Chapter  28. Word from Buckland

29 September, not long before teatime, Whittacres

‘Quick Post, Mum, coming up the lane!’ Pervinca called. ‘P’rhaps it’s from Buckland!’

‘Let’s hope it’s from Buckland!’ Eglantine said. ‘He was supposed to deliver the message into the hands of Frodo himself, wait for a reply, and bring it back directly. Your father paid him extra, just to do that!’

‘Then it’s a good thing he found cousin Frodo at home!’ Pimpernel said with a laugh. ‘Who knows how long we might wait for an answer, if he took it into his head to go a-wandering!’

‘Not with our Pip, he won’t,’ Eglantine said stoutly, shaking a finger to emphasise her words. ‘Not if he knows what’s best for him.’ The pork pies were sending out a wondrous aroma, and opening the oven, she smiled to see the glistening golden crusts, the steam rising from the holes, the bubbling around the edges that promised toothsome eating to come. ‘Well now, Nell, the pies are ready to come out of the oven…’

‘Yes’m,’ Pimpernel said, taking up two thick, folded clothes to help her with the hot pies and moving to the oven. Eglantine went to the door to the yard and threw it open, taking in a lungful of the fresh autumnal air. ‘I think we’ll prop this open to let some of the baking heat out,’ she said. ‘Just smell that air!’

Of course, what the Quick Post rider noticed was the promising smell of the pies. He sniffed appreciatively as he pulled up his pony and greeted the waiting Eglantine. ‘Halloo!’ he said. ‘I bring greetings from your cousin Frodo!’

‘Welcome and Well come, Egbert!’ Eglantine said in reply. ‘Would you care to stop for tea before you ride on?’ She didn’t have to ask him if he were free to stop, for Egbert was a conscientious hobbit and would have refused any other commissions until he’d finished the one Paladin had paid him for.

‘That sounds a treat!’ the rider said, and laughed. ‘Or maybe I ought to say it smells a treat!’

Eglantine gave a laugh of her own, and then directed him to tie his pony in the shade, unless the beast needed cooling out. ‘Ferdi’s working with one of his ponies around here somewhere, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind cooling the beast out for you…’

‘We walked the last stretch,’ Egbert said. ‘As a matter of fact, your good cousin told me there was no hurry, to bring his reply back to you all – he didn’t seem as concerned about the delivery of his news, as Paladin had about his own – and so I did not push my pony very hard on the return. I do hope Master Paladin won’t be put out.’

‘How did you find Frodo? Were they all working hard to put the new house in order?’ Eglantine asked.

‘The house looked to be in good order, from the little I saw,’ Egbert said, wrinkling his forehead. ‘And “they all”? Mr Baggins answered the door himself, and he was the only one I saw. It was midday, and I didn’t smell any food cooking, and he didn’t invite me in to take a bite, and he seemed in something of a hurry, so…’

‘Perhaps they were invited to take their midday meal at the Hall,’ Pervinca said.

Eglantine smiled, ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘That’s very likely! I can see Dinny’s sister fretting about the lot of them not keeping to regular meals whilst they’re working, and insisting on taking at least one meal at the Hall each day. And why not the main meal, at midday, to make sure they’ve enough to go on, for the rest of the day?’

‘Well, the Hall is said to set a fine table,’ Egbert agreed. ‘Though I wouldn’t know, as I turned around and came straight back, with only a couple of stops for hot meals, and of course I had to stop for the night when the darkness came down. No use riding in the dark, unless the message is truly an urgent one…!’

‘Nothing could be that urgent, I hope!’ Eglantine said. ‘But come in! Dinny ought to be in from the fields at any moment, and then we’ll sit down to tea. Please, feel free to splash your face and hands, and then come, sit down and I’ll pour you a cup of tea while you wait.’

Egbert gladly complied, and once he’d had a sip of tea, he said to the others, who were bustling about the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on the meal, ‘But you asked me about your cousin Frodo, and how I found him. He seemed very cheerful and relaxed – asked me to wait at the door while he wrote a reply, and said to give you all his best when he handed me the message to bring back.’ He fumbled inside his jacket. ‘Do you want it now?’

‘No, no, we’ll wait for Dinny,’ Eglantine said, even though she was curious to hear what Frodo might make of the odd occurrences of late, and Ferdi’s nightmare. Perhaps he’d simply dismiss it as that – a nightmare. At the very least, she hoped he’d send word of how the work on the house was progressing, and when Pip would be on his way homeward. But then, the news would keep. Even if she were to open the message and read it herself, doing so would not bring her Pip home any sooner.

The haymakers were heard in the yard, then, and soon Egbert was rising to greet Paladin and his workers as they entered after washing their hands and faces. He pulled the message from an inside pocket and extended it to the farmer. ‘Here you are, sir,’ he said. ‘Reply, as requested.’

‘How many times do I have to tell you, Egbert, that you don’t have to “sir” me,’ Paladin said with a smile, taking the message. ‘Every time you say the word “sir” I find myself looking around for old Ferumbras!’

May his dreams be pleasant ones, Eglantine thought to herself. It was true for herself, as well. Dinny had only been Thain for about three years, and it was easy to forget that he had anything to do with the office, except for the occasional visits paid by Reginard (or his father) to talk about family business, planting and harvest, details of festivals and fairs like the annual archery tournament and the pony races and sales, and keeping the roads in repair.

Paladin took the letter and laid it by his place. ‘That meal smells good enough to eat!’ he said. ‘Far be it from me to keep my hobbits waiting, after all the work they’ve done this day! And yourself, Egbert, after riding halfway around the world and back again!’ (Halfway around the Shire, that is, which was, to most of the Shirefolk, practically the same thing.)

Egbert bowed, to thank Paladin and Eglantine for their hospitality, and sat down with a glad heart. The board was practically groaning with good food: the aforementioned pork pies, and vegetables both pickled and fresh from the garden, and hard-cooked eggs, devilled with minced ham, and baked apples drizzled with cinnamon-infused honey and drowned in fresh, thick cream.

When Paladin saw that the feasters were beginning on their second helpings, he wiped his mouth and hands and took up Frodo’s letter, breaking the seal and withdrawing a single sheet. ‘Not much for words, for once,’ he said.

Egbert cleared his throat apologetically. ‘Well, he was in something of a hurry to dash off a reply,’ he said. ‘He didn’t explain his haste, and it wasn’t my place to ask, but…’

‘Most likely he was expected at the Hall for dinner,’ Eglantine said. ‘The others must’ve gone on ahead of him, for they were not at the house when Egbert knocked, or at least he didn’t see them.’

‘I was hoping you might bring back word of my son,’ Paladin said, ‘and whether tramping halfway across the Shire had agreed with him, and if he was enough recovered yet to tramp back again, or if I ought to send you there with an extra pony, to bring him back home.’

‘I would be happy to do that!’ Egbert said, and he would, for Paladin would pay generously for such a favour.

‘As it happens, Frodo sends no word here,’ Paladin said, looking down at the page once more.

‘No word?’ Eglantine said, puzzled.

‘No word of any of them or their labours,’ Paladin said slowly. ‘Simply a reply, as requested.’ He shook his head. ‘While I appreciate the lad not wanting to arrive at the Master’s table belated, I have to say it’s not like him to write so short, and to the point. At the very least he ought to have mentioned our lad, sent his regards, if not those of the others.’

‘D’you think something’s wrong? Has something happened to Pippin?’ Eglantine said, jumping at once to the matter closest to her heart.

‘No… no,’ Paladin said in his most soothing tones, holding up a staying hand. ‘Of course not… if Pip had been injured along the way, Frodo wouldn’t even be to Crickhollow yet, much less on his way to the Hall for dinner.’ He looked to Egbert. ‘He seemed calm and cheerful?’

‘Completely!’ the Quick Post rider answered, somewhat mystified by the question.

‘Well then,’ Ferdi said, for he’d been following the conversation with interest. ‘We know that Pip hasn’t got himself into difficulties, at least.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘ Or perhaps he has, and Frodo did not know quite how to phrase it in his note to you…?’

‘None of your nonsense, lad!’ Paladin said, but the hired hobbits were all hiding smiles.

‘From what Regi said the other day, the mischief at Bag End was all Folco’s doing,’ Eglantine reminded.

Egbert laughed as he remembered the story, and the rest of them joined in, imagining Frodo’s helpers turning the smial upside down.

‘Well, we’ll leave our lad there a few days longer,’ Paladin said, folding the note again. ‘But if we don’t hear real news by the time we finish the southwest field, I might very well go and fetch him myself!’

‘Be sure and bring me along with you,’ Eglantine said dryly. ‘I hear they set a fine table there at Brandy Hall!’

***

Crickhollow, in Buckland

Freddy opened the front door cautiously and peered out, for perhaps the tenth time since midday. The silence in the house, which hadn’t bothered him before this day, grew ever more oppressive. A feeling of fear had been growing on him since he’d awakened. He’d cooked himself breakfast, but pushed the plate away after only eating the half. He’d had no appetite for the midday meal, and though it had been his custom to putter in the garden after the noontide meal, this day he could not bring himself to leave the house, but stayed tight indoors.

Nothing moved in the garden or in the lane beyond. His gaze swept from one side to the other. There was nothing to give him this uncertain feeling. Uncertain was a mild term for what he was feeling… Why, there weren’t even alarm calls from any birds. There was no birdsong at all.

He thought now of going to the Hall for tea, perhaps asking to stay the night, make some excuse – the others had gone on a walking tour of Buckland, and he hadn’t cared to take so much exercise, but then as the day progressed he’d grown lonely…

…and he was lonely, in this lonely, isolated house, with no near neighbour. For the first time he questioned Frodo’s wisdom in choosing this particular house.

He put his hand on the knob again, opened the door slowly and cautiously, looked out… and closed the door again, without going out. He raised a shaking hand to wipe at his brow. What in the world was the matter with him?

He couldn’t bring himself to set foot outside the door. He had the same feeling he’d had as a small child, waking from a nightmare, fearing that something was hiding in the shadows under his bed. As long as he stayed tight under his bedcovers, he’d believed, nothing could get at him and he’d stay safe.

As long as he stayed tight inside the house…

‘A spot of tea,’ he said to himself. ‘That’ll be just the thing to set me right.’ He nodded and turned from the door, then turned back to fasten the lock. He didn’t want to walk away and leave the door unlocked. It seemed imprudent, somehow.

He put the kettle on, wandering restlessly around the kitchen as he waited for it to boil, adjusting the cups on the rack, pulling out cup, saucer and spoon, finding a spot on the spoon and polishing it, putting the spoon down and looking through the rest of the spoons for spots. At last the kettle boiled, and he lifted it off the hob and poured the water into the pot to warm it, emptied it to put in the tea, and then some sudden impulse drove him to the back door, to check the lock there, and when he returned, of course, the water in the teakettle had cooled appreciably.

He put the kettle back on the fire and sank into a chair, holding his head in his hands. What was the matter with him? Was he losing his wits?

***

A/N: Some turns of phrase taken from “A Knife in the Dark” in Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.