A/N: Dear Guest Reviewer: Apologies, I'm aware that I've been leaving larger gaps between updates. The fact is that I'm now working three times as many hours as I was when I started this fic five years ago. This of course means I have less time to myself, plus needing additional time to mentally recharge and time spent on other interests and obligations I've picked up in that time. Thank you so much for your patience and sorry for the irregular posting schedule.
I think it would be bad form for me to comment on the weirdness of Tiger Lily and Sango's relationship outside of the text. Also glad you're enjoying Clover's mess. Thank you as always for your lovely review!
Tiger Lily wasn't listening as Uncle Hortenbold paced up and down the drawing room. She was too occupied with repairing an arrow whose fletching had come loose. Her mother, Aunt Mertensia and Opal were sat on a settee together like birds on a branch.
"Can't you do that somewhere else?" Tiger Lily's mother said, looking down at the wood, pots and feathers spread across the tea table. "It's unsightly."
"This is the only room that's lit," Tiger Lily murmured. "We need to ration the candles."
Hortenbold laughed harshly. "To our shame. I told the fellow at the Sharing desk that we were an old family and he laughed. Laughed! It's insufferable, to be treated like this. We're Tooks! To think we've been cowed by a Sackville. With one of those ridiculous double-barrelled names, for pity's sake."
Tiger Lily said nothing and reached for the handle of her hunting knife to remove the remnants of the broken fletching. It was an old knife, given to her by her father on one of his birthdays. The handle was of a swirling dark wood that spoke of long nights in forests and the smell of rain. It was plain and practical, lacking any decoration. The knife curved upwards, coming to a sharp point; so silver that it could have been a hole cut into the air. The handle was likewise curved to allow a better grip.
She slowly began to carve away the broken fletching and old glue.
"But what did Mr Sackville-Baggins say when he visited you?" Tiger Lily's mother said, watching Hortenbold like a cat watching a falling leaf.
"Not much. He asked if we'd had any news from Tookland, and naturally I had nothing to tell him. Neither did I tell him I'd noticed all my recent letters have had the wrong seals. "
The knife slipped. Tiger Lily cut her finger and jammed it in her mouth to stem the bleeding.
"Be careful," Aunt Mertensia said. "Why don't you let Uncle Hortenbold do that?"
"What does that mean?" Tiger Lily said around the finger. "About the seals?" She thought she knew, but wanted someone else to tell her because she was probably wrong.
"It means someone's been opening my letters," Hortenbold said. "Not that we can prove anything."
Tiger Lily frowned to herself. If the Mayor had been in charge of the Shirriffs and the post service, and Lotho had taken over the Shirriffs, that probably meant he'd taken over the post as well. "Are we still safe to send letters?" she said.
"I wouldn't trust the post service at the moment," Uncle Hortenbold said. "Don't send any if you can possibly avoid it. If you must, then don't put anything in them that you wouldn't want Pimple reading."
"Nothing then," Opal said, leaning back on the settee and folding her arms.
"He wouldn't actually take a swipe at us, would he?" Tiger Lily's mother said, looking up from her needlepoint. "He can't have lost all sense of decency. And he's left us alone hitherto."
"He won't come to visit us too, will he?" Tiger Lily said. 'Decency'? Lotho was having people beaten in the streets.
"I think he's dismissed you as unimportant," Uncle Hortenbold said. "Be thankful for your father's reclusiveness. But we need to be very careful. We're already outsiders: Tooks, not from Bywater, no matter that Aferbold and I were born here. Gold can only buy so much respect. Lotho has more gold than us and whatever prestige we had from the Thain is lost. A scandal would ruin us." He slumped into a chair and chewed his nails. Tiger Lily couldn't remember actually seeing him worried before. "Not a toe out of line from any of us. They'll use any excuse to leave us behind, and we need friends."
Tiger Lily turned her attention back to the arrows, trying not to look anyone of her family members in the eye. It was Rob's birthday. He'd come to her window that morning with a handful of snowdrops and she had invited him to her chamber that night. Hopefully no one would notice the flowers until they had wilted and could be thrown away. It was fine. It could be fixed. No one ever noticed her.
Clover spent all the next morning closely monitoring Dalgo's behaviour, trying to interpret anything she could out of the tone of his voice, the way he held himself at the breakfast table, the angle of his head as he reached for a glass of water. Was he signalling to her?
She was being ridiculous of course. There was nothing deeper there, no attempt to pull her away to talk to her in private. No indication that he had made up his mind about eloping to Bree-land.
Instead it was Monno's behaviour that was altered. She was sure she had caught him glowering at her over the breakfast table. It was with mild dread that she delivered him his mid-morning tea. Clover slowly carried the tray into Monno's study, feeling like the dark was falling around her.
"I thought it was about that time," he said, smiling like a sawblade.
Clover prepared the tea silently, trying to work out how to behave like a normal person. Behind her Monno closed the door. Something was about to happen. Monno wasn't vicious but words could do as much harm as blows.
She didn't turn to look at him or act like she knew any of this. Just behave like everything's normal so you can plausibly claim innocence.
Monno walked around to stand across from her and placed a small silk pouch in Clover's eye line. Despite her resolve to ignore him, she looked up instinctively at the familiar clinking of coins. She turned her eyes back down immediately, but she knew that Monno had seen.
"You've dropped your coin purse, sir," she said.
"How much do you earn in a year?"
"Don't know my numbers too well, sir."
"Abelia can't be a very good teacher then," Monno said. "How much a week, then?"
"Nine shilling, sir. It all goes home to my family," she said cheerfully.
"Nine shillings a week, let's say that's one-and-a-half guineas a month, which is 18 guineas a year."
22 guineas 6 shillings not including Yule money, she thought.
Monno put his hand into the pouch and started to lift coins out, setting them down in neat stacks. Lined up like Shirriffs, they shimmered enticingly in the candlelight. Clover found herself staring at them hungrily. She had never seen that much money before. Her hands were sweating.
"30 guineas," he said. "For you, now, if you hand in your notice today and never speak to me or my family hereafter. Especially Dalgo."
She raised her eyes up and saw the intensity with which he was watching her.
He knew about the betrothal.
Clover looked at him innocently, tilting her head to one side and drawing her eyebrows together in mock confusion.
"Whatever for, sir?" she said. "Have I not served your family well?"
"Don't play the fool," he said, leaning his knuckles on the desk. "I know of your and Dalgo's attachment."
"What attachment would you be referring to, sir?"
His mouth puckered like he'd just eaten a lemon sweet. "The betrothal," he said. "Dalgo told me."
Clover looked hard at him as she tried to work out the best way to change direction away from 'ignorant servant'. "I'm so sorry, sir," she said. "But we've grown so fond of each other an' Mr Dalgo's been the perfect gentlehobbit an' we weren't telling the family while I'm still working here so as not to cause Mistress Victoria any distress."
"If you cared a thing for my grandmother you'd call it off entirely."
"That would break your poor brother's heart."
"Just take the money and go," Monno said wearily. "Isn't that what you people want?"
That was it. Any inclination she might have had to accept the offer was gone. Did he think 30 guineas was enough? That she would throw away a lifelong future of status, comfort and security for a handful of coins that would be gone before she was thirty-three. She would marry Dalgo and live the rest of her life as Monno Grubb's sister-in-law. She would become mistress of this smial and her sons would inherit ahead of his. The corner of her mouth curled upwards in a cruel smile. It was only there for a moment, long enough for Monno to see and know the decision she was making.
"Who could change love for gold, sir?" she said.
"You love him, do you?" said Monno dryly.
"To distraction," Clover said, full of brazen triumph. "More than there are words to speak. More than all my thoughts and the sea and sky."
Monno brought his face close to hers. Simmering cold fury. "Be extremely careful. I won't allow you to bring my family low. This is your final chance."
"I must attend to my duties, sir."
Clover picked up the tea tray and left the room as quickly as she could. She hadn't realised how fast her heart was pounding.
Dalgo was looking over old records in his study, and glanced up at her as she entered. "Hello, darling."
"You told your brother about our plan."
Dalgo's shoulders tensed; a guilty child caught in a lie. "It's not 'our' plan as such."
Clover set down the tray, folded her arms and repressed a sigh. "You know that's not the point. Don't be a pedant."
"Yes, I told him."
"We agreed—"
"It wasn't my intention, it just happened. I'm sorry. What did he say?"
"To leave you alone."
"I'll talk to him."
"Please don't. It shouldn't even matter, you said you've give me your answer today."
"Yes…" Dalgo settled himself down his chair and inhaled deeply. "I was going to ask you a few questions about that. When we leave, will we ever come back?"
"Could do. One day."
"When's 'one day'?"
"I don't know! When's soon?"
Dalgo steepled his fingers and rested them against his chin. "Grandmother's 120. She's already lost her son, I don't want her to lose her eldest grandson as well."
Clover wined but said, "You shouldn't prioritise your grandmother's hypothetical needs over mine."
"I want to help her have the best death possible, I don't think that's unreasonable."
"So what do you want then?"
He averted his eyes, squirming in his chair. "I don't know…"
"You need to tell me. You promised. How can I trust you'll stand by me as a husband if you can't even make this decision? It's the first of so many."
"You can't expect me to delight at the prospect of throwing my entire life over," he said. "You have so much less to lose than I do."
Clover scowled at him "I have eleven siblings."
"What I mean is… I was with Father when he died. What if something happened to Mother and I wasn't there to bring her comfort? What if when Grandmother dies my absence causes her more pain?"
Clover folded her arms. "You said you didn't know what you wanted. But it sounds like you've decided. "
"I want both."
"Well, you can't have both."
"I know." He inhaled shakily. "I do want to marry you, but I don't want to elope."
Clover glowered at him. This was the only thing she had asked of him. How hard could it be? "You know my condition, Dalgo."
"I wondered if maybe we could try some other things first? I could talk to your family myself, or mine. Or we could wait a few years until I have my own property and would be better placed to provide for you."
"So you would throw our entire lives into uncertainty for who knows how many years?"
"If we were to elope now I'd be throwing my family's life into uncertainty. They'd be left alone to deal with all the consequences, suddenly thrown into a new situation. Monno would suddenly be head of the business, Grandmother and Mother would have lost someone else and the scandal would make it much harder for Abelia to find a match."
"No one's losing anyone, we'll come back."
"And what then? We can't expect them to take us back without rancour after leaving them to manage alone in the wilderness. They might never speak to us again, and not without reason."
Clover's tongue itched to utter a reprieve and she had to purse her lips to remind her this wasn't the time.
"So that's it? I thought we were… I thought you wanted to marry me."
"I do. But if I eloped with you I would carry the burden of guilt at abandoning them, which would prevent me from being the best husband to you."
Clover turned away from him to leave. "So you'll substitute being a poor husband for no husband."
"Would you want a husband willing to throw his family over?"
"I want to marry someone willing to put my needs first."
"Just a few more years," Dalgo said, getting up and rounding the desk to take her hands. "We're talking about an entire life together, we just need a little time t-to get things in proper order. A good home needs a strong foundation. It would be remiss of me to allow us to settle under infirm soil."
"And how long until the soil here is free of Pimple's poison?" Clover said.
"There's no such thing as a perfect place. The outside world is dangerous."
"But I've told you I don't want to live here."
His eyes ached through the lenses of his spectacles, looming slowly over her face as through trying to read her like a book. He ran one of his thumbs over her cheekbone. "I'll love you for as long as I have mind enough to think. But I can't do this."
She wanted to rail at him. She wanted to tell him to go and marry some simpering, empty-headed lass who would blindly go along with whatever he said.
Instead she found herself sniffling, holding back tears like she was at the end of the world. This made her hate him more. She wasn't sure who the tears were for: him or herself.
"I need you," she said.
"I want to give you all I have in my power to give," he said and placed a kiss on her forehead. "I'll continue to consider myself attached indefinitely. It's only fair considering that this was my decision. But I don't expect you to wait for me."
He stepped back from her. Clover sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand, far from the fine lady she envisioned herself as. But what happened now? Would she lose her job? Would they still be friends?
She would lose everything.
"I'll wait," she blurted.
Dalgo turned to her and raised an eyebrow. "But you were so insistent that you wanted—"
"I can't lose you," Clover said. She was shaky and her vision was blurred with tears. "I'll wait until the Shire's better. Please… don't leave me here."
"I'm sorry," he said, crossing the room in two strides to fold her in his arms. It was a bony hug, but his waistcoat was soft and his hands were gentle. "I didn't mean to upset you."
Then you wouldn't have done this, she thought bitterly.
"Of course I won't leave you," he said. "You'll always have a place here while I'm alive."
"What about Monno?" she said into his waistcoat. "He don't want me here."
Dalgo broke away and went to his desk, scribbling something out on a scrap of paper.
"A reference," he said, pressing it into her hand. "To help you find a new role if you need one. And I can send you money if you're left without a position."
Clover nodded, but raised her face to look him in the eye. The reference for a clerking position was all she had wanted before, but now she'd had another world entirely, just within a finger's breadth. The thought of being a clerk was as flimsy now as the paper in her hand. Still she thanked him, like she was supposed to.
He brushed a thumb along her cheek, wiping away the damp. "I don't think I've ever seen you cry before. I wish it had been a different cause."
Clover sniffed and wiped the remainder of her tears away. "I suppose not. You'll see it more often, if we're wed."
"I hope not."
Clover took a deep breath and turned away to move towards the door. She could still feel the ghost of his arms around her. She stopped and looked back at Dalgo, who was shuffling through the papers on his desk with a hangdog look. It was odd, the way he spoke to her, like she as everything in the world. "Sorry if I'm cold," she said. "I'm not used to being cared about."
"I don't think that can be true," Dalgo said.
Clover shrugged. "My family try, but I'm just one of twelve. Other than that…" She sniffed, not realising until then that she was still emotional. "I don't know. I guess I'm not easy to love."
Dalgo smiled gently. "That's certainly not true." The smile disappeared behind the raincloud. "I really am sorry, that I can't be what you need."
It was strange, almost unnerving, to have someone look at her like she was some great treasure. It couldn't really be possible, that he actually felt that way about her. He probably thought he did, but there was no guarantee he would still be willing to marry her at whatever stage they were ready.
There must be something she could do to expedite it, just not today.
Monno shifted from foot to foot uneasily. A note had been left at the smial that day addressed to him, with instructions of where to meet and what to bring. He was just outside the guarded bridge that straddled the Water, carrying a leather book under one arm. Mist coiled around the hills greedily. There was the hollow sound of hooves on the road.
"Good evening, Mr Grubb," Lotho said as his pony approached. He swung himself down from the saddle shamelessly, as though this was a pleasant social meeting while out on an evening ride. Monno was almost jealous of how relaxed he was. Monno tensed further when two horses with their riders loomed through the mist behind Lotho. His arm instinctively tightened around the book.
"Don't mind them," Lotho said genially. "But one must take precautions, times being what they are. You have the documents I requested?"
"The family tree of the Yardleys of Bywater," Monno said, taking the book into his hands. He was supposed to give it to Lotho now. But… "What exactly do you plan to do?" he said.
"You needn't worry yourself," Lotho said. "Trust that no innocents will be harmed. This is merely to help in restoring order, something we desperately need."
Monno still hesitated.
"We had an agreement, sir," Lotho said, holding out his hands to take the book. "Give me what I need, please."
Slowly, like a marionette being pulled by strings, Monno's arms moved to place the book in Lotho's welcoming hands. Without the weight of it in his arms, he somehow felt much heavier than before.
Lotho flipped the book open and started sifting through the pages. Squinting in the insufficient light he eventually smiled. "Thank you, cousin, this will do well. I'm most obliged." He mounted his pony, carefully placing the book in the saddle bag. "I shan't forget our friendship. Do let me know if I can assist you or your family with anything."
"Thank you," Monno said, still reeling internally from the mention of friendship. "Um… as it happens, I'm a little concerned about someone in our employ. Her name's Clover Delver, she's become close with my grandmother and sister, and I'm worried that she's using the friendship to take advantage. I've asked her to take a position in a different household but she's refusing. Perhaps you could… do something about it?"
Lotho's expression didn't change. "I see. Do what exactly? If she's broken any Rules, for example, I could arrange for her to be taken to Michel Delving for correctional punishment. Is that something you think she may have done?"
"No," Monno said quickly. "Nothing so drastic, just… if someone could give her a talking to. To make her understand her place."
"I'll make arrangements. Will that be all for the time being?"
"This is only a one-off," Monno said quickly. "A strong hand to deal with an unusual situation. There won't be a need for anything else."
"I'm sure," Lotho said. "Many thanks for your help. I'll be in touch in the future."
He nudged his pony into a trot and disappeared into the night, leaving Monno alone, sensing that he'd opened a wound that would never close again.
A/N: When you marry someone just to spite their brother.
I'm pretty sure that in one of Tolkein's letters (I can't find which one but I swear it exists) he says that the custom of creating double-barrelled surnames is mostly associated with newer hobbit gentry. Hence Hortenbold looking down on the custom (Tooks being like the second oldest family after the Brandybucks).