Helmut frowned. “Is she allowed to do that? Just hand out our address to anyone who asks?”
“Helmut,” Hannah chided. “Keep reading, child.”
“‘I am yet grateful for the assistance you rendered my father on the occasion of his unfortunate fall on the steps of his shop.’”
“His writing’s as stiff as an old shoe,” said Gustav.
“Who did you push down the steps then?” Siegfried joked.
Flora glared at her younger brothers across the dinner table. Then she looked to her parents, who were watching her with pointed indifference as she read. Flora also noticed how Hannah reached for Helmut’s hand and squeezed it, as if like that she could arm herself against any adversity.
Flora took a breath and forced herself to read on at a steady pace. She knew that the letter could change her life. No, that was not correct—it had already changed her life. It was her family who did not know that yet.
“‘Unfortunately, my father’s health has not improved. Several times a day, his vitality and strength desert him, and he has to rest, which of course is less than ideal for the business. I help where I can, but now that the spa season has begun, I am needed elsewhere.’”
Flora looked around. “Friedrich works at the Trinkhalle,” she explained, but when no one said anything, she read on:
“‘You are aware of the dilemma in which I find myself, and I do not want to bore you with that any further. But I would like to assure you of one thing: in all these months, I have not forgotten our conversation. Again and again, I am forced to realize how an accident—or should I call it fate?—brought us together.’”
Flora’s brothers pushed each other around and were having trouble stopping themselves from laughing, but she decided not to berate them. And how angry her father looked! Did he perhaps think that Friedrich Sonnenschein had somehow been inappropriate? This was about something far more important. Her heart beat faster as she read on.
“‘Allow me to come to the reason for this letter, which I have finally written after much hesitation. You mentioned that your dearest wish was to learn the florist’s profession. Perhaps—’”
“A florist? Your dearest wish? What else did you discuss with him?” Hannah crossed her arms tightly over her chest, and her face wore an expression of dismay. “I’m completely at a loss.”
“It’s all very strange to me,” said Helmut. “And where were you during this conversation? You didn’t leave Flora alone with him, I hope?”
“Of course not! But I do not eavesdrop on every word of my daughter’s conversations.”
Flora continued reading to herself while her parents went back and forth. “Mother, Father! Friedrich Sonnenschein is asking if I would be interested in spending the summer in Baden-Baden, helping his father in the shop,” Flora said before her parents could get themselves caught up in an argument. “In return, his father would teach me all he knows about floristry. But Friedrich also writes that I would have to go as soon as possible, or he’ll be forced to find someone else.”
Flora’s announcement made all the others freeze.
“This is my opportunity to learn more about floristry! Food and lodging will cost nothing as I would be sharing a room with the maid, and you would not have to pay for my apprenticeship, either. Friedrich says that he hopes that his father will improve over the summer, so he does not want to take anyone on permanently. If I were to help out for the next few months, I would be doing his family a great favor, he says.”
Flora looked from one to the other. “My dearest wish would come true . . . Now say something!”
Helmut stroked his beard thoughtfully several times. “If it is really just for this summer—”
“Tell me who’s supposed to help me with the work in the fields? Don’t think I’m going to slave away out there again all by myself while Flora is at the service of complete strangers.” Hannah’s voice was thick with irony, and carried some despair, too. She sounded like someone whose hopes were being dashed in front of her and who could do nothing to stop it from happening. “A young woman, alone, in a strange town! Really, Helmut, it’s too dangerous.”
“I’d be in good hands there, with the family.” Wringing her hands, Flora looked back and forth between her parents. “Please . . .”
In the end, neither Helmut nor Hannah could deny Flora her wish. What good reason did they have? The twins offered to take over Flora’s share of the work in the fields, and the family decided to leave the flower beds behind the house fallow—her absence would not leave too huge a hole.
“I can already hear what the people will say when they find out we’ve sent Flora away a second time to learn to be a florist,” Hannah complained, but everyone in the family knew that she really did not care at all about the opinions of people in the village.
When, a week later, Flora packed her bag, Helmut and Hannah each had a heavy heart. Instead of letting it show, they wished her the best and gave her some pocket money, and a parcel of seeds as a gift for her hosts. Helmut, of course, would not let anyone tell him he could not carry his daughter’s luggage to the station.
Besides Helmut and Hannah, Suse also came to say goodbye. She, too, did her best to hide her sadness at Flora’s departure.
“What is wrong with us?” Hannah cried. “As seed traders, we should be used to saying goodbye. We do it every year, after all. You’d think we’d have some experience in it by now.”
Helmut sighed. “There are some things you never get used to. They just get harder with the passing years.”
Hands on hips, Suse looked Flora up and down with a critical eye. “I think you don’t care about the flowers at all, really. You’re only going to Baden-Baden because the Sonnenschein family has an interesting son.”
“Who knows? Maybe I’ll marry him and the whole flower shop will belong to me,” Flora said, and she and Suse broke into a fit of giggling.
“Suse! Flora! Jokes like that are not appreciated,” said Hannah, shaking her head, but in the face of the cheerfulness of the two young women, she and Helmut felt at least a little relieved.
With her head against Helmut’s chest, Hannah watched the train roll away. Only when the last car was no more than a dark spot in the distance did she let her tears flow.
“It’s just for a summer,” Helmut murmured into her wind-tossed hair.
“We don’t know that. Not yet,” Hannah sobbed.
Chapter Seven
Although it was only midmorning, Ernestine Sonnenschein already felt as exhausted as if she had worked an entire day. With trembling knees, she settled onto one of the armchairs that faced the front window. Outside, the sun smiled down from a blue sky, reminding her that it was time she got to work in the garden. A good housewife, of course, started the garden work much earlier in the year. Could she really burden Kuno with turning over the garden beds on top of everything else? Or ask him to trim the hedge? So often lately, her husband had been too tired to do even the simplest things, a condition she could well understand herself. And his dizzy spells were a worry!
She could not take care of the garden. At least, not right at that moment. Ernestine’s eyelids fluttered nervously when she saw the paper beside the inkpot. She had not yet put together the meal plan for the coming week.
She forced herself to close her eyes for a long moment, but instead of the calm and order she longed for, thoughts went scurrying through her mind like rowdy chickens. Three courses at lunch, at least two in the evening—any less would have been too meager for a decent shopkeeper’s household, although Kuno and Friedrich often told her that she did not need to go to all the trouble. Kuno even said he would be satisfied with bread and cheese in the evenings.
Bread and cheese?
Ernestine could not recall her friend Gretel—the wife of Mr. Grün, the pharmacist—ever telling her about bread and cheese as an evening meal. She could not recall Gretel talking about her meal plans at all, which Ernestine took as a sign of good breeding.
Nor did Die Gartenlaube, the magazine delivered to the house each week, ever mention bread and cheese for supper. Its articles were always about housewives for whom putting the most diverse meals on the table every day was a priority.
What was she supposed to put on the table for lunch? Soup? A plate of vegetables with some ham? No, ham was too elegant for a Monday. Bacon was suitable for Mondays, and not too expensive.
Suddenly, it was there again, the thought that Ernestine hated so much, namely that it was her fault that money was in such short supply in the Sonnenschein household. Would not a more skillful housewife have found a better way to budget long ago?
Ernestine found the thought of money embarrassing. And a wife could not simply go to her husband and ask for more money. Nor could she count on Kuno or Friedrich to help when it came to dealing with the household. Both relied on Ernestine to keep everything sorted out, and they never bothered themselves with how she did it.
That apprentice girl that Friedrich had taken on was an excellent example. Was she, Ernestine, asked even once if she was prepared to take on this new burden? Or if there was enough housekeeping money to feed an extra mouth?
And of all the times he could have chosen, Friedrich brought the girl in when Kuno was doing so poorly. “Flora will help Father in the shop,” he’d asserted. Oh, no doubt her son meant well, but what did Friedrich know about real life? And—while she was on the subject—what did Kuno know about it?
Soup. They would have soup for lunch that day. Or a stew? Or plain broth?
Flora Kerner . . . Ernestine still did not know exactly how Friedrich had met the young woman. She was supposed to arrive on the midday train and would probably knock on their door sometime in the afternoon. That was good, because it meant Ernestine did not have to think about welcoming her with a meal.
“Flora Kerner wants to learn floristry. In return, she will take on some of Father’s workload. You will thank me soon enough for this,” Friedrich had said tersely.
Thank him? The things her son got into his head!
With a sigh, Ernestine looked out the window. The apprentice girl was not yet in sight, thank heavens, but she certainly had a wonderful view of all the horrible roadworks going on outside. Half the street had been torn up and turned into a huge ditch, and the coaches, street workers, and pedestrians had to share the other half. Workers shoveled piles of dirt from here to there and back again, or just stood around getting in the way. Everyone was cursing at everyone else. It was a madhouse.
Just then, Ernestine saw Sabine appear from around the corner with a shopping basket filled to bursting hanging from the crook of her arm. Her cheeks were red and her lips pursed as if she were whistling a tune like some street urchin. How could any human being be so untroubled?
Were those leeks in Sabine’s basket? Ernestine could not remember writing leeks on the shopping list, so why had the maid bought them?
Though, a good leek soup with cream would not be the worst thing to put on the table for lunch. Or as a welcoming meal for the Kerner girl that evening. With a silver candelabra on the table . . . Then the girl would see that she had come to a good household. Suddenly, Ernestine’s heart felt lighter. Time to put together the rest of the meal plan. With renewed energy, she dunked her pen in the inkpot.
Reluctantly, Ernestine interrupted her painstaking management of the household to have lunch with her husband, but her son did not come home, and without Friedrich the midday meal was a quiet and quick affair.
The moment the table was cleared, there was a knock at the door, and Ernestine looked up with a frown. Sabine was standing in the doorway and beside her was . . .
“The girl from Württemberg! My goodness, you’re already here!”
Chapter Eight
Flora’s arrival in Baden-Baden was so much different this time than the last.
The Hotel Bayerischer Hof, which had seemed so huge and grim to her in winter, now, in late April, had many tables and chairs set out on its expansive terrace and looked very inviting indeed. And people’s facial expressions were no longer frozen by the winter cold, but, warmed by the sunshine, were relaxed and happy.
Instead of paying for a coach from the train station, Flora marched in high spirits into town, along clean, freshly raked gravel roads lined with blooming chestnut trees. Flaky white-and-pink petals rained down from overhead and landed on Flora’s hair and shoulders. The air smelled of lilac and the first roses, and the sun sparkled through the trees along Lichtenthaler Allee—it was like walking beneath a miraculously lit green canopy.
Magnificent coaches rolled by as Flora walked along. Their gold fittings and beautiful paintwork were matched by the colors of the horses’ harnesses.
The Conversationshaus was a hive of activity compared with how it had been in winter, and there, too, white-painted tables and chairs stood before its entrance. Many of the guests seemed to know each other, waving and calling out greetings to each other in languages that Flora did not understand. It was all so exciting!
Flora tried the door of the flower shop, but it did not open. “We’ll Be Right Back,” said a sign dangling at an angle from the door handle. No one came when she knocked, either. The shop was closed? In the middle of the day?
Flora tried to peer in through the window, which was covered by a gray film, probably dust and grime from the nearby construction. There was no sign of the shopkeeper. Was the old man so unwell that he could not be there to meet her?
With an uneasy feeling in her stomach, Flora picked up her luggage again. Then she walked around the side of the building, looking for the entrance to the Sonnenscheins’ house.
Mrs. Sonnenschein sighed deeply. “My goodness, I really have no idea where my husband has gotten off to. There’s always so much to do in one’s own business. There are never enough hours in the day, are there?” Red flecks appeared on her cheeks, and she poked nervously at a few strands of hair that had worked their way loose, trying to push them back into her pinned-up hair.
“The master has retired to his bedroom. He was not feeling well,” the maid said.
“Well, then . . .” Smiling helplessly, Mrs. Sonnenschein handed two hairpins—they had worked their way completely out of her hair—to the maid, then turned away from Flora so that the maid could pin it back up.
“From now on, you have me. I will certainly be able to take over some of the tasks your husband normally does.” Flora tried to curtsy, but the lady of the house could not see the attempt because she still had her back turned.
“Finished,” said the maid, patting Mrs. Sonnenschein once on the shoulder as if in confirmation. But the maid had pinned the hair back so carelessly, and not even in the right place! Still, Mrs. Sonnenschein’s hair was not very neat at all, so the misplaced strands barely showed. Flora reached up reflexively to her own hair, artfully braided and pinned.
“Let me show you your room first. No doubt you would like to rest a little after your journey,” said Mrs. Sonnenschein as she slowly climbed the narrow staircase.
“Rest? My mother would have more than a few words for me if I put my feet up on my first day here.” Flora laughed as she turned to follow Mrs. Sonnenschein. “No, no. I’ll just drop my things, and then I would very much like to see the shop . . . if I may.”
“Sabine,” said Mrs. Sonnenschein.
“Oh, no, really. I can carry my things myself.” But before Flora could stop her, the maid, with a morose look on her face, picked up Flora’s traveling bag and led Flora up the stairs.
Breathing heavily, the lady of the house finally pushed open a door on the right side of the landing at the top. “Here we are. You and Sabine will be sharing a room.”
Flora looked first at the room—which was not large but looked brightly lit and clean—and then at Sabine, who did not look particularly pleased to have a roommate.
“I am so happy to be here! It’s such a beautiful city. Is there a lovelier city than Baden-Baden anywhere in the empire?” Flora said to
Sabine as she unpacked her things into the section of the wardrobe that Mrs. Sonnenschein had allocated to her.
“When the sun shines, it’s a pretty sight wherever you look,” Sabine replied. “But when it rains, it’s as if the town dies, because all the fine ladykins strolling along Lichtenthaler Allee or riding in their fine carriages vanish into their fine salons, which the likes of us heat for them. And another thing,” she added with a scowl. “Don’t think I’m going to make your bed for you just because you’ll be sitting at madam’s table.”
“Fine with me,” Flora said, and she took the sheets that Sabine was holding. “I don’t need a nursemaid.” She sighed aloud. “What am I supposed to do now? I can’t just sit here in the room for hours.”
Dinner would be at half past six, at which time Flora would be expected in the sitting room, Mrs. Sonnenschein had said before retiring for her afternoon nap. Not a word about when her husband might be back on his feet. Not a word about the florist’s shop, either, let alone about her duties, her working hours, or anything of that sort.
“My first day at work in the nursery in Reutlingen was completely different,” said Flora, and she told Sabine about how she had pricked out hundreds of kohlrabi seedlings, turned over the compost heap, and rolled humus by the barrow load into the greenhouses.
Sabine giggled. “Before you die of boredom here, you can certainly help me in the kitchen.” She took the pillowcase back from Flora and stuffed the pillow into it.
Flora glanced at her gratefully. “Am I mistaken, or are you also from Württemberg? Your accent . . .”
Sabine confirmed Flora’s guess—she was from Leonberg and was the oldest of six siblings, all of whom envied her the position in the Sonnenschein household, she said.
“I get paid a few kreuzer plus board and lodging, and Mrs. Sonnenschein puts it aside for me. If I ever need a trousseau, I can use that money for it, she says.” Then she screwed up her face. “If I ever need a trousseau . . . fingers crossed.”
The Flower Shop (The Seed Traders' Saga Book 2) Page 4
