Epilogue: If You Can’t Beat Them…

The proposal is announced at dinner that night and the celebration that follows is heart-warming in its sincerity. Even Fatty approves of the match; he lifts Gordi into a giant bear hug and kisses his brow, already calling him brother.

Gordi accompanies Ella and me over the next couple of days, and I get to know him in a way I never did before. I even find myself liking him despite my previous misgivings. It’s hard not to like him when I see the way he treats Estella, so caring and patient. He may not have Merry’s charm or dazzling personality, but he is sincere in all he does. I suppose that is the most important thing.

Most of the time, Ivory joins us, and we lasses get to talking about any number of things while Gordi sits back and listens with a soft smile on his lips. Then Fatty will come early in the afternoons, and our small excursions outside become all day affairs as we laugh and joke about and stroll around the hills looking for the earliest berries we can find.

Merry and Pippin return on early Trewsday morning, with Frodo in tow. They come into the dining hall as everyone is sitting to second breakfast, and Merry makes no hesitation on congratulating Gordi for his fortune. The tension is only slight, born mostly of lost chances and secrets revealed, but then Merry nods at Estella and leaves to see his cousin fed, and the tension passes.

Pippin’s birthday comes and goes, and soon the guests leave as well. The Bolgers and the Burrowses leave together, to continue the celebration of the engagement at Budgeford. Frodo stays on only a day longer, and Merry looks better for having had his company. Whatever he and Pippin were worrying themselves over on Frodo’s account seems to have passed, for the moment at any rate.

Then Merry himself leaves, but before he goes, he pulls me aside for a private word. “Is she truly happy with her choice?” he asks, sincerely concerned.

“She is,” I answer, still more than a bit miffed. “You still cut her deeply. I hope it was worth it.”

“I’m the one who lost her, Vinca, so spare me your wrath,” he says, so forlornly that it squashes the rest of my ire.

“I’m sorry, Merry,” I say. “I did want it to be you.”

“I’m glad she’s happy,” is all he says, then he shoulders his pack and follows Pippin out the door.  

~ One month later ~ 14 Astron, 1318 SR~

Merry doesn’t stay away long. In fact, he is spending so much time at the Smials of late that I’m almost beginning to think he’s moved in permanently. Everyone attributes it to Gordi now being officially promised with Estella, and while that may have something to do with it, I know the truth. Not the whole of it, as they would never be that careless, but I still watch them and I know there is something amiss.

He and Pippin are closer than they’ve ever been, keeping mostly to themselves. They make frequent one-day trips to Hobbiton and back, and I know it is not Frodo that they are meeting. Then, this morning, they receive another letter, the first in a long while from what I can tell. They leave in a rush soon after receiving it, and in their haste they leave it resting upon Pippin’s bed. I catch a glimpse of it, but all it contains are two words written in hasty, rounded letters. “Come. Now.”

So something has happened, and I’ll likely never know what it is. Having nothing else to do, I retrieve my own letter and a book, then go outside.

The sun is warm but the wind is cool, so I pull a shawl around my shoulders. I find my favorite oak tree and sit beneath it. I read the letter from Estella first and smile to see the joy in the words she has written. She still hurts over Merry’s rejection she admits, but she sees now she has made the right decision. It will still be some time before she can fulfill her promise, but she says there is no rush and Gordi is beginning to trust her again already.

I tuck the letter into my pocket, then open up my book to absorb myself in my reading. I had snuck the book from Da’s study a week or so back and he’s yet to notice that it’s missing. It is about negotiation strategies in farming disputes and other such matters, and I am learning quite a lot when a shadow suddenly falls over me. I look up, squinting out of habit.

“Ev. I should have guessed,” I say in greeting. I'm not really surprised to see him. He's been doing this a good deal lately, coming up out of nowhere and bothering me for no reason. Once it was to ask me what I thought of the weather, of all things. I've come to find it quite adorable actually, though of course I never let him know that.

“Is that a good book?” he asks now, pointing at the tome resting in my lap.

“It is actually. It’s about how to get rid of bothersome pests,” I reply curtly.

“So it’s a gardening book then? I never would have guessed from the title. Do pests really need negotiating with in order for them to leave the roses alone?” Ev asks.

“It appears that they do, though it doesn't seem to be helping me much, does it?” I say. “Is there something you want?”

Now Everard becomes nervous, and it is only now that I realize his hands are behind his back. I sit up, on guard. “Well,” he starts. He clears his throat and shuffles his feet. “You’re sitting under a tree, reading a good book – a quite hefty one… I just ask that you remember I bruise easily.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask, completely at a loss. Why can I never guess what Ev is going on about?

“Only this,” Ev says. He hesitates a moment, then brings from behind his back a bouquet of crimson and gold dahlias. “I know you said red and white roses, but seeing as you threw them back at the lad, I figured they couldn’t be your favorite. Plus, I’m already a thorn in your side, so you don’t need anymore. You didn’t say how the lad went about asking for your favor, so I hope it doesn’t matter what I say… I’m not even really saying anything, am I? Though it’s not for lack of trying. I have several drafts scattered about my room of what I want to say, and I thought I had them fairly well memorized but they all seem to have escaped me now.” He stops suddenly, blushing like I’ve never seen him do so before. His eyes are glued to the ground as he offers the flowers to me. I take them, dumb-struck, and he looks up at me expectantly.

“Th-thank you,” I stammer at length. “Th-they’re, um, they’re quite lovely.”

“You’re not going to beat me up, are you?” he asks, that little lopsided smile back in place, making him look young and vulnerable.

“No,” I say automatically, my mind still too numb to think coherently. What is happening here?

“Good, um, well I… You’re welcome,” he finally settles on saying. He pauses, waiting, but when I still fail to respond, he nods his head bashfully. “Well, I’ve interrupted you long enough seemingly. I will leave you to your book.”

And with that he leaves, with me still sitting there, holding the flowers just as I had when he first offered them, staring after him with my mouth agape. I don’t know how long I sit like that before I look down at the bouquet, and find that there is a card tucked in between the flowers. I pull it out and turn it over.

“To the loveliest shrew I ever knew,” the card reads. I laugh in amazement and shocked delight, and bring the blooms to my nose and smell deep.

I know the only dahlias to be found this time of year near the Smials are a good five miles away, in the Florist Largo’s glass house, which meant Ev had walked for a good two hours just to bring these to me. It also occurs to me that there is no way he could have known that I would choose today to read under the tree; he must have been waiting for quite some time, going out nearly every other day to retrieve fresh flowers. The thought of that reels in my mind and I don’t know whether to make head or tales of it. All I know as I stare at the blooms is that I must have been foolish and blind not to see this coming.

But that’s the trouble with love: it always catches you when you’re not looking, and I am in love with Everard Took.

Only, how do I tell him?
 
 
 

The end.
 
 
 
 

GF 8/8/05