Chapter 6. Rude Awakening

The urgent rapping on the door to Ferdibrand and Pimpernel’s apartments roused Rusty from his well-earned rest. The hobbit-servant arose quickly and hurried to the door to intercept the intruder before it should disturb his master and mistress or any of the children. A glance at the dwarf-made clock on the mantel in the sitting room disclosed the early hour: two o’ the clock!

He put on his most disapproving look and opened the door. The rebuke waiting ready on his lips died a-borning and his expression turned to astonishment as he beheld the very young hobbit standing in the corridor, hugging herself.

‘Miss Rose!’ he gasped. What was a child still in her teens doing wandering the corridors of the Great Smials at this time o’ the night? Why, the dairymaids and bakers wouldn’t even be stirring for another hour or two!

‘Please,’ the lass begged, and she stopped hugging herself and twisted her hands together in her perturbation. ‘Please, I need to talk to Uncle Ferdi!’ ...for the Gamgee children had “offishully” adopted Ferdibrand Took not long after the Mayor brought his family to the Smials on an official visit following Pippin’s ascension to the office of Thain.

‘Are you perhaps sleep-walking, lass?’ Rusty asked in befuddlement, keeping his tone gentle in case the child really was sleep-walking. ‘Here now, let me escort you back to the guest quarters...’

Shivering, she pulled away from his guiding arm and hugged herself again against the chill of night. In the dim light of the night-lamps in the corridor, her face was remarkably pale. ‘No! Please!’ she insisted. ‘I must see Ferdi!’

‘It can wait until the light of morning, surely...’

‘No!’ she said, louder, and Rusty suppressed a wince as he heard Ferdi speak behind him.

‘What is it, Rusty? Is there an emergency of some sort?’

Relief replaced the panic in the young one’s face, and she dodged around Rusty and ran across the sitting room to throw her arms around the Thain’s special assistant, sobbing in apparent fear. ‘Uncle Ferdi!’

Ferdi, night-clad, eased his arms around the distraught child and pulled her close. ‘You’re shivering cold, Rosie-lass! Rus, bring her a blanket!’

As the hobbit-servant hurried to do his master’s bidding, he heard in shock the broken words spilling from young Rose Gamgee. ‘It’s Goldi! She’s gone from her bed! Gone from the Smials! We’ve searched everywhere, Frodo and I, for the past hour, and more... but her cloak is gone...’ She gulped and went on, ‘Why would her cloak be gone? It’s the middle of the night!’

‘Steady, lass, steady,’ Ferdi was saying, patting and rubbing her back in an attempt to soothe. He nodded thanks to Rusty, took the proffered blanket, and wrapped it around the lass. ‘I’m sure there’s a logical explanation to be found, along with your sister...’

‘She’s only eleven years old!’ Rosie-lass sobbed. ‘And she’s wandering somewhere, alone!’

‘Not alone,’ a youthful voice spoke quietly from the door that separated the sitting room from the corridor leading to the bedrooms.

Ferdi turned, still hugging young Rosie, to face his eldest son Rudi, whom he’d adopted upon his wedding to Pimpernel, Rudi’s mother. ‘Not...? Then who is with her?’ From the look on his face, it appeared he’d already guessed the answer to his query.

But why would the young Bolger tween be apologising? Rusty thought on hearing Rudi’s answer. ‘I’m sorry, Da.’ For some reason, the young tween was not night-clad but fully dressed, and his cloak was draped over his arm in readiness for... a departure?

‘He’s gone?’ Ferdi demanded, keeping his voice low though his consternation shone through.

He? Rusty wondered.

‘It wasn’t his idea in the first place, nor would it have been his first choice, but that he felt he had no choice,’ Rudi said, as if explaining, but the explanation didn’t seem to make any sense.

‘Rus, a pot of tea is in order, I think,’ Ferdi said. ‘I’ll pause long enough to have a cup before I go, as will Rudi. And fix Miss Rose a cup with a double-portion of honey, if you please?’

As he stirred up the fire in the small kitchen, laid on more wood, and put the kettle on to boil, the situation suddenly came clear. The son of the Thain had taken it into his head to run away again! After all the trouble he’d caused only a year or so ago! Had he not learnt his lesson after all? And worse, he had apparently taken the young daughter of the Mayor along, as if he were on a lark of some sort! It defied the imagination.

When the hobbit-servant entered the sitting-room once more, he found master and mistress fully dressed, along with young Rudi and, of course, Rosie-lass Gamgee. The tray he carried was heavily burdened with teapot, cups and saucers and plates, milk pitcher and honeypot, plus the bread he’d sliced while waiting for the kettle to boil, along with crocks of butter and jam, some cold meat and sliced cheese, and a few hard-cooked eggs, all artfully piled together to prevent upsetting. He noticed that someone had lit the fire he’d left ready to spark on the hearth, for flames were now dancing cheerily in the grate, sending their warmth into the room.

He quickly dealt out the contents of the tray onto the sitting-room table to supplement the large bowl of fruit already holding pride of place in the centre. ‘Tea, Sir and Mistress,’ he intoned, on his dignity despite the unusual hour. It helped that he’d hurried into his clothes and was no longer night-clad himself.

‘Rus, you’re a wonder,’ Ferdi said in thanks, and then he was urging Rudi to eat his fill, even as he made up a large and generous sandwich for himself and then, almost sacrilegiously, bolted it down.

Before the dwarf-made clock struck the half-hour, Ferdi and Rudi were gone, and Pimpernel was softly instructing Rusty to go to the guest quarters and inform the Gamgee children’s minders that Rosie-lass was safe in their apartments but making no mention of the younger Gamgee daughter.

‘How shall I explain, Mistress?’ he asked, hesitating at the door.

‘It’s the middle of the night!’ Pimpernel answered with asperity. ‘Tell them we’ll talk to them in the morning!’

‘Yes’m,’ he said, and sped to deliver his message.

***