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A Healer's Tale  by Lindelea


Chapter 5. A Merry Meeting

It didn’t take long for Sweetbriar to settle everything to her satisfaction. The new mother was tucked up in her bed, babe beside her, both having a “nice little nap” after their endeavours. The proud father kissed his wife, pulled back the swaddling blanket once more to marvel at perfect little fingers, four of which (plus a thumb) he blessed with a kiss before carefully tucking the blanket around the scrap of a son once more.

 ‘Go on with ye, now,’ Sweeetbriar scolded softly. ‘Let these ones have their sleep whilst the children are still on their picnic and all’s quiet and peaceful.’

The farmer nodded and made a point of tip-toeing from the room.

Sweetbriar turned to the tween. ‘Here now,’ she said. ‘You’ve put in a good day’s work, and that after walking half-way across the Shire! You sit down here—’ she pulled a chair closer to the bed, ‘—and keep watch. Our Aggie’s so exhausted, she just might roll in her sleep, right onto the babe!’

The tween nodded. She’d heard of such happening. Evidently Sweetbriar wasn’t the sort of healer to pack up and leave the moment she’d taken care of the most pressing duties.

The healer confirmed these thoughts in a whisper. ‘Should I be called away, I’ll leave you here until I can arrange for a mother’s helper, the first week. Pearl’s a fine helper to her mum, indeed, but the lass is only fifteen and needs her growing sleep!’

One of the gentlehobbit mums spoke from the doorway. ‘No need for that. We’ll be staying on, and Stelliana and I know well enough what sort of help a mother needs!’

 ‘Mistress Esmeralda...’ began the old healer, but the gentlehobbit put up her hand, and the Tookish lilt thickened in her whisper as she spoke.

 ‘Don’t you “Mistress” me, Sweetbriar! For the heart of a farmer’s daughter still beats beneath this fancy stitchery, and don’t you forget it! These hands...’ and the tween stared at the lily-white hands Esmeralda held out, suitable for fancy embroidery, perhaps, and writing letters, but... ‘these hands have gathered eggs, and slopped hogs, and milked, and dug in the dirt...’

 ‘Mistress...’ said the old healer again, but Esmeralda was having none of it.

 ‘You might be able to talk to Stellie that way, she doesn’t know any better, poor dear, but if you “Mistress” me again I’ll complain to the heir of Buckland that you’re abusing his wife in an intolerably rude way!’ (The tween was glad the other gentlehobbit wasn't in evidence, hearing Esmeralda's opinion of her!)

 ‘But Mis—’ the healer caught herself and flushed, biting her lip. Esmeralda crossed from the doorway to bestow a hug.

 ‘Come now, Sweetbriar,’ she said. ‘My mum and your husband's mum were lasses together. Don’t set me apart, even if I did marry a Brandybuck of the Hall in a weak moment.’

 ‘Allie,’ the old healer said, flashing a glance at the tween. ‘ ‘Tisn’t proper...’

 ‘She won’t spill, will you, lass?’ Esmeralda whispered with a bright smile. ‘You said she’s your helper, after all, and are you not training her to a healer’s discretion?’

There was a flurry of movement and voices in the hallway and Eglantine’s eyelids fluttered. ‘What is it?’ she said sleepily.

 ‘Now Aggie,’ Esmeralda said, releasing the healer and bending to the bed. ‘You just rest. Everything’s taken care of...’

 ‘Allie!’ came a hiss from the doorway; it was "Stellie", the younger of the two gentlehobbit wives. ‘Allie, it’s Merry!’

Esmeralda’s face changed at once from reassurance to alarm. ‘Merry!’ she whispered, a hand at her heart.

 ‘Broke his arm at the least,’ Stelliana said tearfully. She was wringing her hands again, the tween saw. If she kept up that habit, likely she’d have painful fingers when she grew old... ‘Broke his crown more’n likely, falling from his pony as he did... bruises all over his face...’

 ‘Go, Allie,’ the new mother said, pushing at Esmeralda. ‘Go to him. I’ll be fine, just so long as someone brings me news as soon as there’s any news to be had!’

The healer returned some time later to reassure the anxious aunt that it was a “clean break, ought to heal just fine and leave only a weather-ache behind. He'll likely sleep the rest of the night, and his mum is watching over him e'en now.” And after looking over the new mother and administering yet another cup of fortifying tea, Sweetbriar allowed herself and her helper to be sent out to the kitchen for supper whilst Stelliana took a turn sitting at the bedside.

It was a pandemonium of young hobbits—the farmer’s three daughters, his Tookish cousin’s daughter and son—and the three fathers (two Tooks and a Brandybuck, for all their differences seeming as merry and easy as the tween remembered her own father), eating amidst a flood of talk and laughter. The tween sat quiet and shy, memories of her own noisy and happy family tumbling over in her thoughts.

They were introduced to her in a jumble of names: Saradoc, Ferdinand, Rosemary, Pearl, Pimpernel, Ferdibrand, Pervinca, and of course the farmer, Paladin. But then the names they used didn’t match the introductions at all! Sorry, Dinny, and Dinny, Rosie, Pearlie, Nell, Vinca, and Ferdi... For fear of using the wrong name, the tween simply passed the plates as they were passed to her, took what she could as it was handy, and refrained from asking for anything.

 ‘So, Sweetbriar, this is a different helper than brought Vinca into the world,’ Saradoc said with a smile, ladling gravy over the tween’s taters before attending to his own. ‘How did you come by this one?’ Woodruff thought to herself that she’d like to have heard that for herself.

 ‘Well,’ the old healer said with a laugh. ‘You know how hard it is to find a Took who wants to be a healer! Either a healer has to travel out of Tookland to seek out an apprentice, or the Thain sends a Took off into foreign parts to persuade a healer to enter into marriage... and then it’s often a struggle to bring the newlyweds back to the Tookland! If it weren’t for the Thain and his gold...’

The tween listened, scandalised, as the Tooks around the table laughed.

 ‘So who’s to marry this one, then?’ Ferdinand said with a guffaw. ‘She looks as if she’s been picked a little green!’

 ‘Dinny!’ the Bucklander remonstrated, and laid his hand on the tween’s. Though it wasn’t hard-callused as a farmer’s would be, neither was it soft, as she’d expected. ‘She hasn’t been amongst the Tooks long enough yet to bear such heavy portions. You give her a light plateful, first, or you’ll risk upsetting her digestion!’

 ‘Ferdinand, I’m surprised at you!’ Sweetbriar said sternly, all laughter gone.

The children were watching, wide-eyed, and little Nell said, ‘Are you going to send Uncle from the table?’

 ‘I might!’ the old healer said, laying her fork down.

 ‘It was but a jest!’ the hobbit protested.

 ‘Tell me, am I laughing?’ the healer said. The tween felt warmth, something different than the hot flush that burned in her cheeks, but warmth deep down inside somewhere at the healer’s defence.

 ‘You’ve laughed about it before,’ Paladin said quietly, and then to Ferdinand, ‘I do believe you owe our healer and her assistant an apology, Dinny. I owe them a great deal, no less than the lives of my wife and son.’

 ‘ ‘Tis true, I’ve laughed about my own lot before,’ the healer allowed. ‘Swept off my feet by a dashing Took who offered to take me away from my drudgery in the cold of the North Farthing... only to find ten times worse the drudgery, trying to get draughts into Tooks!’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘So you may dispense with apologising on my behalf...’

Ferdinand rose from the table, and for a dreadful moment the tween feared that the Took was taking himself off in a huff. She’d heard much about Tookish pride and Tookish temper. But no, he swept around the table to stand before her, offering a bow and saying, ‘I do humbly offer my apologies, Miss.’

 ‘I accept your apologies, sir,’ the tween whispered, and the Took smiled, patted her hand, and resumed his seat.

Mercifully the attention was turned from her and she was left to eat in peace as the talk continued.

 ‘Well,’ Sweetbriar said, ‘you know that Bittersweet was wanting a new assistant at the Great Smials, and here I had Viola all trained to my satisfaction...’

 ‘And so Mistress Lalia sent for her,’ Paladin said sourly. ‘Thinking that gold is the answer to any and all objections...’

 ‘Hush, Brother,’ the Brandybuck said, while the rest attended strictly to their food for a silent moment.

 ‘It would be difficult to say “No” to the Thain,’ Ferdinand said at last. ‘The trick is holding out just long enough to gain the highest price, without offending.’

 ‘And you know a great deal about not causing offence, do you, cousin?’ Paladin said dryly.

Ferdinand laughed, and the Bucklander said, ‘Not to worry about him! Lalia thinks his bread is buttered on both sides!’

 ‘In any event,’ Sweetbriar said, cutting through the laughter, ‘I found myself in need of a competent assistant, and me not getting any younger!’

 ‘Well she’s not from roundabouts,’ Ferdinand said, ‘or she’d be used to Tooks and our boisterous ways.’ He lowered his voice, speaking in a conspiratorial tone. ‘Don’t mind us, none, lass, our woof is worse than our worry.’

 ‘He’s more likely to chew your leg off than go for the throat,’ Paladin said, helping himself to more potatoes. ‘But he means no harm by it. He’s a fool of a Took, that’s all.’

 ‘In any event,’ Sweetbriar repeated, firmly bringing the attention away from the tween again, even though she was the topic of discussion. ‘My son travels, you know, to do the Thain’s business.’

 ‘Where was it this time?’ Paladin said. He eyed the helper. ‘South Farthing,’ he guessed. ‘She’s not as pale as if she came out of the North, though I’d have guessed that, first, thinking you’d sent for one of your relations...’

 ‘Pipe-weed and wine,’ Sweetbriar affirmed.

 ‘Ah, those delightful Bracegirdles!’ Ferdinand shouted, lowering his voice as the others hushed him, reminding him of those sleeping, the broken-armed Brandybuck and the newborn Took.

 ‘Well, he had a little mishap along the way,’ Sweetbriar said. ‘Cut himself rather badly, and didn’t wash it as quick as he ought, nor as thorough, neither, for all he’s a healer’s son.’

 ‘Well he is a Took, after all,’ the Bucklander said blandly.

 ‘It suppurated,’ Sweetbriar said. ‘Mister Honourius Bradgirdle himself drove him to the local healer, to have it looked to. And just in time, as he told me later! The angry red lines were beginning to creep up the arm...’

The Tooks nodded, all looking slightly queasy, though the healer and helper kept eating without seeming upset.

 ‘The healer herself was out to tea, and they were going to drive in search of her when my lad swooned, there in the coach!’

 ‘O my,’ the oldest lass said. All the children were following the story with wide eyes.

The tween remembered suddenly, Mr. Bracegirdle at the door, asking in more than his usual sharp manner for her Mistress, turning away angrily, a shout of alarm from the driver of the coach...

 ‘Well, the helper rushed out to the coach and took charge as if she were fully a healer herself! Ordered old Mr. Honourius and the driver to bear the hobbit in, made up a hot poultice for the arm and coaxed a draught into the fainting hobbit, opened the wound to clean it out... why, by the time her Mistress returned from tea, all was done! Of course, they unbandaged the arm for her to be sure her assistant hadn’t murdered the Tookish visitor, but all was in order.’

 ‘And so,’ the Brandybuck said, dabbing at his mouth with his serviette, his eyes dancing with amusement. His Tookish friends looked rather “green about the gills”, at least to his eyes.

 ‘And so he told me all about it when he returned, and I determined that he would return to the South Farthing with another “little commission for the Thain”—this time, the getting of another helper for the healer of Whitwell!’

 ‘So that is how you come to be here, lass,’ Saradoc said, piling two more chops on the tween’s plate. ‘And well come, it seems!’

 ‘Old Rosie Bracegirdle drove a hard bargain,’ Sweetbriar said from the other side, spooning cabbage “sprouts” to join the chops. ‘But I think I got the better end of the deal!’

The tween blushed and ducked her head, but it was a happy blush this time, made up of pleasure and approval on the part of her elders, and wide-eyed admiration on the part of the young hobbits.

***

Late that night, after Eglantine had fed her new son, Woodruff took the babe into the kitchen, to sing and rock, allowing his parents some rest.

She looked up abruptly at a movement in the doorway. A young hobbit stood there, head tousled, face pillow-creased, one arm splinted and supported in a sling.

 ‘Young Master!’ she gasped. ‘What are you doing out of bed?’

 ‘I’m hungry,’ he said simply. ‘Didn’t get any supper.’ No, of course he hadn’t. Sweetbriar had dosed him to set his arm and he’d slept right through the meal. Woodruff, had she had charge of the matter, would not have dosed the lad, what with the knock he’d had on his head, but who was she to gainsay her Mistress?

 ‘Well,’ she said briskly, rising from the rocking chair and shifting the babe to one arm. ‘You sit down here, and we’ll rustle something together, your cousin and I.’

 ‘That’s my cousin?’ the lad said, curious.

 ‘He is!’ the tween said. There was fresh bread in the pantry, and cheese and butter. There might even be some chops left over, in the cold box... She’d have to put the baby down to slice the bread and the cheese, however.

 ‘That’s not my cousin!’ the lad announced.

 ‘He’s not?’ the tween said, bemused. She was poking about in the pantry, loading things onto a tray. Here were several little pork pies, some evidently intended for the farmer’s luncheon out in the field on the morrow, and with the bread-and-cheese and a few cut up apples... ‘Why ever not?’

 ‘My cousins are all lasses,’ the lad said, ‘at least my Took cousins are.’

 ‘Well this Took cousin’s a lad,’ Woodruff said, emerging from the pantry. ‘Here now,’ she said to the babe. ‘I need to set you in the cradle for just a moment.’

The babe did not like this turn of affairs at all; he began at once to voice his indignation and the tween must needs snatch him up again. ‘Now, then,’ she whispered, jiggling him gently until he quieted. ‘Your Brandybuck cousin must have a meal; you wouldn’t have him go hungry on your account?’

 ‘Let me hold him,’ the Brandybuck cousin said suddenly.

The tween gave him a sharp glance. ‘How old are you?’ she said.

He drew himself up, splinted arm and all, against the wide back of the rocking chair. ‘Eight,’ he said.

Well, he was sitting, and he could prop the babe on his lap and one arm on the arm of the chair, she supposed. ‘Make a lap,’ she said, and he put his “good” arm on the chair’s arm and nodded that he was “ready”.

Woodruff laid the baby down and stood hovering, holding her breath. No heart-felt wails arose. Deep-blue baby eyes stared into serious grey ones. (The tween found herself wondering just what colour the babe’s eyes would be when they settled. Tookish-green, like his father’s, hazel-brown like his mother’s, grey like his Brandybuck cousin’s?)

 ‘Why is he so wide awake in the middle night?’ the lad asked.

 ‘He has his days and nights mixed up, as does any baby new-come into the world,’ the tween said comfortably.

 ‘Did I?’

 ‘Well I wasn’t there,’ the tween admitted, ‘but every babe I’ve ever had the pleasure to make the acquaintance has been that way.’ She thought wistfully of her younger sister and brother. Why, her brother, when their family had been shattered, was the same age as this one, sitting there, regarding her so thoughtfully before locking eyes with the babe once more.

 ‘He really is my cousin?’ the lad said in wonder, and nodded to himself. ‘He really is, just as Frodo said.’

 ‘Frodo?’ the tween said. It didn’t sound like a Took name, nor a Brandybuck.

The lad nodded. ‘Frodo went away,’ he said. ‘He didn’t want to go,’ he gulped. ‘I mean, I didn’t want him to. He was my bestest cousin.’

 ‘Ah,’ the tween said, for want of something better. Seeing a glimmer of tears in the grey eyes, she turned away and began to slice the bread, alert for the slightest sound that might turn into baby fussing that would waken the smial.

 ‘But he had to go, he said, for old Bilbo was lonely, living all alone in Bag End as he did, and miserable and sad, too. Though I never saw him look miserable. I never did.’ There was wonder in the young voice, and an echo of hurt, of loss still privately grieved.

Bilbo! Now that was a name she recognised. She’d heard the Bracegirdles go on about him, and some adoption or other, and some insult to their cousin Lobelia Sackville-Baggins...

 ‘But he said,’ the young voice went on, and stopped. When it resumed, it had a cooing quality, probably picked up from hobbits crowding around new arrivals at Brandy Hall. ‘Aren’t you a fine lad, then? Look at you, taking it all in! What are you thinking, I wonder?’

Woodruff had cut the cheese, nice, thin, even slices, and was buttering the bread.

 ‘But he said,’ the young Brandybuck resumed. ‘He said that I was big enough, I didn’t need so much watching over any more, and soon a special cousin would be born for me to watch over. And I’ve been waiting, ever so long, but all the cousins born already have older brothers to watch over them...’

The tween made an encouraging sound as she assembled the sandwiches.

 ‘I didn’t have any older brothers, so Frodo watched over me,’ the young hobbit went on. ‘And,’ his voice held a growing excitement. ‘And—he doesn’t have any older brothers to watch over him! He must be the one!’

 ‘Well,’ said Woodruff briskly, placing the nicely-arranged plate on the table and turning to take the baby, ‘that makes perfect sense to me.’

She ate a few sandwiches and half a pie herself as they sat together, chatting companionably, and then she walked the lad back to the guest room and managed to tuck him up without wakening his slumbering parents.

At last the babe fell asleep, and Woodruff laid him in the cradle, cleared away the remnants of the midnight supper, washed up the knife and the forks they'd used and the few dishes, and restored the bread and cheese and uneaten pies to the pantry.

Sitting down again at the table, she laid her head upon her arms and gave herself up to sleep.





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