The Green Dragon Inn #11 - The Last Chapter

[Primrose Bolger]

Ginger gave a little wave to Mister Andwise as he headed off toward the Inn’s old grounds-keepers’ cottage. She turned away quickly as she saw the five lads looking her way, a small smile on her face. Ferdy had sneaked a quick look her way, then hung his head before she caught his eye. He was sweet on her, she could tell, though he barely spoke to her when her ma would send her over with plum conserve for his old gammer that lived with them.

A mumbled ‘hullo’ was as far as they’d gotten in conversation recently. But she noticed that on Highday (Friday) after market, when her ma would send her by with a basket packed with a small pot of conserve and two loaves of braided bread, that the curtains would twitch, as if someone were watching, and the door would fly open at the barest of knocks. Gammer Banks would be standing there, a smile on her wrinkled face and a gleam in her bright brown eyes. And there holding the door open, half hidden behind it, would be Ferdy, his eyes fixed on anything but Ginger. Old Mistress Banks had taken to tapping him with her cane and telling him to greet their guest. But as she’d noted earlier, the greeting was limited to a low voiced ‘Hullo’ on his part and no amount of pleasant rejoinders on Ginger’s part could urge any further words from him.

Once, on an especially shy day, when she’d worn a blue ribbon in her curls and the new blue skirt and white blouse her ma had made her, he’d been completely tongue-tied and had fled the room before she could say anything back to him. Gammer Banks had eyed his retreating form and shook her head. ‘Hard nuts to crack, these Banks boys,’ she confided to Ginger, seeing the hurt look on the girl’s face. A grin had split the old woman’s face, then, and drawing closer to Ginger has whispered. ‘But well worth the trouble lass!’

From the Inn’s kitchen back door, she heard Buttercup calling to her. Cook wanted help with supper, Ginger was told, as she trudged into the Inn. Ruby and Buttercup were finishing up the cleaning of the upstairs rooms. Ginger would have to be the one to assist Cook tonight.

Nodding her head at Buttercup, Ginger took her apron off the peg by the door and tied it round her. There were scrubbed taters from the garden to be quartered, she saw, in a pile on the kitchen drainboard.

With a sigh, she picked up the paring knife where it hung on a nail on the wall and began attacking the task with vigor.

[piosenniel]

‘Have mercy, lass! Those poor taters have done nothing to you! You’re at them like Master Peregrin and Master Meriadoc taking after those ruffians at the Battle of Bywater!’ Cook eased the paring knife from Ginger’s grip and took the mangled tuber from her other hand. ‘And what’s this,’ she asked in a gentler tone, wiping the fat tears from the girl’s red cheeks with a corner of her apron. ‘These aren’t onions you’re chopping. What’s got the wind up you?’

Now it had been quite some time since Cook had comforted a sobbing young Hobbit, but once her arms had gone round the girl it all came back to her. Words wouldn’t do now, she recalled, clucking her tongue sympathetically as the sniffling explanation came out in spurts and starts and garbled phrases. The old story . . . her own daughters had gone through it themselves. ‘Sometimes, I wonder,’ she thought to herself as she patted the lass on the back and offered her a clean handkerchief from her apron pocket, ‘sometimes, I do wonder how we manage to go on and keep the Shire populated. ‘Course if it were up to the men folk, they’d be spending all their time at the Inn, lining up their mugs instead of home tending to family things. Need handling, the most of them. Leastways that my ma taught me.’

The tears and snuffled statements were winding down now. Ginger was at the hiccoughing stage of being angry and frustrated. Cook led her to a chair and sat her down. She fetched a cold mug of water and a wet cloth to clean away the streaky tracks left by the tears. Once the girl had got a modicum of composure back, Cook fetched her a cup of hot tea with honey and sat down with her.

‘The taters can be done later,’ she said as the puffy-eyed Ginger looked guiltily toward the waiting pile.’ She took a drink from her own mug of the steamy brew and sitting it down on the table top, leaned forward resting her crossed arms on the top, too.’

‘Now, tell me, Mistress Gamwich,’ said Cook in a kindly, but firm, voice. ‘Have you discussed this with your ma? And what has she told you, girl?’

[Primrose Bolger]

‘Oh, Miz Bunce,’ sniffed Ginger, twisting the wet hanky in her hands. ‘Me mum’s too busy to sort out my problems! There’s another little one on the way and my two younger sisters to see to. And Lily, my older sister, is expecting her fifth little one, too.’ Ginger took a gulp of her water before going on. ‘I’m in half a mind that she sent me here to help you to get me out of her hair for a while . . . and in hopes that I’ll meet someone at the dance who’ll take me on in a permanent manner, if you catch my drift.’ Ginger heaved a sigh, letting her shoulders slump in a hopeless manner at the end of it.

It was not that she was a bad girl, or that her mother disliked her. If anything her mother was simply indifferent . . . overwhelmed and indifferent. Peony Gamwich, originally a Millbank from Pincup, had always been of ‘delicate’ temperament. Ten children and another on the way had simply pushed her over the edge. She had barely enough energy to deal with the demands of Ginger’s younger sisters and once the new baby was here, Ginger would be beyond her scope of reckoning altogether. There was no point in turning to her older sister, Lily, for advice and help – she’d enough on her plate with little ones of her own. And the others of her older siblings had moved away from Hobbiton and Bywater and were busy with their own lives. Ginger, it seemed, was odd man out, and overlooked for the most part.

In a way it had made her a fairly self-sufficient lass, one who took things in stride as they came up, but on the other it left her no one to fall back on for those times when she had not the experience to sort out what was happening to her. And this was one of those times.

Cook looked on expectantly.

Taking a deep breath to clear her thoughts, Ginger looked over at the older Hobbit. The old Shire adage, “Make hay while the sun shines” surfaced; here was someone willing to lend an ear, and a word of advice . . . and if she were very lucky, a helping hand. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘it really all started when I was quite a young girl . . .’

Master Banks’ wife, Lily, had died, leaving Andwise to raise his only son, Ferdibrand – or Ferdy, as he was better known. Andwise’s mother had come to live with them, her own children all grown and her dear Hamlin had passed on as a result of an unfortunate incident with a neighbor’s fractious pony he’d been trying to shoe. Ginger’s ma had been friends with Lily and had wanted to ‘help out’ as she could. Thus had begun the weekly deliveries of little things to tide the Banks over, as her mother put it. And now with Gammer Banks getting older, these had been deliveries of braided loaves for the week’s end and small pots of fruit conserve – Gammer Banks has quite the sweet-tooth, Ginger confided.

‘And where does Ferdy – for, I suppose it is young Banks who’s got you into this state – where does Ferdy fit in?’ Ginger colored at Cook’s none too subtle urging to keep on track. ‘He’s about your age, as I remember – or a few years older, but not by much.’

Ginger shook her head ‘yes’. Ferdy was a bit older than she, and those early years she’d followed him about like a puppy when her mother and she had gone to the Banks' for their brief weekly visits. ‘It was easier back then,’ she told Cook. ‘Ferdy looked forward to seeing me and we’d play some little game or he’d show me the new carving he’d been trying his hand at. He was good with wood even back then – just like his Da.’ Ginger smiled remembering a small, painted carving of a bluebird he’d given her. He’d seen one hopping about on a small branch outside his window . . . the color, he’d said, reminded him of the ribbons she liked to wear in her hair.’

‘But all that’s changed now,’ she told Cook. ‘Seems somehow we lost our easy time together as we grew up. Leastways Ferdy seemed to. Got shyer, I think, and more tongue-tied than ever. Hardly says a word to me when I make the weekly deliveries to his Gammer now. And when I catch him sneaking looks my way he just turns all red and acts as if he’d run if he could.’

‘Hang it all, Miz Bunce, I miss my old friend and I just can’t figure out how to get him back! What would you do if you were me?’

Ginger looked hopefully across the table . . .

[Sleepy Ranger]

With light and quick footsteps Melenril made his way to the inn. His grim face had a large smile on it, his dark brown eyes shining with happiness. He opened the door and made his way inside, very happy about the fact that he would soon be meeting his family again. He had gone for about two weeks without a rest and was glad that he found this inn. His beard had gone for many days without a shave and his dark brown hair constantly falling over his face. He made his way to an empty table in a corner and seated himself. "Think I'll rest a while before doing anything else." He thinks to himself. "It'll be great to see mom and dad again and the rest of the family." He thinks out loud.

He looks around at everyone in the room, his face still beeming with happiness. The fact that he was thirsty and hungry had been overcome by his happiness and he felt like singing out with joy but managed to keep himself from doing so. After a while of resting his weary feet, he walked up to the Inn Keeper, "A bottle of your best wine, if you'd please." He says in a cheerful voice. "And perhaps even todays special."

[piosenniel]

Cook got up from her chair and brought the scrubbed taters to the table along with a couple of paring knives. ‘Never mind the skins, my dear,’ she told Ginger, shoving a pile in front of the girl. ‘We’ll get these quartered while we talk.’ Ginger’s quick hands bent to the task as did Cook’s, and soon the taters were piled up in a pan and advice heaped upon the young woman.

Ginger, for her part, mostly nodded her head as Miz Bunce spoke, but she stopped her whenever she didn’t understand or when she disagreed. Soon the pan was full and Cook filled it with water to set the taters boiling over the cook fire. Two large lamb roasts that Cook had earlier tucked into a pan and set on low in the oven were taken out to be basted, and their seasonings adjusted . . . then back they went to finish their slow roasting. Finally, Cook brought out a colander full of peas fresh picked in the garden and she and Ginger set to popping the tender green jewels free of their casings and into a large pan. They would be steamed lightly, and served glistening with butter.

As they sorted and worked through the peas, Cook suggested they make a little plan . . . just a little something to get Master Ferdy reacquainted with his childhood friend. The workers would be eating at the Inn tonight. Ginger was to be the server at the table where Ferdy would sit. And tomorrow, she said, taking a butterknife to one of the hinges that held a cabinet door on, she would ask Master Andwise if he might spare his son for a bit . . . there was a cabinet in the kitchen needed fixing . . .

‘And shall I be in the kitchen then helping you?’ asked Ginger, wondering what little job Cook would set for her.

‘No,’ said Cook. ‘I think the garden will need some tending, and you’ve just the hand and eye for weeds it needs. Master Ferdy and I will have a little talk. He’s not got a mother to set his head straight on his shoulders . . . I’ll just prod him along a bit. Had to do that with my own two sons. They could be a bit thick-headed at times.’ Cook tapped her foot on the floor, as she thought for a bit. ‘Believe I’ll first have a little talk with the lad’s father, though . . . best to have all your ducks in a row before a project’s begun . . .’

Cook untied her apron and hung it on the peg by the back door. Now you just watch those taters for me. I’ll be back in time to set the peas on.’ The late afternoon sun poured low across the back yard of the Inn as Miz Bunce clapped her bonnet firmly on her head and set off for the old groundskeeper’s cottage.