Short Story / The Near Failure of a Successful Scottish Flower Shop (Analysis)
The front door of the house slammed shut, leaving the knocker beating gently against the outside. Shoes clicked furiously across the foyer and Maxmilian could hear the rustling of skirts. He peered over the banister on the staircase. His wife was in the process of taking the pins out of her hat and unbuttoning her coat. Flakes of snow still lingered in her luxurious dark hair, wrapped in a chignon at the base of her neck. As she turned on her heel to hang up her outerwear, he could see the ferocious flash in her pale eyes. He pursed his lips, debating whether to go down to meet her. She decided for him.
“Max? Max!” She spoke evenly, but Max could feel the low growl beneath the call shivering down his spine. He sighed, perched his glasses on top of his head, and replaced the book on the bookshelf in his study. When she was in a mood like this, there was nothing to it but to sit and listen stoically. However, if any of her wishes were granted, the mood was worsened. Silent, stolid, and unrelenting. Those were the keys to –
“Max, where in heaven’s name are you?”
“On the staircase,” Max said hurriedly as he tripped down the steps. Pearl was no longer in the foyer, but her frantic rustling could be heard in the parlor. He entered.
He was proud of the life he was able to provide for his wife. They lived modestly, in a modest sized home in a modest town full of modest people, but the couple enjoyed the few luxuries they were able to comfortably afford. The parlor was one of them. Brocade chairs, silk curtains, fine books, a brick fireplace, and a tapestry embroidered by his wife’s mother completed the room. Unlike most parlors, it was enjoyed almost daily by his wife and often by Max himself. And here was his wife, silently rolling up the tapestry and placing it in the empty fireplace!
“What is going on?” Max asked quietly. His level head and tranquil eyes met their fierce counterpart, and his wife’s upper lip curled. Not at him, he could tell. But the sight gave her face an impish appearance.
“It’s back.” She ripped a piece of thread off her bodice without thinking and began to tie up the tapestry. “It has followed me overseas.” A lock of hair falls from her chignon onto her flushed cheek. “This is heavier than I imagined,” she grunts after a few seconds as she struggles to keep the tapestry in place.
Max was surprised by her actions – she usually treasured the homemade gifts sent across the Atlantic by her mother – but remained quietly supportive. He helped her hold the tapestry in place as she tied it, and gently took it from her to shove it into the depths of the fireplace. He pulled his matchbook out of his pocket and offered it, but she shook her head. A bead of sweat trickled from her hairline to her eyebrow as she collapsed into one of the chairs. It creaked in protest of the harsh treatment. Max slowly took the seat across from his wife, watching her expressions flicker and change like moonlight on the sea. He rarely saw her in these moods, and she rarely entered them without good reason. He placed his ankle on his knee and leaned back, waiting patiently.
After several minutes of panting – with only half the panting due to exertion – she took a deep breath and pushed the stray wisps of hair around her fiery eyes to the back of her head. They stood straight up. She didn’t see. “You have never met my mother.”
“No.” Max took his glasses off his head, folded them carefully, and placed them on a nearby table. “But I understand you are very close to her and keep a regular correspondence.”
“Would you like to meet her?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
This was his wife’s way. When in a mood, she questioned until her thirst for answers was quenched. Max pondered the single-syllable inquiry. “You love her. I feel I would like to, and would be able to, love her as well as you if given the opportunity.”
“Even if her past was questionable?”
He barely paused. “Even if.”
“And when I say questionable, I do not mean uncertain.” She leaned forward, perched on the very edge of the chair. Her entire body was rigid with motion surpressed, water begging to be let loose from the dam. “An entire New England community knows more about her life than her own son-in-law. Her whole, damned life.” The levee broke. She jumped to her feet. She never paced, but skirted about the room, rarely pausing. It was the dance of a lost fawn, a snowflake in high winds, an excited electron. Her feet barely touched the ground.
“If a man and a woman love each other, should they not be together?”
“They should.”
“Even if there are constraints on the woman society feels she must consider?”
“Depending on the constraints.”
“What if she was already married?” Her voice was rising to an inhuman tone.
Max tilted his head to the side. “That is an affair.”
“Yes, it is.” Her hair whirled in a devlish halo about her head as she hurled herself about the room. “Did I say it wasn’t?”
“No.”
“What if she hadn’t seen her husband in two years and believed him dead?” Max opened his mouth but there was no time for an answer, nor did his wife need one. Not yet. “What if she was left abandoned in a strange country of which she knew nothing? What if her husband was significantly older and she did not truly love him to begin with? What if he believed he could make her love him? What if, Max, what if?”
“Those are different circumstances.”
“Now, Max, what if-” here she stopped short, placed her hands on his leg, and glared, her tone decreasing to a low, almost imperceptible murmur, “-what if the man and the woman in love had an illegitimate child?”
Max stared her calmly in the face. “They should stand up proudly and accept it, considering there is no husband in the picture.”
“The husband came back. The father did not confess. One took revenge on the other for seven long years. And the woman was ruined.” Her eyes glinted with angry tears and reddish light.
“Then it is up to the husband to confess and support the mother of his child, especially if the two are in love.”
“She supported herself, Max,” his wife whispered. “Herself and the child for seven years. He would not confess until Death beckoned with a crooked finger.”
“Then that, madam, is an incredible woman, and I hope her child was a comfort to her.” He paused and considered, then added slowly, “The poor child!”
“Yes yes… the poor child… who behaved so ill so often… and who simply wanted the truth.” His wife collapsed slowly into his waiting arms. Her next words were barely audible. “The poor, silly child… and your poor, silly, panicked wife.”
It was Max’s turn to question in the most unprying manner he could put on. “Pearl, what happened?”
“She was branded, my mother.” Pearl buried her head in her husband’s chest, but she did not cry. “With the scarlet letter A, for adultery. She wore an embroidered A on her chest for seven long years. She was such a good woman many townspeople began saying the A was for ‘able.’ And now my own town has found out, and perhaps I will be beaten with the same stick.” She heaved a slow, shaky sigh. “My flower shop will be ruined. I will be ruined and unrespected.”
“If you let yourself,” Max countered. “Your mother endured. You must do the same. And in this way, you do not fail yourself or your mother. By letting them win, more than one loses.”
There was a pause. All that could be heard was Pearl’s heaves and Max’s heartbeat – one irregular, the other quite steady. Suddenly she sat up. In one violent gesture, she tore her entire chignon down. Pins scattered across the thick floral carpet as her thick, glossy hair cascaded to and below her shoulders. She shook out her mane like an anxious filly. Max was relieved to see her face was paler, her eyes more spirited, her mouth turned upward. He chanced a little chuckle. She tweaked his nose in a mocking manner.
“It is good advice,” she said, standing up and stretching her arms to the ceiling, or the heavens. “Too bad you don’t give good advice more often.”
She flitted out of the room and out of his grasp with light laughter that lingered in the air after her departure, echoing like fairies playing in the depths of a wood.
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This 368 word review has not been unlocked.
This is pretty decent, but I find it hard to believe that you
were able to write the above in 30 minutes as there is hardly
any typos or grammatical issues. Unprying though is not a word.
Unobtrusive, tactful would work better.
As to your casting the action through the eyes of Pearl’s
hypothetical lover Max, I think the story misses a little
dramatic tension. He’s too accepting of everything she says.
She should push him with the infidelity bit, make him
reach a point where he isn’t so sure. Pearl’s past, after
all, is complicated. The way Pearl renders it comes across
as overly facile.
Interesting ending and a few nice turns of phrases.
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