“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.”