Chapter 13. Interlude

(Yuletide, about two decades later, at Budge Hall in Bridgefields, East Farthing)

Adelbrim, the relatively youthful head of the Thain’s escort, laughed heartily as Farry finished his story. ‘So that was your first meeting?’ he said to The Bolger and the charming Mistress of Budge Hall. ‘And you kept on thinking she was just a farm lass?’ he asked Rudi, ‘for years after?’ And turning to grin at Laurel, he said, ‘And you thought he was “just a Tookish hunter” and probably beneath your notice!’

‘Quite probably,’ Laurel said, looking down demurely though a smile was tugging at the sides of her mouth. ‘Tooks are generally known to be daft, after all.’ She looked up again, met Farry’s eye, and smirked. ‘Present company included!’

The escort moved injudiciously and winced. 

‘Adelbrim?’ Laurel said, and Goldi spoke at the same time. ‘Is all well with you, Adel?’

Rudi half-rose from his seat. ‘Shall I ask Mallow to brew you another cup of willow-bark tea? Or stir up something stronger?’

‘I already have something stronger, thank you very much!’ Adelbrim said, lifting the glass of brandy in his good hand in a toast. Though his injury clearly troubled him, a conspiracy of silence emerged in the face of his obvious reluctance to deal with healers and their potions.

After toasting “To the acting Thain and his Mistress!”, Adelbrim put his glass down to ease his arm in its sling. The mischief dancing in his eyes was scarcely dampened by the wounds inflicted when he’d defended Farry and Goldi with bow and body from the leader of the pack of wolves that had interrupted their journey to Budgeford. ‘As I am a Took only by adoption,’ he said, ‘I will be happy to lend a note of stability to the party.’

‘Hah,’ Goldi said. ‘I’d like to see you try!’

But the head of escort paid her challenge little heed, moving the conversation firmly back to the original topic. ‘So, Goldi,’ (he was under strict orders never to call her “Mistress”, for she claimed it made her feel as if she should look around for Diamond), ‘after you and Laurel became acquainted, you kept running into each other at the Bywater market...’

‘We had to become fast friends – it was either that, or become sworn enemies,’ Laurel said.

‘O you and your books!’ Goldi said. ‘Sworn enemies, indeed!’

‘And of course, Farry and Rudi are cousins,’ (and as Farry’s adopted “brother”, Adel was Rudi’s cousin as well; more importantly, neither of the two gentlehobbits would put up with him treating them like his betters), ‘by blood, and then tied even more closely by Ferdibrand’s marriage to the Thain’s sister.’ He paused to consider, then went on. ‘And you and Farry were friends from your childhood, Goldi,’ (Adelbrim knew better than to use a word like “sweethearts”). ‘Yet it seems to me that Rudi took an awfully long time to realise that Laurel was a Boffin of Waymoot and not a simple farm lass...’ He sipped at his brandy and leaned back in his chair, looking from one to another of his companions before proclaiming, ‘And people call Tooks daft!’ 

‘Well when the Boffins visited the Great Smials at Yuletide over the years, my beloved was always dressed like an heiress! A princess, even!’

Laurel dropped her gaze. ‘My father always showered me with the finest things his money could buy... he didn’t know any better.’ She looked up again and added, as if she felt the need to defend poor misguided Folco, ‘The only time we socialised with other hobbits of the gentry was at festive balls and society weddings and other grand affairs, so that’s how he thought “fine ladies” were supposed to dress all the time! Thank goodness for Auntie Petunia and life on the farm the other nine months of the year...’

Rudi nodded stoutly. ‘In her fine clothes and jewels—’ 

‘Jewels!’ Laurel exclaimed. ‘On a child!’ She huffed in exasperation.

But Rudi wasn’t finished. ‘—she never even came close to resembling the farm lass I so often met when I stopped at the farm between early Spring and late Autumn to drop off a brace of rabbits or haunch of venison!’ Rudi shook his head and protested, ‘Why, I thought of her as two different people with a chance resemblance for the longest time!’

‘My poor darling,’ Laurel cooed, snuggling against Rudi’s side. ‘And added to that, he was but an empty-headed tween for the first decade of our acquaintance!’

Rudi forbore from saying that she’d also been a tween all that time, for Laurel had seldom – and perhaps never – fit the epithet “empty-headed”. Instead, he put his arm around her to pull her closer. ‘Good thing one of us has a good head on her shoulders!’

‘Hah!’ Laurel said, looking up at him. ‘You seem to forget that I’m all too familiar with your flattering ways...’

‘Not at all,’ Rudi said, dropping a kiss on the tip of her nose.

‘So how did you discover your mistake?’ Adelbrim wanted to know.

Rudi smiled down at Laurel and then met the escort’s curious gaze. ‘My mother scolded me into dancing,’ he said. ‘It was the first grand ball of the season after I came of age – Yuletide at the Great Smials.’

Adelbrim pretended to shudder. ‘Horrors!’ he said.

‘And my father reminded me that I had come of age, and I had better begin sizing up potential husbands,’ Laurel put in. ‘Even though I’d told him many times, I had no intention of marrying! I knew I needed no husband to make me contented, for I’d watched Auntie Petunia live quite contentedly for years after Uncle Agaricus died!’

‘But aren’t there other reasons for marrying?’ Adelbrim said. ‘Besides contentment, there’s companionship... not to mention heirs...’ Laurel gave a disdainful sniff, but Adelbrim ploughed on. ‘What about love?’

Laurel stared him down – or tried to. But when he steadily met her gaze, she nodded at last, and said, more quietly, ‘I had no interest in all the would-be suitors who kept buzzing around me like bees to the flower... for how would I know if they were interested in me and not just the heiress to the richest mead-works in the Shire?’

Adel pursed his lips slightly and tilted his head to consider. ‘And Rudi...’ he said, ‘...was “just a Took” among many, and not even one of the gentry, so far as one could tell from casual acquaintance,’ Rudi snorted at this, ‘but merely a hunter, at that. At best, you might call him an archer! And I suppose...’ he went on, addressing The Bolger, ‘...you dressed like a hunter and not like the heir to one of the richest fortunes in the Great Families...’

‘Hunter’s clothes are so much more comfortable,’ Rudi said, and Faramir laughed in complete accord. The Bolger fingered the collar of his snowy linen shirt and said, ‘I only wear fine clothes when I’m conducting business and I want to be taken seriously.’

‘You’re in good company,’ Farry said. ‘King Elessar follows much the same practice.’

‘And so, dressed in your finest, having received your inheritance and assumed the title of The Bolger, you asked Laurel to dance, and the two of you took your places, joined hands, and led out, and once the dance was safely underway, you began talking...’

‘And discovered they were none other than the farm lass and the hunter’s adopted son!’ Goldi laughed. ‘Like something out of a fairy tale!’

‘And the rest is history!’ Adelbrim proclaimed. He picked up his brandy glass again and lifted it high. ‘To fairy-tale endings!’

And they all lifted their glasses high, proclaimed, ‘To fairy-tale endings!’ and drank the toast with delight.

‘But...’ said Adelbrim when all had set their glasses down and Rudi had refilled them.

‘Only one “but” will I allow this night!’ Farry said in fair imitation of his father imitating Gandalf.

‘But what judgement did the Thain pronounce on the conspirators in the end?’ the escort asked, looking around the circle. ‘For all are here save Gorbi, whom we left back at the Smials immersed in planning new delvings in the Spring... so none of you can wink at me and say, “It’s not my news to tell!”, now, can you?’

Laurel winked at him saucily and said, ‘Well it’s certainly not my news to tell! I wasn’t there...’

‘Aha!’ Adelbrim said shrewdly, and he looked from Farry to Goldi to Rudi. ‘Then I take it, the rest of you were there! So tell on!’ And he tenderly rubbed the elbow of his injured arm and said, ‘...for I must say that storytelling is a wonderful diversion from the pain...’

‘And as you suffered the teeth of the wolf in our defence...’ Farry said wryly. ‘I can almost foretell the future, I can... You’re going to milk it for all it’s worth, aren’t you?’

‘I should say so!’ Adelbrim replied, and laughed. ‘When I became the head of escort, old Tolibold told me I must seize every advantage!’

‘And so you have,’ Goldi said, pretending to frown, but then she grinned and nudged Faramir with her elbow. ‘Go right ahead! You have my permission to tell about my part in the judgement, though it was mortifying!’

‘My poor Goldi,’ Laurel mourned, taking her friend’s other hand. ‘You never told me...’

‘We were sworn to silence,’ Rudi said. ‘Do not pry, my love, ‘tisn’t fair.’

‘Thain Peregrin and Mistress Diamond are in Gondor!’ Goldi said. ‘They’ll hardly overhear us from there! And so long as Adelbrim doesn’t spill...’

‘He wouldn’t tell his uncle what’s for tea if he thought the old fellow didn’t need to know,’ Farry said with a respectful nod for his head of escort.

‘Especially since I haven’t seen the hobbit since I left the Bree-land behind,’ Adelbrim acknowledged. ‘Does that mean you’ll tell me the rest of the tale? One or all of you?’

He tilted his head and batted his eyelashes like a besotted lass at everyone in general, managing to look completely ridiculous. ‘Pretty-pretty please? With sugar on top?’

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Author’s note: Laurel was first introduced in As the Gentle Rain and the related short story Dressed to the Teeth. Adelbrim also appears in both those stories, as well as a triple-drabble: Claiming the Prize.

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