by Sally Gardens
Chapter Sixteen: Remembering
"What are you doing?"
Sam grunted, giving a final push to the bed he and Frodo were guiding into place across the foot of the guest room bed, forming an L shape. "Adding a little leg room," he told Merry.
"I only wish we'd thought of it right away," said Frodo. "It can't be terribly comfortable sleeping on a bed that leaves your feet dangling."
"Well, now that you mention it, cousin," Merry grinned, "no, it's not."
"I'll be helping Rosie put the young ones to bed," Sam cut in, nodding a goodnight as he left.
"Thank you, Sam," Merry called after him. "And you, Frodo," he added, unbuttoning his waistcoat.
"It's almost like old days," declared Frodo, flopping onto the extra bed.
"Oh, no, you don't," protested Merry. "Sleep in your own bed, if you please. I shan't sleep a wink if I have to listen to you snoring all night."
"I do not snore."
"Oh, yes, you do." Merry draped his jacket and waistcoat over the back of the small wooden chair by the wall and stretched out on his newly-lengthened bed. "Ahhhh. I shall have to remember this when I am traveling, though I wonder what the innkeepers will say when I request two beds."
Frodo chortled. "They'll probably say it's high time you found yourself a wife."
"Tsk. Such scandalous thoughts. I never thought I'd hear the like from you."
"See here, little cousin," retorted Frodo, folding his hands behind his head and staring up at the ceiling, "I may be an old bachelor, but I do know a thing or two about the way of life, and about the way innkeepers' minds work. I was merely saying."
"Well, I seem to be turning into an old bachelor myself," Merry dryly admitted. "And I know that old bachelors' thoughts do turn to matters romantic, now and again, whatever constraints honor may place upon our actions."
"Oh, do tell." Frodo suddenly snorted. "Oh! Do you remember—and this is going back to very old days—back when I'd not been long as Master of Bag End, and you used to visit all the time, and you asked me—"
"When you gave me the Talk?" Merry's eyes lit up, full of mirth.
Frodo turned his head to grin at Merry. "'Cousin Frodo, what do fellows mean when they talk of liking lasses?'" He burst out laughing.
Merry pouted, forgetting for a moment that it was undignified for a Hobbit pushing fifty to do so. "Now, Frodo, I was barely into my tweens—"
"I know, I know," admitted Frodo, wiping his eyes. "But it was so sweet, so innocent a question, and so charmingly put—and all I could think at the time was, oh, lad, you'll find out soon enough without my telling."
Merry grinned.
"But, as your older cousin, I felt it was my duty to give you the Talk if you hadn't had it by then."
"If I'd waited for my father to give it, I'd probably still be wondering."
Frodo favored him with an exceptionally skeptical look. "Uncle Saradoc couldn't possibly have been any more shy about it than Bilbo, and even Bilbo brought himself to do the deed—though not without a fair amount of blushing."
Merry laughed. "What would Bilbo have known about the matter?"
"As much as you or I or any other bachelor, I should guess," Frodo crisply retorted. "He wasn't always old, you know."
"Oh, I know," Merry hastily assured Frodo. He'd forgot how touchy Frodo could be when the subject was Bilbo. Still, he added, "But I'd thought..." He could feel the heat rise in his face, and he shifted his gaze to the wall on the other side of the room.
"Thought what?"
"Oh, nothing."
But Frodo was not to be that easily dissuaded. "Out with it. What dreadful gossip have you been dredging up now?"
"Not now," corrected Merry. "A long time ago."
"And...?"
"And," Merry drew a long breath. "Well, it was what they said that made me wonder what folks meant by liking lasses, because they were saying..."
"They were saying...?"
Merry let out an explosive, exasperated sigh and rolled onto his back, avoiding looking at Frodo. "'He's one of them fellows who don't like lasses, if you take my meaning.'"
"What?"
Merry flinched and covered his ears. "I knew you wouldn't like it," he meekly protested.
"Honestly, Merry, the rubbish you listen to—"
"Frodo, I was only a lad—"
"And now you're not, but you still believe it, even at your age. Honestly, Merry. If you want the truth, I don't think there are any such fellows—at least not amongst Shire Hobbits, save in the wild imaginings of common-room gossip—and we all know how reliable that is. But even if there are, I don't think it's our place to be speculating about the private matters of others, least of all of our elders. I find the whole matter exceptionally distasteful."
"As do I," Merry staunchly insisted. "I did not say I approved of the gossip, I merely reported it—because you insisted."
"Well. I do know that Bilbo had his eye on a few lasses—not all at once," Frodo quickly added, dreading what sordid rumor his gossip-happy cousin might be able to retrieve on that account. "At various times, in his younger years, before he left on his adventure; but none of those interests ever got to the point of courtship. If you want the truth," said Frodo with a soft smile, "I think that Bilbo was already wedded to his books."
Merry smiled back. "And it would seem you take after him, then."
"Oh, no. I like my books, but I would also have liked to have a wife." He looked away, suddenly, as if he had not meant to let that last bit slip out.
"Then I'll find one for you, and you can take my place as Master of Buckland," suggested Merry lightly.
At that Frodo rolled his eyes to look dourly at Merry. "No, thank you. On both counts."
When Frodo woke up, it took him a few moments to recall where he was. Gradually, he remembered: Sometime after bantering about common-room gossip and older cousins giving younger cousins the Talk about the way of life, and after a pillow fight that had brought both Sam and Rose into their room scolding them as if they were but teens, and after letting Merry talk him into going to the Green Dragon in spite of Ted Sandyman, and somewhere in the midst of other chatter of no lasting import, Frodo had fallen asleep on the spare bed in Merry's room. It took Frodo another few moments to let his eyes adjust to the dark, and then he realized what had awakened him: Merry was sitting bolt upright in bed, shivering, staring blankly into the night.
Frodo slipped out of bed and padded over to Merry's side. "Merry," he whispered. Merry did not move.
"So cold," he moaned, shuddering and gripping his right arm.
Slowly, carefully, Frodo reached around Merry's back and lay a hand on his arm. It was warm to the touch.
Roughly Merry shook off Frodo's hand. "I cannot even share a room with my cousin," he panted in a quavering voice. "How am I to share a bed with a wife?"
Again Frodo slid his arm around Merry, this time wrapping it snugly. "I am sure she would be very understanding," consoled Frodo.
Merry shook his head, eyes still gazing blindly at nothing. "We don't even understand one another," he whispered, and the words faded into a faint whimper of despair, and despair into silence.