Warp and Weft

Chapter 3: The Garden

The hobbits stayed close to home for the first few weeks after the house was complete, feeling a little shy of going about very often or very far from West Hill. Also, though he did not like to admit it, Bilbo's age was a real factor for he tired easily and his joints pained him if he walked farther than the edge of the back lawn. As for Frodo, he felt very well. The fresh air from the Sea agreed with him, even more so than during the voyage, for he found that he much preferred to have solid ground under his feet as he gazed up at the stars at night or let the kindly sun warm his face during the day.

At regular intervals, a cart appeared from Avallónë (or so he and Bilbo supposed it came from), laden with plenty of provender. They also began to have callers. Elves appeared at their front door most afternoons, bowing and smiling and asking if they were interrupting the hobbits. These Elves always brought gifts with them—a book, a small painting, a graceful bowl filled with red apples, a finely-woven wool blanket. They always stayed for tea though they left soon after, careful not to wear out their welcome.

The hobbits were glad of the company, for they started to grow a little lonely once the first flush of West Hill's newness faded and their everyday life began. Elrond and Galadriel had only stopped at Tol Eressëa for a brief time before continuing their journey further into the west, though what they really missed was Gandalf's company for they felt most comfortable with him. As for Gandalf, well, he turned up from time to time but it appeared that he'd not only become used to his physical incarnation as the Grey Pilgrim, he had also retained his wandering ways. Apparently his long talk with Bombadil had suited him quite well for the foreseeable future in the matter of staying put for longer than a night or two. Or so Frodo decided when he thought about it, though he also wondered if perhaps this was no change from earlier days when there had only been Olórin. Not for the first time (or the last), Frodo thought hard on his friend and advisor as he sat before the fire with Bilbo after supper or stood on the lawn looking out to Sea.

"The West is his home," he mused to himself one night as he strolled behind the house in the bright starlight before bed. "I wonder if he misses Middle-earth ... though probably not near as much as he missed being here all those years. I wonder if he has a house somewhere. Don't know why I've never thought to ask him. It's rather hard to imagine, though, like it was hard to picture Aragorn ever having a real home of his own." The night air was warm, but Frodo shivered as he stepped over the threshold of his new home. And, just as he shut out the night sounds when he closed the kitchen door, so he tried to push away his meandering thoughts of Gandalf and Aragorn and what it must have meant to them to live in exile, without a true home for so long and, in Aragorn's case, without even much hope of one in the future.

He was unsuccessful because his thoughts continued to nag at him while he prepared for bed and even after that, as he blew out his candle and settled back against his soft pillows in his comfortable, warm bed and looked out the window at the full moon until he felt his eyelids grow heavy. "They did not complain, either, at least not to me. And their exile was their choice." He yawned and turned over, away from the light of the moon and stars, sleep pulling him blessedly close now. "As it was mine."


Frodo looked at the small hoe the smiling Elf held out to him. "Thank you!" he said and bowed before taking it. The wooden handle was smooth and rounded in his palm; it had been well-formed. Though he tried to remember, he could not recall the last time he'd held a hoe (or a rake or a shovel) in his hand. After all, at Brandy Hall there had been many servants and gardeners who had done such things, and as for seeing to the care of Bag End, that had been Sam's duty and pleasure and his Gaffer's before him.

He looked up to find Bilbo grinning at him, his eyes glinting with mischief. "You're not in Hobbiton any more, much less near Bagshot Row. I'm sure you'll become expert at wielding it in no time." He lifted his chin. "After all, we could do with a garden. I believe nasturtians would look very well along the front gate." While their new home was furnished plentifully with green grass, there was little in the way of flowers and trees in the immediate vicinity of the house.

Bilbo turned to the Elf, who was standing by with an uncertain smile on his face, as though he was afraid he'd committed an error of judgment. "Thank you, Lindir. It's just what Frodo needs to keep his hands busy though I don't believe he knows it yet."

Frodo flushed. Of all things, he certainly did not want to give offense to anyone on Tol Eressëa. He'd only been a little surprised at the gift.

Bilbo continued. "It's all very well for me not to garden with my own hands. After all, I've my poetry to work on ... which reminds me. I have a few lines I'd like to go over with you, Lindir. I've been asked to recite at The Silver Blossom next week and I'm terribly stuck over the smallest piece. I could use your help. That is, if you think you can manage to assist with a bit of mortal doggerel."

"It would be my pleasure," Lindir said and bowed. He and Bilbo turned and moved slowly toward the house, the ageless Elf bending solicitously down to the old hobbit, leaving Frodo standing on the back lawn and looking at the wretched hoe in his hands.

"Where am I going to get nasturtian seeds?" he muttered.

He'd spoken a little too quickly. Lindir heard him and turned round, saying very quickly, far more hastily than Frodo had heard him speak before, "Forgive me, Frodo. I forgot to tell you that I have arranged to have someone help you get started on your garden."

He could not tell with absolute certainty because he was too far away, but Frodo could have sworn that Lindir's fair Elvish face turned red as a Hobbiton poppy when he said that.


"Coming! Coming!" Frodo shouted as he trotted down the hall, stumbling a bit when he tried to jam his arms into the sleeves of his bathrobe. "Botheration ... ouch! ... if that's Gandalf coming at such an hour ... why, it's barely dawn ..." Such muttered comments continued until Frodo arrived at the front door and flung it open.

"Hail and well met, Elf friend! Lindir sent me."

She looked a little like Goldberry and Galadriel and Rose Gamgee all rolled into one delightful being, though that thought came later, when Frodo was more awake. His irritation at being roused so early in the day disappeared and was replaced by delight and embarrassment that the Elf standing before him should meet him for the first time when he was undressed, disheveled and definitely not at his best.

"Please, my lady," Frodo said when he finished gawping at her and remembered his manners enough to bow politely. "Won't you come inside for some tea?" He squinted out at the early morning light. "And perhaps a bite of breakfast?"

"Don't mind if I do," she said. "I've heard that hobbits are excellent cooks."


"But isn't it too early in the year to plant?" Frodo asked as they walked outside again.

Meril had as good an appetite as Hal (unlike him, her tastes ran to eggs scrambled with mushrooms and large bowls of oatmeal topped with brown sugar, butter and dried currants), but eventually the breakfast drew to an end and Meril began to discuss how she'd been sent by Lindir to help Frodo with his gardening.

"Is it?" Meril raised her eyebrows and looked about, scanning the green ground and then the bright blue sky as though she expected the blades of grass and the puffy white clouds to sing out the answer.

Frodo thought hard for a minute and used his fingers to aid with his calculations. The voyage had taken ... well, not longer than a month he thought or perhaps a little longer. Which brought them to November, say the end of November. Then they'd stayed a couple of weeks in Avallónë before moving to West Hill. And they couldn't have been at West Hill more than a month or so all told, which barely brought them to the end of January or the beginning of February. Drat. Why hadn't he brought a calendar with him from Hobbiton?

A less than delicate "ahem!" reminded him he was not alone. Following in Meril's path, he interrogated the green lawn and then the bright blue sky. The day was warm—not too hot and with just the right amount of coolness from the gentle breeze that blew in from the sea. It had been that way for nearly every day since he and Bilbo had arrived. Oh, it rained and quite often, but that was usually at night and it tended to lull one to sleep with its tender rhythm.

Frodo turned to face Meril. "There aren't seasons here, are there?"

She smiled. "Not in the sense that you know them," she said gently. "I think we might quite safely do some planting as soon as we decide what we want and where we want to put it ... and prepare the ground first, of course."

"Of course!" Frodo laughed. "Meril?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you think you could get me some nasturtian seeds?"

She tossed the little packet of seeds so quickly that Frodo barely had enough time to stick out his hand to catch it.


It was a good thing that Frodo had dressed in the oldest (not to mention the most comfortable) clothes he'd brought with him from the Shire. After a few minutes of digging a new flower bed that would run the length of the low fence at the front of the house, he was sweating under the warm morning sun and his clean linen shirt was smudged with dirt.

"Turn it some more," Meril said, her face nearly as wet with sweat as his. She showed Frodo what she meant, using her long-handled hoe with ease and vigor. "See? The soil must be well-turned before we do any planting."

Frodo stopped for a moment and leaned on his own hoe, breathing hard and blessing the tool's maker. Truly, it had been made to the perfect height for him. When he was able to slow his breathing so that he didn't sound like a forge bellows, he asked, "Do we need to add manure?"

Meril laughed. "What? Here? These aren't mortal lands, Frodo, though they may look it. No, a good turning to break up the roots of the grass, will be enough, unless of course you prefer to add manure. I can arrange it." She resumed working with her hoe, bending over and methodically turning the soil, breathing it in. "Ah, it smells fine, doesn't it? I always say there's nothing quite like the smell of good-turned earth. Better than a glass of cool water ... not that I'd say no to that at the moment."

How odd. There he'd been, annoyed with her dismissal of his sensible suggestion that they add manure to the soil. And now here he was, with tears in his eyes just because of her turn of phrase.

The smell of good-turned earth.

Meril wasn't the only one he knew who liked well-tended soil, though Frodo suspected that Sam might well have given her a little argument about the matter of adding manure. He also suspected that Sam might well have won the point.

As he trotted back to the house to fetch water for them, Frodo wondered what Sam would make of Meril. He suspected Sam might say something like, "Well, Mr. Frodo, I've seen Elves in Rivendell and in Lorien. I've seen them merry as children and solemn as a tall tree, but I've never met an Elf like your Meril. And never one with a smudge of dirt on her cheek like a Hobbiton lass out tying up bean runners in a kitchen garden."

"And leaves in her hair ... and brown skin instead of pale. Don't forget that, Sam; oh, don't forget that," Frodo murmured under his breath as he made his way back to the front gate, carefully balancing a tray holding a pitcher of water and two mugs. And it really was the most amazing thing. Because Frodo had never seen an Elf with such brown skin.


When they finished planting the seeds and giving them a good watering, Frodo and Meril retreated to the back yard with tall glasses of cold tea and a plate of shortbread fingers that Frodo had baked the day before. They sat on the lawn, close to where the grass ended and the white cliffs began.

"A fair day's work, Master Baggins," Meril said, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them, and for all that sitting straight and tall while she munched on a piece of shortbread. "Are you tired out from your efforts?"

It was possible that there was a muscle or two in Frodo's body that didn't ache, but he was quite sure he could not locate them (and he also suspected that if they didn't ache now, they would in the morning). He also bore a long scratch on his maimed hand, a reminder of the sharp stone he'd encountered when digging up the soil right next to one of the gates. There was dirt beneath his fingernails, and one of his elbows was scraped raw though he could not recall how that had happened. In short, he felt wonderful. Laughing, he said, "Yes, quite tired though I think I'll live."

"Oh, yes, for a good long while, I should think." Meril glanced at him, her face solemn for once, and then turned her head again, facing the water and the sky. "Tell me about your garden at Bag End."

Frodo looked at her but she did not return the look, instead continuing to look out to Sea, pressing her cool glass of tea against her cheek.

It was really quite a prosaic description that Frodo began to give her—how big the property was, what sort of plants there were and how they were arranged. Meril asked no questions but appeared to listen intently for she nodded her head at frequent intervals.

For some reason, in spite of his tiredness, talking about Bag End made Frodo restless, so he stood up and paced about a bit, all the while keeping his eye on the jagged cliffs spread out before him.

"I'm afraid I'm not giving a very good description," he finally said and stopped his pacing, one foot on the grass and the other on the white rock. "Sam's the one you really need to talk to if you want the best idea of Bag End's garden. I don't suppose even Bilbo could do better than Sam could." The stone was smooth under his foot, warm and inviting.

Meril turned to him, and she nearly pierced his heart with the sadness in her eyes. "Why do you look for a path down such a treacherous slope, Frodo? If you wish to return to the Sea or go to the harbor, you have only to walk down the road." She stood up, brushing off her full skirts, and reached out one hand to pull a strand of grass away from Frodo's cheek. He had not even known it was there. "'Tis not so far, after all. I think that is what I shall do myself. Thank you for a most pleasant day."

Frodo was so nonplussed by Meril's words that she was halfway across the lawn before he started to follow her, all his muscles protesting. He spluttered a bit as he walked (trotting being beyond his means for the moment), saying nothing sensible whatsoever even to his own heated brain.

He caught up with her just as she rounded the side of the house. And there Frodo stopped and, his mouth fallen open, stared at the nasturtian vines curling around the fence's plain wooden boards. Bilbo was at the front gate, bent almost in two as he peered at the green vines and ran his fingers over the bright leaves.

"What, no flowers yet? Tcha!" Meril murmured as she walked through the gate and started down the road just as she had told Frodo she would. After a moment, she turned back and waved at them. "These are not mortal lands, my friends," she called. "And remember, the best road is usually the most direct one ... if you can find it, that is."

"Now what on earth does she mean by that?" Bilbo asked but Frodo was still rooted to the ground, staring at the green vines that even before his eyes lengthened and twined around the fence.