4. A New and Unexpected Grief
TYPO CORRECTED - THANK YOU ERUTHIAWEN LUIN :)
Disclaimer: I still don't own LOTR
A/N. First of all, thank you to Eruthiawen Luin, Goldie Gamgee and loreleirain82 for reviewing! :) I really, really appreciate it. Eruthiawen: Plenty more Sackville-Baggins humour to come!
loreleirain82: Thank you for pointing out my error, I don't have my copy of ROTK at the moment and consequently can't use the family trees at the back for reference :P
Goldie Gamgee - I was so surprised and overwhelmed that you took the time to type long reviews for all THREE of the chapters I'd posted so far, thank you for all your encouragement! About Gorbadoc's death date...I have a rather wordy explanation for that later on ;).
Also...there are a couple of things you should check out, even before reviewing this chapter ;) - Goldie Gamgee's fantastic fic We Four Stand Together and also this super cool blog by a friend of mine, the link for some reason keeps vanishing when I try to copy/paste, but try searching: dappled light plus simply food, art, poetry, and observations about life
Another thing...sorry, but this chapter is only about half as long as the last one, and they will probably stay this length. I don't have the literary stamina required to write 3,000 word chapters all the time :P
It was now late December. The wind blew biting and cold, and the sky was grey. Over Brandy Hall there hung the coldness of grief. Gorbadoc, the ancient Master of Buckland, was dying. The cold of the winter had proved the last straw for his already failing lungs, and all the loving care that hobbits knew so well how to bestow could do no more than delay the rapid approach of the Grim Reaper.
Frodo was with Merry at Brandy Hall. He had arrived the day before, to pay his last respects to the grandfather that had taken him in during the aftermath of Drogo and Primula's deaths. To Merry's concern, he was more distant and withdrawn than ever, and Merry took to watching him always, even to the point of lying awake at night, listening for footsteps that would indicate that Frodo was pacing the floor, sleepless.
One night, Frodo awoke with a start. It was a full moon, lighting up his room into a grey semblance of day, and glittering coldly in the mirror opposite his bed.
Something about the moon, and the stillness of the night, made his heart clench in foreboding. Under such a moon had his parents drowned, thirteen years earlier, and under such a moon had he stood, grieving, beside the river. He tried to pass his feeling off as superstition, but the more he tried to ignore it, the stronger it grew. In the end, he dressed and softly padded down the hall to Gorbadoc's room.
The old hobbit was lying still in the bed, his chest rising and falling peacefully. All seemed to be well. Annoyed at his own paranoia, Frodo turned to leave, but suddenly his grandfather opened his eyes.
"Gaffer," said Frodo gently, sinking to his knees beside the old hobbit. "I'm sorry if I woke you." He wanted to say, I'd come to say goodbye, but knew he mustn't. There might be hope yet.
He didn't even know why he felt so much pain at the thought of his gaffer's passing. He was old – a hundred and twenty-seven – it was time for him to rest. He knew that one day, beyond the Sea, he would see the old hobbit again. But among hobbits, family ties run strong, and for Frodo there was besides the added closeness that not having parents of his own had brought, when he was a young, lonely child at Brandy Hall.
The dying Master of Buckland seemed to have read Frodo's mind. "Frodo…you came to say goodbye. Why…not say it?"
Frodo's face contorted. "Hush, you must rest. I'll call Aunt Esmeralda."
"No!" The older hobbit held Frodo's eyes with his own. "Goodbye, Frodo…grandson."
Frodo was silent, and in a whisper the other added, "I only…waited…for the new year…."
And with that, Gorbadoc, Master of Buckland, drew his last breath.
It was the 2nd of Yule, 1393.
An arm came across Frodo's shoulders, and he was aware of a curly mop of brown hair pressing against his cheek.
"Frodo. Are you all right?"
Merry.
"He's dead," Frodo managed to say.
"I know."
"He can't be dead."
"I'm here."
"We should wake the house."
"That can wait a little longer," said Merry softly.
Frodo was weeping soundlessly, his face turned away. Out of respect, Merry got up and left the room, going to his parents' chamber. They were talking quietly, and he caught a few words.
"He'll be devastated…." His father's voice was a low rumble. Were they talking about him or Frodo?
"…After his parents died, he was so…."
"…Yes…."
"Are you going to be able to let him go, Saradoc, dear?"
His father's reply was inaudible.
Merry called out, his voice quavering in the gloom,
"Mum? Dad? Something's happened!"
Esmeralda's pale face appeared so close to him that he jumped. "It's Grandfather, isn't it?" He nodded, mutely. "Saradoc!" she called. "Wake the house!"
Merry's father appeared in his shirtsleeves, astonishingly self-possessed. He lit one of the large lanterns in the hall, and the dark passage blazed into light. Soon the whole Hall was scurrying with activity.
Back in his room, Frodo wept.
"Why do I have to lose everyone?" he repeated over and over.
"You haven't lost me," pointed out a quiet voice from the doorway. Frodo whipped round.
"Confusticate it all, Merry, why do you have to appear like this?"
"You needn't be ashamed, you know," said Merry matter-of-factly. "Do you want to tell me about it?"
"It's as if I'm fated," said Frodo gloomily. "Next it might be you, or Uncle Bilbo."
"Oh, don't be ridiculous, Frodo," said Merry. "Great-Gaffer Gory was a hundred and twenty-seven. By the time I reach that age I for one will be glad to go. Point is, I'm not, and neither is Uncle Bilbo."
Frodo smiled rather faintly. "I suppose not."
"Come," said Merry, sensing that what his cousin needed right now was to talk about it. "Tell me about when you were growing up here, before I came along."
The two cousins talked until daybreak.
Bilbo rode over early next day, to pay his respects to the deceased Master, who had been a personal friend of his. He found the Hall in turmoil, much as it had been when Merry had run off earlier in the year.
Seeking some peace and quiet, he found his way to Frodo's room, and found Frodo and Merry talking quietly. Both looked up as he entered.
"So how are you keeping up, my lad?" he asked Frodo, patting his shoulder. Once, Merry would have been jealous, but now to his surprise he found nothing in his heart but understanding.
"Well, thank you, Uncle. But I'm glad you're here." He saw that Bilbo looked rather tired and frazzled. "How are you?"
"The whole household is seething like an ant hill," the older hobbit grumbled. "Crowds get on my nerves."
Frodo knew why. Bilbo had just finished writing in his book an account of his captivity by a horde of orcs. It really wasn't any wonder that his uncle now became a little paranoid when faced with large numbers of people, orcs or otherwise.
"Come then, Uncle Bilbo, we can take a walk in the garden. I'd like some fresh air too," Merry put in. His cousin really was frighteningly perceptive, Frodo thought. He was sure it was a new development, though what had caused it Frodo didn't know.
The three of them walked off together. Bilbo and Frodo walked ahead, talking quietly, and Merry dawdled along in the rear, feeling that the two would appreciate a little private conversation. Frost crunched under his furry feet – like frozen tears, he thought suddenly. Someday, he would have to paint this frozen garden, this world of white.
The voices of his companions had faded off as they walked further and further ahead of him (it was a large and magnificent garden, more like a park, really), and Merry had sunk further and further into reverie. Now, however, an altogether shriller and less welcome voice made him start and look warily around. His cousin Rosalcia, and the chubby Hamer, were coming side by side down the path towards him.
"Meriadoc!" exclaimed Rosalcia in a sort of lugubrious wail that grated unpleasantly on his eardrums. "Isn't this awful! Poor, poor Gaffer Gory!" And she dissolved into sobs on his shoulder without further ado.
Frodo had done the same thing the night before, but what Merry would gladly do for his beloved cousin Frodo he was not disposed to put up with from the lass who had been the bane of his existence ever since he was seven. So he patted her hard enough on the back that she drew back in discomfort, and latched onto Hamer instead.
Merry fled, Hamer looking after him with an expression of nonplussed despair.
Dinner in the Hall was worse. Saradoc and Esmeralda conversed with Bilbo about wine, the three of them forcing a cheerfulness that they did not feel. Frodo and Merry ate side by side in silence, though Merry, casting anxious sidelong glances at his cousin throughout, noticed that Frodo ate very little. Rosalcia was tearful, but when Hamer tried to comfort her she leapt from her seat with a look of disgust and stormed from the room, leaving an awkward silence behind her. Evidently the lovers had had some falling-out. Hamer fiddled with his napkin and looked around the room nervously and eventually stood up and left the room as well.
The funeral was the next day. Hobbits wear green to funerals – an old tradition, the reasons for which have been long since lost.
Frodo worried that he might break down again during the ceremony, but with Merry and Bilbo at his side he was able to keep a hold on his emotions. It was the old hobbit who had to keep blowing his nose. Frodo put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
Rosalcia, dressed in her best green gown, was sobbing again. She had written a short poem in memory of her great-grandfather but was too overcome to deliver it, so Rory snatched it and read it out instead. Frodo was annoyed at her sentimentality and general bad rhyming but could not but feel a grudging sympathy for her grief. Merry, however, who had noticed that she was not sitting with Hamer but with some of her female cousins, suspected that her grief was due more to her quarrel with her lover than to any real love for her grandfather, and henceforth despised her more than ever.
When the ceremony was over, Frodo extricated himself from the throng as soon as was decorously possible, and waited with Merry some distance away from the crowds of sympathetic hobbits who would have given their condolences if they'd been able to find him – the last thing either of them wanted at the moment.
Suddenly, Frodo gave a gasp, and before Merry could even turn around, he'd turned and bolted unceremoniously into the nearest hedge.
"For heavens' sake, Frodo!" said Merry, "what - "
He stopped short. He too had seen the Sackville-Bagginses coming, a good hour late, down the road. Without hesitation he dived into the hedge beside Frodo. Neither of them had the least desire to meet Frodo's disagreeable relatives again.
After a little while, Bilbo appeared, looking flustered and angry and muttering something about "insufferable hobbits."
"Was it the S.-B.s, Uncle?" said Frodo sympathetically. "You should have come to hide out with us."
"Yes, I should have," said Bilbo crossly. "At a funeral, badgering me about Bag End! I had a good mind to ram my cane down Otho's self-satisfied throat!"
He continued to grumble angrily all the way back to Brandy Hall.
A/N. By the way, the idea that hobbits wear green to funerals is completely my idea, and probably explicitly contradicted somewhere in the vast bundle of Tolkien's works. J.R.R. and all die-hard fans - I apologise, but green is my favourite colour plus a pretty symbolic one too, and I couldn't resist.
Reviews, as always, would be greatly appreciated, and this time I have a question for you: I think we all agree that Rosalcia is a very irritating and shallow person: the question is, do you want her to redeem herself or not in the following chapters (she does appear again, though not a main character by any means)? In other words, do you want me to write her as a slightly more sympathetic character, with insight into her motivations and feelings, or to pile on the irritating-ness? Please review and help me decide!
Next chapter (and the chapter after that): The Sackville-Bagginses make more trouble