In the Bleak Mid Autumn
(corresponds to Chapter 9 of Book 6)
Estella hummed to herself as she raked a pile of hay out of the tidy bales over to a hole in the floor of the loft of the barn so she could push it down into the brown work pony's trough. She liked the smell of the warm clean barn in Blotmath, when the cold and wet of the outdoors was miserable rather than welcoming and country tramps were more of a chore than a joy. She had to step carefully - the barn was absolutely crammed with hay bales and bins of barley and wheat and barrels of apples and potatoes and salted trout and all manner of good things. The harvest had been the best in memory, perhaps the best in the history of the Shire. No one would go hungry all winter and they could feast at Yule-tide as much as they wished. Rosamunda had already planned out a maple sugar cake four layers tall for when they invited all their Bolger and Took relations over on Fatty's birthday in a few weeks. Estella licked her lips in anticipation whenever she thought of it.
Below her, as the pony nickered his thanks for the golden rain that she shoved down, the barn door opened, letting in a blast of damp air. "Close it quick, Fatty; I haven't got my muffler on!" she complained without looking as she moved to give the two cows their share of straw.
He complied and a moment later she heard him climbing the ladder to the hayloft. That surprised her; Fatty had always hated the loft because of how high off the ground it was. He said it made him giddy and he had always made her do the chores and fetching up there ever since they were little. She turned to comment on his unusual bravery and chalk it up to the fact that Snowdrop had made eyes at him last marketday. But it wasn't Fatty at all.
"Hullo, Essie."
"Hullo, Merry. What are you doing up here? And dressed like that?"
He was not decked out in his usual foreign gear that made him look like a grand knight out of the old days. He wore a simple warm tunic of good Southfarthing cotton dyed blue and thick breeches of brown linen. He had tucked his gloves into his simple belt, so very different from the rich silver one he usually wore that glittered in the smallest amount of light. His only weapon was a sturdy knife - big enough to be a small dagger for a hobbit - made of steel and stamped with a horse head on the pommel. Over all he had a cloak which shifted from green to grey with the light and was clasped at the neck with a brooch shaped like a vibrant green leaf. "Well, I… to be honest," he hesitated, "I just thought I'd better try the opposite of everything from last time."
"Last time?" she repeated, utterly confused. "What are you on about?"
He smiled, but the expression did not reach his eyes. "Don't tell me you forgot your promise, Essie. Six months ago today?"
She frowned, thinking. Six months ago would have been Thrimidge; had something happened on the first of Thrimidge? She had been so busy all summer and autumn and all the days seemed to blend together into a long happy whirl of food and laughter.
He stepped forward and caught her hand as she idly swept with the rake, stilling her movements. The touch made her jump - he was quite definitely trembling, though he tried to hide it. And it also recalled in vivid detail a day in the spring sunshine when she had flung him off and stalked away, certain that the joke was only a moment's whim on his part. She tried to speak, but her voice seemed to have deserted her.
"You promised to listen seriously this time," he reminded her, gently stroking the back of her right hand as they both gripped the rake. "If I ask again, will you keep that promise?"
"You can't mean it," she whispered, staring at his collar because looking up at his face would take more boldness than even she possessed. "You just can't. I'm only Essie; only Fatty's baby sister."
Merry paused, considering. "Do you… not like being called Essie?"
"I hate it," she replied honestly, swallowing hard.
"Why do you let everyone call you that, then?" he wondered, leaning just an inch closer. She wondered what expression was on his face but she didn't dare look.
Estella shrugged and tried to laugh. "Have you ever tried to stop half the Shire? Besides, mum and da think it's sweet."
"You prefer being called Estella, then?" He took a half-step forward, closing most of the distance between them. She thought she might be able to hear his heartbeat if her own were not pounding so loudly in her ears.
"I… I like Stella best," she managed in a voice hardly above a whisper.
"Stella, look at me," he requested, holding the rake with one hand so he could guide her chin up with the other. Their eyes met and she gulped again. With his finery cast aside, he looked like the lad she had known years before; the sweet, funny boy who had made jokes about a runaway pig and cheered Bilbo's stories and nicked fireworks from old Gandalf. But there was something new in his face too, and it was more than just his added height; a light of maturity and wisdom. Just below his curly hair his brow bore a curved brown scar she had never noticed before. He had seen darkness, worse than anything she had seen in the Shire, she was sure, but it had not tainted him. He was only more sure of himself and more kindly because he had been among great Elves and Men and Dwarves and fought alongside them.
And his brown eyes drank in the sight of her blue ones as if she was the most beautiful thing in Middle-Earth. "Please, will you walk out with me?" he breathed.
In that moment, Estella Bolger did not remember she had hay in her hair. Nor did she recollect that she was wearing an old shapeless work dress that was patched with so many odd scraps of cloth it resembled a sickly rainbow. She could hardy remember to breathe. He was serious. He wanted her, out all the girls in the Shire and Buckland; he had remembered her promise even when she had forgotten. Very low, she answered, "Yes, Merry."
He grinned and it was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. But she was not allowed to admire his handsome smile long; he leaned in and pecked her cheek, softly as the brush of a butterfly wing. Her stomach flopped again and she giggled, a trifle hysterically. With such encouragement, it was natural that he promptly pecked the other one, chuckling as he did so. "Where shall we go?" he whispered.
The rake clattered to the floor of the loft unheeded, as they both seemed to have decided they would rather hold hands than tools. Estella shrugged and giggled again. "Do we have to go somewhere?"
"Well, in general," he replied, his eyes sparkling with mischief and satisfaction as he gently pushed a lock of her hair behind her tapered ear, "I think walking out implies you walk somewhere. Though now I think about it, I never really stopped to ask my mother about such things. Shall I run and do it now?"
"Oh, so you're just going to ask and leave?" she replied archly. Below, the cows mooed a protest over the lack of forthcoming dinner but neither the lass nor the lad really heard the poor beasts.
"Well, I was rather imagining we'd go together," he answered, pretending to consider. "Unless you don't fancy supper at Brandy Hall and a ride back in the moonlight?"
She hummed, a little serious, and absently fixed the turn of his collar. "Have you, er, told them about…?"
"Us?" he finished, grinning. "Not officially. My da has been telling me all summer to 'stop mooning' but I wanted to be sure you'd say yes before I let it spread all over the Four Farthings."
She snickered a little and squeezed the hand that was intertwined with her own. "Does Fatty know?" she asked, grinning slyly.
"Ha! He'd have tried to flay me alive before I got up here if he suspected," Merry snorted, squeezing back. "Your da and mum do, though. I asked them back before Sam's wedding."
"You told me; I'd forgotten." She shook her head. "They're awfully patient. I didn't hear a word about it from either of them. What did they say when you asked?"
Merry's eyes crinkled happily and he bent to kiss the hand he held with only a little exaggerated gallantry. The butterflies roosting in her stomach once more loudly proclaimed their existence. "Well, Odo said I wasn't half good enough for you, hero of the Shire or not, but if you liked me he wouldn't mind on the whole. He also said he'd toss me in the pigpen if I stepped out of line or turned out to prefer adventures to good honest work."
She laughed heartily, twisting away from him to toss a handful of straw at him. That started a brief but fierce hay fight which only ended because the cows bellowed louder than ever. As they swept up the remains of their ammunition and threw it down to the impatient cattle, Estella asked curiously, "What about mum?"
"She said you liked me but you'd take a lot of convincing before you'd admit it," he teased, sticking out his tongue at her.
"Cheeky," she scolded without an ounce of seriousness.
"So," he finished, laying the rake aside and reclaiming her hand with alacrity, "will you come to sup at the Hall and shock all my innumerable relations with your frightfully bad aim and general inability to win a hay fight?"
"You're just sore that I got straw down your collar," she shot back, grinning. "And yes, I'll come. Just let me dash inside and change. I don't want to shock them too badly, turning up ugly as one of Sharkey's Big Men."
She had meant it for a joke - what did clothes matter when Merry Brandybuck liked her? - but he appeared to think she was serious. Gently, he tucked a stray curl behind her ear again. "You'd look lovely in Orc-rags, Stella."
She flushed, pleased, and rewarded him with a bold peck on his cheek. Then she scrambled for the ladder and thence out the barn door, heedless of the chill wind. The glow in her heart painted even the wet and mud in rosy hues. Behind her, she heard Merry whistling cheerfully.
