Girl of the North Country, 4

IV.

“Sit,” said Paladin II.

Diamond looked at the nearest chair and did as she was told.

“Good,” said the Thain. He paced across the room to the drinks cabinet. “Brandywine?”

“Thank you, no,” Diamond said. Spirits went straight to her head.

But Paladin was having none of it. “Nonsense,” he said. “Do you good.” He poured a splash of brandy and filled the rest with water. “Ice?”

“Please.”

He put two large chips from the bucket into her glass and handed it to her. She waited as he circumnavigated the room until reaching the tall, graven oak chair behind the deep desk. The desk was utterly neat. A jarful of quills, a horn of ink, and a writing pad of green velvet next to a box of blotting paper and a shaker of sand. At one side, the Seal of the Shire.

Paladin II, Thain of the Shire, sat at his desk and regarded his daughter-in-law. “So,” he said. “What’s this about you and Meriadoc Brandybuck, then?”

Diamond was glad she hadn’t taken a drink. She held it in her hand and let the cold ice numb her hand.

“Nothing, sir,” she said. “Nothing but idle gossip. Merry comes to me as a friend.”

“A friend can mean many things,” said the Thain.

“Indeed,” agreed Diamond. “Counselor, teacher, and confidante among them. All these things Merry is to me.”

“Is he,” said Paladin. “And what does he counsel you?”

“That Peregrin is alive,” Diamond said flatly. “And to hope for his return.”

Paladin nodded, as if he’d expected this answer. “So he counsels me as well,” he said. He sighed, and a bit of the grimness of his authority slackened, letting Diamond see the farmer he had once been. “It is tempting to believe him. After all, I lost my son before, only for him to return, unlooked-for, at the darkest of hours of our Shire.”

Paladin smiled. “Did Merry tell you that story? Surely not. He wasn’t here to see it. Sharkey’s ruffians had sealed off the Tookland. We could neither get in or out. I sent patrols on every hillock and vale with orders to slay any Men on sight. It was, as the Rangers say, a stand-off.”

He took a drink of his own glass of brandy. “It was evening. The main road from the Four-Farthing Stone was sealed off by a band of some twenty ruffians. Our own guard were in the wood a quarter of a mile distant. Our watch recorded the sound of a galloping pony. They heard the sound of an argument, and looked towards the ruffians. They described a figure on a black pony, with a black cloak and clothing. They said a fight broke out. The rider drew a sword. He fought with the ruffians, and wounded several, and then spoke so that even our patrol could hear him. ‘I am Peregrin Took, son of the Thain of the Shire.’ That is what he said. ‘This land is mine and my family’s into days before the fathers of your grandfathers were born. Begone from it, or begone from this Middle-earth.’ Apparently they didn’t listen to him. He left few alive, and none in any condition to do further harm.”

Paladin closed his eyes. He was nearly seventy, and growing old. But his voice stirred when he spoke next. “He rode into Tuckborough and all the windows opened at his cry. ‘Rouse the Shire!’, he called, ‘rouse the Shire!’ And he rode up the lane to the gate where the sentries stopped him. And once again he declared himself, ‘Peregrin Took, Paladin’s son. Where is my father?’

“His sister Pimpernel was captain of the watch that evening. She recognized him first. She took him to the Smials, where his mother saw him again, and Pervinca, and the others. I was out riding at the Southfarthing border. I came home only after he had ridden back to Bywater with the hobbits he’d raised.”

His gaze narrowed upon Diamond. “I know your thought about Peregrin when you first saw him. I know because I thought the same thing. ‘How can this be my son?’ He was four and a half feet tall, broad-shouldered, and his eyes were fierce. And he was wearing foreign garments, the livery of someone else’s house and land. The livery, I knew, of Gondor, and not just of Gondor, but of the King. I knew then that I’d lost him. Lost him to wizards and elves and Dunedain and all the rest of that wide world.”

Paladin II sighed. “My son has never come home.” He looked at her. “And now … they tell me I must lose him for good.”

Diamond could guess who “they” were. The other Tooks. The other Families. Everyone, possibly, except her father and her brothers.

“And what will you do?” she asked the Thain.

Paladin took another sip of his drink, and set it down on his desk with a soft thud. “What would you suggest? Tell me.”

He was testing her, she knew. She decided to respond in kind.

“If the stories about me were true,” Diamond began, “I would tell you not to disinherit him, because it would benefit my own position. As his wife, I share in his family authority, and in case of his death, would hold what position he should have borne. So in time I would become Took, and my son, Thain.

“But I won’t suggest that. Because for one thing I do not think he is dead. I think he will come back, when he is ready; when he has done whatever it is he feels he needs to do, wherever he has gone. And for another reason: because he does not deserve that. Because you know his quality. Because you love him.”

She let out a small breath. There. She had said her piece.

The silence from the Thain grew ominous. Diamond looked at her father-in-law. He was watching her, his craggy face all but inscrutable, quite a trick for a hobbit: but Tooks were no ordinary breed of hobbit.

Then finally he spoke. “Yes. I love him,” said Paladin II. “Damn the stars, I’ve never been able to figure that boy out, but yes, I love him. He is the child of my old age and the hope of all our families. He always drove me to distraction with his wild ways—and Merry Brandybuck has much of the fault here. But yes, I love him. I love him and I hope he will return.” Then he lifted a finger and pointed it at her. “And now you love him too.”

Diamond nodded. “And now I love him too.”

The Thain of the Shire gazed at her, and then smiled, and for a moment, he looked like his son.

“Girl,” he said, “could not you have found a way to do that, before you lost him for all of us?”

Diamond had no answer to that. She knew her own fault in this matter. She would have her own sins to atone for.

She looked up, and saw Paladin standing before her. He raised her face with his hand.

“I will not disown Peregrin my son,” he said with authority. “Neither will I accept his death. You, daughter, are his wife. I expect you to do the same.”

To that Diamond agreed.

The Thain’s decision caused much consternation among the Families. The North-tooks were confounded that Paladin would not accept a finding of deceasement regarding Peregrin. The other Families were befuddled with facing the clear possibility of Diamond becoming a second Lalia with the full cooperation of a strong and respected Thain, Paladin II. As for the common folk, they lost interest. The gentlefolk would do as they had always done. As long as it helped the well-ordered business of growing and saving and cooking and eating food, it was tolerable. And what government they thought of was centered not in Tuckborough, but in Michel Delving, in the stout and steady hands of Samwise Gamgee.

In the Great Smials Diamond found herself increasingly isolated. The strange truce she had somehow made with Pearl only made Pervinca’s open enmity worse. Pimpernel was frequently absent, but her husband Everard remained behind, and he did not hide his dislike either. The servants barely tolerated her. By the first touches of November rain, she began to pine for the Northfarthing, where the only snow the Shire could expect would lightly fall. She had not seen snow for seven years.

It was at this time that her mother-in-law surprised her. Eglantine was a nice lady, sweet-tempered and solicitous, though slightly absentminded and, if not dimwitted, a bit slow to comprehend what lay before her. A little like Peregrin when he was distracted, which he often was. But Eglantine made beautiful quilts, painstaking embroidery, and now she decided to bring Diamond into a sewing circle. And Diamond found she enjoyed the small, open talk among the ladies, and the intricate patterns of their lacework and their weaving, the grids of thread and yarn that became flowers, and leaves, and butterflies.

One afternoon, after the circle was completed, Eglantine lingered for a while as Diamond folded the day’s work. “I must say!” said the pleasant hobbit-woman. “Two-over crosstitch can be quite exhilarating on a rainy day, can’t it, dear?”

Eglantine twittered at herself and carefully put away her sewing kit. Diamond went to the window and stared out at the cold November rain. It always rained in the Green Hill country. Never snow. Never a real deep snow, blanketing the moors in shades of white and blue.

“He’s not home yet, is he?”

Diamond turned to look at her mother-in-law. Eglantine was sitting with her hands folded and her eyes guileless and calm. Diamond was reminded of her husband. So his innocence and his implicit faith in others’ good nature came from Eglantine. What a disastrous combination with the recklessness of Tooks.

“Who is, ma’am?” she asked.

“Why, our Pippin, of course,” said Eglantine with a smile. “He’s always off somewhere, in some misadventure or another. How long has it been now?”

For a moment Diamond could not believe she had heard this from her husband’s own mother. A misadventure? Off somewhere? Far Harad, Merry had told her: Peregrin had flown as far south as south could go. If he was alive. Some days she believed it; others…

“Eight months, ma’am,” Diamond said to Eglantine. “Peregrin has been gone eight months.”

“Oh, is that all?” Eglantine said with a little hiccup of relief. “Well that’s nothing at all. Why, he was once gone thirteen months and came back twice his size—and not sideways!” She shook her head, her pleasant, chubby jowls quivering like her gaily rollered hair. “So much like Pal I don’t even know why they never get along. Or maybe that was it, wasn’t it, dear? Pal always wanted to travel too, but he had such duties, what with the farm and all. Did you know he married me against his will? Poor dear. But his father needed money, and, I’m not ashamed to say so, we Bankses may not be among the Great Families, but we do know how to make our way in the world!

“Ah, well.” Eglantine sighed contentedly. “Pal was good to me. He’s been all I could ask for. And such a strong hobbit, going from gentlehobbit farmer to Thain! Why, you would not credit how surprised I was! Little me, Lady of Great Smials, and Pal, Thain! And hasn’t he been a good one? Especially with all that unpleasantness with Lotho and his Men and that frightful Sharkey. Oh, my, the thought of him still makes me faint!” Eglantine fanned herself. “Who knew that the Thain would ever have to muster the Shire-moot or the hobbitry-at-arms? But Pal did it. Pal always does what he has to do, before he even thinks of doing what he wants to do.

“But let me tell you, dear, he had his own dreams. He’s a Took like the rest of them. Oh, silly me, I am so forgetful! You’re a Took too, dear, aren’t you?” Eglantine blushed. “You have your own dreams too, I suppose? I’m sure I can’t imagine. A girl from the north country like you, with all that snow and those windy downs and all. And the blood of the Bullroarer. I have to say, I so admire you, my dear! I wish I were strong like my girls and you.”

Eglantine heaved herself up from her settee and straightened her dress. She beamed at Diamond. “I am so glad you and Pippin have found some affection for each other. It does grow in time, my dear. And it’s the best thing for the children. He’ll be so happy to see our little Farrie-lad when he comes back.” She touched her lips. It was a funny gesture, the chubby hobbit-woman with the big, innocent eyes, pressing a fat forefinger to her pert and mobile mouth. “He will come back,” she said, and Diamond couldn’t tell if it was a question or just another absent-minded thought.

Her own dreams. Diamond went to her apartments, the rooms she had taken, separate from her husband’s, except for the bedroom that now neither of them had spent much time in. She stared at her world as if for the first time. She had added nothing to the décor since she moved in. Even the gowns were made in the Smials, the brilliant, expensive fabrics from across Middle-earth, made or remade for the future Lady of the Shire.

What had she done? Why had she not made a life here? Why did she push everyone away? Surely her parents had wronged her by pushing her into a marriage she did not want. But she didn’t make an effort either. Peregrin was not her enemy. He had never had been her enemy. She looked, and under the Mannish soldier was the bright little apple of everyone’s eye. Pippin. Pip.

Diamond of Long Cleeve stood in the midst of rooms that were not her own, and though now she didn’t cry, she tightened her fists in impotence and rage. At herself.

Then she made her decision.

She went to her dressing-room and pulled out her trunk, the trunk she had brought with her from Long Cleeve. It was worn and beaten and marked with her initials, D and T, over its lock. She flung it open and quickly turned to throw her oldest and dearest clothing into it.

She saw it before she could bury it under the clothes she held: a parcel, wrapped and unopened, with a small card. She didn’t remember placing it there. She didn’t recall ever seeing it before.

She knelt and reached for it. She noticed her hand was trembling. She picked it up. It crackled faintly, and she smelled lavender and heather. She tore open a corner of the parcel.

It was a bouquet of dried flowers, of heather and lavender and all the other blooms and verdure of the Northfarthing. It was old and dry and crumbled in her hands, but that only made their perfume all the stronger. And Diamond’s head swam with memories and fantasies and her lost girlhood dreams.

Eventually she picked up the card and read it, though she already knew what it contained. Still, the words smote her heart.

Missing home is the worst feeling I know. I hope this makes you feel better, my lady.
Always at your service,
Peregrin

p.s. I picked them myself!! Pip.

It was dated two years before, on her birthday: a private gift from her husband to her. He had gone to her home, to the moors of the Northfarthing, and had cut these blooms with his own hands. He had snuck into her rooms and placed it in her trunk probably hoping it would make her happy as a surprise. It must have broken his heart when she never spoke of it. But she had never seen it. She had never opened her old trunk, even though she had kept telling herself she wanted to leave. What had she given him that birthday? Probably a scarf. He looked good in scarves.

Diamond pressed the dried flowers to her face. She had never wanted to love Peregrin Took; had shied away from his touch; had rewarded his hope with disappointment, over and over again, to spite her parents and all who had maneuvered her from her happy solitary days in the north country. Finally he left, disheartened and disappointed in himself and his inability to make anyone happy, especially his own wife, the mother of his child. That it was only now, when it was too late, she had learned to love him—too late by far; that was her tragedy. Pippin had always loved her. He had never stopped hoping to be loved back.

Diamond wiped her cheeks. She was right in her decision. The flowers proved it. It was the only thing to do.

She was going to find her husband. She didn’t care how far she had to go. She would find him and bring him home.

Pervinca was scandalized.

“What do you think you can accomplish with this insanity, Diamond?” she protested. “Ride off to find him, when he must be dead or gone. You don’t think you can make up for what you’ve done to him?”

Diamond stopped and turned to Pervinca and said, “A girl has to try.”

“You can’t take Faramir!” Pervinca persisted. Her fair cheeks were purple. “Father won’t allow it! I shall tell him!”

“Tell him all you want,” Diamond replied. “Faramir is my son and Peregrin’s. Not even the Thain can stop me if I wish to take him. And Paladin will not. Nor would Peregrin.”

And she was right.

She rode to Buckland, to Brandy Hall, sending a rider ahead of her carriage to announce her arrival to Merry and Estella. They both rode out to meet her, at the Brandywine Bridge.

“I always knew you had spirit in you,” he said. Diamond was surprised at his attire. He was in the garments for a long journey: the grey elven-cloak, leather armor, packs and gear. She also saw, at the periphery, Men, in dark green and rusty brown. Rangers.

“Merry? Where are you going?” She looked from Merry to Estella, and back.

Beaming, his eyes dark, Merry produced a scroll with opened seals. “A letter,” he said. “Received this morning from the Steward of Gondor. Faramir sends his regards to you and his namesake, and this news…”

But Diamond already knew.

“Peregrin,” she breathed.

“He’s alive,” Merry nodded. “I’m leaving for Gondor at once.”

Diamond did not hesitate. “I’m coming with you.”