Chapter  27. Special Delivery

28 September, midday, Crickhollow in Buckland

The rapping at the door sounded hobbity, at least, though Freddy was not really expecting any visitors. He’d visited Brandy Hall to pay Frodo’s respects, and beg off a tea invitation until next week or the week after, and to ask the Master’s permission for Merry to stay at Crickhollow to help his cousin settle in, for “a great deal remains to be done, and we want to make it just as homelike as we can, don’t you know?”

Of course the Master and Mistress had been most accommodating. Whether they believed (or not) that Frodo had come to the end of his money, they were happy to have him back in Buckland, living close by, in part for Merry’s sake. After all, now that Merry had come of age, it would be less easy for him to get away to see his beloved older cousin. Having Frodo practically on the spot was a most convenient turn of events.

‘Yes, of course!’ Esmeralda said with a laugh, pressing another  piece of cake on Freddy. ‘But you tell that rascal Frodo he must come to tea without fail on Monday a week! Or I shall come out to Crickhollow myself and fetch him!’

‘Perhaps it will be enough if Merry and Pip and I all join forces to drag him to the Hall,’ Freddy said, hiding his unease behind a bland tone and sip of tea. He wondered to himself how he’d manage to put Master and Mistress off – a fever? It had to be something serious enough to win a further postponement, but not serious enough for them to send a healer to the door. ‘But – I really do think it will take us two weeks to fix the place up to Frodo’s satisfaction… How about if we set the date for Monday-a-fortnight instead, and have you and the Master come to tea at Crickhollow? You can use the occasion to send me off home to Budge Hall in grand style…!’ And he smiled his most wicked smile, and winked, and was well rewarded by Master and Mistress’s laughter.

‘I’ll send you off, indeed, young hobbit!’ Esmeralda said in a mock-threatening tone, waving a loosely curled fist in his direction. ‘Don’t you dare go back to Crickhollow until I’ve filled a basket in the kitchen with good things…! With you all working your fingers to the bone, fixing up that old house to at least resemble Bag End (so much as it might – but Bag End was built by a hobbit with a great deal of sense and love for his wife and her comfort, and not a little money), well, I’ve no doubt you’re not getting meals as you ought…’

Freddy did not disabuse her. ‘I’ll be happy to carry any number of hampers back with me, Auntie,’ he said. And he would. He’d ridden his pony from Crickhollow to the Hall, and would ride it back again, or even lead it back again, for it would be worth the walk if the pony were well-laden with food. Freddy anticipated good eating, if the Mistress planned to send enough food to sustain the number of hobbits she believed to be inhabiting Crickhollow at the present time.

It was one compensation for the tedium of being left behind, to play as if Frodo was in residence at Crickhollow.

…which he was not accomplishing as he ought, he realised, as the rapping came again, with an indistinguishable shout, definitely a hobbit’s voice and not a Man’s.

‘Coming!’ Freddy called, moving to the door. He scolded himself for his hesitation. After all, even if a Big Man, a Rider all in black, had been after Frodo, well, Freddy certainly had no reason to fear. Did he?

He pulled the door open, to see a hobbit standing there, a folded paper in one hand, and a pony behind him, tied up to the garden gate. ‘Quick Post!’ that hobbit announced.

‘Yes?’ Freddy said, reaching for the message, but the messenger pulled it back.

‘It’s for Frodo Baggins,’ he said. ‘I was to try at Crickhollow, and if he wasn’t at home, then at the Hall.’

Freddy, who happened to be wearing Frodo’s clothes, didn’t recognise the messenger, and gambled now that the hobbit didn’t know himself, or Frodo, either. ‘Well you’ve found him at home,’ he said, extending his hand further. ‘Do be a good fellow and give me the note.’ The messenger could take him for Frodo, or he might insist on giving the message personally to Frodo (if he knew that Freddy wasn’t Frodo, that would mean he knew Frodo by sight, at least). Freddy’s phrasing could be taken either way, that he was answering the door for his cousin, or that he was Frodo Baggins, as he was pretending to be. If the message were specifically for Frodo, and the messenger knew that he was not Frodo, things might get a little sticky. The Quick Post rider would insist on putting it directly into Frodo’s hands, and would not accept Freddy’s promise to pass it along.

‘I’m to take back an answer,’ the messenger said, putting the paper into Freddy’s hand, confirming the latter’s suspicion.

‘Very well,’ Freddy said in his most pleasant, offhanded tone, as if the message were expected.

Well, it was, in a sense. He was playing this role for this very reason – to intercept and reply to messages, to putter about in the garden, impersonating his cousin Frodo, to keep a fire going on the hearth so that smoke would issue from the chimney, and more such. ‘Wait here a moment, my good fellow.’

The Quick Post rider nodded and smiled as Freddy turned from the door, leaving it ajar but not inviting the fellow in.

Freddy turned the letter over, seeing Paladin’s seal. Now that might be a complication – if something had happened at Whittacres, Eglantine or one of the girls had fallen ill, perhaps, and Paladin was calling his son home immediately. He took a deep breath, broke the seal, and unfolded the paper.

His eyebrows rose as he scanned down the page. ‘Well now,’ he said. ‘That’s old news, at least. We knew those Big, Black fellows were sniffing after Frodo, but that they’ve been bold enough to bother the Tooks in the heart of the Tookland! They’ve got the nerve!’

Having not yet experienced the effect of a Black Rider himself, he could dismiss any unease he might feel regarding the Black Rider as superstitious rubbish.

He’d been practicing various hobbits’ penmanship for some time now, in preparation for this part in the conspiracy; notably Frodo’s, Merry’s, and even young Pip’s. The practice came in handy now as he dashed off an answer (I thank you, Cousin, for your concern…) in Frodo’s best hand. He expressed his astonishment at such unlikely events in the heart of the Shire and added his hopes for the quick recovery of the two hobbits. He sucked on the end of the pen for a moment as he concocted a satisfactory conclusion, then at last he nodded and wrote, I will give your warning, and your offer, due consideration, and will inform the Master of your concerns as well – of course he would not, but Paladin wouldn’t know that – and if he advises me to return to the heart of the Shire, then I will most gratefully accept your offer, at least until I can make other arrangements. I doubt, however, and here Freddy bit his lip. He didn’t like writing outright falsehood, but he could see no other course, that there is any real danger. I cannot imagine why any of the Big People should be concerned with someone so wholly unimportant as… your loving cousin, Frodo.

He blotted the paper with a sigh, then folded it, making sure that he sealed it with Frodo’s seal (and not Merry’s – that would certainly give the game away!). As soon as the wax hardened, he rose from the desk and returned to the door, fishing in one pocket for a coin.

‘Here you are,’ he said, extending coin and message to the waiting Quick Post rider. ‘Give my cousin my best when you deliver this, will you?’

‘I will!’ the rider said, cheerily, for the coin was of a generous amount.

Freddy watched him stride to the gate, vault into the saddle, turn his pony’s head away, and head off at a brisk trot.

‘There’s a job well done,’ he said with a sigh, closing the door again, and if Freddy was talking about himself, or about the Quick Post rider, well, even he wasn’t sure.