IN THE SHIRE-RECKONING by Diane Finnis-Robb  

Part Two; Chapter Thirteen "From Ermenberga" 1

Author’s Note:

   With the history that Arbogastes Bophin has recounted as coming from Eumaeus Sandyman some questions as to authenticity may be asked. This is not so for the letters and diaries of Ermenberga Bophin, Aborgastes’ mother, which were recovered at the Great Smials and there is no doubt of their provenance. Ermenberga was a well-recorded figure in the first generation of the Shire and her careful and elegant script can be found on many documents of those earlier days. True, there are many which are accompanied by notes in what we suspect is Arbogastes’ own hand. Through these notes we know that he had some desire to arrange and collect her writings into some kind of a book, possibly alongside the “WITTICISMS OF EUMAEUS SANDYMAN” just as I have done in presenting this chapter following the earlier. But no such book, manuscript or finished article has ever been discovered or mentioned. How, when or even why, all of this material became archived at the Great Smials is yet another unsolvable question.

   But of the veracity of these writings coming from Ermenberga herself there can be no mistake. She was, or at least she saw herself as, Alaura Fairheart’s only confidant during this time of crisis. Whether her insights, delivered through the screen of her own prudery, are useful for understanding Alaura’s decision, I cannot say. But, sadly, this is all the evidence we have.

-D.F.R

●  On the morning of what we now call June 22nd, the last LetheDay in the twenty-ninth year of the Shire, as Berty and his friends made their decision to go further into the west, Twoody and Alaura were still at home in Sarehole awaiting further news. Euric Bophin, Ermenberga’s husband, had been sent forth to bring the four truants home and, after walking straight through to the Delvings two nights ago, no news of the wayward hobbits coming to that town nor any sign of them on the western end of the Road had yet come to Buckland. The parents of Bovo, Gilley and Poppy were guests at Sarehole for the SummerDays and Alaura, with the help of her sister, tried to make them as comfortable as could be. Angered, disappointed or apprehensive as they were, the guests did their best to believe that the young hobbits would protect one another and be safe together in their incautious adventure. They were no longer fawns after all, and could no longer be rebuked for setting their own course in life. Word of them would come soon enough, the hobbit parents thought, and of course they all knew that the Youngbuck was clever enough to keep them out of danger.

●  Alaura did not ascribe to those same feelings.

ERMENBERGA: “She had gone quite cool to her guest’s remarks. Perhaps, in spite of every consideration of politeness, her maternal affection outweighed her cordiality and prompted her candor. ‘Upon my word, Horris, I believe that you are perfectly right,’ she replied to the Firebrand’s remarks, ‘My son is indeed clever enough to keep your own out of trouble, no matter the danger it might bring to himself. They love one another very much of course, but I am not certain that cleverness and boldness make for a suitable match. Your Bovidern’s cleverness has never kept the two of them from seeking adventure at one of Berty’s bold notions before, has it? Indeed, it would be very strange and unusual for them to stop seeking it now without our restraint. They have encouraged each other in waywardness, a condition which had overpowered them both as fawns and has been voluntarily renewed, even sought after from one another, as they have grown. I do not know your own son’s cleverness nor his resolution as well as I know that of my own, Horris,’ she replied with that finality of speech particular to her character, ‘but I do know that if Berty has slipped past our watch and gone beyond the Delvings I will not be seeing him again for a very long time. Perhaps you and your son will have better luck than I and mine but, and I say this without doubt, Berty’s boldness will stand to be to blame for it all.”

● And so we learn from Ermenberga that even in the first day of her son’s absence Alaura had become bristly with her guests who seemed to accept that their children had acted with the relative freedom of hobbits their age. The letter which she and Twoody had received from Berty told her much more about his intentions of course and, while she did share this information with others, she had somehow come to wrestle with the idea that her loss would be much greater, and much more longterm, than their own.

● We cannot say with any certainty that Ermenberga ever saw the letter Berty had written to Twoody and Alaura or heard its contents. A longer examination of her diaries, from which you as readers are graciously spared, indicated that Ermenberga did not have the most favourable view of Alaura’s first born son nor of his father:

ERMENBERGA: “Even as a fawn Theudebert had so far gained on the the affections of his uncle, by such attractions as are by no means unusual in young children; an imperfect articulation, an earnest desire of having his own way, many cunning tricks, and a great deal of noise, as to outweigh the value of all the attention which may be considered the due of Twoody’s own children. And this practice continued as the Youngbuck grew in age for, son of the lost and famous father, he also grew in a rambunctiousness which needed careful tending but was rather too often encouraged.”

●  We also do not know if Ermenberga, who was present at the Great Smials all through the SummerDays of Year Twenty-nine, was aware of the report that Twoody, Alaura and Horris Bunce received on the morning after Berty and his friends had run off. This was from Gilley’s own uncle of course, Odulf Bramblethorn, and told of soldiers crossing the bridge and heading into the south. Though she was married to Euric Bophin, who would himself become Chief Constable one day, Ermenberga very primly maintained her abstinence from all things political.

●  But we can be very certain that she was there to see Alaura and Twoody receive Eumeaus Sandyman and the letter he brought from Gondo just before sunset and the end of the SummerDays.

ERMENBERGA: “I could not know the cause of it at the time but almost instantly the weight of her grief and the indelicacy of her conduct caused her to leave the company of guests; for she was, at that time, in such affliction as rendered her careless to civility. My sister has always possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgement, which qualified her to be counsellor to all the Shirefolk, and these are qualities of her nature for which I am occasionally envious. She had no opportunity, till the present, of showing how little attention to the comfort of other hobbits she could act when the occasion required it.”

● Upon the arrival of Eumaeus and the letter it seems that Twoody and Alaura withdrew from the house for a time to speak alone and away from their guests. Ermenberga’s diaries for this evening all come to us from the end of that evening (for it was her habit and her way to close each day with written reflection) and therefore are coloured by the information she was given by Alaura later that night. But of the behaviour of the couple upon receipt of the letter she has this to say:

ERMENBERGA: “So I was given the careful and solicitous task of dismissing the remaining guests without their hosts present, knowing that this was what they required of me before knowing the contents of the letter which had so drawn my sister’s attention. I sent those curious and well-wishing hobbits along their way with empty promises of eventually answered questions. But after the last was gone I stood by the front gate of the Great Smials and could hear the voices of my sister and her husband coming on the early night air from the top of the hill. I did not know their trouble then, for it had not yet been spoken, but listened for a time to their private distress. There they encouraged each other in grief and in the violence of their affliction. While I could not hear all that was said I discerned that the agony of grief overpowered them at first, was voluntarily renewed, was then sought for and measured by each, and was created again and again. They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow, seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it, and resolved against ever admitting consolation in future. What could have brought on such a calamity between two such respectable hobbits I could not yet guess. Was it possible that news, and the most ill news indeed, had come of the fate of the Youngbuck?”

● But Ermenberga was eventually let on to the news of Gondo’s return. Her diaries tell us that Twoody left the discussion and walked off and down the road from the Great Smials without entering again. Alaura came down the hill behind him and asked her sister to go and see if the children were put properly to bed. She too clung to the road which ran beside the door of the Great Smials as if she did not wish to enter.

●  Ermenberga did as she was asked and then came out to hear the news that her sister had been given.

●  The role which Ermenberga Bophin would play within her sister’s family was not decided in this moment. But yet we return to this one entry in her diary which illustrates not only the internal struggle of Alaura Fairheart on that day but, and too often overlooked, the dedication of one sister who is not very much like the other to aid and understand; different as they were, Alaura is not the only “fairheart” of her family.

ERMENBERGA: “I can listen no longer in silence and must do something to settle her condition. She frets and frets and wishes to meet him by such means as are within her reach. He pierces her soul, as always, leaving her half in agony and half in hope even when she thought that such precious feelings were gone forever.

“Will she offer herself to him again with her heart, broken as it was twenty-six years ago, renewed by her passions and blind to their past? Should one say that a husband forgets sooner than a wife, that his love has an earlier death? Perhaps, but I cannot dissuade her of his integrity. Unjust I may have been in my assessments, resentful of his leaving she may still be in hers. But in love she has been only practical and never inconstant. Have I not seen this? Shall I fail to understand her wishes in fear of her heart’s safety?

“She believes that there is true love, true attachment and true constancy among hobbits, among husbands and wives and, most of all, among friends. Excellent sister! I wish I could help you in your uncertain fate.”

●  It will be Ermenberga Bophin who will step into many of her older sister’s responsibilities and she will never be noticed nor recognized for her contributions to the Shire as Alaura was. While it was Aluara who established the schools and the post offices of the Shire it was her sister Ermenberga who would teach in those schools for five decades of her life and serve in Alaura’s spot as post master during the greatest years of the Shire’s expansion.

●  In Year One of the Shire Ermenberga, still only fifteen years of age, had been one of the most dedicated copyists of THE SHIRE-RECKONING as it went out into the lands of the North and drew all hobbits to safety. After Alaura left her role as editor there in this same fateful Year Twenty-nine, Ermenberga would manage it for the remaining years of her own life.

●  We cannot know the book that her son Aborgastes was trying to make by blending her extensive diaries with the colloquialisms of Eumaeus Sandyman. But it is certain that the contribution of Ermenberga Bophin, a key figure in Shire history, understood her sister better than anyone else, including her husbands, ever did.

end chapter thirteen

Chapter End Notes

0. Notes (08/03/2026)

    

   1) This chapter is meant to echo the Eleventh Chapter, “from eumaeus”, in its appropriation of style. Most of what is being said here is stolen rather freely from Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility”. While I do feel that there is much to appreciate in Austen’s writing I should frankly admit that I am not really a fan and use it here, just as I did Joyce’s in that previous chapter, as an example of overblown narration. Sorry. Not really a Hater, but I am throwing shade.