“Peregrin Took!” my Estella’s voice thundered through the tunnels of our shared home in Crickhollow. “How many times have I told you -- the kitchen is off-limits to the likes of you!”
I heard no response from Pippin save his laughter as he burst through door to my study without knocking and fell heavily into the chair beside my desk. A small plate holding three stewed button mushrooms found its way to the top of my papers, and I met Pippin’s gaze with a shake of my head as I wiped the tip of my pen upon the blotter and set it aside.
“I couldn’t help it,” he immediately exclaimed around his own mouthful of pilfered mushrooms. “Your wife makes the best mushroom stew I’d ever tasted.” Swallowing, he added, “Now I know how Fatty Bolger came upon his name. If my sisters ever cooked as well as his, they would have to roll me out of the kitchen!”
I couldn’t completely blame Pippin for his enthusiasm, as my Estella had closed herself off in the kitchen for the entire day preparing a particularly special and delectable mushroom stew. Just as it was tradition every year to celebrate old Bilbo and Frodo Baggins’ birthdays in absentia, so too did we celebrate the date that commemorated the destruction of the One Ring and the end to the Great Darkness, March 25. In 1430, as it had for the past three years, the celebration was a private one in the winding recesses that comprised our hole at Crickhollow. The four of us -- Pippin, Diamond, my Estella, and myself -- would gather for a great meal and fine drink, more lavish than we might normally present for ourselves on a daily basis. Occasionally, we would entertain Samwise and Rosie Gamgee; however, the steadily growing size of their family and the oft-pregnant condition of Rosie made it a difficult trip for them to make every year, as it was a great many miles between Buckland and Bag End. When we gathered, we would speak very little of the past -- for even after ten years the wounds were still painful for myself and Pippin -- but spoke kind words of the present and even some of the future.
Yet though I could not condone Pippin’s behaviour today, I did find the truth in his words as I savored the taste of warm mushrooms cooked by my Estella’s skilled hands. Again, I counted myself infinitely lucky, as my wife did indeed make some of the best food I’d ever eaten, and the mushrooms that Pippin had nicked were no exception. “Come, Pip, don’t you have anything better to do than pester my Estella in the kitchen? If you’re not careful, you may find one day that she’s done something horrible to those mushrooms you love so dearly!”
“She’d never do such a thing,” Pippin returned. “She takes too much pride in her cooking -- and well she should! As for my plans for the day, I’ve nothing to do until supper. Estella has confined herself to the kitchen, you are here with your writing-things, and my Diamond is out in town to visit...” He trailed off faintly, leaving the thought unfinished. “Anyway, I must entertain myself somehow before supper!”
“Nothing to do but pine for your beloved, eh?” I murmured, setting the empty plate aside and arranging the loose papers upon my desk. “Well, Pip, we’re a little old to be causing trouble like we used to, so we shall have to find another way to pass the time.”
“Something suitable for stodgy old men like us?” Pippin jokingly remarked with a wrinkle of his nose. His legs bounced with either pent-up energy or something akin to nervousness.
Just then, the gentle thud of the front door’s closing resounded through our hobbit-hole, and I said quietly, “Diamond’s home.”
His eyes lighting, Pippin pushed himself immediately to his feet, the beginnings of a smile catching the corners of his lips. “Excuse me, Merry. I must see to my Diamond.”
“At least take your empty plate with you, silly Took!” I exclaimed in vain towards his swiftly retreating figure. Although he slammed the door on his way out, I said nothing more regarding the plate he’d left behind; for I had glimpsed for the briefest moment an odd glimmer within his green eyes, a strange light of deep concern that he had sought valiantly to hide.
Ah well, I thought as I gave my papers one last perusal. If it is something to be concerned about, I am sure it will come out in its own due time. Until then, far be it for me to intrude.
After my Estella had finally called us to supper and had handed out heaping plates of mushroom stew, potatoes, and carrots, it became obvious that this year’s celebration would be distinctly different from those of previous years.
Diamond had taken ill for the past week, and its effects were still present in the grey of her fae features and the way she fussed with her food, hardly eating a bite, even if -- like all good hobbits -- her passion for mushrooms was unmatched. Pippin, too, was somewhat more subdued than usual at the table as he cast continuous, furtive glances to his wife; whatever her concerns had been in town, she apparently had not told him, and his curiosity and concern were almost tangible. The keen eyes of my Estella noticed the change that had come over the normally jovial Tooks, and she kept discussion light yet constant, enough to make the supper appear outwardly the jolly event that it should be.
Finally, Diamond dispelled the obvious tension as she rose to her feet, her fair cheeks flushed lividly against the otherwise pale of her skin. “Everyone, I have something I must say,” she interjected, mercifully cutting off my Estella’s halfhearted gossip surrounding the Widow Burrows and her twenty cats.
Briefly, I met my Estella’s gaze -- as confused as my own -- before turning my eyes to Pippin. He had stopped eating completely and stared at his wife with that very same concern I’d glimpsed earlier in the study. I set aside my fork and watched as Diamond struggled with her words, and my brows furrowed in an unnatural apprehension.
“You all know I’ve been unwell, so I took it upon myself to visit the healer at the centre of town today. They discovered what has been ailing me this past week,” Diamond continued in her soft voice. Although a faint shudder at first passed through her shoulders, when she looked up a tiny smile had broken out upon her lips. “I am expecting. There will be a family soon at Crickhollow.”
An elated cry burst forth from Pippin as he knocked aside his chair in such haste to gather his wife into his arms. “Diamond, my Diamond,” he exclaimed, kissing her full upon the lips. “Are you serious? Can this be true?”
“It is most certainly the truth, my Pippin,” Diamond responded as she buried herself in the warm comfort of his arms. “The child is even yours.”
Pippin laughed brightly at the jest, kissed his wife once more, and released his embrace so he could pull aside her chair and carefully lower her into it, as if she was already fully showing. “Oh, my Diamond, you must sit, rest yourself up! And eat! For now you are eating for two!” Hastily, he pushed her nearly untouched plate of mushroom stew before her before suddenly changing his mind and shoving it away. “On second thought, if it will make you ill, then perhaps you shouldn’t eat!”
“Or perhaps you could stop coddling her as if she were an invalid!” my Estella exclaimed, although a cheerful, good-natured grin was upon her face. “Congratulations, Diamond, Pippin! This is wonderful news!”
“Yes, congratulations are in order,” I dimly heard myself say. I was certainly happy for my cousin and his wife, but I couldn’t help but feel as if the news were unfolding to me within a dream. Beneath my joy was a certain undertone of crushing disappointment, but damned if I were to let it be known on such a happy occasion. I raised my glass of ale. “A toast to the newest addition to Crickhollow! May he be blessed with all the happiness one can afford!”
With smiles all around, we touched glasses and drank to the health of the Tooks’ child. The remainder of supper passed in a blur, spinning with a renewed, enthusiastic chatter from Pippin and giggling discussion between Diamond and my Estella regarding baby clothes, blankets, and toys. I myself found solace in silence, yet kept a facade of a grin upon my face -- hiding the fact that, although I was truly happy for the Tooks, I was also unexpectedly saddened. No one seemed to notice when I finished the plate of my Estella’s fine stew, pushed in my chair, and retired to the front stoop of our shared hobbit-hole with a bag of pipe weed and my own shadowy thoughts.
The sun had since begun to pass long shadows over the ground, and I was on my second bowl of pipe weed by the time Pippin found me upon the stoop. With a wide grin upon his face, he immediately settled upon a spot of ground beside me. I did not speak but only smiled faintly as I passed the long-handled pipe to him.
“Merry, can you believe it? I’m to be a father!” he exclaimed, taking a long drag on the pipe and exhaling in a thin stream of smoke.
“Against all my warnings about a Took breeding, at that,” I returned in a half-hearted joke.
“And for once it seems I’m ahead of you. You’ll have to work harder to keep up, cousin mine,” he chuckled.
Instead of joining Pippin in laughter, I reached over and snatched the pipe from him, taking a long pull on the smouldering weed. I was feeling, perhaps, more moody than I had any right to be; after all, Pippin had just received some of the happiest news that all those at Crickhollow had heard in a long while.
Pippin finally seemed to sense the shift in my mood from earlier in the evening, and he blinked at me curiously. “Merry, is something the matter?”
“Nothing is the matter, Pip,” I stated uncomfortably. “Nothing I have designs to talk about this evening, at any rate.”
“Now, now,” Pippin returned, scooting closer to me upon the stoop. “If there is something on your mind, you must bring it out into the open. I’ll not stand for brooding tonight! It’s too important a time for either of us to be sad, and I would indeed be sad if you were.”
“Pippin!” I snapped as I fixed him with a defensive glare. “I’ve told you I don’t wish to talk. Would you let it go?”
He was quiet for a moment, deep green eyes locked upon me in an assessing gaze. A gentle, if somewhat impish, smile then tugged at the edges of his lips, and he shook his head. “No, cousin, I will not let it go.”
“You’re exasperating, you know that?” I grumbled.
“Of course,” he responded good-naturedly. “Now, you’ll speak with me or I’ll make even more of an annoyance out of myself.”
I sighed deeply and took another drag from the pipe weed to steady my nerves. “Do you promise, Pip, to keep this between you and me, if I tell you?”
“May I be cast into the cracks of Mount Doom if I dare tell a soul,” he remarked flippantly, the only one of us remaining hobbits who would ever willingly joke about our terrible quest. I shuddered at the imagery, but it was through those words that I know Pippin was most sincere.
“It’s just...” I began, hesitantly at first. “Do you remember the great pox epidemic of 1400?”
“Only barely,” he said. “I was very young. I do remember a week of terrible misery, during which time Mum bound my hands together with rags to keep me from scratching at those horribly itchy welts.”
I nodded slowly, a great sigh escaping my chest. “Well, you and I, Pip, we were the lucky ones. Not every hobbit that caught the pox was merely itchy for a week. Some were feverish, some went blind, some even worse. A few even died from the affliction.”
Pippin’s brow furrowed, the beginning hints of impatience gathering upon his face. “What are you telling me this for?” he murmured.
My fingers twisted uncomfortably against the bowl of the long-handled pipe, and my voice dropped to a murmur. Pippin leaned closer to me to hear my muted speech as the truth I sought so hard to hide finally came out into the open. “My Estella was fifteen when she caught the pox, still a slip of a lass. She barely survived the ordeal...” I trailed off, and Pippin stared at me anxiously until I managed to continue in a flood of words, “I don’t rightly know all the details, but somehow the pox spread to her female parts, on the inside.”
“Oh, Merry,” he murmured, face pale with shock. “I’m so sorry. I hadn’t known...”
“So you see, Pip,” I continued, flushing with combined anger and shame, and ignoring the wide-eyed expression of my cousin, “My Estella and I shall never have children of our own. We will never be graced with a bright-eyed son or daughter, nor awakened in the night by hungry cries. The pox made certain that we would never find happiness in a baby’s laughter.”
Pippin’s hand found its way immediately to the center of my back, and he smiled wanly. “Never worry, cousin. My child is to be a Took through and through -- give him enough time, and I’m certain you’ll be entirely sick of hearing his laughter.”
“But you do see why this should be kept quiet, yes? The heir to Buckland should rightfully be able to produce an heir of his own.”
Pippin nodded thoughtfully, rubbing his chin in contemplation. “Did you know of Estella’s condition before you married her?”
My eyes narrowed and I uttered, defensively, “Yes, I knew. I loved her regardless, and still do.”
Although at first Pippin’s laugh took me somewhat off guard, it dawned on me that I should have fully expected all along that he of all hobbits would best understand our plight. “Oh, Merry, I do not fault you for it! But listen to me -- while you may not pass down the title of Brandybuck to the next generation, you can still find comfort in your Estella. The pox did not kill her, nor did it extinguish her spirit. You may not have a child, but you have a loving, caring, and -- dare I say -- beautiful wife to share your life with. You are truly blessed, and any hobbit who cannot see that is but a fool!”
Blinking, I met my cousin’s bright-eyed gaze and matched his grin with a burgeoning one of my own. “Prat. I’m supposed to be the wise one here. You’re making me look bad. Indeed, you are right, cousin, for once,” I toss in with a light smirk.
“Besides,” he continued, a wicked glimmer crossing his eyes, “there’s nothing that says you cannot keep trying for a child.”
“Oh, we do, dear Pippin. Indeed we do,” I stated, and, Pippin joined me in bright laughter that rose above the ridge of hobbit-holes that comprised the village of Crickhollow, mingling with our pipe smoke heavenward towards the golden disc of the setting sun. And for a time, all was again well with the world.
1: Merry Mine -- 2: Concerning Estella -- 3: Diamond's Darkest Hour --