Free The Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon

die.’
    â€˜I say, do aught,’ said Daddy.
    So when he had bound the day’s faggots for the Princess, Joe slipped his mother’s brass wedding ring over the stems of a wild-rose posy, and tied it carefully among the branches. Then, having done his best, he dismissed it from his thoughts, until a month later he heard Betty chattering volubly on the Forester’s doorstep:
    â€˜Yes, clouds will pass on the darkest day, and butter come after the longest churning, and yesterday at the Assembly, before anybody could so much as open his mouth, the Princess laughed as happy as a child, and said, “Don’t put yourself to the trouble of guessing, for what I wanted I now have!” Never a word more, so we’re still all at sea, but there, no matter; doctor’s stopped coming, King and Queen stopped worrying, and the Princess goes singing all over the shop!’
VII
    Alas! a year later, on Joe’s twenty-first birthday, the chambermaid had her sorry tale to tell again. That morning, when he reached the Lodge, she was relating, full of woe:
    â€˜Eat she won’t and sleep she won’t! She’s white as a new pillow-slip! She weeps in corners, and stares at the sky, and says “no thank you” to all our offers; but sits by the hour with her honey cat in her arms, while doctor tears his hair, her father is distracted, her mother is distraught, and her nanny says nothing but “Lawks-a-mussy me!” Even I can’t get out of her what she wants. But this much I do know, if she doesn’t get it soon, they’ll be digging her green grave. The King has ordered another Assembly on the last day of the month, and whoever can give her what she wants may have whatever he wants, no matter whatso! Eight o’clock, eight o’clock, there goes eight o’clock, and me oughting to be at my work: give over gossiping, Forester, do!’
    Away she started, but the Forester pulled her back to give her a kiss, for which she tugged his hair and ran; and he nodded his head remarking, ‘What a wench!’ and gave Joe his orders. But the thought of the Princess’s green grave was such a grief to Joe that he did not observe the absence of the Clumber Pup till he was well at work. After a bit, the pup sneaked up, with his tail between his legs. Nothing Joe could do put him in spirits, and Joe being out of spirits himself it was not a happy day. They both went home depressed that night, and neither of them touched his supper. As Joe stretched out on the hearth, Daddy, who noticed everything, said, ‘Off your feed?’
    â€˜Yes, somehow,’ replied Joe; and fell into an uneasy sleep, in which he thought he heard the spaniel repeat the question to her son.
    â€˜Off your feed, pup? What’s up? A canker in your ear?’
    â€˜Something like it, mother.’
    â€˜No doubt you’ve been overeating again at the palace.’
    â€˜Not a bone. Not a scrap. I just went there to see a friend.’
    â€˜Oh, you’ve a friend there?’
    â€˜A cat.’
    â€˜Give yourself a bad name, and hang yourself!’
    â€˜Why, mother? It was our honey cat.’
    â€˜Our honey cat! How is she?’
    â€˜Gold as honey.’
    â€˜Spits, though, I fear.’
    â€˜Only secrets.’
    â€˜Whose secrets?’
    â€˜The Princess’s.’
    â€˜And what does the Princess want now?’
    â€˜She wants me.’
    â€˜You! What does she know of you?’
    â€˜The honey cat took me to her boudoir.’
    â€˜The minx! I disown her! You in a boudoir, a kennel dog like you!’
    The spaniel put her paws over her eyes, and Joe heard no more talking in his fitful dreams.
    But were they dreams, he asked himself in the morning, or had he been awake? Dream or no dream, he had a hole in his heart and Daddy could not but be aware of it.
    â€˜What is it, son?’ he asked.
    â€˜I had a dream last night that’s left me torn two