Chapter 3. The Agony of Defeat
Part-way back to the Great Smials, Tolly slumped in the saddle – or would have, if not for the tight bindings that supported his cracked ribs, not to mention his brothers Mardi and Hilly, riding to either side of him and steadying him on his pony.
He would have been chagrined at the knowledge that his collapse halted the entire rescue party, had he not been blessedly unconscious. Mardi slid from his own pony whilst Hilly held Tolly in the saddle, then together the brothers carefully eased the injured hobbit to the ground, where Mardi took his younger brother’s hand between his palms and squeezed it firmly, calling Tolly’s name. On getting no response, he lifted one of his hands to Tolly’s cheek, striking it not quite hard enough to be called slapping but still patting it vigorously as he repeated urgently, ‘Tolly! Tolly...’
From ponyback, Hilly also called Tolly’s name, for all the good it did, and Eglantine craned from where she had halted her own pony, crying, ‘Is he all right? What’s happening?’
Mardi looked up. ‘We’ll have to carry him from this point on a litter, Mistress,’ he said. ‘I cannot rouse him.’ Though his worry was plain on his face, he added, ‘Would you like to go on ahead, Mistress? We’ll follow behind.’
‘No I would not like to go on ahead,’ Eglantine returned stoutly. ‘Poor Tolibold is in these straits because of me, after all! I was the one who insisted on continuing along the path we’d begun, in the face of his protests, instead of sensibly taking the longer way around because I did not want to miss Pimpernel’s birthday breakfast. And look at how things have turned out because I insisted on having my own way! He’s been injured, and I’ve missed the celebration anyhow!’
Mardi knew better than to argue or even draw attention to his concern for the mother of the Thain by ordering more blankets wrapped around her as she waited, which he strongly suspected would raise her ire. No, but he simply made the necessary arrangements as quickly as hobbitly possible, ordering four of the rescuers from their saddles to become stretcher-bearers and others to take the reins of their ponies to lead the riderless beasts, then unrolling one of the stretchers they’d brought with them and directing the newly designated bearers to ease Tolly onto it.
After checking his brother’s heartbeat and breathing and tucking blankets more securely around Tolly, Mardi looked up again, meeting Eglantine’s piercing regard. ‘We have another stretcher here,’ he said to her. ‘Is it well with you, Mistress? Are you finding riding a strain after your ordeal in the night?’
Eglantine snorted at his mention of her ordeal but refrained from reprimanding the healer. ‘I am well,’ she replied austerely. ‘Better than I deserve, as a matter of fact.’ She fixed Mardi with a stern gaze and added, ‘If you’ve arranged all things to your healerly satisfaction, then let us be off again! The sooner we have my unfortunate escort to the Smials and surrounded with comfort and warmth, the better.’
Perhaps only Haldi, waiting on his pony beside hers, might have heard the words she added under her breath. ‘And seeing me borne into the courtyard on a stretcher would be the finishing touch on ruining my Pimpernel’s birthday, no doubt!’
‘Yes, Mistress,’ Mardi said, but of course he was agreeing with her concern for Tolly more than anything else.
Carrying an injured hobbit on a stretcher is much slower than riding, even at a walk, on ponyback, and so it took them nearly two more hours to reach the Stone Bridge just outside of Tuckborough, whereupon Mardi nodded to one of the hobbits with the rescue party, a messenger bearing a horn. ‘Blow the alarm in the town,’ he said. ‘Be sure the hobbits there know that a flood may come down some time in the next few hours.’ Mardi himself would see to starting the word spreading in the Great Smials proper.
‘Aye,’ the messenger said, and kneed his beast ahead of the group to fulfil his mission.
Mardi signalled to the other messenger who’d been sent out with the group. ‘You know what you’re to do, Asher.’
‘That I do, Mardi,’ the hobbit said cheerfully. He reined his pony around and set off at a brisk pace back along the way they had come, to where Aldi had more than likely already buried his stick of black powder (Fancy that! A single stick filled with black powder, and it would be enough to take down that enormous dam formed by the landslip! Rivers were tricksy bodies, indeed...) in a carefully selected location in the face of the dam and was just waiting for Asher’s assurance that the warning had gone out to Tuckborough before lighting the fuse.
Despite their slow progress, the distance from the Stone Bridge to the Great Smials was not far and did not take long, even at a walking pace for hobbits burdened with a stretcher, and so it was not long before the rescue party were treading the stones of the courtyard, where stable workers were ready to take charge of the ponies. On seeing Eglantine in the saddle, wrapped in blankets but otherwise apparently whole and hale, they raised a cheer that continued and grew as ever more hobbits spilled from the stables and other outbuildings and the entrances to the Smials at the hopeful sound, adding their voices to the celebratory hubbub on seeing for themselves that the beloved Mistress of the Tooks was alive and well.
Amidst the bustle, Mardi managed to convey to the bearers that Tolly should be borne to the infirmary (a part of the Great Smials that Tooks made a point of avoiding, as a rule) rather than his quarters. Though Tolly’s injuries did not seem at first glance serious, his brother wanted a closer look at them all the same than he’d been able to manage heretofore. Moreover, they could remove or cut away the hobbit’s filthy clothing more easily on a table there than to do so in his bed, and they might as well wash away the mud that covered him while they were there. If nothing more than Mardi’d already seen was amiss, they could then bear Tolly to his own bed to recover. He’d be more comfortable there, and comfortable convalescents healed faster, to the healers’ way of thinking.
Mardi was also hoping that Meadowsweet would not see her beloved in his present state but that they’d keep the news from her until her husband had been washed and dressed in a clean nightshirt and bundled in blankets. Was that too much to hope for?
Yes, as it turned out, for before they reached one of the lower doors in the face of the Great Smials (it would have been foolishness to carry a burdened litter up the steps to the main door), Meadowsweet was there, gasping and weeping, throwing herself on her husband without regard for mud or injuries or any other consideration. Thankfully the bearers’ firm hold on the stretcher prevented Tolly’s being spilled to the hard stones of the courtyard.
All the same, Mardi bodily lifted the distraught wife away, rather more roughly than he meant to, and gave her a shake, scolding, ‘Sweetie! Calm yourself! You do him no good in this state!’
Gulping back tears, she pulled free of Mardi’s grasp, caught her balance and stared at him. ‘They told me—’ she gasped. ‘They said—’
‘Minor injuries,’ Mardi returned in his heartiest voice, ‘minor injuries only, Sweetie. He’ll be fine.’
‘But he’s—’ she said, her anguished gaze returning to Tolly.
Mardi felt the need to take her arm, to prevent any further extreme measures on Meadowsweet’s part more than to offer comfort. ‘Exhaustion – that’s what you’re seeing, lass. He needs rest more than your tears, my dear.’ And then he thought better of the words, especially seeing the hobbits nearest them listening eagerly. Exhaustion implied weakness and, perhaps, some failing on his younger brother’s part, and the word could all too easily echo in the whispers of the Talk of the Tooks long after Tolly was back on his feet and fulfilling his duties once more. And so Mardi hastily amended his response to Meadowsweet, then, saying, ‘We’re just going to get him clean and comfortable, and then you can tuck him up in your bed with your own sweet hands...’
‘He’s well?’ she said, somehow calmer.
‘Well...’ Mardi replied, signalling to Tolly’s bearers to continue on to the infirmary. If she took his answer as confirmation rather than hesitation, it was all for the best.
Meanwhile, a mob of Tooks and servants were fussing over Eglantine, crowded so tightly around her that Pimpernel found it difficult to force her way through. When she reached her mother at last, she threw her arms around Eglantine, laughing and weeping in one.
Eglantine returned the hug and then reached up to wipe away the streaming tears, small clods of drying mud dropping from her arm. ‘My love,’ she said. ‘Put your tears away. All is well.’
‘O Mum!’ Pimpernel sobbed, but then she swallowed hard and did her best to comply. ‘We thought—’ she said brokenly.
‘What you thought doesn’t matter now,’ Eglantine said, raising her voice to be heard over the murmuring hobbits filling the courtyard. ‘I’m well! As old Bilbo was so fond of saying, the reports of my demise were slightly exaggerated.’ She waited out the resulting cheer from the hobbits around her, then added, looking around at the sea of faces, ‘Thanks to the dedicated efforts of my escort, I am safely among you again!’
There. She hoped it would be enough to direct the Talk of the Tooks away from any speculation on Tolibold’s supposed failings. The unfortunate hobbit would have a difficult enough time as it was, with her riding into the courtyard in triumph whilst he was borne on a stretcher.
Perhaps she ought to have allowed them to carry her home, as well, if only for Tolly’s sake. Ah well, no use borrowing more trouble than the previous day had already imposed. If Tolly’s good reputation should be threatened by the unfortunate recent turn of events, well, they’d have to deal with icing that cake when it came out of the oven and not beforetimes. Hopefully all this excitement would blow over, and people would be distracted with all the other details of the disaster, such as housing the homeless hobbits and rebuilding after the floodwaters receded, instead of indulging in the pleasurable pastime of second-guessing the actions of Eglantine’s escort.
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