When Frodo returned to the party, tea was still being served, but most of the guests had had their fill. Many remained around the tables, talking excitedly in low voices, but they'd given up hope of finding more pearls; besides, the owner of the pearls would only claim them if they did. Prisca and Dora were sitting near each other under the shade of the tented trees nearest the Old Place, with various nieces and nephews in attendance, but didn't seem to be talking. The children had gone back to their games and the musicians were preparing to resume their playing, but Pippin hadn't joined either group. He was smoking a pipe with his granduncle Falco Chubb-Baggins in the little side-yard of the house where Milo Burrows and male guests of Dora's traditionally smoked.
"Hoy, Frodo!" Pippin called out and waved his pipe once he spotted his cousin. "So Aunt Prisca's asked you to look into this?"
"Yes, that's right," Frodo answered as he came closer. "It seems that I can't go anywhere without stumbling over some mystery that needs solving, even in the middle of tea-time."
"Then you ought to hear this," Pippin now spoke in a lower voice. "Uncle Falco's been telling me that Aunt Prisca and Aunt Dora have been quarreling over more than pearls for ages."
The old hobbit nodded. "Have you heard of Wilibard Bolger, Frodo? Young Pippin here hadn't."
"I think so…" Frodo answered as he sat down. "Aunt Dora used to speak of him sometimes. Wasn't he an old sweetheart of hers?"
Falco slapped his knee and laughed. "Is that how she tells it? No, Frodo-lad. Wilibard was a cousin to my own dear Posey. He came to visit from Budgeford not long after Posey and I were wed, and of course I introduced him to my cousins here in Hobbiton. Sad to think that so many of them are gone now! Old Bilbo, Otho, Posco… Odo Proudfoot over there was just a lad in his tweens in those days, and Dora and Prisca were young girls. Prisca was the prettier--at least, Wilibard thought so. They were both sweet on him, but it was Prisca he chose in the end."
"But they didn't marry," said Frodo.
"No, lad. He died soon after he and Prisca were betrothed."
"Maybe Aunt Dora killed him," Pippin joked.
But Frodo was thinking of something else: the little gold clasp Prisca had identified from her broken necklace. He'd seen the initials engraved on it: PB & WB. "Wilibard gave her those pearls, didn't he, Uncle? They were a betrothal gift."
"That's right," Falco confirmed.
Pippin shot a significant glance at Frodo. Apparently, Dora's envy of her cousin's pearls wasn't entirely because of the pearls themselves. A deeper jealousy lay behind it. "Where did he get them from?" Frodo wondered.
"Wiliford's mother was a Took," said Falco, as if that were explanation enough. Then, after a moment, he added for the benefit of the ignorant young folk, "Back in the old days, when the Old Took was alive and a friend to that wizard-friend of yours, he had all sorts of strange and remarkable treasures brought back from goodness-knows-where and the family must have some of them still. The Took girls--the Old Took's daughters, I mean, and not your sisters, Pip-lad--each had a string of pearls, and wasn't the second daughter Wilibard's own mother?"
"My eldest sister has one," said Pippin. "They belonged to Great-Aunt Belladonna. Father set them aside specially for Pearl when she came of age. Pearls for my Pearl, he used to say."
"And your mother or Milo's ought to have the third string, Frodo," said Falco. "They were the youngest Took girl's daughters. She must have left them to one or the other."
Frodo couldn't recall ever seeing his Aunt Asphodel wearing pearls, even though she was the sort of grand hobbit-lady who certainly would if she had them. Had she had sold them years ago to pay her husband's debts? Or had they gone to his mother, and she had set them aside with other treasures for him, like Dora, intended for a bride who would never exist? He would have to make inquiries when he and Sam visited Buckland later this summer.
"So, what d'you think, Frodo?" Pippin asked him. "Could it've been-?
Taking Pippin by the arm, Frodo led his cousin a little away from their aged granduncle. "I think," he said rather tersely, "that the oddest thing about all of this isn't that the pearls were stolen, but where they were found. It's almost like one of your conjuring tricks. Tell me, Pip--how would you get a pearl necklace into a cherry pie?"
"I wouldn't," replied Pippin. "Not if I meant to steal it. It's a silly thing to do." He gave the question some practical thought. "Unless I meant to give it to someone else. But who'd steal a necklace to give to a party-full of hobbits? How could they be sure it'd go to the right people? It's dotty." At these last words, he looked apologetic. "I'm sorry, Frodo, but it's something only a dotty person would do."
Frodo brushed aside the apology. Pippin was right; as a plan for a theft, it was impractical. Even if the string hadn't broken, there was no way a thief could be sure that any part of the pie and the necklace concealed within it was received by one particular person in such a crowd. Was the pie containing the necklace therefore not meant for Aunt Dora's party? Perhaps it had only come here by accident. Or had the pearls gotten into the pie by accident?
As much as he disliked the nurse's insinuations, Frodo had to concede that she had a point about Prisca's visitors and their motivations. He couldn't ignore the most obvious possibility.
Angelica had left the shelter of the tent and was heading toward them. She'd been indignant when Frodo had last seen her, and her face was pink with it now. Frodo left Pippin and went to meet her at the edge of the meadow. "Frodo, isn't it awful?" she said. "Everyone thinks Aunt Dora stole those pearls from Aunt Prisca."
"Yes, I know." Even if Frodo had wanted to disregard Lina Scarby's insinuations, Uncle Falco's hints and Pippin's talk of "dotty" behavior were impossible to ignore. And, recalling the embarrassed looks that had gone between Peony and her brothers, he realized that they weren't the only ones to have such ideas.
"Even Aunt Prisca thinks so, though she doesn't quite say it," Angelica continued. "I can hear it in every word she speaks to poor Auntie Dora."
"Does Auntie know what they're thinking?"
His cousin gave a fierce shake of her ringlets. "No. No one's said anything directly to her. Everyone's whispering behind her back. Papa and Uncle Porto keep asking how the pearls could've ended up in such an odd place, and casting glances at Aunt Dora as if they expect her to answer. And at her own party too! Oh, this is beastly! You have to do something about it."
"I mean to," Frodo assured her. He didn't like the idea of his dear, slightly dotty aunt being suspected any more than Angelica did, but this wasn't the first time he'd suspected a relative of committing a crime. He saw that Dora might easily have taken the pearls while visiting her cousin last week. She was a lady of sound moral character, but had always had her moments of pettiness. Since she'd been growing somewhat scatter-brained lately, she might've had some sort of lapse when faced with an opportunity to take something she'd desired for so long, something that was connected with the old rivalry between her and Prisca. Yes, that was possible.
He also saw that if it wasn't Aunt Dora, there were two other strong prospects, neither more pleasant to him, that must be considered. Angelica seemed quite certain that Dora couldn't be the thief. Was it simply because she was protective of their elderly aunt, or did she have a better reason? "Angelica, if you wish to help me, you must tell me the truth. You didn't take the pearls from Aunt Prisca's when you called on her last night, did you?"
Instead of being offended, Angelica laughed at the question. "No, of course not! What sort of fool do you take me for, Frodo Baggins? It'd be a foolish for me to steal them when I've every chance of receiving them honestly when Aunt Prisca passes on."
"I wouldn't blame you if you felt they were almost yours already," Frodo answered. "All the family seems to expect that she'll leave them to you rather than to Peony. But Aunt Dora has no chance of receiving them, and she's wanted them for so much longer. You know she's envied Prisca them since they were both girls, and I know how fond you are of Aunt Dora." He gave her a serious look. "You didn't, shall we say, 'borrow' the pearls to let Aunt Dora have them as a sort of birthday surprise? A sort of joke? Aunt Prisca would forgive you for it, as she'd forgive no one else."
Angelica didn't laugh this time. "It's a good idea," she admitted, "but one that didn't occur to me. I rather wish it had. It would've made Aunt Dora happy, just for today even if we had to give them back to Aunt Prisca afterwards." She met her cousin's eyes suddenly with eyes that were as intense and as blue. "And if you're asking me to confess to spare Auntie this humiliation, Frodo, I'd be glad to say it was me even though it wasn't. But who would believe it? Honestly, if I were going to borrow Aunt Prisca's pearl necklace, why on Middle-earth would I hide it in a pie?"
"I don't believe that was the original intention," Frodo said. "I think they ended up there purely by mishap."
"Then it couldn't have been me, Frodo," his cousin responded. "You said yourself that the necklace had been baked in the pie, and that pie must've been baked yesterday afternoon, since all the pies and other treats came here to be set out on the tables this morning. Lad and I only rode down from Michel Delving with the children yesterday afternoon. There was no baking in Aunt Dora's kitchen after we arrived, so the pearls were long gone from Aunt Prisca's by the time I called on her last night."
Frodo saw the unquestionable logic of this. It couldn't be Angelica then. That left Dora and her lapse, or Peony, who had a traditional right to inherit her aunt's pearls, but little hope of actually receiving them. Since she frequently called on Prisca alone or with her sisters-in-law, Peony had also had plenty of opportunities to take whatever she liked from Prisca's jewelry-box. But Peony wasn't in the least absent-minded; Frodo could plausibly believe her a thief, but not a foolish one. She could have no conceivable reason for concealing the necklace in a pie. No one could have a reason for doing such a strange thing deliberately.
How then had the pearls ended up in the pie? As he'd told Angelica, it must have been a mishap. Reluctantly, Frodo considered his aunt again. He imagined Dora bringing the pearls home from Prisca's and wearing them secretly under her blouse. If she seemed unusually excited or happy, which indeed she had been lately, it would be attributed to her upcoming birthday party. And then what had happened? An accident in the kitchen while she was overseeing the baking of party treats? The string had broken and the pearls had fallen into the cherries? Could such a thing have occurred unnoticed?
Frodo sought out his aunt's cook, who'd been given the day off after her hard work in preparing for this party, but who was among the guests. But when he tried to ask her when the cherry pies had been made, and if his aunt had been present at their baking, he received an astonishing answer, "Bless you, Mr. Frodo, I never made a cherry pie in my kitchen yet this summer!"
"Then where did those pies come from?"
"I couldn't say right off, Mr. Frodo--there was ever-so many folk hereabouts giving a hand to the cookery. But Mrs. Peony had a list of who was a-bringing what to us today. She'd know."
Site Info
We are the home of 1292 authors from among our 2552 members. There have been 2904 reviews written about our 3820 stories consisting of 10734 chapters and 29400445 words. A special welcome to our newest member, Rosamundeb.Categories
Skin Change
Donate
Help us keep one of the oldest running LotR archives available to all. Even the smallest donation helps!
Many thanks to our previous donors!
Many thanks to our previous donors!
