"Good things come to those who wait."
~Old Proverb
Rose in Bloom
A chill wind blew over the Shire, carrying creeping fog up from the Brandywine river and sending it scudding over the hills.
It was early morning, the last stars not yet faded from the sky, much too early for the comfort-loving little folk to be abroad. They lay snoring in their snug holes, and would still be abed some hours.
But not the whole land slept. Atop a ridge beneath the branches of a bare tree stood a small figure in a worn green cloak, staring dejectedly into the east. The wind swirled up stronger, blowing a few sandy curls from under the hood and finally sending the cloak flapping wildly.
The young hobbit shivered, pulling her cloak more tightly around her. A small tear crawled down her face, and she reached a hand up, running it lovingly down the boughs of the cherry tree beneath which she stood. It was late fall, and the tree should have been laden down with rich red fruits, but the branches were bare and lifeless.
At the base of the trunk, a large gash and the scars of axe blows showed the cause of the tree's death.
The hobbit girl sniffed, holding onto the branch until her knuckles showed white. She kicked her bare foot into the dust savagely.
"They oughtn't ever to have left," she told the wind fiercely. Then she shook her head.
"Don't listen to yourself Rose Cotton. Mr. Frodo knows what he's about, or so Sam always said, and he must've had a reason for going off so sudden. All the same, why the secrecy? and selling Bag End to those horrid Sackville Bagginses…"
Rosie's eyes welled up once again, tears threatening to spill over. She dashed a defiant hand across her face. The wind gusted again, blowing off her hood, but she didn't bother to replace it. Instead, she followed the breeze with her gaze, her simple heart wrung with grief at what lay below, before, and all around her.
As the sky lightened, the Shire's horrible wounds were more visible. Trees lifeless and cut down lay beside muddy roads, criss crossed by deep ruts filled with stinking water. In the distance toward Hobbiton clouds of black smoke and fume drifted across the sky, filling the air with their reek.
This was not the Shire Rose knew. That land was happy, a world where the greatest calamities were missed meals.
The change had come so rapidly, Rose had hardly known it herself. It had started when Frodo Baggins reached the end of his money and sold Bag End to his conniving cousin Lotho. Then he had disappeared from the Shire without a trace. And Sam too.
Rose missed him with all her heart. She waited for the day when he'd come trotting up the lane on his furry hobbit feet calling a bashful greeting. She'd admonish him for his absence, perhaps even scold him a little, but hard feelings could only last so long. Perhaps he'd say that he'd missed her too. Maybe he'd finally have the courage to ask…
Rose blushed a hot pink, despite the cold air. Everyone but Sam himself knew what she wanted him to ask, but it still felt wrong to be wishing things without him there.
If he was there…
She wanted him. What one hobbit could do against the horrid men that had begun arriving last fall she didn't know, but that Sam would do something was a hope lodged so firmly within her that she could never let go. She clung to it with every ounce of belief she could muster.
Once the big folk had begun arriving down the Greenway, swaggering, demanding, plundering, and even killing, Sam's return had been her lifeline to hope. Once he returned, anything could be faced.
Somewhere hidden in the tall grass, a lark began to warble cheerily. With a start, Rose realized just how late it was. Her family rose earlier than most, being farming folk, and if she stayed out much longer they'd get to worrying. Hitching her skirts above her ankles to keep from falling, she started down the hill at a run.
Reaching the path that led to the round yellow door of he home, she slowed a little, pausing at the door to pat a black and white shape that rose to greet her, tail wagging.
The dog gave a small bark.
"Hush Shep," Rose admonished him quickly. "You don't want to wake the house. There's plenty to worry over without adding early mornings!"
With a whine, the dog lay down again obediently on the mat.
Rose wiped her feet and eased the door softly open, relieved that no one seemed to be awake.
She hung her green cloak carefully on its peg, brushing away a few bits of damp soil that clung to the hem.
Entering the kitchen, she set about slicing bread and a thick goat cheese, along with a few apples. If only there were eggs. But the ruffians had taken the hens months ago.
Being a farming family, the Cottons managed better than many others. They might be low on meat and eggs - or pipe weed and ale to Gaffer Cotton's chagrin - but they had food, and that was what mattered.
A sudden burst of noise signaled Rose that her brothers were awake, and within minutes all four of them had noisily set to on the plates of bread and cheese, crunching the apples noisily, and laughing brightly. It was easy, Rose thought, to be merry, before one went outside and was reminded of how things were.
Sighing, she served her mother and father and then set to on her own breakfast, albeit less noisily than the boys.
After they had eaten they tended the single pig they had managed to keep from the gatherers and sharers, and then searched miserably for something else to do.
Hobbits eat vast quantities in a single year, and it is a good thing for them that they are industrious. As they work to cultivate their food they keep from getting soft, and supplying their prodigious appetites keeps them busy. Which came first is not known, only that it is a good thing that both traits are present.
The day was cold, although Rose was glad that it no longer rained as it had the day before. After supper - elevenses was a thing of the past - she sat by the road, feeling more defeated then she had in days. The morning's walk had shown her just how bad the situation was becoming, and the dreary weather and lack of activity did nothing to raise her spirits.
Suddenly, in the distance, she thought she heard a horn call. Scrambling to her feet she raised her head, straining to catch the sound should it come again. There!
There it was again. Faint but unmistakable. Someone was winding a horn. The call came again, a pattern of notes this time. It was the horn call of Buckland, and though Rose had never heard the call and did not know what it meant, the notes ringing through the misty air set her eyes shining and her heart thumping. The ringing notes came again, louder and more confident, as though the blower was finding his voice. A thrill of expectancy shot through as she stood waiting, for what she did not know. Only that something was coming.
Hooves came drumming, and behind her Nick, Tom, Jolly and her Gaffer came dashing down the lane. They held pitchforks in their hands and their faces were scared. Suddenly, Rose was frightened.
"Go back to the house," her gaffer said firmly, and without question, Rose sped away.
However, she stopped at the gate, compelled to turn around. She could not see what was happening - a hillock and a bend in the lane prevented that - but she could hear. And what she heard sent her heart fluttering and her cheeks flaming.
Sam had come back.
Running to the door, she stood beside her mother. Nibs stepped in front of them protectively, a pitchfork ready as a last line of defense should the "ruffians" get past the others. Rose heeded him not. She knew who was coming down that lane, and that was enough.
From around the bend, a figure on a stocky chestnut pony trotted in to view. A peculiar gray cloak covered his head and shoulders, but the glint of a mail shirt was visible on his chest. So too were reddish curls peeping from beneath his hood. Rose barely suppressed a glad cry, but somehow she found she could not speak, and waited for him to talk first as she watched with shining eyes.
"It's me!" shouted the figure as he trotted up. "Sam Gamgee! So don't try prodding me Nibs. Anyway, I've a mailshirt on me." He jumped down from his pony and went up the steps as the hobbits stared.
"Good evening Mrs. Cotton," he said. "Hullo Rosie."
"Hullo Sam," said Rosie. "Where've you been? They said you were dead, but I've been expecting you since the spring. You haven't hurried, have you?"
"Perhaps not," said Sam, looking abashed, "but I'm hurrying now. We're setting about the ruffians, and I've got to get back to Mr. Frodo. But I thought I'd have a look and see how Mrs. Cotton was keeping, and you, Rosie."
"We're keeping nicely, thank you," said Mrs. Cotton. "Or should be, if it weren't for those thieving ruffians."
"Well, be off with you!" said Rosie. "If you've been looking after Mr. Frodo all this while, what d'you want to leave him for as soon as things get dangerous?"
Rose realized a moment after the words left her mouth that she didn't know what he might have been doing with Mr. Frodo. Perhaps things had been dangerous before now. She couldn't know. Sam looked hurt by her words, anyway, and so she hastened up to him before he could ride off, placing a hand on his pony's neck and looking up at him.
"I think you look fine, Sam," she said. "Go on now! But take care of yourself, and come straight back as soon as you have settled those ruffians."
Putting his heels to the ponies sides, Sam disappeared once more around the bend. But Rose could not help feeling safer than she ever had in a long time. Sam was back, and Mr. Frodo too. In a few days at most, the place ought to be set to rights again.
It had been nearly two decades since scouring of the Shire, and as Rosie watched her daughter play, the sun glinting off the girl's golden hair, the days of the ruffians seemed only as a bad dream. Much had happened since then, and except for a few places where there were saplings where once there had been trees, the Shire was largely unchanged.
Not so Bag End. Mr. Frodo hadn't ever quite been himself again since he came back from the journey. Sam tried to explain to Rose what had happened, and why he'd had to leave, but it wasn't the talk of rings and battles and great eagles that made Rose listen - it was Sam. She took his word for it, and accepted that he'd had to go.
They married the spring after Sam's return, under the mallorn that had replaced the party tree by Bag End. The year after that their daughter was born, and at Frodo's suggestion they had christened her Elanor.
After Elanor was born, something in Frodo seemed to relax. He still seemed anxious to Rose, but no longer in a frightened sort of way. More of an expectant waiting, for something both difficult and wonderful.
When he and Sam rode away that fall, she knew they wouldn't be gone long. She also knew, when Sam returned alone, not to ask what had happened. In time, he would tell her. She had only to wait and trust.
And one day, he did. He handed her a great book bound in red leather, and taught her to read the curious markings inside that told a story. What she read was almost too much to believe, and many of the words wrung her heart. She would glance at Sam, trying to reconcile who she saw now with the grim thirst-wracked warrior that valiantly trod the pages.
Somehow, the images were not entirely different. Both were determined, and brave, and oh so gentle and devoted. She felt acutely how lucky she was, and how lucky Frodo had been, before he followed the elves over the sea. For this she now knew to be what had happened.
There were three children now, and the great king of whom she had read was a reality. He had ridden down the Greenway, with his elvish wife, and had graced for a day the humble halls of Bag End with his presence.
Elanor was now a beautiful lass of fifteen, and already showed the elvish longing that had grasped Sam as a child. When the queen offered to take her as maid of honor Rose's heart nearly burst with grief; already one of her birds had flown the nest.
The king, Elessar, promised her with fair words to care for her daughter, and Rose trusted him. His face was noble, and he often spoke of things too high for her to understand. But she trusted him.
Years later they visited the king in his halls, and Rose wondered at the beauty of the many things she saw. In the distant mountains a red flame still flickered at night, and when Sam saw it he would turn away. Rose knew and understood.
The years passed and the family grew larger with every passing year. The babes were all fat and sturdy, the fairest hobbit children to be seen. As they grew in size and number, the sandy locks of their parents grew gray, and when at last the final bird had left the nest, face shining as she waved a last goodbye, there was nothing to do but wait.
Together Rose and Same tended the flowers of the garden at Bag End, violets, primroses, daisies, and the few elanor that sprang up about the foot of the party tree.
Rose grew old, and Sam too, although there was always something about him well-preserved, as the gossips at the Green Dragon would say as they sat swilling ale on some summer evening.
One mid-years day she fell and did not rise. Sam laid her tenderly on a hill beneath the grass in the shade of the party tree. And the branches shielded the stone that bore her name from wind and rain alike.
Sam waited, for what he did not know.
Until on September twenty-second, — the day Bilbo left Bag End, the day Frodo began his quest, the day Frodo had left to seek the Grey Havens — it was time.
Mounting a chestnut pony, the great-grandson of Bill the horse who had with Sam been a bearer of the Ring bearer, he left to seek the Havens.
He left the Red Book in the care of Elanor his daughter, and though he shed tears at their parting, his heart was light. He had known the weight of the Ring, if only for a day, and he was glad at last for his waiting to be at an end. Perhaps beyond the sea he would at last find rest.
Beyond the billowing waves Rose walked on white shores, and at last, as the gulls cried under a swift sunrise, the gray rain curtain was rolled back, and Rose saw it.
A ship like a swan, gliding over the waves as though blown by the light of the rising sun, and as the glory of the morning burst forth, she and Sam were united again.
Together, hand in hand, they walked in Valinor, with those friends who had perished in the struggle to free Middle Earth, and there too was Frodo, and Mithrandir, and Boromir, and they were all one in the fellowship of the land beyond the sea.
All waiting was at an end, and even the stars seemed to sing.
Credit for the title goes to Louisa May Alcott, who wrote "Eight Cousins", and its sequel "Rose in Bloom", and whose title I have borrowed for a completely unrelated story.