"Famous for Its Weddings"
Epilogue: Mother, daughter
(PG, slash theme. Rosie tells Elanor how it was.)
by Princess of Geekland
1454
It took no persuading after lunch to get Rose to take a stroll with Elanor. The younger woman knew it was healthy to take a nice easy walk at least once a day, keeping her breathing even, her back from getting stiff. Now, near the end, walking was much more comfortable than standing to wash dishes or set a table. And sitting? Only on the floor. Please, no chairs.
These weeks had been so sweet, set off like a picture in a frame from the rest of their lives that year, which itself was especially sweet anyway, as years went.
It had been a long, slow ride from the Westmarch, but the road was excellent and the fine wagon had big metal springs. No one had liked the idea of Elanor trying to wait until the last minute to come home to have her first baby. No one liked her being away from Fastred that long either, but it would be so nice to have a finished home to bring the baby to. Though he felt very torn, Fastred wanted to press on. So much work to do in the new settlement, so many things to plan and build and organize. He could get to Hobbiton within a day if he used a fast pony and pressed it hard. And, what could be better, Mr. Peregrin had loaned him one. So Elanor came home in her seventh month. Sam was taking no chances with their first grandchild.
All the details settled, with Elanor again at Bag End, the remaining Gardeners had only to enjoy and to wait. Half the children grown and gone, the other half getting so old they could take care of every chore (if Rosie nagged them). Why, Baby Tom was 12 years old now. Don?t you dare call him baby, and of course, he knew everything already.
So Rose and Elanor walked, and reminisced, and made plans, and argued about names. Their stroll after lunch became a routine. Sometimes Goldilocks came along, sometimes Rosie-lass. But one day they were alone, and as their steps turned down the lane toward the mallorn in the meadow, Elanor tried to put an odd question into words.
"It just seemed so right, so ordinary," she said to her mother without preamble. Rosie cocked her head, smiling. "Really, only since I married have I wondered about it at all, tried to understand, as if it were someone else I was thinking about. To see it from outside, if you see what I mean."
"I see," Rosie said, and waited.
"The three of you never seemed to worry about it, but plenty of other people did. We heard gossip we never repeated to you, and the cruel things children say, before you and Dad and Fo taught us to just not hear it."
Rosie nodded, admiring the noon spring light in her daughter?s golden hair. Since she was five, Elanor could not be made to wear a hat. She cheerfully got a red nose in the summer, and her hair bleached almost white. Rosie never got used to Elanor?s breathtaking loveliness. Queen Arwen had told her once how much Elanor reminded her of her Noldorin foremothers. Rosie wondered what Celebrian and Galadriel must have looked like. More than mortals were able to handle, she was sure.
The almost-elvish face was frowning. "But now I have Teddy, and I just... Mother," Elanor finally blurted, "Tell me how it works! I can?t imagine it -- being in your place. I can?t imagine sharing him. How did you make room for Frodo? Or was it Dad you made room for?"
Rose laughed, letting the question rest easily in the air. What should she say?
"It worked, and it works. It really hasn?t changed at all, it?s just so much more easy and familiar. And, it does work beautifully in that big bed up at Bag End. No need to blush, child, with that belly! And you married three years. It works in as many ways as your pretty blonde head, I?m sure, can imagine."
Elanor laughed even as she still blushed as pink as her mother?s namesake flowers.
"Yes, I have learned quite a bit about the bed part of loving since I left home, though this baby slowed that down quite a bit lately! But you know all about that, after fourteen."
Elanor could picture part of it now, if she tried -- imagine her mother, pregnant with herself at about the same age, in the lovely familiar rooms of Bag End. Rooms surely quieter and more orderly with only her three parents there. Much quieter than the old hole had ever been in Elanor?s entire memory!
Her mother, now going grey, but at 70 only in a comfortable middle age by hobbit terms. Middled aged and serene, a mellower version of the bubbling, adventurous lass that Elanor imagined she must have been. Beautiful and strong, her hands rough from years of laundry and cooking, her hands gentle from years of caressing skin and wiping tears.
"And how long had you and Dad been married when I was born?"
"A year. No, not quite -- eleven months."
Elanor nodded. "And Fo was there all along. Oh, mother, I?m not being curious in a nosy way. Believe me. I just never saw it before I had a man of my own and children to think about. I love you all so much and now, I?m imagining it was just amazing, especially at first. Did you find it odd? Or scary? Is it wrong of me to ask?"
The words tumbled out, but without fear. Rose put her arm around Elanor?s waist as they walked and was rewarded with a solid baby kick to the wrist. She laughed, and thought it so typical of her beautiful, ethereal girl -- always yearning, needing to know. Never leaving a thing alone until she had it all in her hand, complete. Who did that remind her of....Yes, well, amazing was certainly one word you could use. Some memories she did not intend to share with Elanor!
"No, Ellie, you know you can always ask. We?re your parents -- who else do you ask, who else should explain it to you, even if they thought they could? I knew the minute it occurred to you, you would ask, and I never tried to talk to you about it until, because what would be the point?
"Yes," she went on, "certainly Frodo was there from the beginning because he asked us to live at Bag End. We moved in on our wedding day. But Sam and I almost were betrothed even before their journey. He put off asking me, and did an entirely poor job of explaining, or not explaining, why. I didn?t know whether to feel impatient or jilted! But at the time, you know, the fact that Frodo had to leave, had to go to Mordor with Mr. Bilbo?s ring -- it was a big secret. No one knew he was leaving, and certainly no one knew Sam was going with him."
Elanor nodded. She knew the story by heart, had heard it from her uncle, from Sam, had read it for herself from the Red Book, but she realized she had never heard this part, and never from Rose. And the story she had asked for was the love story. Somehow those never got into the history books.
"Sam and I had known each other forever, almost grown up together. Bywater tweens were always underfoot in Hobbiton. It was big stuff to us to go up to the village, to the market, to the fairs. Frodo was older, and quite above us in those days. You may not entirely realize, Elanor, how generous he has been to us. How the Cottons and especially the Gamgees have come up in the world by associating with the Bagginses -- so very NOT respectable though the connection has turned out to be!" She laughed again. "And of course Sam became well known in his own right after their journey, and after he planted all the trees and became the mayor. But think: His dad was Mr. Bilbo?s gardener -- his help."
Elanor took all that in.
"Well, did Dad mind that you and Frodo fell in love, too? After all, you could only marry one of them."
"No, no," Rose said gently. "I can see you?re leaving out something very important, sweetheart. I?m not the one in the middle of this tangle, or at least, I wasn?t at first. Though we each have certainly had our turn in that spot over the years.
"No, Ellyelle, you must understand, it was Sam. Sam woke up one day and found us both in his heart. You see, they had loved each other long before Sam ever brought me home to Bag End."
A kind of illuminating glimmer played on Elanor?s face.
Rose went on, sounding surprised, "In fact, they may have loved each other the most all along. I don?t know if that?s true; I?ve never said it out loud before, but even if it is true, it doesn?t really matter. What we have didn?t need to be divided up and counted like that. It really has carried us, you know, rather than us having to coddle it."
"So much love, so big, to keep three of you together and to share with all of us. I always figured that was why you were so good at having babies -- because there were two husbands there with you. You got more than most other wives, and so had more to give."
"Maybe so." Rose smiled to herself.
It was a comfort, Rose saw, to say these things to the day and to Ellie, to say things she had not said to Frodo or Sam for years, not needing to. It was all said and learned by heart long ago, and never taken for granted, unless a person could take sunlight and fresh air for granted, or morning.
"Well, this is what you are really asking, Ellie: They certainly loved each other first, but I got to be there and watch them discover what that meant. And I wouldn?t have missed that for the moon and the stars."
Elanor was intent, her eyes on her mother?s face, their arms around each others? waists. She let the older woman pick the path and watched as Rose carefully chose her words. So much joy in her face, Elanor thought, such secret joy in those memories -- thirty years of living with Dad and Fo in what Elanor, only now, was learning married love could be like.
"In a way, those two got married, for lack of another word, on their terrible journey. Not that there was any time or much desire for kisses or lovemaking. But it marked them, and joined them together, Ellie. You?ve seen that. They saved the world for us. They did! The two of them, alone."
She paused. It was history, and it was hers ... so hard to keep the two together. So hard to believe it now, it was so long ago. Her Sam?s gentle face, strong hands.... The stories they carefully put in the Red Book had made her blood run cold when she had first jarred them out of Frodo -- barely healed even now, his mind a fragile thing that took careful tending.
"We don?t have a place in the Shire for the menfolk who fall in love, Ellie. But your dad and Frodo aren?t the only ones. And after living with them so long, I can tell you, for sure, that it?s not some different kind of love. It?s the same old wanting and marrying kind -- whatever body your beloved wears, or you wear.
"I imagine you and Fastred have it, and," she paused, uncertain if she should bring up such a memory," I imagine you and Goodwill would have had it, too."
Elanor didn?t flinch, only smiled, glad to know her mother had not forgotten the dear boy.
"I really don?t think it?s different -- Frodo for Sam, or Sam for me."
"Ah, then, but what about Frodo for you?" Elanor laughed.
"You should ask him sometime. He might even tell you. I wonder what he?d say." Rosie?s answering laugh cascaded along the path like the water in the brook they were following.
"I think at first he didn?t know what to think. Remember, dear, we had no map. No guidance. We were as confused as you are now! Especially Frodo, I think. But he had been hurt the worst.
"How much I was part of the package that came with Sam, and how much he thought of me, right at first, I don?t know. But it wasn?t long before he and I were as interested in each other as we both had been in Sam all along.
"Frodo.... Frodo, thirty years ago!" She glanced sidelong at her daughter. "I?m sure you?ve noticed by now, Rosie, what a handsome hobbit your uncle is. No, it wasn?t hard to fall in love with him. He and Sam were so close, even before they left, that it was hard to separate them in my mind. I may have been in love with them both all along. But it certainly was not considered proper. You know, I think some of the awful gossip aimed at me was just simple jealousy. Think about it -- me, ordinary as dirt, with both of them in my bed? The richest, most famous hobbits in the Westfarthing? My." Rose sighed with satisfaction.
"Those were awfully sweet days. And then we had you right away, and you were someone new to love and take care of. And love for babies is a whole new, different kind of love, Ellie, as you?re about to find out. We were very, very busy for a long time with the babies.... And don?t forget we had Frodo?s illness, too. He scared us and worried us to death for years."
"I remember," Elanor said. That part wasn?t new to her; she had seen Frodo?s demons up close. They held no terror for her now.
No, what her mind toyed with, veered away from, was the idea, the picture, really, of her mother and Frodo as lovers, her mother and Sam, and harder for her and stranger, Sam and Frodo.... They certainly loved each other first, but I got to be there and watch them discover what that meant. How had she missed that part?
But that was all right. Until Fastred -- or Goodwill, for he had given her a fleeting taste of it -- she didn?t understand, couldn?t have understood.
And she knew exactly what Rose meant about the different kinds of love -- between lovers, and then between parents and children. With it all explained, or as explained as much as such a mystery ever could be, Elanor?s mind came to rest, satisfied.
"Here?s another new one for you, then, mother -- grandmother love. I imagine that will be a whole new kind of adventure."
"Huh. I imagine you?re right."
The End
~
Pretty Good Year