TWO - Calling a Truce

It had been a long afternoon of endless meetings for Thain Paladin II and his assistant-son here at the Smials. Taking a breather, Pippin stood in the entryway of the Great Door munching an apple while inhaling the fresh air and taking in the warm sunshine. He leaned against the doorjamb squinting at the distant black speck that slowly grew in size, making its way uphill past the stables to the front entrance where he stood. The carriage driver made an unusually abrupt stop then quickly jumped down from his seat to open the door. The occupants inside the carriage were Pippin’s three nephews and their nursemaid, Sapphira.

Pippin had not spoken much to the lass since their gracious encounter nearly two weeks ago upon her arrival. He knew that Sapphira was busy getting to know her young charges and unfamiliar surroundings, but also he felt that she was generally avoiding him. Pippin decided he rather liked the spirited lass whose fiery eyes met his own back in the hallway outside of Pimpernel’s quarters. She was so unlike his most recent pursuit.

When it appeared that Mat was desperate in trying to help Sapphira out of the carriage, Pippin paid close attention to discover why. Next, the three young brothers stormed out of the other compartment door, rounded the corner and rushed up to their uncle. “Uncle Pippin--help us, help us!” they shouted.

Having finished his apple long before, Pippin laid the core aside on a hall table just inside the entryway. “What’s the matter?” he asked Gelly--the least frantic of the three boys.

“It’s Miss Sapphira,” answered Gelly. “We sort of…” The lad burst into tears before he could finish his explanation. “We played a trick on her…and she fell…and we didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“You didn’t mean for what to happen?” asked Pippin, his voice tinged with alarm. Although today was an “outing” day, Pippin spent most mornings tutoring the lads in their letters and sums, therefore he knew the mischief his nephews were capable of. Pippin went up to the carriage door while Mat was still coaxing Sapphira to come out.

“Lean on me, Miss,” he heard Mat say, “and I’ll take ye all the way t’ Mrs. Brownfield’s quarters.”

“That won’t be necessary, Mat, but thank you,” said Pippin standing beside the grey-haired carriage driver. He looked at the very same lass who shoved him into a wall over a mild jest he played at her arrival. Overall, Sapphira seemed fine yet she was hesitant to move.

Pippin leaned inside the riding compartment, “How can I help, Miss Sapphira?”

“I don’t need any help, thank you. I’m…I’m all right,” she said, then gasped when she put even a little weight on her left foot.

Pippin saw that her ankle was badly swollen. “As you wish then, but Mat is right--you have to come out at some point. You will either succumb to hunger and thirst, or…” he smiled, “the privy.” Pippin gamely held out his arm, “Shall we?”

Sapphira scrunched up her face and held her breath as she scooted off the edge of her seat, using her good foot to ease out of the carriage and onto the ground. She gently put weight onto her injured ankle then gasped sharply, stifling a yell, then fell into Pippin. Tears welled in her eyes, but she refused to weep.

With a firm hold around Sapphira’s waist, Pippin turned to address the eldest boy. “Gelly, I don’t know exactly how far this tomfoolery of yours went, but now I want you all to run ahead and inform your mother about all this--and fetch a healer, too!” As the boys ran off, Pippin swept the lass into his arms, walking briskly towards his sister’s apartment.

~ ~ ~

An hour later, Pimpernel, Pippin, Eglantine, and Paladin stood in a semi-circle listening to the diagnosis of the healer. Donnabelle Took-Boffin spoke softly so as not to disturb the injured lass. “’Tis a severe sprain,” she said. “Raise her foot and keep putting ice on it.” Donnabelle handed the Thain a small bottle filled with a golden liquid. “And give her this twice a day for three days. It’s a tincture; one nip per serving. She should keep off her foot for the next week. After that, let her walk in the garden for a bit, increasing the time day by day. She ought to be back to normal in a fortnight.”

Once the healer had left, the foursome discussed schedules as to whom would care for the young nursemaid and when. It seemed reasonable that Pippin would take the first watch while Pimpernel spoke with her lads and found out exactly what had transpired in town that afternoon. With a soft sigh, Pippin watched his parents and Pimpernel leave the bedroom. He then turned on his heels facing the patient, assessing his approach to someone who obviously didn’t care for his wit.

“I’d rather be alone right now, if you don’t mind,” Sapphira said at seeing Pippin walk towards her bed. Her eyes were red and swollen--just like her ankle, bandaged and raised upon two pillows.

“Sure…wallow in your self-pity,” Pippin replied.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re feeling terrible,” he said in return, sitting down in the chair next to her bed.

“Of course I feel terrible. I’ve been employed here for less than two weeks, and already I’ve gone and injured myself. I’m probably going to be sacked.”

“You’re not going to get sacked,” Pippin said, chuckling softly. “As I was saying--you’re feeling terrible because of how you reacted to my little prank. Throwing me into the wall and threatening my very existence.”

“I’m feeling terrible about that?” she snorted, “I am not, thank you very much. Ow!” Sapphira winced at the sharp throbbing pain in her ankle. “Besides, I was barely able to push you--even just a little, and all I said was that I was watching you.”

“You see?” Pippin was amused that she was now his captive audience. “The thought of it all is giving you pain--I can see it in your eyes. Are you asking for forgiveness?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Not to worry,” said Pippin, trying to contain his mirth. “I’ll grant it to you some day.”

Between Pippin trying to restrain his laughter and his comical facial expressions, Sapphira began to let down her guard. After all, the lad did indeed carry her all the way to her room when she was in too much pain to walk. Perhaps it was time to forgive him. “Very well,” she said, “will you forgive me?”

Pippin smiled sweetly at her. “Yes.” He suddenly remembered the medicine the healer left. “Oh--I’m supposed to give this to you,” he said, taking the cork from the bottle. “You’re to take two sips three times a day.”

Sapphira drank her required dosage and a bit more, thinking that a wee bit extra would make her ankle feel better. It tasted horrible, though.

As she drank, Pippin’s green eyes remained fixed upon the comely maiden lying injured in her bed. Her light brown tresses no longer pinned up or hid under a bonnet, but rested loose upon her shoulders. Pippin wondered if Great Smials was the lass’s first jaunt so far away from home. Was it frightening for her? How often did she long for home? Pippin recalled his own adventures not so long ago and how scary some of it was for such a young tweenager. He knew Sapphira was some years older than he was at the finish of his Journey, however, his heart took pity on her…so young, so pretty…

“Pippin?”

Pippin stirred from his thoughts; he rejoined Sapphira in the present. “Hmm?” he asked, eyes still upon her. He noted that the bottle was neatly corked and set nearby on her bedside table.

“I asked why are you gazing at me so?”

Not wishing to divulge his innermost musings, Pippin said nothing in reply; his cheeks coloured in response to his awkwardness.

Sapphira gave up on her question. No matter; the tincture was beginning to take affect. “I don’t want us to be enemies anymore, Pippin,” she said, her head beginning to feel heavy--as if a ten-pound weight was attached to restrain movement. “I want us to be friends.”

Pippin smiled. “Indeed,” he replied, lowering his voice. “And what shall I say to that?”

“That you want us to be…become very good friends, too.” Sapphira was feeling very little pain about now. Her eyelids were growing heavy, too. “Don’t you like me?”

Very much!, thought Pippin. “Yes, I do,” he said aloud. “I also should like for us to be friends.”

“I’m glad,” said the sleepy young lass, and a tad under the influence of the medicine. “I like you, too. I don’t think Hildebrand liked me much. Well…I mean…I know he didn’t like the notion of me working all the way here at Great Smials…but I came anyway.”

This piqued Pippin’s curiosity. “Who’s Hildebrand?”

“My husband,” she replied. Sapphira cackled when she saw Pippin’s look of shock. “Well, not really--but almost. A week before we were to marry, I told him that I had accepted Mrs. Brownfield’s offer.”

“A week? When were you supposed to get married?” asked Pippin, quite astonished at Sapphira’s revelation.

“Hmmm…what day is today?”

“Mersday,” answered Pippin.

Her voice sounded far away as she answered, “A week ago, Trewsday.”

Pippin genuinely felt bad over the situation. He didn’t want to pry, but perhaps Sapphira felt better by talking about it…and before he went any further, he had to know. So he ventured another question. “Did you love him?”

Many seconds passed before Sapphira answered. “I thought I did,” she replied softly, eyes moist with tears. “Perhaps…but it’s all in the past now. I’m tired. I don’t want to talk anymore.”

“All right,” said Pippin kindly, rising up from his chair. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Pippin?”

“Hmm?”

“Do…do you think I’m pretty?”

Pippin blinked in surprise at the strange question. What an odd thing to ask from such an attractive girl. Of course Pippin thought she was pretty, but he was barely acquainted with her. Pippin pulled the drapes shut, darkening the bedroom so that the patient could sleep undisturbed from the glaring late afternoon light. Before he walked out the door, Pippin snuck another glance in Sapphira’s direction; she was already deep in slumber. He whispered, “Yes, I think you’re very pretty. Have a good sleep, Sapphira.”

~ ~ ~

The next day, after luncheon, it was again Pippin’s turn to watch over a sluggish Sapphira North-took, still affected by the electuary given to her that morning by Eglantine. “How are you feeling today?” he asked, taking the same seat in the chair he occupied the day before.

“Like an idiot,” Sapphira replied, her tone flat.

“Why? This wasn’t your doing,” offered Pippin. “The lads need to learn when to quit their foolish behaviour.” He then chuckled, “I guess I am grown up--I’m beginning to sound like my father.” Noticing her foot was about to slip off the pillows, Pippin got up to readjust her foot. Sapphira winced when Pippin gently lifted the injured appendage. “Do you want more medicine?”

“No,” Sapphira stated emphatically with a brief look at Pippin. “I’ve discovered that it makes me talk excessively.”

Pippin grinned wide, “Really? How so?”

“I think I recited every bit of poetry I knew from childhood to your Mum.”

This made Pippin laugh out loud. “She most likely enjoyed every minute of it--the lads won’t sit still long enough to recite any for her.” A moment of quiet passed between the recent friends. Pippin was curious about what Sapphira had said the day before, so he endeavoured to take advantage of her relaxed state of mind. “As a friend, I know almost nothing about you. How many siblings do you have? What made you decide to be a nursemaid--or not get married?”

Sapphira sighed heavily. “I did talk too much, didn’t I?”

“I didn’t think so.” Pippin smiled, “I thought it all quite interesting--otherwise, I wouldn’t be asking all these questions, now would I?”

Sapphira let out another long sigh. “All right then, but afterwards you must entertain me with answering all my questions.”

“Very well--I have nothing to hide,” said Pippin, grinning.

“And neither do I!” said Sapphira, her eyes wide with mock disbelief.

“What about Hildebrand?” said Pippin, his own eyes glinting with mischief.

Sapphira glared at Pippin. “You already know more than half the story, I’ll warrant, or else you wouldn’t be asking for more.”

Pippin’s face held a playful grin. “Just to let you know that I’m a gentlehobbit,” he said, his voice dripping with honey, “we’ll leave Hildebrand for another time. I’ll let you keep your secrets. For now…though I don’t have even the slightest--”

“Oh, all right!” said Sapphira, trying to sit up more in the bed. “I haven’t heard a lad whine so much since my brother Valdigrim grazed his finger on a leaf of paper while reading a book.” She watched Pippin and his silly grin eagerly scoot the chair and himself closer to the bed. He wanted to better hear the sordid details of how Sapphira came to Great Smials.

Pippin allowed Sapphira a respectable moment before she got started. “Would you care for a glass of water first? Storytelling is thirsty business.”

“Yes, thank you,” Sapphira replied. “A full glass of water, if you please.” The more for procrastination, she thought.

Pippin filled her glass with water from the pitcher already sitting on her night table then offered it to her. He then leaned forward in his chair, chin in his hand. “I’m all ears,” he said.

Sapphira drank a bit of her water; where ought she to start? “His real name is Hildebrand Haymaker. We were to be married last week, however…that couldn’t very well happen, as I was here at Great Smials.”

Pippins shook his head in disbelief. “What happened?” he asked. In his heart, Pippin wondered what hobbit in his right mind would let such a pretty and clever lass slip through his fingers.

Sapphira shot an amused look at the inquisitive lad. “Do you want to hear my story or not?”

“Yes, but…well,” he sighed, “I suppose I’ll never understand your Hildebrand.”

Sapphira smiled, “He’s not my Hildebrand anymore--remember?” For a brief moment their eyes met, then Sapphira blushed a bit. Then she added, “Perhaps he was never mine.” Pippin was quiet for the remainder of the tale as Sapphira continued, “Hildie and I were in love for a long time when he finally came of age last year and asked me to be his wife.” Her eyes lit up with a distant joy as she spoke. “Of course I said yes. Then he and his father approached my mother to arrange a marriage--or so I thought. Actually, what they arranged was a contract, it seems. My family was fine before the Occupation, but afterwards…we barely had two pennies to rub together. I never believed Hildie would take advantage of that--or establish our love upon a written document. I didn’t learn of the contract until a month before our wedding, and I felt betrayed by it. He let it slip one day while we were having a quarrel.” Sapphira smiled sadly, “From the moment I found out about the contract, it all…fell apart. After a while I just had to get away from it all in order to think.

“I searched long and hard for work as a nursemaid, even though I had yet to apprentice with anyone. I figured all my years of child-minding would suffice as experience. When I told Hildie about going away, he threatened to call off the wedding. I was on my way to catch the coach to Great Smials when I last saw him. He just sat there on his pony gazing at the carriage.” The tween’s hazel eyes glistened with unshed tears. “He used to bring me a flower every day of the week and tell me how beautiful I was.”

Pippin was at a loss for words; there was a long minute of silence between them. It appeared to him that Sapphira had just been through a heartbreaking betrothal--if one were to call it such. “Leaving him there must have been very hard for you.” Pippin watched the lass for any reaction to his remark but there was none that he could see.

“The hardest part was saying goodbye to my family--my mum, sisters and brother.” Sapphira looked as if she would start crying, but held back her tears.

“It’s all right to cry, Sapphira,” Pippin spoke tenderly. “You’ve been through a lot in just a short time.”

“My ankle is starting to hurt,” she lied somewhat. Verily, her ankle began to throb, but the true hurt remained in her heart.

“Let me straighten out your pillows,” said Pippin. It was still too soon for more medicine, so he rearranged the cushions under her foot and leg, then pulled the drapes shut over the sheers. “Perhaps a bit of a nap will do,” he said, pulling her blanket up over her shoulders. As he sat down again, even more questions loomed up in his Tookish mind. Sapphira never mentioned her father. He wondered how many brothers and sisters she had. Did she truly not love Hildebrand anymore? And now--here she was among distant kin whom she never really knew; a mere two weeks after all of the heartache that happened in her life. Pippin rummaged through his head as to how he could cheer up Sapphira in the coming days.

TBC