I woke the next morning with a plan to help get Sarah and Oliver together fully formed in my head.
In the end, it was something that Vulcan, of all dogs, had said that gave me the idea. He’d said that Oliver always took his morning break around the same time, so he was coming back into the Palace as the dogs were going out for their late morning walk. Sarah had been taking me for my walk a little later (apart from that first day when we met Oliver in the gardens) as that fitted with her work schedule better.
But this morning, we needed to go out earlier. That was the only way that she’d definitely get to see Oliver.
The first rule of romance in all of Amy’s movies was that the man and woman had to be in the same place. (Well, apart from that one about Seattle.)
Once again, I lamented the fact that humans couldn’t speak Dog. Life would be so much easier if I could just explain to her what I was doing.
As it was, I had to find other ways to make her understand.
The minute that breakfast was over, I rushed off to find Sarah, in the hope of chivvying her along to get her work finished earlier.
‘Morning, Henry!’ she said, cheerfully, as she passed me with her cleaning basket. ‘Come on, we’re dusting in the White Drawing Room to start with today.’
Which one was the White Drawing Room? There were so many rooms in this Palace, I couldn’t keep them all straight, although listening to Sarah talk about them as she cleaned had helped. (For instance, I now knew that the Big Chair Room was actually called the Throne Room.)
I trotted along behind her, hoping that it was one of the smaller rooms – not like the giant Ballroom or the long Picture Gallery. That way she’d be done quicker, and I could encourage her to take a break. Outside. With me and Oliver.
‘Here we go,’ Sarah said, stepping inside and putting down her basket.
I followed, then stopped in the doorway.
No. Absolutely not. This was no good at all.
The White Drawing Room, it seemed, was more gold than white. There were gold sofas and chairs, gold raised patterns on the walls, gold on the ceiling and another huge crystal chandelier with white candles and gold trimmings. And, most importantly, it was filled with endless decoration and furniture – candlesticks and desks and cabinets and mirrors, to name but a few – all of which I was sure would need dusting by Sarah. This was going to take far too long.
‘Isn’t this room fantastic?’ Sarah did a little twirl in the middle of the room. ‘I’ve heard so much about it, you know. My godfather, Tom, used to tell me stories about the Palace when he worked here, and this was always his favourite room. In fact …’ She rushed across to one of the tall, tall mirrors that stood either side of the ornate, white fireplace, above which hung another huge painting of a woman in a white dress.
Reaching under the top shelf of a cabinet below the mirror, Sarah felt around for something. Intrigued, I moved closer to see what she was looking for.
Then, all of a sudden, the wall moved.
I jumped back, out of the way, hiding behind Sarah. The last thing we needed was for us to break the Palace – that would definitely get both of us kicked out!
‘Aha!’ Sarah said, beaming happily. Then, suddenly cautious, she checked over her shoulder to make sure no one was looking. ‘It’s right where he said it would be!’ she whispered.
Since Sarah wasn’t alarmed, I decided I shouldn’t be either. So instead, I stepped forward, nosing my way to where the wall had shifted.
In fact, I realised, it wasn’t the whole wall. It was just the cabinet with the mirror above it. Because, I realised suddenly, it wasn’t a wall at all. It was a door!
Beyond it, I could see another door, but that one was shut.
‘That leads right to the Queen’s private rooms,’ Sarah said, softly. ‘You could probably go in there, if it’s unlocked, but I think I better not!’
As easily as it had swung open, Sarah shut the secret mirror door, then wiped off her fingerprints.
‘My godfather told me that when they hold receptions in this room, the Royals will be through there in another, small drawing room called the Royal Closet, having their own pre-function drinks. Then, when they’re ready to join the party – magic! A footman presses the button and they just appear! Can you imagine how exciting that would be?’
For the first time, I could see exactly why Sarah had wanted to work at Buckingham Palace. She was fascinated by the building, by the culture, and by the people who lived here.
I just wished she felt more at home, now that she was here.
‘Anyway. I’d better get cleaning.’ Sarah picked up her duster, and got to work. I watched for a moment or two – it didn’t take any longer than that to come to an obvious conclusion: Sarah was never going to finish in here before Oliver came back from his break.
Which meant I needed to be more persuasive.
With that thought, I turned tail and raced back out of the White Drawing Room, and headed for the Corgi Room.
The next part of the plan required props.
‘Oh, you’re back, are you?’ Sarah asked, when I returned a little while later. ‘I thought you’d got bored of my Palace trivia and wandered off.’
She stepped down from the stool she was standing on to clean some of the higher up decorations and took a good look at me. Then she laughed.
‘Is that a hint?’ She pointed to the ball in my mouth. I barked my agreement, and the ball fell out, rolling across the floor of the White Drawing Room.
‘You’re going to have to wait until I’ve finished in here, Henry, if you want to play.’
That wasn’t going to work for me. If we waited too much longer, Oliver would have finished his break, and she’d miss her chance to talk to him.
Okay. Step two.
Leaving the ball at Sarah’s feet, I dashed back out again and down to the garden door. Carefully, I lifted a lead off the hook there, and raced back up the stairs to the White Drawing Room.
Sarah was still dusting. The ball had been picked up and put in her cleaning basket, I noticed.
Holding my lead between my teeth, I carried it across the room to her, and laid it at her feet.
‘I won’t be too long, Henry,’ she said, reassuringly. But then she added the lead to the ball in her basket.
Okay, time to bring out the big guns.
I whined. Pathetically.
Well, you have to go with what works, right?
Sarah sighed. ‘Do you really need to go outside that badly?’
I barked the affirmative.
‘Well …’ She looked around at the unfinished room. ‘I suppose if you decided to go to the toilet here in the White Drawing Room that wouldn’t be good for anybody. And I’d be the one who had to clean it up!’
She was wavering, I could tell. I gave one last whine for good measure.
Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, then. Just let me stash my cleaning basket, and I’ll take you out. But only quickly! And then I’ll have to work through my break later to make it up, so I hope you know how good I’m being to you.’
I nuzzled her leg to tell her I appreciated it. Of course, she didn’t know it yet, but she was going to appreciate it even more.
Sarah clipped on my lead as we reached the garden door, the ball safely in her other hand. I dragged her outside, heading towards where we’d bumped into Oliver the other day. Hopefully he would be easy to find; the gardens were huge, but I thought I could probably recognise his scent.
I was right. I picked it up just outside the doors, and followed it all the way along the path, dragging Sarah along behind me.
‘Henry! I thought you wanted to play fetch?’ She waved the ball at me.
I wavered. I really did want to play fetch.
But I wanted Sarah to be happy more.
I kept my nose to the ground and dashed after the scent trail, not wanting to lose Oliver. I was so busy following his scent, I barely even noticed when we came to a large tree in the middle of the path. I sidestepped at the last moment, pulling Sarah with me, only she tripped on a tree root and—
Crash.
‘Oh my word, I’m so sorry!’ Sarah, flustered, hurried to her feet – and off the man she’d crashed into. I danced alongside her, my lead getting tangled in her legs, as I tried to make sure she was okay.
‘It’s fine.’ The man sat up and, at last, I got a look at his face. It was Oliver! ‘Fancy seeing you two here,’ he said, with a rather dazed smile.
‘Oliver!’ Sarah held out a hand to help him up. ‘I really am so sorry. Henry was just racing along and I was following him and not looking where I was going, and then there was this tree …’
‘It’s fine. Really.’ Oliver sounded surprised, but pleased to see us.
Actually, now I thought about it, this was perfect. Just like a scene from one of Amy’s movies!
‘For a Palace so huge, we do seem to be bumping into each other a lot, don’t we?’ Sarah said.
If only they knew how much work that had taken. But Sarah seemed far too happy with the outcome to be even faintly suspicious about my part in it.
‘Quite literally, it seems!’
Sarah winced. ‘Did I say sorry?’
‘Many times. How about you make it up to me by letting me join you for your walk?’ Oliver suggested. ‘I often take my break around now, and I like to spend it in the gardens when I can.’
‘Of course!’ Sarah fell into step beside him as they walked along the path, me trotting along at their side congratulating myself on a job well done.
‘I have to say, I was sort of surprised you were happy to talk with me,’ Sarah admitted, glancing up at Oliver from under her lashes. ‘You might have noticed, most of the other staff aren’t so keen.’
‘Then they’re idiots,’ Oliver said, with a shrug. ‘Why on earth wouldn’t I want to be friends with you?’
‘Mostly it seems to be my accent putting them off. That, or the fact that they think my godfather got me the job.’
Oliver shook his head. ‘It doesn’t work like that any more, you know. It used to be that getting a job at the Palace was all about who you knew. These days, you have to prove you deserve it.’
‘That’s better, don’t you think?’ Sarah asked.
‘Definitely,’ Oliver agreed. ‘Although if a letter from your godfather had been all that was required, I’m not sure I’d have complained!’
Sarah laughed. ‘I suppose not. But … I like knowing I earned my place here, even if the others don’t believe it. That I worked hard and got here on my own merit. It makes me feel … I don’t know.’
‘Proud,’ Oliver supplied. ‘And so you should. It’s hard enough to get a job at the Palace, and harder still to do it well. You should be proud of yourself.’
‘Are you?’ Sarah asked. ‘Proud of yourself, I mean?’
Oliver considered for a moment before answering. ‘Yes,’ he said, finally. ‘I am. I didn’t always want to be a footman, you know. I wanted to be a pilot. But my eyesight wasn’t up to it, and so …’ He shrugged.
‘You had to find a Plan B,’ Sarah guessed. ‘I can understand that.’
‘I was a little lost, for a while. Didn’t know what to do with myself, really. But then I saw the advert looking for Palace staff, to train to be footmen and, well, I grabbed it. That was a few years ago now. I worked my way up to Senior Footman – with your godfather’s help. And now I can’t imagine doing anything else.’
‘You’ve done brilliantly,’ Sarah said, beaming up at him. She looked happier than I’d ever seen her.
I knew this was a fantastic plan!
‘So, if Buckingham Palace was your Plan B too, what was Plan A?’
Sarah’s smile faded at Oliver’s question. ‘Oh, you know. The usual.’
‘Piloting for the Red Arrows? Or is that just me?’
‘That’s just you,’ Sarah said, with a hint of a chuckle. ‘No … I just wanted the boring things most people in my village wanted. A happy marriage, kids, to carry on helping at the family farm, and to win the quiz at the Fox and Duck on a Monday night. Like I said, the usual.’
‘But something changed?’
‘Would you believe me if I told you that I finally realised we were never going to beat the Quizzy Rascals?’
‘No.’
Sarah’s grip was tighter on my lead than normal, I realised. Like she didn’t want me to run away without taking her with me.
Except I wasn’t running anywhere. I wanted to hear her real answer as much as Oliver obviously did.
They walked in silence for a while, nearly finishing the lap of the park before she sighed. ‘Let’s just say that I realised there was more to life than I had going for me at home. A lot more.’
Oliver stayed silent, obviously waiting for her to say something more, but she didn’t. ‘Well, whatever brought you to Buckingham Palace, I for one am very glad that it did.’
‘Me too,’ said Sarah, with a grin.
It was perfect. Just like the movies.
Then Sarah glanced at her watch, and the moment was broken.
‘Oh goodness! I need to get back,’ she said, sounding flustered.
‘Me too.’ Oliver checked his watch too, and his eyes widened. ‘I hadn’t realised we’d been out here so long!’
‘Neither had I.’
‘I guess you’re just really easy to talk to,’ Oliver said, with a smile.
‘Maybe we could … talk again, sometime?’ Sarah’s cheeks were pink as she asked.
‘Definitely,’ Oliver agreed. ‘In fact, if you’re free tonight, there’s a special film club night in the cinema. They’re showing—’
‘Miracle on 34th Street!’ Sarah finished for him. ‘It’s one of my favourites. I’d love to go.’
‘With me?’
‘With you,’ Sarah confirmed, with a smile.
Well, wasn’t that just ideal? If anything was going to help me bring these two together, a nice Christmas movie should do it perfectly!
I trotted back into the Palace feeling a little smug. I sensed that my work here was done.
Honestly. Where would humans be without us dogs to sort out their lives from time to time?