The Blind Flower-girl | before the coming storm
from door to door her shadow passed.
It was the hour between robust sunlight and the shaking hands of dawn, when down the old bluestone streets there came a tap tapping. Crisp as the jackdaw shaking his dew-ridden plumage and shooting skyward from the apple-trees in the orchard of some great lady or lord, or otherwise more dignified person. Yet Lydia cared not for all of that. To her, the hours were merely markers separated by thin veils of sound and smells and tastes and feels. One does not need the eye to sense what the oaken railings smell like after the first spring rain; when the winter wood softens and releases a slight, bitter breath. It was a few more steps, and then to the right where the stones grow a bit colder under one’s feet from the shadows of the roofs. Every piece felt in place today, for she liked to imagine her world as ever-changing: even the stones were different according to the tread or the pace. Today they were moderately lively, and her walking-stick made a crisp echo on the surface like that of a chisel-stroke upon a slab of alabaster or deep mahogany. Had the rain pleased them? Yes. The stones replied with the tap tap tapping.
So along she went, with her little flower basket and the twisted stick of yew. Before each door she stopped, paced a little, listened and reached for a bunch, placing it down on the doormat. From beneath she would draw out a coin or two. Each door had a kind of ‘soul’ to it, breathed in by its inhabitants and the open streets at night.
If the earth was as fair as she had heard them say, and if these flowers her children be, then she must’ve caught them asleep a few hours ago. Still covered in their mother’s breath. The violets giggle and twist about, while the thistles grow rigid, as if something had startled them from their slumber. She pitied the thistles: they looked scary and burlesque(or so she heard), and no decent customer would even consider them in a vase or pinned to a buttonhole.
Yet they felt delicate even beneath callused hands, their thorny crown like the hard lashes protective the eye from rogue clouds of sand and other unwanted things. A little worn and slightly coarse they were, but also big-hearted and welcoming for a caress from idle hands.
She picked them for old lady Maisy’s cat, for the creature had a peculiar fondness for these flowers. Arriving at said lady’s doormat, she found a strong wafting sensation of something warm and strong and obscuring. It must be one of Maisy’s pigeon pies. The kindly old maid told her much about the shooting season, and when to search for quail’s eggs and how to tell the difference between horseradish and water-hemlock. Not that she’d ever need to know these things, or ever use them, but because it was nice to have someone to talk to.
Most of the children in these parts stay inside home now; they read books and paint pictures and learn to speak strange languages and do arithmetic and explore astronomy. Astronomy, the study of these little bright sky-flowers called stars. She heard that, unlike earth-flowers, these ones never wilted, but only disappeared sometimes, only to be seen again a few months later. She thought them to be very cheeky. She breathed a sigh: where was she?
Yes. These are children who grow up to become people. Not people like herself, but real people, who do real things like drive carriages and write books and dance in rooms with warm light and spicy-sweet aromas with music. Music! Weyland promised to teach her the fiddle one day, after he comes back from his travelling around the continent.
She imagined Maisy’s door as a large rectangular one, with ornate carvings of birds and little elves on the sides, and a big, heavy doorknob with the face of an owl or some other fierce bird. Not that the inhabitant of such a door was very intimidating or very mean, but Lydia thought how any nice thing must need something more prickly and hard. Like those dragons in fairytales guarding their mountain treasure.
She reached inside her basket and felt for the soft petals of the forget-me-nots and the bushy thistles. Setting them down on the mat, her hand was met with the light crinkle of a paper-bag, and a few notes tucked underneath. Lydia smiled to herself, and put the warm pie away. She’ll save it for later.
Next was Mrs Banks the pharmacist’s wife. They are not far, maybe three doors down? The flower-girl thought of Jane Banks the same way one would think of pampered pet parrot: titular and loud but really rather harmless. The first time they met, she bid her a warm albeit jittery welcome, and clasped her hand so tight it was sore for three nights after. Of course Mrs Banks never intended for it to be like so, as Lydia caught a trill in her voice that signalled distress, more of anxiousness than nervousness actually. She imagined her not as a person, but a moving force like wind or water: always hurrying about somewhere to do something, always between the rooms. She laughed for poor Mr Banks, married to such a bustling, fleet-footed, noisy wife.
Their door would be…white: just the way it snowed that year before her fever struck and her vision dimmed. From what she remembered, it was a strange colour: it never stayed around for very long; yet while it did it invited children outside and made long rides for hunters with their long guns. Maisy told her the white made them less visible to the animals. It would be white with little panels of glass on the top, just like those church windows she sometimes touched without the priest noticing. It was really quite easy, for he always forgets to close the door to his study, so you would hear him humming and the coast would be clear for you to tiptoe into the aisles.
They would suit their owner well. She gave the petals a little kiss and set down the bouquet of cheerful primrose. One could tell just how bright they were from the tangy smell and earthy taste. She took the coins and moved onward.
From door to door her shadow passed. She made sure to check all of them, even the one with Joseph the grumpy painter who lived between the baker’s and pub. She never really liked Joseph, and she didn’t understand how someone whose job it was to work with colours could be so downtrodden and downright cruel. He was the one to put a mousetrap under his doormat, so that she yelped in such pain an infant began to scream somewhere inside; and she shed more than a few tears while her frantic hands knocked over her neat herb-jars looking for her box of willow-bark. He was the one to pour cold water from his balcony onto the streets when she walked by. He was only watering the flowers, he hollered. Lydia didn’t think the man could keep a toy doll clean, but she still came every morning. The townspeople talked of him in such high regard, for at least they used to. He used to give money to an orphanage in the capital. Surprising, how time wilts a warm-blooded heart. Today she left him a a branch of catkins: a little softness might do well for him. She’ll see.
Now the sun was out — she felt it leech into her bones and breathe warmth into the chilly streets. Soon the baker will be stocking his shelves with bread and almond pasties(they smelled divine), the tailor and the flyer-man will bicker on about this great politician and that royal affair, and she’ll greet the newspaper boy with his quick steps and his three-note whistle. She’ll take the short way home and help mother with the mending, feed the hen and get the supper from town again. Soon the night will fall and father’ll come home from a day’s travelling to this town and that, and they’ll chat about sales and whether the shopkeep on Chapel street finally stocked some new linen and the fruits in season at the fair. And she would feel happy because she loved and was loved. The kind of happiness like the ripest apple in the tallest tree, forgotten by the schoolboys and the groundkeepers and the hustling businessmen. Not forgotten: they could not reach it.
It was a wonderful life. It was.
