He had come to think of her as an unexpected, splendid gift, that came and went every day, and would one day be gone for good, off to marry some respectable farmer's son. So he had decided to appreciate her company while it lasted, even if it was only lent to him by the world.
He certainly could not think of her as anything more, because… well, for the likes of him there could be no more. Any thoughts he had beyond the next few days ran together into a mist, and made him feel like he stood at the edge of a precipice.
But when she was with him, he felt bits and pieces of a familiar warmth, for her resemblance to Sam was uncanny. She had the same easy, plainspoken manner, the same roundness of features (which she had regained after the Lockholes), and similar sun-colored hair and gold toned skin – though Marigold's was rather prettier, and could have been compared to a just-ripe peach. They also had the same presence of mind and attention to details that belied a deep-feeling and deep-thinking nature. With Sam, it had been food, rope and distances. With Marigold, it was again food, but also cleanliness and health, along with the organization needed to navigate a smial where she was quickly making herself at home.
He was overcome with a desire to do something for her – beyond just paying her wages – for he had not lied when he said that he felt useless, never mind that he had ruinously poor sleep that left him barely able to lift his arms.
The reading and writing felt like an opportunity. When he first learned of her difficulty, his heart had squeezed with pity. Having read everything he could get his hands on from the moment he learned his letters, he had always found it easy and natural as breathing. At Brandy Hall, after he had inhaled all the books, he even read the dictionary and took note of the particularly unique words, writing them down in a notebook that he would add to for many years after. So to hear that someone found reading hard as chewing rocks was difficult to comprehend – but what a metaphor, in fact! – she was certainly not daft. More than that, he found it incredibly saddening. It brought to mind a person who was standing outside in the cold, locked out of a merry gathering and with no key to get in.
He had worried at first that he would not know how to teach her, or where to begin – but Marigold proved a willing student, and at times she all but taught herself. All he had to do was suggest something, and she took to it and ran.
On the first day, they did not even get to the reading. Marigold had instead asked what words she had gotten wrong, so they took to the wastepaper basket, and placed the labels side by side, old and new, and she dutifully copied down the proper spellings into her notebook in her wobbly, awkward handwriting.
When they got to the word "overalls," which Marigold had spelled with one L, Frodo pointed out that since it had the word "all" in it, it would be helpful to think of other words that ended the same way.
And Marigold summarily came up with "tall, ball, call, shawl, crawl," which she had started to write down, when –
"Those last two are spelled with a W," Frodo pointed out.
Marigold raised her eyebrows.
But she did not seem frustrated by this, just genuinely surprised.
Frodo nodded.
"It's alright. Just start a new column for them. And then let me show you something."
He pulled a piece of paper toward him, and wrote a sentence.
I shall wear a shawl.
He turned the paper towards her.
She moved her lips, silently, as her eyes moved over the letters.
"This one is 'shall'," He pointed to the second word. "As in 'will.' And this one is 'shawl,' the thing you wear."
"Shall… shawl…" Marigold nodded as she repeated the words, her eyes fixed upon the paper. "I shall wear a shawl…"
The realization hung palpable in the air. If she had not known, she might not have gotten the point across. But sitting here with Frodo, her anger toward Sam felt spent.
Frodo nodded again. And of course, there was also "shoal," a large group of fish, or indeed people, who moved as if they were one, but it would not do to confuse her with further elaboration just then.
Simple, Frodo, simple – he reminded himself.
It was an oddly comforting thought.
"Shawl – shall… Shall – shawl," Marigold repeated as she traced the words, each into their own respective column.
"Very good," Frodo affirmed. "Just keep saying it out loud as you write. It should help, so it's both your hand and your ears that remember. Try to emphasize that one sounds like an 'o' and the other like an 'a' when you say it."
Marigold did, and as wrote the two words again, this time on a spare piece of paper, Frodo also wrote the word "shawl" and drew a scarf beside it, pulled over a set of small, invisible shoulders.
And that started the drawings. She drew honeycombs next to "wax" when they came up with words that sounded like "flax," the word that had started it all, and paw prints next to "tracks" – and repeated the words emphatically and dutifully as she wrote and rewrote them again. And she did not seem distressed by it all, just paused and gave a chuckle as Frodo said there were two ways of spelling the word "ax" – one with an "e" and one without. She then drew an ax by the word and said, "you know, Mr. Frodo, I always thought the letter K looked rather like an ax, myself…"
And looking at it, he did in fact see it – though for his part he had always thought it looked like a dwarvish rune – a fact, he supposed, not incompatible with axes. But since the association was not a proper one for the spelling of the word, he put forth that a better way to remember it might be that if you took an ax to something, you destroyed the thing and put an "x" over it – or, if unsuccessful, left the indentation of two blade cuts.
Marigold laughed at this, and accidentally put her hand where the ink had not dried, leaving an impression of "ax" on her hand. Frodo passed her the blotting-paper.
In the end, they had come up with far more words than was reasonable to learn in a night, so agreed that she would only learn the first ten, and the next day Frodo would quiz her on them.
Marigold left Bag End that day feeling like she was walking on air.
She liked learning, of course, but not for lack of feeling daft – indeed, she felt daft more often than not, except for when Sam taught her – but that, as had already been established, was a lie. Indeed, the feeling never truly went away; she only got used to it. Her sisters often got annoyed when they had to show her how to do something multiple times, and Mrs. Bracegirdle was thin on praise and her criticisms were famous. But Mr. Frodo?
His corrections were, like everything he said, a simple invocation of fact, easy and obvious like "two plus two equals four," and as casual as observations on the weather. There was nothing personal to them, no judgment – just the offering of pieces of knowledge as gifts, for her to take and do with as she pleased.
And Frodo, for his part, had gone to bed that night having missed his evening glass of wine or three, and having drunk instead the milk infused with lavender that she had warmed for him. And it might have been his imagination, but that night he had a harder time falling asleep, but once he did his awakenings were fewer and farther between: the dawn came more quickly, and the cries of the wraiths in his dreams were not as loud.
The next day, they did get to the reading.
It was, again, after dinner, the candles lit in anticipation of sundown. Marigold had settled in at her spot at the dinner table – which they devoted to their task upon realizing that none of the desks – nor, indeed, the escritoire – were big enough to fit two hobbits and the tools of the tutoring trade. She opened The History and Customs of Hobbits and began to read, and Frodo, for all his breeding and broad-minded nature, had to forcibly clamp his mouth shut to prevent it from hanging open.
"Hobbits. Are. An. Un–ob–tru… un-ob-tru…sive?… Unobtrusive. Right. Unobtrusive. Better write that one down. But very. Ank – ancient. People. More than. Wait, no. Hobbits. Are…" (1)
She plodded along, while Frodo cast about for something – anything – to say.
The only thing that came to mind was "Holy Petunias, she reads like a young child." But even thinking that felt shameful.
And more than that, what was he, or anyone, to do about it? He was more than ever at a loss – for back when he was a child, the words had almost instantly begun leaping off the page, assuming color, size and shape like so many living things. But Marigold was fumbling for those same words as they ran away from her in the dark. What hope was there of ever bridging such a gap? And what tenacity she must have had to get this far in life regardless...
"Even in. An-cient days. They were. As a Rule. Were not. Often. Wait…"
"Wait, Marigold." Frodo put his hand on the book.
She looked up, her expression that of someone caught breaking the rules.
He let his hand linger on the book, making his eyes as kind as possible.
"Marigold – may I ask, how did you read when you trained with Mrs. Bracegirdle?"
Marigold noticed his hand by hers, but her shoulders drooped all the same. She looked at the book, chastened, but she kept her voice steady.
"Why, just like this, Mr. Frodo. I told you it was like chewing rocks. The words never came together as they should."
"But it must have taken ages!"
"It did. Sam helped a little, now and then. He read to me when I got tired."
"But did he know – how hard it was?"
She shook her head.
"At first, I was too ashamed to tell him, and then I was too ashamed that I hadn't told him. So I said I had headaches, or that I was tired. And I do sometimes get headaches when I read too long. The letters start to wobble."
Frodo winced. The image of them standing at an impassable door came to mind, much like the Mines of Moria.
Marigold looked forlorn, like she had been expecting it. She fiddled with the corner of the page as if to say, it's alright, Mr. Frodo, it was a valiant effort but there is no shame turning back now.
Except there was.
Maybe not shame exactly, but something made him determined to see that despondency erased. In another life, he might have taken up Sting to get rid of it.
But instead, he reached for one of the other books, and thumbed through the pages.
"Here, let's try something different."
He shifted closer to her, and lay the book between them, open to a short page of verses. Before she could try to read it, he covered all but the first line with a spare sheet of paper.
"Here, this ought to help. I'll try first, then you."
He took a breath and began to sing. He had not previously put Bilbo's poetry to music – nor had anyone else that he knew, but it was not difficult to do: he carried the first words of each line higher, dropped lower in the middle, and finished each verse on the note where it started.
All that is gold does not glitter
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost. (2)
He stopped, and looked at Marigold. It was not much, but perhaps? If words on a page did not coalesce on their own, then perhaps it was easier to work with words that were meant to?
"Try doing what I did. This is one of Bilbo's compositions."
Marigold shook herself out of a daze. She could not recall ever hearing Frodo sing, most certainly not to her – or rather, for her. He had a fairly good voice…
Tentatively, she took up the paper marker, and placed it under the first line. The letters sat calmly above it, like birds on a fence. She took a breath.
All that is gold… does not gli-i-itter…
Not all those … who wander… are – lo-o-ost;
The old that is strong … does not wi-i-ther,
Deep roots are not reached … by the fro-ost.
The paper was under the last line. She looked up, a mild astonishment on her face.
In truth, she had not actually read, but rather imitated Frodo's words and music for half the passage. But knowing what words lay ahead made it easier to recognize them, and the predictability of the rhyme and rhythm was soothing.
"That's very good." Frodo nodded emphatically. "Maybe we ought to focus on poetry to start. You've made a lot fewer pauses with this one."
She felt herself prickle from her head to her elbows – a bright and excited sort of feeling that buoyed her up.
She nodded. Poetry was certainly fine by her.
"May I – copy this one over? It's lovely. It's really Mr. Bilbo's own?"
"It is. And yes. Copying things over is always good practice."
She dipped her pen in ink.
"And the word 'reach' may be a good one for our sound-alike exercise," he added. "Words with 'ea' and 'ee' can be difficult to parse out."
Her pen hovered over the word "all," now firmly entrenched in her mind as having two L's instead of one.
"What does it mean, though, Mr. Frodo?"
"The poem? Oh. Well, what do you think it means?"
Marigold pondered for a moment.
"I think…"
What did it mean? Deep roots? Wandering people? Gold that did not seem like gold? They were all beautiful, sad images, but this, too, was a first. No one had ever asked her what she thought a piece of writing meant.
Frodo turned to her, elbow on the table, and waited for her response with curious eyes. The sun was setting, but not so low that the candles were the only light. Even so, the things around him grew dim by comparison. She blinked; it was almost as if he was lit from within.
"I think…" She regrouped her thoughts, "I think it means that things are not as hopeless as they seem. You'd think that something's worthless, lost, dead, but it always comes back. It always reveals its true nature."
"It's curious that you use the word hopeless."
She turned back to the page.
"It's what came to mind, Mr. Frodo." She set to tracing the word "that." "'Cause losing things, and losing people, can feel a might hopeless... But did I get it right? Is that what it really means?"
Frodo pushed his seat away slightly.
"Poetry means different things to different people, I think," he replied. "That's why I've always liked it. But in truth, this one originally was a riddle. It's about one of the companions Sam and I had on our quest, Aragorn. He is now the king of Gondor, but for many years they thought his line was broken and lost, and he was just an unassuming Ranger of the North."
Marigold ceased writing and put down her pen.
The name Aragorn was familiar from the four Adventurers' stories, though just like words in general, unusual names were never her strong suit.
"How did he find out he was king, then? And how did his line get lost?"
She wanted to know more about this mysterious man, about whom such a beautiful poem was written. She would likely never meet him, but he was special enough to Bilbo and Frodo that the first had written a riddle about him, and the second had kept it and showed it, now, to her.
"Ah, well that is an interesting story," Frodo replied. "But perhaps best left for another day." He looked outside. The trees were no more than outlines against a pearlescent sky. "I think we had better end for the day, once you finish copying down the poem. The Gaffer will be wondering where you've got to."
(1) They are, essentially, reading the prologue to Lord of the Rings, the section entitled "Concerning Hobbits."
(2) "The Riddle of Strider" from J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.