After lunch, as Frodo left the Hall to try and trace Merimas's whereabouts the evening before his death, he heard a sharp hiss and someone called his name: "Frodo! Up here!"
Frodo looked up; Celie was standing on the edge of a small copse of trees on the slope of Buck Hill above him. She waved to summon him, and he climbed up to join her. There was a bench and small flower garden among the trees, and Celie had taken her little boys from the care of the house-maid who'd been promoted to the nursery until a proper nursery-maid could be engaged, and brought them out into the sunshine to play. The elder boy, Mungo, was a toddler of two and a half. The baby, Madoc, was a little over a year old. Both already had thick crops of brown curls on their heads, and large brown eyes like both their mother and father.
"How are you, darling?" Frodo asked once he had reached her.
"As well as I can be," Celie answered dolefully. "Having the babies with me helps. Looking after them gives me something to do besides sit and weep, and I don't think so much about... Merimas. You haven't found anything yet, have you?" she asked Frodo, half-hopeful, half-fearful.
"No," Frodo answered. "I've barely begun. I've been to see the place where- ah-it happened, that's all, and I was just going to see if I can find out where he went after he left you."
Celie nodded and set the baby down on the grass beside his elder brother; Mungo was amusing himself by banging a wooden toy horse against the leg of the bench. "I wanted to ask you something else too, Frodo," she said. "There's something everybody knows--Mother, my brothers, Merry, and they're keeping it from me. I catch them whispering, then they shut right up when they see I'm there. You know what it is, don't you?"
"Yes, I know."
"Will you tell me what it is then, Frodo?" she requested. "Nobody else will. But it concerns me, doesn't it? Don't I have a right to know?"
Frodo nodded. "Yes, I think you do."
Celie might be a grown-up hobbit, married and widowed, the mother of two children, but she was the 'baby' of the Brandybuck family and still very young and naive, and especially fragile at this tragic time. Frodo understood why the Brandybucks felt so protective of her--he couldn't help feeling protective himself--but while the rest of the family was anxious to keep Celie from knowing about the ugly gossip he and Merry had overheard at the High Hay tavern last night, he agreed with Celie; she had a right to know what concerned her. It was important that she be warned about what was being said.
He also had a reason of his own for telling her: if Merimas's death was connected at all to Berry's, then he must learn what truth, if any, lay behind those rumors. Celie was the only one who could tell him. Frodo recalled hearing stories about Celie and Berilac when he'd investigated the latter's death. The two had courted to some extent before she had married Merimas, but Frodo had no idea how far things had gone between them.
He sat down on the bench and took both her hands in his. "Celie, I know how awful this must be for you," he began as a preamble. "I'll do everything I can to see that the person responsible is brought to justice, but I'm sorry to say that it's going to be harder for you in the days to come."
"Harder?" Celie echoed. "What could be worse than what's already happened?"
"The investigation of a murder is hard on everyone involved, even the innocent," Frodo tried to explain. "I'll have to peer and pry into things that would normally be nobody's business, and turn up secrets that people would rather keep hidden. Ugly things may come to light. There'll be suspicions. I don't want to distress you, Celie, but old gossip will be brought up again, whether or not it was ever true."
"What was true? Frodo, I don't know what you're talking about. What does this have to do with what everyone's keeping from me?"
"I'm referring to the old stories about you and Berilac."
"Berry!" she cried in astonishment. At the sound of his mother's raised voice, little Mungo stopped his banging and stared up at her in wonderment. "But that was ages ago! Berry's been dead for three years. Are people still talking about that?"
"I'm afraid they are."
"And they think..." Celie stopped suddenly, and her still-reddened eyes widened as she understood what Frodo was trying to tell her. "They think that has something to do with Merimas's death, because of me? Do they think I did it?"
"No one's said so, Celie."
"But they think it! Oh, that is worse!"
As fresh tears filled her eyes, Frodo felt ashamed of himself; it was too soon for Celie to talk about this painful, personal subject.
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!
