’d arisen in the dark between middle night and dawn, not for farm chores but to hitch up the waggon to travel across the fields to Bywater, on their way to Hobbiton for the long-expected and eagerly awaited grand Party. Seventeen years ago, she’d bundled her sleepy children into the waggon bed, well-muffled in blankets--it had been two hours before their usual early rising--and taken her place on the seat beside Paladin, snuggling together as the waggon bumped along under the still-bright stars.

So deep in her thoughts was she, that she didn’t hear the change in her husband’s breathing nor the creak of the bed as he rose. She jumped at the feather-soft touch on her shoulder, turning her head with a bright smile at his apology.

‘Don’t be sorry, my love. I was miles away, I fear.’

Paladin took the brush from her hand with a smile of his own and set to work, and Eglantine turned her face forward once more, closed her eyes and stretched her neck at the luxurious feeling. She smiled when the brushstrokes slowed and then paused, Paladin’s fingers gently twined in the smooth, cascading locks, and she felt his breath as his lips nuzzled her crown.

She started at his next words, murmured into her hair. ‘What is it, my love? What’s the matter?’

‘Matter?’ she said in momentary confusion, and then she let out her breath in a rueful sigh. Truly, sometimes she thought her husband knew her mind better than she did herself. She hadn’t recognised the gently creeping melancholy, but he had somehow sensed her mood, seen past her bright, welcoming smile. She had to chuckle then, at herself, and she reached behind to cup his hand, still twined in the hair at the back of her neck. ‘O my love, I don’t know how you do it.’

‘No different from realising one of the cows is off,’ he said with a chuckle of his own. ‘Easier, perhaps, for I’ve known you longer than any of the ones we have now.’

Eglantine’s heart grew lighter, and she squeezed Paladin’s hand before releasing it, and he resumed his grooming. ‘You wretch,’ she said against the steady rhythm of brushstrokes. ‘As if I were a cow!’

‘You’re nearly as pretty as one,’ Paladin teased, ‘and you certainly smell better!’

‘Hah,’ Eglantine returned. ‘I happen to know you love the smells of byre and barn, field and meadow, sunshine and mist. I should perhaps dab a hint of cow’s pies behind my ears...’

‘Mmmm,’ Paladin said, planting a kiss in that very spot. ‘You would not taste half so flavoursome, I warrant. I like you just as you are, my love, and more...’

The whistle of the teakettle interrupted them, and Eglantine jumped to her feet, hurriedly confining her hair in a net; she’d braid it later, after early breakfast was done. ‘I’m belated!’ she cried. ‘Why, who’s in the kitchen before me?’

It was Pimpernel, up early as she had been since her engagement had been settled, eager to greet the day, perhaps hoping somehow to hurry the time away to make the wedding come faster. She turned with a happy face to greet her mum. ‘Morning, Mum!’ she carolled. ‘The stars are singing in the sky and it looks to be a glorious day!’

‘A clear dawning it’ll be,’ Paladin agreed, entering to accept his middle daughter’s good-morning kiss on his cheek. ‘Fine for the haying!’

And then the hired hobbits were straggling in, faces shining and damp curls still bedewed from their early ablutions. Ferdi crossed from the doorway to take up the cosy and cover the teapot Nell had just filled. She blushed as their hands touched, and Paladin cleared his throat. Eglantine, looking from Nell to Ferdi, wondered how they would manage to contain themselves between now and the springtide, and if perhaps her husband could break with tradition and marry them off to each other after the busyness of harvest was done, or during the festivities of Yuletide.

Ferdi took up the large, heavy teapot with a grin, turning to plonk it on the table, and himself on one of the long benches with a “Come along, you slow-coaches! There’s milking to be done, and harness to clean, and ponies waiting for their breakfast and brushing, and eggs just waiting to jump into the basket...”

The hired hobbits hastened to take their places as sleepy-eyed Pervinca entered just then with a grumble. ‘How you can be so dreadfully cheerful at this hour is beyond me... I’ll be glad to have you married and gone...’

‘Gone?’ Ferdi said, hopping up from his place to put an arm around Eglantine, a quick one-armed hug and a peck on the cheek. ‘Why, I’m not going to be gone! I’m here to stay, haven’t you heard the news?’ He winked at Paladin. ‘You’re not losing a daughter, you’re gaining a son! ...or so I’ve heard, anyhow.’

‘Go on wit’ ye,’ Eglantine said, pleased, and pushing him away she surprised a look of satisfaction on Paladin’s face. Not satisfaction at Ferdi’s pronouncement-- they’d shared a look at the phrase “here to stay” indicating Ferdibrand intended to set up business in the district--but rather, she knew that Paladin was glad to see her earlier melancholy lifted by Ferdi’s nonsense.

Early breakfast was a cold meal, as usual, bread-and-butter with jam or honey, washed down with quantities of piping-hot tea. As the platters of bread were reduced to crumbs and just after the teapot went around a final time, Paladin lifted his mug. ‘A toast,’ he said.

It was common to have a toast at breakfast, when celebrating significant events (the end of the haying, for example, or a new field broken and ready for the seeding, and of course at Whittacres birthdays were first acknowledged at early breakfast and celebrated through the day with special little touches until it was time to seek their pillows).

All looked to the head of the table, raising their mugs expectantly.

‘The end of an era,’ Paladin droned sonorously.

‘The end of an era,’ the others repeated, as custom demanded, and then Ferdibrand put down his mug and demanded, ‘What era? How can I drink if I don’t know what I’m drinking to?’

The same question was on the faces of the hired hobbits--what era? Hobbits, as a rule, don’t like change and do all in their power to avoid it. Was Paladin retiring early, passing the farm on to Pippin, though the lad had not yet come of age? Had he decided he couldn’t manage farming and being Thain together, and was thus giving up the one to devote himself to the other? Was he passing on the Thainship to another? This latter, though unlikely, was not unprecedented. (Gorhendad Oldbuck had done that very thing when he’d left the Shire for the wilds of Buckland and taken the name of “Brandybuck”.)

‘To Bilbo Baggins, long may he live in health and prosperity,’ Paladin said, scandalising nearly everyone at the table. Eglantine looked at him quizzically. He smiled in return, lifted his mug, and sipped.

Only Ferdi followed suit, sipping his tea and looking round the table with a shrug as he put his mug down. ‘At least I know what I’m drinking to.’

Eglantine blinked. Certainly, Frodo would likely drink to Bilbo’s health this day, as he had every year since the old hobbit’s disappearance, and before. But Paladin?

‘And to Frodo,’ Paladin said, lifting his mug again. Everyone was happy to respond to this more sensible toast. ‘I wish him joy in his new home, though he’s not there yet, and many happy returns.’

‘To Frodo!’ everyone echoed, and sips were duly taken.

‘The end of an era,’ Paladin said again, putting down his empty mug with a sigh. ‘No more Bagginses in Bag-End. At least, not proper ones.’

And with these words, he’d put his finger on the source of Eglantine’s melancholy, upon wakening. No more pleasant visits to Bag End, not with the S.-B.’s in residence. And Frodo’s visits to the farm might well be less frequent, seeing as the distance between the two families would now be considerable, requiring a great deal of planning and preparation and arranging to be away for a number of days.

‘Bless the lad,’ she said softly, and drained her own cup. There was time enough for a sigh, and then the day must go on, what with the washing up, and stirring together a hot and hearty second breakfast to greet the workers as they returned from their early chores in the dawning.

***

A/N: Some turns of phrase borrowed from “Three is Company” in The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.