"Happy Birthday, dear Elanor, Happy Birthday... to... you!"
The song ended and, amidst the cheers, Elanor took a deep breath and blew out the four candles on the cake with a hearty puff.
"Now, who'd -" Rosie started to say, the end of her question lost to the chorus of 'yes please'-es from the assembled guests.
"Saxifrage Burrows is engaged to Ned Rumble now," the Gaffer told Sam conversationally as Lily Cotton slapped Jolly's hand off the icing-spoon and threatened to belt him purple if he didn't stop acting the joker.
"Good," Rosie cut in. "Sass Burrows was always mooning about and flirting with Sam like anything. I ain't going to share my husband with -"
Pippin seemed to be having trouble with his wine suddenly, spluttering into his glass with a choked gulp. Frodo kindly provided him with a heavy thump on the back, to help with his breathing, and shot a polite smile at Gaffer Gamgee.
"You're still in close with the Rumbles, then?" Sam asked, the faintest arch note to his voice.
"None of that sauce, I don't care if you've a dozen mugs of good ale in you," the Gaffer snapped. "Hobbits are like wolves, I always say. We pick a mate and we're locked tight until all's said and done. Vera Rumble and I are too busy pulling our addle-pated children out of the muck to do naught else, never mind a kiss and a cuddle, at our age. Speaking of it, Marigold, when're you going to get on and give me more grandchilder to teach in the way of the world? Rosie here's not been married to our Sam as long as you've been with her brother, and she's six months on with her third babe. You'd best start soon if you're going to catch up."
Marigold, who had been discussing besom-making with a fascinated Estella, shot her father a look that none could read.
"Fo-o-ohhhhhhhh!" Elanor shrieked from the next room. Excusing himself from the overcrowded table, Frodo wiped his hands on a napkin and went to save the day.
Sam's older sisters had near a dozen children between them, including several girls old enough to enjoy doting on tiny Frodo Gamgee. Elanor was standing apart from this group of squealing tweens, and ran to jump into her uncle's arms when he came into view.
"Hullo! 'm a birthday girl," she informed him cheerfully with a bounce of her yellow-gold curls. Her party dress smelt of the scents of the evening, Rosie's delicious garlic chicken and the sharpness of rain and the rich green of the grass outside and candle-smoke and sugar and milk.
"I know." Frodo lifted her up and pressed his forehead against hers. "Four years old."
"Not me. You're four." Elanor wrinkled her nose and giggled.
"I am? How old are you, my dear?"
"Eleventy-one!" the little girl crowed. "Eleventy, eleventy, eleventy-one!"
"Oh, well, in that case it's time you were in bed, little gammer."
"No bed!" Elanor was overloaded on sweet things with little nutritional value and felt the need to raise her voice to the rafters. "Presents!"
"All right, soon, your uncles and aunties and grandparents want to have an after-dinner chat and a smoke first."
"A chat about wolves." Elanor's expression was serious and wise. "I heard Sam-dad's Gaffer say so. Are we really like wolves, Fo?"
"Maybe, El. I don't really know enough either way to say so."
"What do wolves do if there's not enough to go around? Being lonely forever sounds horrible." Elanor shuddered. "Shouldn't like that at all, even if it meant more cake at parties with nobody to share. Can I have more cake? Mummy made it just for me and my teeth won't get dirty black holes, I'll wash them clean as new paint. Please?"
"You can have more cake tomorrow, lass, if you have any more now you'll grow gingerbread out your pretty little ears. And tomorrow we'll look up wolves in my books and find out the answer, all right?"
"The answer to what?" Sam asked, coming up behind Frodo. Elanor giggled and hid her face against Frodo's shoulder.
"Daddy's made of taters," she whispered, her warm breath tickling Frodo's skin. "We should fry him up for supper."
"Full of the clever ideas tonight, aren't we?" Frodo raised his eyebrows. "I fear our birthday girl is too excited to open her presents, Sam. We'll have to feed them to the ponies."
Elanor's foot kicked Frodo in the stomach, causing him to curve over theatrically with an 'oof'.
"Now, none of that." Sam plucked Elanor up out of Frodo's arms. "Birthday lasses have to be good and sweet."
A snort announced Rosie's arrival on the scene. Sam turned and greeted her with a grin, and considered revisions to his statement.
"All right, then, they need to be well behaved or Mr Merry will send that gay little parcel back to the Lady Eowyn and you'll get buttons and tacks instead."
"With any luck we'll be free of mirrors this time," Frodo muttered with a wry grin. Rosie shot him a scolding glare and picked his hand up, kissing a small white scar on the palm.
"P'raps it's a horsie. Frodo took my old one," Elanor pouted, despite the fact she had never shown especial interest in the small carved animal that was now owned by her brother. There was no confusion with names, as far as Elanor was concerned. There was Frodo, the small creature prone to crying and burping and curious aromas, and there was Fo, who knew stories and liked to have cuddles when he was sad.
"We should go back inside, really. Can't hide from a party in our own home," Sam sighed.
"What about all the other presents? I haven't got anything to give everyone!" Elanor realised with a jolt of alarm.
"Oh, sweetling, you're too little yet to worry about that," Rosie assured her.
"And you're the best present we could have, anyroad," Sam added.
"I must say, El, I've never before seen one so fair of such a great age." Frodo gave her a tickle and a kiss on the cheek.
"Silly Fo, your eyes are all dribbly."
"It must be the smoke in the air, you blew those candles out with quite a draft."
"I'm a dragon, as well as a wolf!" Elanor cried with a clap of her hands. "Oh, what a noise I could make! Rrrwoar! And I could eat whole sheeps, with wool on them and all."
"Sounds delicious," Sam said skeptically, carrying his daughter back inside to her birthday party, Rosie and Frodo in tow.
~
Pretty Good Year | email Mary