“Look at these colors! From pale pink to the deepest purple.” Hannah closed her eyes for a moment with an enraptured expression. Then she snapped up a second book, leafed rapidly through its pages, and tapped on an illustration of zinnias in every conceivable color, painted in such detail that one could well imagine holding the velvety blooms in one’s hand and breathing in their heady fragrance. “Aren’t they wonderful?”
“All right, then,” said Siegfried Flumm. “In the last few years, there hasn’t been much demand for them. Everyone wants elegance these days, but who knows?” He shrugged. “Maybe rustic will be the order of the day again.”
Hannah nodded eagerly. “I would absolutely recommend some of the more elegant varieties, too—our lovely larkspur, for instance. Would you like to look through our sample book for yourself?”
With an appreciative nod, the grower leafed through the book. He selected love-in-a-mist, garden cosmos, and China aster. Hannah quickly noted the details of the order.
The book had been the idea of Flora’s aunt, Seraphine. Seeds by themselves, of course, were not particularly attractive, and colorful pictures would certainly help sales, Seraphine had argued. With her artistic talents, she had produced the first sample book many years earlier. Since then, she had completed a similar book for every member of the Kerner family who went out on the road to sell seeds. And Flora, too, could expect to get a copy for herself one day—Seraphine was already hard at work on the pictures.
Flora sighed softly. Everyone in the family seemed to have found their place in the seed trade, and they were happy with it. Everyone except her. No one could explain why that was so, least of all Flora herself.
“I want to be a florist. That’s all, nothing else!” she had complained for so long that her parents had finally relented and allowed her to go to the nursery in Reutlingen the year before. They didn’t consent out of any conviction that Flora had made the right choice, but because they had finally run out of arguments against her wish or her love of flowers.
Even as a small child, Flora had found nothing more interesting than spending hours wandering through the fields around town, picking flowers. Without any of the adults explaining it to her, she always knew exactly where and in which season she could find the different flowering plants. On the edge of the woods, she gathered willow herbs. Close to the cornfield she plucked daisies, poppies, and cornflowers, and along the creek she picked cowslips and cuckooflowers. She loved the delicate pale-purple cuckooflowers most of all.
Her time at the nursery in Reutlingen had been a letdown. They rarely did any flower arranging; instead, Flora spent most of the time planting seeds and looking after seedlings.
Of course, later half the village knew that Flora’s apprenticeship had been a dismal failure.
“Always thought she was too good for the seeds, she did.”
“All she has in her head is her own pleasure. She doesn’t care one bit about how her parents are supposed to manage.”
What the people had whispered when Flora slunk back to G?nningen like a whipped dog had hurt. Her brothers had laughed out loud; her parents had been half annoyed, half at a loss. And Seraphine had said something like “I once had dreams myself . . . The best you can do is to bury them as quickly as possible.” Blast it, Flora was trying to do that, but—
“He fell? Good God! Old Sonnenschein has been suffering for quite a while. He’s always down with a cold or dizzy spell or some other ailment. Not that he’d give you a word of complaint. He’s always trying to convince the rest of the world he’s on top of everything. His son, Friedrich, helps him out wherever he can, but he doesn’t have much time to spare. He works at the Trinkhalle, but don’t ask me exactly what he does there. There’s hardly a true Baden-Badener who ever sets foot in the place; that’s only for our esteemed guests.” Flumm’s tone was heavy with irony.
“Are you talking about the man from the flower shop?” Flora’s question came so abruptly that Hannah and Mr. Flumm jumped. It was almost as if they had forgotten she was there.
Hannah glanced disapprovingly at her daughter. “I’m glad to see you haven’t fallen asleep yet,” she hissed.
“Kuno Sonnenschein used to be one of my best customers,” said the nurseryman with a sigh. “But it seems money is in short supply in the Sonnenschein house these days. He only buys the cheapest varieties now.”
“I suppose he is also a widower?” asked Hannah sympathetically.
“Oh, no. The good Mrs. Sonnenschein is as alive as you or I, but, well, how should I put it? She’s of no use to her husband. She even has help in the house, like some sort of hoity-toity lady. Just let my Else try that with me!” Flumm let out a laugh.
Hannah cleared her throat, then said in her sweetest voice, “Believe it or not, I have a maid. My husband seems to think I’m much more useful helping with the business.”
The nurseryman puffed his cheeks, nonplussed. “Well, if you look at it like that . . .”
“Aren’t there any daughters in the family?” Flora asked. “I mean, if my parents ran a flower shop, it would be the most natural thing in the world for me to work there.”
“There is one daughter, actually, but she’s gone off to a nunnery,” Mr. Flumm said.
Hannah took a deep breath. “Well, not everyone is as fortunate as you in having a thriving business where everyone lends a hand. Maybe we should complete this order form now,” she said, lifting her pencil.
Chapter Four
When they returned to The Gilded Rose that evening, Hannah and Flora were tired and chilled to the bone, but they also had three sizable orders to celebrate. Besides Flumm’s, they had visited two other nurseries on the edge of town, and all had placed generous orders. The following day was earmarked for their customers in town—hotel gardeners and the owners of private gardens, as well as the gardeners who worked for the town itself, the ones in charge of the extensive gardens around Baden-Baden’s Kurhaus—with its casino, guest rooms, ballrooms, and more—and other local sites. Hannah was looking forward to doing good business with them.
Dinner would be on the table in fifteen minutes, their hostess promised when Hannah and Flora walked through the door. And she had already put hot water bottles in both their beds, she added with a kind smile.
A bed that was already warm! Flora hummed with pleasant anticipation as they ascended the narrow staircase. If the room was not too chilly, she could strip down to her underdress, curl up under the sheets—
“Don’t think you’re going to sneak off to bed too soon, child,” Hannah said, as if she could read minds. “First, we celebrate the sales we’ve made today. That’s as much part of this business as anything else. Just wait, I’ll make you enjoy the seed trade yet!”
A decent meal, perhaps washed down with a pitcher of beer or glass of wine, then that warm bed—that was how Flora imagined the evening would be. She had not counted on her mother leading the entire tavern in a song.
A tailor went a-wandering
One Monday in the morning
And, lo, he met the devil
With neither shoe nor stocking.
Ho there, Mr. Tailor Man
You’ll come with me to hell
And dress us wicked devils
Which is just as well.
“Sing with me, child!” Hannah encouraged her daughter as she had earlier, but Flora shook her head. Holding the handbag with the money they had earned that day firmly in her lap, she sat and listened as Hannah launched into the second verse of the travelers’ song. The men who had joined them at their table sang along.
Hannah and Flora had not quite finished their meal—a hearty goulash made with vegetables and big chunks of meat—when the first of the other guests in the restaurant had asked if he might join them. It hadn’t been long before more came along.