Six: The Surprise

When they arrived to the farm, Grandma was waiting in her rocking-chair in her bedchamber, which had been Lily's once. She poured tea for Eowyn and offered her cookies still warm from the oven. When Bluebell came into the doorway, she sent her away.

'You are the very image of your mother, Eowyn. And your difficulties are not entirely unlike hers, either.'
'Grandma?'
'I am referring to a letter I received a week ago. Let me read it to you.'

She took a folded paper from the table, and began:

"Dear Grandma Maggot,
I cannot say how grateful I am for everything you have done for me, especially lending me your name. Enclosed here is a letter to my cousin Eowyn. Her family reads her letters and dictates her replies, so I have to ask you to deliver this to her. With love, Marron."

'Here is your letter. I have not opened it.'

With trembling hands, Eowyn took the sealed piece of paper from her grandmother's hand. It read:

"March the fifth, 1450
Prancing Pony Inn
Bree Village

Dearest Eowyn,
I beg you to forgive me my foolishness. I did not notice the hidden message until today. I was reading your letter for the hundredth time or so, this time outdoors, when I saw the faint writing. How my heart leaped!

I am here again. When I read the cruel letter they made you write, I took the job at Archet. I never wanted to see a hobbit's face, unless it were yours. All those messages to my mother and other relatives... if they let you read them, you must have noticed how hard it was, trying not to break any more hearts. My mother always had a frail one.

I now begged to work here, and Brandon finally said yes. At first I will get no pay, only food and lodging. The room is not my own, another lad sleeps there too. He is a human, named Willem. He says he often slept in the hayloft back home, and would not mind doing so again if I got married - Will you marry me, Eowyn? I am a poor man now.

I will send this letter to Grandma Maggot. I trust her to send it to you disguised as a letter from her. I hope someone will be going to Shire soon...

With love and kisses,
Marron Maggot"

'Oh, thank you ever so much, Grandma!'
'I've always said that with a family, it all comes down to blood. Your name ought to be Maggot, by rights it should.'
'Please, Grandma..'
'Even if it's going to be Mrs Marron Maggot. If the Master can adopt you then why can't I adopt the nephew he has denounced?'
'He isn't just denounced. He's exiled.'
'What?'
'Dad put it in writing. Marron Brandybuck cannot enter Buckland until he is married. He could have gone to any of the four farthings, but Dad mentioned that if he does so, I in turn cannot leave Buckland at all. So he went east. He did not want to make me a prisoner, and kept away from you. His mother's heart is near breaking, and she keeps pleading to her brother. But you know my Dad. The Magnificent Moron, I say!'
'Eowyn! Whatever he does, he's your father and your master.'
'I'd rather be a bastard!'
'It was Lily's last wish.'
'If she could see me now, she would agree!'
'Perhaps, perhaps not. It is true Master Meriadoc has changed, but he always was one for sensibility and decency. What does Estella say?'
'She keeps reminding me how Marron was like a brother to me when we were kids, and how I'm older than I am, sort of, because I'm half human. Too old for Marron.'

Eowyn looked at the letter again.
'Who brought this?'
'Someone Tomkin met by change. A very old acquaintance, he said. Old Tom, or something like that.'
'You don't think...?'
'Oh! It could be, it could. Would be the third time after your Grandpa died.'
They stared out the window in a shared silence. Both were thinking about a name that had become only a story, only a dim memory.

Bombadil.