Chapter Thirty-Five
“Oh God, I don’t have the slightest idea what happens at a vernissage! Is it just invited guests or can anyone walk in? Do they hang the pictures on the wall, like you’d expect? And where am I supposed to put my flowers? What do you think—is this dress all right?” Flora babbled away without waiting for answers and held up her dark-blue dress in front of her for Sabine to inspect.
The maid, who was sitting on the bed in Flora’s bedroom and eating a wrinkled apple, shrugged. “It’s been sewn up once along the hem, but what difference does that make? The guests won’t see you.”
“But what if they do?” Flora rummaged on through her wardrobe. She had never put much store in clothes. All her skirts, blouses, and dresses were either dark brown, dark green, or black, and were chosen for practicality rather than looks. She had not given much thought at all to the fact that she would need “fine” clothes for “fine” customers.
“Maybe the vernissage is a kind of art market. Like a normal market, but with paintings instead of vegetables. Friedrich should know this sort of thing,” said Sabine.
“He’s never been invited to anything like this, either,” Flora replied distractedly. Of course, her favorite blouse just had to be missing two buttons. “But he knows about Princess Stropolski, he says. She spends every season living in the Europ?ischer Hof. But he’s never heard of a painter named Konstantin Sokerov.”
“He’s probably an old-timer like that Mr. Winterhalter,” said Sabine between bites of her apple.
“At least it’s not starting until the afternoon. I’d feel bad having to close the shop on a Saturday morning,” said Flora.
“Madam could have filled in at the counter in an emergency. Or me.”
Flora did not seem to be listening to her. Her hands planted on her hips, she mumbled angrily to herself, “What kind of fool am I! Every child in G?nningen knows that you must present yourself well if you’re going to get anywhere in business. The seed merchants always look after their appearance. I don’t even have a good dress to put on.” Like a damp sack, Flora plopped onto the bed beside Sabine.
“I’ve got an idea. Here’s what you do.” Sabine sprang to her feet and rummaged through Flora’s wooden jewelry box. “Put on the dark-brown dress. That’s at least reasonably all right. And with your F brooch you pin a little nosegay to the collar as an eye-catcher.”
Flora let out a relieved sigh. “Oh, Sabine. What would I do if I didn’t have you?”
“You’d find someone else,” Sabine replied drily, but she was smiling broadly.
Flora stood and took her by the hands and turned her in a circle. “You know what? When I have the money for this job in my hand, we’ll go out shopping.”
The family, of course, was speechless when Flora told them about the visit from the Russian princess.
Five hundred lilies of the valley? For an exhibition of paintings?
For a moment, Ernestine had looked as if she were going to pass out. “Well, that’s the Russians for you,” she said in the tone of someone who would know. Then she fixed her son with a sideways gaze and added that the woman would certainly not have come to the shop at all without Flora’s ABC.
“Then you can pay your parents back the borrowed money right away. I’m not comfortable being in debt,” Friedrich had said.
Flora had nodded absently. Her parents would not be knocking at the poorhouse door if she took some time to pay them back. But first and foremost, she had to make sure the princess was satisfied. And then . . . could such miracles happen more often?
Flora toyed with her provisional corsage as she stood just inside the back door of the exhibition hall at the Europ?ischer Hof. As long as no one was bothered by her presence or threw her out, she had no intention of giving up her place. Oh no! She wanted to remember every detail so she could tell Friedrich and Ernestine all about it later.
Pictures and guests admiring them—that was as far as she had envisioned a vernissage. But all the rest . . .
Just the pictures! Flora had imagined enormous oil paintings, perhaps impressive, life-size portraits of noblewomen or arresting landscapes painted in saturated hues.
But here, the pictures on show were rather pale watercolors, painted almost childishly she thought. People, landscapes, houses—it seemed the painter took as his subject whatever was in front of him. The pictures of houses were very pretty, and Flora thought she recognized one or two.
Reluctantly, and with much grumbling, one of the servants at the Europ?ischer Hof had set out small tables beneath each of the paintings of houses. Flora positioned her lilies of the valley on each table so that it looked as if the flowers were growing in the front garden of each house. The effect seemed to be well received by the guests; at least, most of the people were standing at those paintings.
Flora would not have said that any of the pictures were outstanding. For her taste, Seraphine did a much better job. She had also been unable to spot the artist himself, and did not know if that mattered to her or not.
She could hardly take her eyes off the guests, all dressed as if they had been invited to a royal wedding. The men wore tailcoats sewn from gleaming cloth, or uniform jackets heavy with gold braid and epaulets, and their trousers were decorated with piping in contrasting colors. While the men went no further than heavy gold watch chains and signet rings, the women glittered in tiaras, necklaces, and elaborately beaded jewelry. The dresses they wore were stunning, each lovelier than the next, lined with lace and studded with pearls and precious stones, and fashioned from countless layers of the finest fabrics. Flora also noted some made of gleaming velvet, and realized that she had not known that one could use the heavy material to fashion such artfully conceived clothing as what she saw in front of her.
If only Ernestine could see this, Flora thought with excitement. Just then, she saw the Russian woman who had commissioned her coming in her direction with another woman at her side.
Suddenly, her excitement gave way to anxiety and worry. She hoped the princess was happy with the flowers.
As she had when she visited the shop, the Russian was wearing a bright-pink silk dress. Now, her hair was pinned up into an artful tower atop her head, the hairpins themselves gleaming with precious stones. Across her arm lay a small dog that panted loudly and drooled strings of saliva onto the pink fabric.
“Here is my flower girl!” said Princess Stropolski to her companion. “Flora Sonnenschein. Isn’t she just a wonder, darling?”
“A wonder, indeed.” The other woman smiled.
Flora had no idea how one was supposed to greet such women—or even if one was supposed to—but she tried a small curtsy.
“That ABC of Flowers is from her. You must have received one as well, Irina?”
“Utterly delightful!” said the woman, who seemed a little friendlier now. “Yes, I’ve glanced through it.”
“If madam has anything floral in mind, the language of flowers is exceptionally versatile,” Flora said.
The woman named Irina leaned conspiratorially close to Flora. “Is there a flower that will take away all a person’s worries?”
Flora’s brow creased. The woman seemed to have misunderstood the point of her ABC of Flowers completely.
When Flora did not answer immediately, Irina turned back to the princess. “Do you still remember that wise man that Anna brought along to meet us last year?”
“Wasn’t he able to read the future in pieces of bark? There was something strange about that whole business, if you ask me. The way he sat and stared at his bits of wood . . .” Princess Stropolski gestured as if wanting to wipe away the memory—after her own death had been foretold, she did not take kindly to fortune-telling.