Five things that never happened to Lily Proudfoot

Three

In May 1430 that certain time of the month comes and passes, but the familiar signs fail to appear. Lily has seen it hundreds of times before, happening to other women, but the fact that this time it is her own body takes her breath away.

She has carried Little Faramir around during enormous family feasts in Brandy Hall, and helped Estella when the milk didn’t flow after the birth of Little Gilda and her nipples were sore and inflamed. She knows what to do and what to say to all the mothers-to-be in Hobbiton and Bywater, and she has seen the babies in their care as a pleasant duty, as small beings to nurture and to attend. But the prospect of a new life, slowly growing in her belly, fills her with inexplicable fear.

She starts to wake late in the night, and Frodo – who is long used to insomnia – watches for a week or two, seeing what Lily tries to hide from everybody – dark rings under her eyes, clandestine yawns behind her hands and a growing restlessness and exhaustion. But he doesn’t speak; he knows her well enough to give her the time she needs.

Then, one morning at the beginning of July, he feels her slip out of the bed beside him. He follows her silently through the long corridors, past the bedchambers of Rosie’s and Sam’s offspring (two lasses and three lads so far), and past the parent’s bedroom. Finally he finds her in one of the storerooms, sitting on a low stool beside Belladonna Baggins’ old cradle.

Bilbo slept in it when he was a babe, and Elanor and Frodo, Goldilocks, Merry and Pippin. The old dark wood smells of bee wax and linseed oil, and while he stands on the doorstep, a dressing gown loosely over his nightshirt, he sees her hand, gently stroking the flower carvings and ivory inlays on the front end.

“Lily?”

She raises her head; her lovely face is tired and pale in the grey light of dawn.

“My indil… what’s wrong with you?”

She takes a deep breath.

“Nothing,” she whispers, “not really. I am afraid, my love. I really shouldn’t be, and I feel very silly, because I surely know enough about the whole matter, but I… I am with child, and I’m terribly afraid.”

He makes a few unsure steps and is suddenly on his knees, his head spinning, his heart stumbling in his chest. He wants to speak, but words fail him, and only when she leans over the cradle with a trembling smile and gathers him in her arms, does he realize that his face is wet with tears.