Chapter 5 - Confessions

The next morning, Pervinca busied herself with wiping up the kitchen table after breakfast. She picked up the last mug, slowly wiping where it once sat with the wash cloth in her hand.  For a long minute she did this then took it to the tub where Pimpernel was washing the dishes.

“Pervinca,” Pim called to her sister. “You look lost--are you all right?”

Pervinca stopped in her tracks. No!, she thought to herself, She’s trying to test me! Pervincaturned to face her sister, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Pim.” Pervinca wrinkled her brow in concern. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“You just seem a bit out of sorts,” Pimpernel remarked, going back to washing the dishes.

Pervinca swiftly turned about, hands on her hips, “I am not!” Pimpernel stood gazing at her younger sister. Pervinca thought better of her outburst, “I mean,” she casually wiped down the salt and pepper shakers, “I’m just fine.” I’ve got to learn to behave nonchalant when I’m holding juicy gossip!

* *

Merry lay quietly with his head buried under his pillow, shutting out all the sunlight and noise. He had missed breakfast, telling his auntie that he wasn’t feeling very well. It was mostly the truth; all night he lay awake unable to sleep. He lay tightly wrapped in his blanket from the many tosses and turns he did in his attempt to find sleep. His dream had been quite unnerving, yet he had fallen back to sleep after worse night terrors. Why not this time? Because you’re being a wicked boy again!, said a still, small voice deep inside him. Then he remembered the hidden “treasures” he and Pervinca concealed within the bales of hay in the barn the night before. “I am being a wicked boy,” he confessed to no one in the room. Presently, he heard a knock on his bedroom door.

“Merry?”

“Good morning, Uncle,” said Merry, turning over to face Paladin, rubbing his tired eyes.

“Your auntie told me that you weren’t feeling well. May I come in?”

Nodding his answer, Merry then sat up against his headboard. “It’s just that I wasn’t able to sleep.”

“Why is that?” Paladin asked, though he had a feeling it was over the scolding he gave his nephew upon his return home the night before. Finding his boys safe and in bed, he felt he should at least let Merry know how much worry he and Pippin caused them.

“I had an ugly dream, is all. I’ve slept after others but not this one, and I don’t understand why.”

“That is true,” Paladin replied, then combed back a few of Merry’s curls then felt his forehead. “No fever. What was your dream about?” Merry went into account of his unsettling dream; of feeling lost, alone, and surrounded by evil. “Well, Merry, perhaps your guilty conscience is getting to you.”

Much of yesterday reappeared in Merry’s mind. Luring his young cousin into playing truant in the road with him, coercing Pervinca to keep silent--even towards her parents. He saw before him the face of the one person who loved him as his own son. The one person, aside from his own mum, who guided and loved him all his young life. He couldn’t look into his uncle’s face after not being entirely truthful with him yesterday. He looked off to the side, tears glistening in his eyes.

Paladin brought the boy into his arms, holding him. “Shhhh, Merry--what is wrong? And tell me the truth this time. I met up with Gandalf on the road--while we were all out looking for you boys.”

“What did he say?”

“First, you tell me what you think he said,” answered Paladin.

“It was all my idea--Pippin had nothing to do with it,” Merry began.

Pippin? Nothing to do with it? Paladin knew his own flesh and blood better than that. “Let me be the judge of that, son.”

* *

Pervinca sat at the now clean kitchen table, sniffling and wringing her handkerchief in her hands. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“Pervinca, I can’t make that kind of a promise, and you shouldn’t have either,” Pimpernel sat next to her sister, listening for the past hour as Pervinca poured out her guilt-ridden heart.

“I know that now,” said the young teen drying her eyes, “but I promised Merry and now look! He’s right; I am a snitch.”

“You are not being a snitch if those you love are in trouble--or are the cause of it.”

“Do we have to tell father?” Pimpernel gave her sister an admonishing glance. Pervinca sighed, “Can we at least wait until after dinner tonight?”

* *

Two hobbit-teens silently sat in Paladin’s study looking mournful as possible in hopes that the grown-up would have pity on them. Paladin grinned inwardly; they reminded him of his own childhood with his sister Esmeralda. Outwardly, though, he kept a stern eye on two of the three as they sat in silence while waiting for the third guilty party.

Pippin was whistling a very happy tune as he waked inside his father’s study. When he woke up this morning, his vision was back. Still a bit fuzzy around the edges, but at breakfast, he could even see the butter in it’s dish. He didn’t need to be led by the hand around the house. He could see again! Pippin was elated; he never gave a second thought to his eyes before his purported fall. He would never again take his eyesight for granted. He missed Merry at breakfast and was on his way to look in on his cousin when Pearl informed him that their father wanted to speak with him in his study.

“Hullo, Pippin,” Paladin turned in his chair, “glad you could join us.” Pippin immediately knew something was up. He could see his sister and cousin sitting on the couch. Quietly he sat between the older children, rubbing his eyes just in case it brought sympathy from his father.

Paladin wasn’t fazed by Pippin’s gesture; he taught his son every trick in the book. “It seems you children were misbehaving yesterday…in the road, I was told.”

The older two said nothing while Pippin decided to play advocate. “We were only singing, father.” Merry dug his elbow into his cousin’s ribs in effort to silence him.

Paladin sighed, “It’s not the singing I am talking about, lad. Its how you were dressed--what you did to make others believe that you were poor and destitute. You said this morning, Pippin, that you could see. Then open your eyes and look in retrospect at how you would react to another boy wearing tattered clothing--literally singing for his supper.” Looking at the rueful faces, Paladin saw his words taking hold. “All three of you are children of privilege, lacking nothing in material possessions. I may not give in to your every whim, but you have good clean clothes, food to eat, and a roof over your heads. Some of your most basic belongings are necessities for them. I am ashamed of your behaviour yesterday.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle,” Merry spoke softly. After viewing the world through his father’s eyes, Pippin also apologized. Pervinca, the least guilty of the three, sat in tears, wiping her eyes.

“It’s not me you need to be apologizing to,” Paladin replied.

Merry, Pervinca, and Pippin rode in the back of the wagon while Paladin drove it. No one spoke. Presently, the wagon stopped in front of a single little hole. The door was not ornately decorated like the main entrances at Great Smials or Brandy Hall--nor like the one at the little farm smial that they lived, but it was well kept. There was a little garden beside the porch that in all probability barely fed the occupants. Off to the side, tied to a tree was a female goat; most likely where they got their milk and cheese from. This was the hobbit-hole of a not so fortunate hobbit-family by the name of Longhole. They weren’t suffering at all, but they could always use a helping hand. Mrs. Longhole died while giving birth to her tenth child a few years ago. The elder children raised the youngest ones, and the ones able to find work did so. Mr. Longhole was getting up in years, so he was limited in the sort of work he could do to make ends meet.

Pervinca was the first to hop out of the wagon and reached for the baskets of apples and boxes of biscuits. Pippin and Merry rolled the keg with the remaining beer to the edge. Paladin got down to assist the boys in taking the keg out of the wagon, but left them to their task as soon as it was on the ground.

Pervinca waited by the door until her partners-in-crime caught up with her. When they were just shy of the door, she knocked.

The small door creaked open to reveal a slight young boy of about nine years old. “Mr. Pippin! What are you doing here?” Merry immediately recognized the child--he had purchased an apple from him the other day in front of the inn.

“Hi, Teddy” Pippin knew this young hobbit from the market. Teddy worked as a labourer for another farmer to sell the produce. Pippin now understood what his father was trying to teach them. Teddy worked at the market while he himself studied his letters and books. A privileged life… He looked around, “Is your papa home?”

The little boy nodded then disappeared beyond the open door. Merry could see inside where it looked like seven or eight children gawked at the well-dressed young visitors. These children’s clothes were tattered in a very real way; no mum to sew their clothes, wash their face, or brush their hair. Merry was mortified of his antics the day before. He and Pippin looked at each other, knowing this was the right thing to do.

Finally, an older hobbit appeared in the doorway. “Good evening, sir”, Merry started, then introduced his cousins. Pervinca curtsied as her mother taught her to do. “My cousins and I....petitioned...on behalf of those who might benefit from such...and these were the fruits of our labours.” Merry tried to speak as well as he could, leaving the real matter of things in the past.

Pippin thought the old hobbit was going to cry. “Bless ye childr’n” the old hobbit said, “I wish there were more like ye.” Pippin bit his lip; he, too, realized his behaviour the day before was appalling.

Pervinca handed one of the Longhole boys the baskets while Merry and Pippin rolled the barrel inside the humble hole. Before leaving, Merry handed Mr. Longhole the silver and copper coins he took from his targets the day before. The old hobbit smiled, “Thank ye.”

On the way back to Whitwell, Pippin sat up front in the wagon with his papa. The group was just as silent on the way back to Whitwell as they were on the way to Mr. Longhole’s modest hole. They each contemplated on their blessings. “Papa, why are some hobbits in need?”

Paladin was delighted his plan went as he imagined it would. He puffed out a bit of smoke from his pipe as he steered the ponies with the reins. “Sometimes, Pippin, fortune just doesn’t seem to be equal.”

“But why, papa? Did Mr. Longhole do something that we didn’t, or did we do something that Mr. Longhole didn’t?” The child was trying to understand a world that sometimes had no mercy on the misfortunes of folk. Why were some hobbits well off, while others struggled? Didn’t Mr. Longhole have the same opportunities as his father did? If not, why? So many questions were swirling around in his young head.

Paladin frowned. “Pip, I don’t have all the answers. I wonder at the same questions myself at times, but I haven‘t come up with anything that makes sense.” He looked at his young son. “How’s your wrist today?”

“Better,” said Pippin, flexing his fingers, hand, and wrist.

At that moment, the wagon turned up the familiar lane. “Papa, I feel...I don’t know--embarrassed, for what I did yesterday. I promise I won’t ever play the fool like that again.”

Paladin brought the wagon to a stop in front of the barn. “Yes you will.” Paladin chuckled, tousling his son’s unruly curls, then grew serious. “You’re a young boy, and still have a long way to go in growing up. Today was one lesson--there are still more waiting for you.” He climbed out of the wagon, handing the reins over to Merry to stable the ponies. “We also learn from our diligent parents who give us numerous chores to keep us from idleness.” He laughed, “Come along now--there is much to be done before supper!”

THE END