“The police are here?” Ernestine, attracted by the turmoil, entered the shop and looked from the officer to Flora to Sabine to Mrs. Walbusch. “Holy Mary, Mother of God!”
“Oh, that’s made you prick up your ears! And I’m not the only one your apprentice tried to kill with her greenery. The shoemaker’s wife, Berthold’s widow, and Gretel as well—all of them coughing and wheezing and having to call in the doctor. And they all have the same green fronds in a vase, and all of them got the stuff here!” Else Walbusch looked around the small assembly in triumph.
“My heavens, Kuno . . .” Ernestine’s breast heaved and fell.
“I don’t understand.” Flora’s voice was filled with incomprehension, and she was grateful when Sabine squeezed her hand reassuringly.
The officer cleared his throat again. “Mrs. Walbusch believes the flowers you sold her yesterday are extremely poisonous. Where did you get them?” he asked harshly.
“There it is, back there in that bucket!” Else Walbusch replied before Flora could say anything. “But there’s hardly any of it left now. Yesterday that was quite a fat bundle. I hate to think who else she gave that poison to.”
“Flora, what does this mean?” Ernestine staggered and had to hold on to the counter.
“It looks as if the plants I picked yesterday morning are poisonous. And I gave some of it to everyone who came in,” Flora said, her voice flat. “It smelled so good.”
Sabine, frowning deeply, looked at the bucket holding what was left of the spoils of Flora’s collecting expedition the day before. “You mean that could be where Mr. Sonnenschein’s coughing spells have been coming from?”
“So you admit the charge?” the officer said sternly.
Flora bit her lip. A nightmare. She would wake up any moment, would wash the bad dreams away with cold water on her face and laugh—
“Flora?” Ernestine said, then held her breath.
Flora was speechless. The spiders’ nests, and now poisonous plants—apparently, the day before, she had gone straight for the plants that could do the most damage.
“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone . . .”
“I think now would be a good time for me to fetch the young master from the Trinkhalle,” Sabine murmured to Flora, and she ran out of the store.
Flora was banished to her room while the family discussed her future in the Sonnenschein house. But she could not put up with being shut away in the dim room for long. The notion that she would have to pack her things and go home again was horrible. What would her parents say? Maybe she could explain everything to the Sonnenscheins one more time.
Flora tiptoed down the stairs and discovered another eavesdropper listening at the dining room door: Sabine.
“Am I being sent home?” Flora whispered.
Sabine shrugged. She stepped to one side so that Flora could also press her ear to the door.
“I can’t imagine what the people are saying . . .” “. . . our last customers, gone . . .” “. . . she only meant well . . .” “. . . a know-all! And dangerous, too . . .” “. . . it was not meant that way!” “. . . she was supposed to help Father, not . . .” “. . . a menace to life and limb . . .”
“That’s enough!” Friedrich’s voice was suddenly so loud that Sabine and Flora jumped. “Flora is certainly not out to take anyone’s life or their limbs. This was a series of unfortunate events and no more.” Friedrich seemed to be standing directly in front of the door now. At least, Flora and Sabine could clearly understand every word he said. “Do you really want to send her away because of this?”
“Yes. No!” Kuno’s voice sounded almost agonized. “I also think the girl meant no harm—”
“No harm! And what about the people along our street? How am I supposed to show my face among them after this . . . this catastrophe!”
“Oh, Mother,” Friedrich said, and sighed loudly. “I’ll think of something to make it up to them—if Flora is allowed to stay.”
Flora and Sabine exchanged a glance. “He’s certainly looking out for you,” said Sabine.
Flora was too dismayed to say anything, and merely nodded. Friedrich also had stood up for her in the shop earlier. He had managed to convince the police officer and Else Walbusch not to take the matter any further.
“Mother, what do you think of this? We’ll go together from house to house, explain everything calmly, how Flora did not know the plants and therefore did not know that they could cause adverse reactions like that? After all, even the doctor was not familiar with them or their symptoms. If you—”
“Me?” Ernestine cried in horror. “Why me? I did not do a thing to—”
Without thinking, Flora opened the door and rushed into the dining room.
“If you will allow me to, I will go and visit all the neighbors myself. An apology is the least they can expect from me.”
Friedrich looked at his parents with his eyebrows raised, but all they gave him in reply was a shrug of the shoulders.
“And will you allow me to accompany you?” he said to Flora, who felt instantly relieved at the suggestion. Of course she would.
“Well, that’s done,” said Friedrich hours later as they sat drinking a glass of beer in The Gilded Rose. Flora’s error of judgment, of course, had become the talk of the entire street, and when they entered the bar at The Gilded Rose, they were met with a barrage of generally good-natured jokes until the proprietress put a stop to it, then treated Friedrich and Flora to beer.
Friedrich raised his mug in a toast. “To better times.”
“I’ll gladly drink to that,” said Flora with a tired smile. “Thank you very much for coming along with me. I would have felt very uncomfortable by myself.”
“Most of them were very understanding, don’t you think?” Friedrich said, and he wiped the beer from his moustache. “Apart from Else Walbusch, almost all of them could laugh about it, at least. And everyone knows that Else loves to stoke a little strife.”
Flora sighed. “I don’t imagine I’ll ever be friends with her. But everyone else here seems to be very nice. And your poor parents, the trouble I’ve caused them. If my mother knew, she’d probably give me a good slap in the face.”
Friedrich laughed. “When I saw her, your mother seemed quite harmless.”
Flora managed a little laugh herself. “She is, really. It’s just that I’m always hearing from her how my eagerness makes me put my foot in it or makes other people uncomfortable. And, I’m sorry to say, this time she was right.”
Chapter Thirteen
On Sunday morning, a few days after Flora had arrived, Friedrich searched the house for her, but she was nowhere to be found. Had she gone out with Sabine, perhaps? Friedrich could have sworn the maid had left the house by herself. Puzzled, he stood in the hallway. Flora wouldn’t be in the store, would she? He would not put it past her.
“Cleaning windows, mopping the floor, clearing up, watering . . . Flora is practically falling over herself to help. And any brown leaf she sees—snip!” his father had said to him just the day before.
“She’s probably trying to make good for the incident with the poisonous plants,” Friedrich had replied. “She said she’d never forget that you forgave her. And also that she’s so grateful for everything she learns from you.”
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.