Gamwich was over eighty miles from Hobbiton, a two-day journey. Rosie packed a bag for Sam, and Sam packed for Frodo. Sam also left his friend Robin Smallburrows in charge as Deputy Chief lest anything that required a high shirriff's attention happened while he was away. He had done the same before going to aid Frodo in Buckland, but nothing had occurred during his absence.
They rose early and began their journey after breakfast. On the first day, they rode as far as Michel Delving, where Frodo stopped to call on his cousin Angelica and her husband Lad Whitfoot. The Whitfoots were also friends of Sam's and Rosie's; like Rosie, Angelica was expecting her second child in the autumn. When Lad's father, Mayor Will Whitfoot, learned that Sam and Frodo were in town, the two were invited to dine at the Mayor's Hall and stop the night there.
The next morning, they continued to Gamwich. While Frodo rode on head to find an inn and take lodgings, Sam stopped to visit his Uncle Andy and his eldest brother Hamson at their rope-making business in Tighfield. Frodo had originally intended to go with him, but Andy was rather shy of "Sam's gentleman," and snatched off his cap to bow low when Sam introduced him. Both Frodo and Sam agreed that Sam's relatives were more likely to speak to him alone than talk frankly to the famous investigator.
Sam brought the news from Hobbiton, for neither his father nor uncle could read nor write, and they only heard from each other via Sam and his siblings. Then he asked about Aunt Lula and confirmed what Frodo had already guessed: they hadn't heard from her nor seen her in years.
"She came back to Gamwich only once that I seen," Uncle Andy said as the trio walked between the rows of trestles between which long strands of damp rope were laid out; the old hobbit stopped every ten yards or so to check the progress of the ropes' drying. Andwise Gamgee was very like the Gaffer--a spry and obstinate old hobbit, wrinkled, gray-haired on his toes as well as his head, and bent with lumbago after long years of work. "'Twas for her uncle's funeral."
"How long ago was that?" Sam asked.
"Oh, fifteen, twenty years at least. She had her husband with her, him as she ran off with." The elderly hobbit snorted. "I remember Miss Lula Goodchild well enough from when she was a lass. When your dad was a-courting the one sister Bell, that'd be your lads' mother, he had me court the other. But I wasn't going to chase after a girl I wasn't sweet on just to keep my brother company."
Ham, who had been walking quietly some paces behind, waited until the old hobbit had gone on ahead, out of hearing, before he told Sam, "Uncle Andy don't talk about it much, but I remember our granduncle's funeral too and how he was when he saw Mum's sister was there. If you want to know what I think of it, Sam, it's that he did go a-courting of Aunt Lula when they was young, only she wouldn't have him."
"But she hasn't been here since?"
"Not that I know. You and your Mr. Frodo can look about Gamwich all you like, but she's not in ten nor twenty miles of here."
Uncle Andy and Ham would have been happy to have Sam stay for dinner, but Sam was anxious to go after Frodo. He was beginning to worry: Had Frodo found an inn for them to stop at tonight? Had he managed to get a room and see himself settled in properly? Had he remembered to order their dinner? Frodo took so little interest in food that he was liable to forget such things if he didn't have someone tending to them for him.
Sam bid his uncle and brother good-bye, and arrived in Gamwich just before nightfall. There was only one prominent inn on the high road through town, the Mousehole, and he tried there first.
Yes, the innkeeper told him when he asked, Mr. Baggins was in and dinner was to be laid out for them directly once he arrived. Sam was shown into the common room, where he found Frodo sitting and talking with a group of local hobbits.
"There were two sisters," Frodo was telling his audience; he had apparently just bought them all a round of ales and had their full attention and goodwill. "They came to live here in Gamwich with their aunt and uncle after they were orphaned as young girls. Goodchild was their name."
Some of the elder folk nodded; they remembered Mr. Goodchild and his wife, and the nieces who had come to stay with them.
"It's the younger niece I'm looking for," Frodo explained. "Her married name is Tredgold." Then he saw Sam standing in the doorway. "Sam, there you are!" Frodo rose to take him by the arm and bring him over. "This is my friend, Mr. Gamgee, whom I was telling you about. It's his aunt we hope to find."
Sam was welcomed warmly by the hobbits Frodo had been talking to. They didn't know Sam personally, for he'd never been to Gamwich before, but there were plenty of other Gamgees in this part of the Shire and everyone was acquainted with Andy and Ham.
"We'd like to help you, Mr. Baggins," said one of the farm-lads in the group, "but there's no Goodchilds, nor any of their kin, hereabouts anymore since old Mr. Goodchild passed on."
"Now, wait," said an older hobbit. "That isn't so. She ain't a Goodchild proper-like, but old Mr. Goodchild's wife is still about. She married again and was widowed again, and lives up the Northmoor lane. She's getting on in years--must be nigh on her eleventy-fifth birthday!--and don't get out much anymore. Mrs. Scuttle, her name is. She might have news of where her niece is got to."
Their dinner was brought in. Frodo thanked the hobbits for their help, then he and Sam went over to the table where the innkeeper was laying out their meal. Sam thought that they would go and see Mrs. Scuttle next, since she looked to be the most promising clue they'd discovered today, but after dinner, Frodo only spent a little more time chatting with the patrons remaining in the common room, then went to the room he'd taken for the night. Sam followed.
"Aren't we going to talk to her, this Mrs. Scuttle?" he asked.
"Yes, of course," Frodo replied. "Tomorrow. An elderly lady won't appreciate strangers knocking on her door at this hour of the night to ask questions. I'd like to rest tonight myself. We'll call on her in the morning."
"Are you tired, Frodo?"
"A little. It's been a long day."
As he spoke, Frodo was already undressing at the foot of the bed. Sam watched him unfasten each button and neatly lay his waistcoat, shirt, and trousers over the back of a nearby chair before stepping out of his small-clothes. He never tired of the sight--those bare arms and legs, the fine muscle and bone of Frodo's back, and that dimpled, round little bottom, all rosy in the firelight. Frodo looked as beautiful now as he had before the Ring had come into their lives and eaten away at him. He was better. Sam knew he mustn't say so; Frodo would only tell him that the pain was still there and would one day grow so bad that he must leave the Shire forever and go to the Elves in the West to be healed--but Sam had to hope that that awful day was still years and years ahead.
Watching Frodo now, he was reminded of a night nearly four years ago, when Frodo had stood before another fire, preparing to join him in another bed, in a room over a thousand miles away. Then, he'd stared at Frodo with wonderment, not quite believing the remarkable thing that was about to happen between them, that Frodo could love him. Tonight, what he felt was pride and a certain sense of triumph. Frodo had gone away for so many long months, until Sam had gone to Buckland and won him back. He was determined never to let go of Frodo again, not as long as he had anything to say about it!
Frodo had pulled on his nightshirt. He was shoving his arms through the sleeves, pushing his head through the open collar, wriggling until the hem fell modestly down to his knees. As he knotted the ends of the blue ribbon that laced up the front, he glanced up suddenly, catching Sam's eyes on him. He smiled.
"You're not tired, are you, Sam?" Frodo crossed the few feet of floor between them and wrapped his arms around Sam's neck before giving him a kiss. "I should think you'd be glad of a rest, carrying on as you've been every night since I came home."
"Not every night," Sam confided reluctantly. He didn't like to talk about his private moments with Rosie with Frodo, or vice versa. "When I sleep with Rosie, we- well, we sleep, that's all." He lowered his voice. "Rosie isn't as keen on it once there's a baby on the way. And she tires herself out looking after our Nel all day. We've only just got Nel to sleep through nights now." Since he had told Frodo this much, he felt bold enough to add, "I wonder sometimes if Rosie isn't glad to have you back herself, so she don't feel like she's shutting me out if all she wants is a good night's sleep. She knows I can come to you."
Frodo's smile flashed again. "I'm always happy to be of assistance to a lady. If I can take her husband off her hands once in awhile, he's welcome to come into mine." He sat down on the bed and held both arms out wide.
Sam took up this invitation immediately. "You'll get your reward for helping out," he joked in reply as he nuzzled on Frodo's ear and made him laugh. "After Rosie's had her baby, we'll name 'm after you."
"You said the same before Elanor was born," Frodo rejoined. "Are you so certain it'll be a boy this time?"
"Rosie hasn't said not, like she did when she was carrying Nel, and she was right about Nel, so she must know best. And this baby'll come in September, just 'round your birthday, Frodo. So it'd be fitting if he had your name, and it'd be like he was yours too, as much as Rosie's 'n' mine."
"Sam." Frodo drew back from their embrace to look at him. "How terribly sweet of you."
"It's the only way I can ever give you a baby," Sam tried to explain, "seeing as how we couldn't never have one together. You see, don't you, Frodo? It's my way of showing how you're my family as much as Rosie and Nel and my brothers and sisters, the Gaffer and Uncle Andy, and this aunt of mine we're looking for."
Sam could see that Frodo hadn't understood what he was offering; his eyes grew large and dewy now that he did. "Oh, Sam," he said softly. "My very dearest Sam." He took Sam's head in his hands to bestow another kiss with more energy than the last. Before Sam knew it, Frodo had pushed him down onto the bed and was sitting astride him, rapidly undoing his shirt buttons before bending his head down to tickle the bared skin with the tip of his tongue, then followed with playful little nips with his teeth.
This was another side of Frodo's newly restored health that Sam wasn't as pleased to see. These odd, wild bursts of passion had first taken him by surprise, for they seemed so unlike Frodo, and they took some getting used to. It especially disturbed him when Frodo showed him some new trick--it might feel wonderful, like nothing Sam had ever felt before, but he knew where all these tricks had been learned. Frodo was tactful enough to stop when he saw that Sam was bothered, but Sam couldn't help thinking of that year Frodo had spent away from him, and who he'd spent it with.
He sat up abruptly, grabbing Frodo and twisting to toss him down onto the mattress and pin him; Frodo shouted with laughter, delighted at the roughhouse, and wrapped his legs more tightly around Sam. There was so much lost time to make up for, and Sam wanted to drive every thought of Merry Brandybuck and his clever tricks from Frodo's head. He would do his best to give Frodo every reason not ever to go away again.
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