The Flower Shop (The Seed Traders' Saga Book 2)

by Petra Durst-Benning

  His father had waved it off. “The girl is naturally talented. I’d like to know who got it into their heads that she was all thumbs.”

  Friedrich had been delighted at his father’s words, as if they had applied to himself. Flora was so likeable and unaffected, so very different from the women who visited the Trinkhalle. Often, he caught himself thinking that he would like very much to get to know her better.

  Blast it, why does there have to be so much to do at the Trinkhalle just now? he thought in annoyance as he unlocked the door to the store.

  But Flora was not in there, either.

  Disappointed, Friedrich went into the kitchen to get a glass of water, and he happened to glance out the window—and there she was. He pushed the curtain aside to see better.

  Flora was digging in the garden with a trowel. In broad daylight on Sunday! If his mother saw her doing that! A smile flitted across Friedrich’s face. Luckily, his parents had announced that they wanted to visit some friends after church.

  He was already at the door out to the garden when he saw Sabine coming from the street and heading in the same direction. Friedrich turned and went back inside. He hoped Sabine would not keep Flora too long.

  I know I did not come to Baden-Baden to start digging around in the dirt again, Flora thought as she supported herself on the spade and rubbed her aching back. The perspiration ran down her back, her face was grimy and itchy, and her hair clung to her scalp.

  At least all the effort was getting her somewhere. The garden beds were finally free of weeds and stones, and the earth itself was wonderfully crumbly.

  The church bells rang eleven times when Flora, filled with anticipation, untied the linen sack holding the packets of seeds. She had to hurry if she wanted to be finished by lunch.

  A familiar, spicy fragrance rose when Flora opened the first packet, which contained tiny poppy seeds, so easily blown away by the first breath of wind that came along. The smell called to her mind an image of the packing room at her parents’ house.

  Next came nasturtiums, marigolds, zinnias, and the delicate seeds of echinacea. Carefully, Flora planted the seeds in the moist earth.

  Let’s hope those birds in the pear tree don’t peck them out of the ground first chance they get, Flora thought. It would be good if Friedrich could build a scarecrow.

  “Are you out of your mind? Slaving away like that on a Sunday?”

  Flora looked up in surprise. Sabine was standing in front of her with a handful of strawberries, holding them toward her. “I was just given these. Want one?”

  Flora crushed one of the strawberries in her mouth, savoring its delicious sweetness. She would rather not know from which big-hearted benefactor Sabine had received the fruit or if, as with the butcher, she had had to pay with a kiss . . .

  “Well? What do you think?” she asked.

  “I don’t see anything but a square of brown earth, but I must say that that looks very neat,” Sabine replied. “I can’t really picture flowers growing there yet.”

  Flora laughed. “Every year at home, I’m taken by surprise. What do you think? Should I trim back that overgrown hedge a little?”

  “Now listen, God did not make the earth in a day. Besides, the Sonnenscheins will be back soon, and if madam sees you like that, you’ll be in for it. Come inside and I’ll warm some water so you can wash. You look worse than me during spring cleaning.”

  Flora looked down at herself. Her skirt was damp and brown at the knees, and her hands were filthy, too. Her hair had come loose and flopped in a tangle over her right shoulder. Would one bowl of hot water be enough to fix all that?

  “But what if Mr. Sonnenschein falls ill again in the next few days? Then I’ll have to look after the shop and won’t have any time for garden work.”

  “So what?” Sabine said. “Why are you worried about the garden at all? The young master should be the one out here breaking his back.” She turned and strode off toward the kitchen.

  Flora watched her go.

  “Flora! For heaven’s sake, what are you doing out here?” she heard, but this time it was Friedrich.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” she replied with a laugh, and she swung her arm around toward the garden bed. “I know it is better to prepare the soil in autumn, and it is very late for most of the summer-blooming flowers. But I didn’t want the seeds my father gave me to bring along to go to waste. And your father will be happy to see this, I’m sure. Won’t he?” A sudden wave of doubt struck Flora. Would they call her presumptuous for this, too? Then all she would have achieved was the opposite of what she wanted.

  “Father will be thrilled,” Friedrich said hurriedly. “Until the year before last, he was a keen gardener, but then . . . his health, you know.”

  Flora nodded. “I think the customers will appreciate a wider choice of flowers, too. The flowers that bloom here in a few weeks will be as freshly picked as they can possibly be. And they won’t cost a cent, unlike the flowers from Flumm’s Nursery.”

  “Their quality leaves something to be desired, doesn’t it?” Friedrich grimaced. “When I see the half-wilted flowers in the buckets . . .”

  “I wouldn’t really say that,” said Flora slowly. The nurseryman certainly dealt in high-quality flowers—he purchased his seed from Gönningen, after all—but he probably kept the best he had for the customers who had the money for them. In the Sonnenschein flower shop, they could not afford any more than second-grade blooms.

  “Here I am gaping like a fool!” said Friedrich abruptly. “I came out here to ask you if you’d like to go for a stroll. I think, after such a tumultuous week, you’ve earned a change of scenery and some time to rest and recuperate. But I see you’re happy to work even on Sundays. I suppose I could have helped you.”

  “It’s all right,” Flora said. “I’m done with the garden bed anyway. I just wanted to trim the hedge a little—”

  “The hedge?” Friedrich cut in. “I’ll help! Just wait, I’ll get a second set of shears. It’s always better with two.” He took off his vest and rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt.

  Flora watched him, feeling rather doubtful about their joint enterprise. Mrs. Sonnenschein would certainly not be happy to come home and find her son at work in the garden.

  Friedrich was right: with two of them, the work went faster and was a lot more fun. After an hour, they had trimmed back the overgrown hedge considerably. The garden looked not only bigger, but also brighter and more orderly. The more branches that fell, the more surprises awaited them. Flora discovered a rhododendron bush, patches of lily of the valley, and a few shrubs that neither she nor Friedrich was familiar with.

  “As long as it’s not poisonous,” Friedrich teased.

  “Or a spider’s nest,” Flora added, and they burst out laughing.

  “The garden desperately needed this,” he said as they packed up the spade, hoe, garden shears, and other tools. “But I’ve had hardly any time to spare this year. Every day, the leaseholder of the casino asks for something new. One day it’s a list of all the maintenance costs, the next it’s an estimate of how many water bottles I fill for the guests.” He shook his head. “I guess the town demands these lists of him. And I’m happy to help, of course, but I already have enough to do with the guests themselves. One of them will want to hear a presentation about the healing benefits of the waters, then comes another asking for directions, and so on, and so on.” He sighed, but waved one hand dismissively. “But I’ll gladly make time for you. How would you like me to show you the town after lunch?” Friedrich smiled. “You won’t find a better guide than me. I know every corner of Baden-Baden.”

  Flora shooed away a bee that was trying to crawl into the sleeve of her jacket.

  “I don’t know. My feet are rather sore,” she said as the little creature buzzed away. “Would you have time next Sunday, instead?”

  Friedrich nodded, smiling broadly. Then they went to the summerhouse, which had pretty decorated windows and a glass-paned doo
r. It stood at the back of the property and had a small shed against one side where they stowed their garden tools. Perhaps they used the summerhouse on warm days in the past, Flora conjectured, but the cast-iron furniture stacked in one corner inside was now quite rusted.

  “Please spare me any commentary. I know well enough that everything here has fallen into some disrepair,” said Friedrich, whose eyes had followed hers.

  Flora laughed. “I think it probably looks far worse than it really is. A few buckets of soapy water and a scrubbing brush, maybe a fresh coat of paint for the garden furniture, and it would be really very nice. It would be worth it, I think.” Flora pulled one of the chairs over to prop open the door. “Could you help me get these chairs outside? Then I’ll wash them down and—”

  “Flora? Friedrich? Thank goodness. I thought I heard burglars out here for a moment.” Ernestine looked the two of them up and down and clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, my heavens, Friedrich, your trousers!” She pointed at Friedrich’s right trouser leg—there was a long tear where a thorny rose tendril had caught it.

  “I . . . I can sew that up again,” Flora squeaked. “Friedrich just wanted to help.”

  Ernestine turned to Flora. “Sabine will take care of Friedrich’s trousers. You’d do better to look after your dress. It’s filthy! Oh, I hope no one saw you.” Ernestine looked left and right as if to reassure herself that they were really alone. “On a Sunday, too. It isn’t proper.”

  Friedrich pointed to the freshly dug flower bed. “Look at how industrious Flora has been, Mother. In a few weeks, we’ll have the most beautiful summer flowers here. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Ernestine’s eyes fluttered back and forth like two insects. “Well, the garden was a little . . . overgrown, I’ll grant you.” She looked at the flower bed. “You did that all by yourself?”

  Flora nodded. Was the mistress of the house unhappy about what she’d done?

  Ernestine sighed. “It does look very neat and tidy.”

  A smile flashed across Flora’s face, but a moment later she saw Ernestine’s expression darken again.

  “But before you know it, the weeds will be back. I used to try to help Kuno in the garden, but I think you have to be a born gardener or not even try. And the summerhouse! I’m afraid to look at it nowadays. There was a time I had friends over for coffee here. They always found it so elegant to take coffee in the garden.” Ernestine shrugged. “It was terribly much work, preparing for a little party like that, but I was happy to do it. Well now, those times are in the past, like so much . . .” She sighed deeply.

  “But why?” Flora asked. “If this summer is as nice as last, you could enjoy your garden again. We were just about to carry the garden furniture out. If we spruce it up, paint it—”

  “Carry the furniture out—now?” Ernestine cried. “What would the neighbors say to see you two hauling furniture around like hired hands? I mean, really, Friedrich, at least you should know better.” Ernestine looked reproachfully at her son.

  “Of course, I can do it by myself, and—” Flora began.

  “Nothing of the sort!” Ernestine said, cutting her off. “Work like that is not seemly for a young woman, now really!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Work like that is not seemly for a young woman!” Flora was still angry at Ernestine’s outburst. If that were true, then her own hardworking mother was an unseemly person.

  What was wrong with good, honest work? But Flora pushed her anger aside. Now that the garden was looking so nice, the next thing to do, obviously, was to get the summerhouse in order again, she had argued to Friedrich.

  “A fresh coat of paint—where am I supposed to find the money for that?” he had groaned, but two days later he came home carrying a pail of white paint.

  “You’re mad,” said Sabine when Flora told her she was going to stay and paint the garden furniture with Friedrich instead of going out for a walk with her. “You spend all day in the shop, then break your back in the evenings, too. No one’s going to thank you for it, you know.”

  “That’s not why I do it,” Flora replied. “I enjoy the work. I always have. Back home, I can’t just sit by when something’s . . . ugly. Often it’s enough to brighten a dull corner with a pretty posy, or to throw a colorful blanket over an old chair. When things look nice, everyone is happier, aren’t they?”

  Sabine shook her head. “You’re starting to sound like madam with her magazine stories. Everything is pretty and lovely in those, too. As if that’s all that matters in life! I, for one, am happy when everything is more or less clean and I don’t have to go to bed hungry. Whether something is pretty or not doesn’t interest me at all.” Sabine frowned. She really could not comprehend Flora’s creative urges.

  “Oh, it was never this lovely before!” Ernestine cried when Friedrich fetched her and his father. The snow-white table on which Flora had arranged a bowl of lilies of the valley now stood in the center of the summerhouse, the chairs around it in an inviting circle. “But all the work . . .”

  Friedrich laughed. “For me, it was a welcome change. Who knows, maybe I’ll find the time to chop down the old fir trees in the next few weeks. That would brighten the whole garden wonderfully, wouldn’t it, Flora?”

  It troubled Ernestine that a complete stranger would show such an interest in their garden—and could talk her son into helping with all the work. In the past, whenever she had tried to get Friedrich to help in the garden, she had had to keep at him for weeks before he would lift a finger. But he helped Flora without so much as a bleat.

  Else Walbusch still had her reservations. “Yesterday evening I saw your Friedrich fixing that garden gate alongside your apprentice girl, oh yes. And they were having a good laugh while they were at it!” she said, when Ernestine visited the general store in search of a replacement button.

  Gretel also happened to be there when Ernestine arrived. “Could there be romance in the air?” she asked archly.

  “Romance, my foot! The girl from Württemberg is just angling for a husband,” Else replied brusquely.

  Ernestine, of course, could not think of anything else after the brief exchange in Else’s store. Was Flora really on the hunt for a husband? Did she really believe she had found a good candidate in Friedrich? Flora was, admittedly, pretty, hardworking, and friendly. Ernestine could not say a word against her. On the other hand: a love affair, under her very roof? Good heavens, that would certainly not do!

  “So what if it’s true?” Kuno replied sullenly when she told him her fears that evening in bed. He hated it when Ernestine chose to speak to him just when he finally began to feel as if he was drifting off to sleep. He would have preferred to just pull his nightcap over his eyes and not reply at all, but instead he said, “If you ask me, she wouldn’t be a bad choice at all. But I think you’re imagining things. Flora Kerner has nothing but flowers in her head, unfortunately.”

  “How can you be so certain? And what is ‘unfortunately’ supposed to mean?” Ernestine sat straight up in bed. The braid she had woven before getting into bed was already unraveling. “Would you honestly approve of a love affair under our own roof? And wouldn’t something like that be against the law? Do you even know if Friedrich is in his room? Or is he still sitting downstairs with the girl? My heavens, I think I’d better go see what those two are—”

  “Don’t you dare!” Kuno interrupted. “If you happen to be right—and I stress if—then it would be the first time that Friedrich has taken a real interest in any girl. About time, too, I’d add.” He let out a deep sigh and pushed his head deeper into his pillow. “For my part, I’ve got nothing against bringing Flora into our family one day. Quite the contrary, in fact.”

  “Kuno!”

  Flora had no idea that her abundance of energy was causing Ernestine to lose sleep. And her own mother’s warnings not to stick her nose into everything were long forgotten. To Flora, the Sonnenscheins seemed overjoyed at her enthusiasm and commitment. Ernestine w
as even planning a coffee afternoon in the summerhouse, which certainly surprised Sabine—she had never known the mistress of the house to be so active. When Ernestine asked her to bake two cakes in addition to the usual Hefezopf, Sabine grumbled a little. Deep down, however, she was happy to see a little life in the house for a change.

  The laying of the water pipes had just been completed and the street once again made passable for pedestrians and vehicles when Flora dug small cypress trees out of the back garden and set them out to the left and right of the shop entrance. In their plain terra-cotta pots, the trees certainly were not as spectacular as the ornamental cherry trees now at the front of Maison Kuttner, but Flora hoped they would draw more attention to the shop. The front window, which she thought was particularly unappealing, was next on her list: while Kuno buried himself in his newspaper, she discreetly removed the faded advertising. Then she set up a small table just inside the window and covered it with a slightly moth-eaten tablecloth that she had dug out of a cupboard.

  “A table? There?” Kuno asked when he finally noticed what Flora was doing.

  “I’d like to put the potted plants on it to show them off a little more.”

  “I don’t know. People might think we’re selling furniture,” Kuno murmured. But he let Flora finish the job. That same day, they sold six of the potted violets that had previously gone unnoticed inside the shop.

  “Ernestine, our Württemberg girl has ideas that you and I can’t keep up with,” Kuno said to his wife that evening, with admiration in his voice. Ernestine’s forehead rippled.

  “You don’t think she’s overdoing things a little? She’s been here barely longer than a week, and she’s turning the whole shop upside down.”

  Kuno simply shrugged. “Maybe it’s high time something around here got turned upside down.”

  Ernestine silently wondered if her husband was coming down with something. His newfound wit worried her.