The Green Dragon Inn #11 - The Last Chapter

[piosenniel]

NOTICE OF TIME CHANGE COMING FOR THE INN

Tomorrow, late Sunday Pacific Time U.S., I'll turn time forward a little in the Inn.

It will be nearing evening and suppertime.

Until then, please finish your interactions that take part during this day in the Inn.

Thanks!

~*~ Pio, Shire Moderator

[Arry]

The afternoon passed in a pleasing manner for Andwise. His small, thick-fingered hands, moved easily over the cabinet facings – taking off the old paint, smoothing out rough patches, filling in dents. Each one, when done and declared ready by him, was lined up against the side of the cottage away from where the addition was going on. Ferdy, would then take them up two at a time, to the saw-horse table he’d put together for himself, and sand them even more finely, then would come the stain and finally the rubbing of each to a soft luster.

By the end of the day, they should have the cabinets all done. Tomorrow, Ferdy could begin work on the window and doorway mouldings. They were in fair repair and shouldn’t take long. Andwise, as he worked along in his methodical manner, had begun thinking already of the main door to the cottage. It was a thick oaken door – but as plain and serviceable as its former owner. It wouldn’t do, he thought, for the stablemaster and his new bride. Andwise whistled a bright little jig as his hands moved over the wood before him and his mind moved over the design that had begun to form in his mind.

[Nurumaiel]

As luncheon ended the door to the Inn opened and Posco and Lily entered, looking well-pleased. Both had flushed faces and sparkling eyes, and while Posco's wind-blown hair didn't look too unnatural it was a little odd to see Lily's hair in such a mess. Blanco gave a cry and flung himself across the room, throwing his arms about Posco and saying, 'Oh, I've missed you so much! I'm so glad you're not hurt! I'm so glad to see you again! I'm so glad!'

Posco slowly coloured and glanced around the room, and murmured in an agitated whisper, 'Please, Blanco, don't hug me in front of everybody. I'm glad to see you, too.' He patted his brother's shoulder and carefully extracted himself from the grip. Blanco stepped back, grinning madly, smoothed his hair out of his eyes, and bowed to Lily. 'Miss Lily, I trust your ride was enjoyable?'

'Very,' she said, and she smiled at Posco. A shadow passed briefly over Blanco's face, but soon his eyes were shining again as he led them both to their table. 'Miss Lily,' he said, 'may I present my sister, Peony, and Donnamira, a little friend of ours.' There was an exchange of greetings, and then everyone sat easily at the table. Blanco sat next to Posco, one arm about his brother's shoulder.

'Well,' said he, looking from one to the other. 'Perhaps you would like a late luncheon, and then when evening comes we can sit by the fire and you can tell us of what you did on the ride. We'll let you think it over now, though.'

[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."

[Hookbill the Goomba]

After long converse about hurt, pain and much suffering, Fáinu felt reluctant to leave. It was long since he had had good company, he enjoyed to talk with Adu and did not want to leave, but he knew he must. Sorrowfully he rose and forced a smile.

"I am sorry Adu," he said at last, "I must depart now and perhaps come to Imladris, as I was asked to return after my errand was complete. Wither are you bound?"

Adu made no reply but looked sorrowfully into the fire. He had wished so long for company, and Adu seemed to have enjoyed his company.

"If you have no bonds," He said, "When your companions are here, will you consider following me thither?" He peered about the room nervously, as if he expected attack. "I must leave now and seek Dwaline. A dwarf whom I met on my way to the grey havens, I will return in the evening. Will you still be here?"

Adu turned and smiled, Fáinu smiled back and departed. He walked briskly to the door and opened it; two Hobbits rushed passed him and nudged him as he departed.