Page 30 of Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore
“Who will water you if you kill me?” she muttered with a dark sigh, slipping from his hold for the third time.
Bartleby retreated, and a moment later, the bell above the door jingled.
“Hello!” she said brightly, her eyes shifting when she realized her new customer was a gnome, and therefore about three feet shorter than she’d anticipated. At the sight of his shapeless yellow hat, she smiled in recognition. “We’ve met, I believe. At the market a few weeks ago. Jerome, right?”
Jerome the Gnome nodded curtly. “Aye. I suppose that’ll make you Violet Thistlewaite.”
“That’s me!”
“Tell me, Violet Thistlewaite, do you carry garden soil?” He sneezed suddenly, procuring an enormous red-and-white polka-dot handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing at his nose.
“Yes!” She ushered him through the door to the back garden, where she had neatly piled sacks of soil and compost. From the other side of their shared yard, Nathaniel nodded curtly and scooped up a wriggling Daisy before she could bound over to say hello.
As they disappeared into the apothecary, Violet turned her attention back to Jerome. “I carry several different varieties and blends. What are you looking to plant in your garden?”
“That’s a racist stereotype.”
“I beg your pardon?” She stopped short, looking at him.
“Just because I’m a garden gnome, see, doesn’t mean I’m gardening. I don’t even have a garden, mind.”
“I…” It was more the fact that he was looking for garden soil in a garden shop that did it for her, but Violet supposed that line of argument would end about as well as she suspected. “My apologies. I should not have made assumptions.”
“S’alright,” said Jerome the Gardenless Garden Gnome.
“Erm,” Violet replied, unsure how to proceed with customer service. “What kind of soil are you looking for?”
“Something soft,” he said, “and with the right scent.”
“I…”
“For me bed,” said the gnome, taking pity on her at last, it seemed. His eyes sparkled with mirth at her discomfort. “Garden gnomes get our best rest tucked into a flower bed. Course, as I’m allergic to flowers, a bed o’ dirt’s the next best thing.” He sneezedagain, as if to punctuate his statement. “If you’ve any I can sample, I’ll be pleased to tell you exactly what I think of it.”
Based entirely on this interaction, Violet had no doubt he would. She obligingly opened one of each of her varieties of soil and provided Jerome with a bucket he could use to sample each one and create a blend that suited his needs. She watched in fascination as he felt the soil in his fingers and lifted it to his nose, eyes closed, inhaling deeply, even placing the tiniest speck of each kind on his tongue, his lips smacking as he deliberated. Finally he settled on two sacks of compost and one sack of manure so he could blend it at home. He stared at the bucket with apparent dismay and sighed gravely.
“It’ll have to do.”
“Er, certainly,” said Violet.
“I’ll need to replace it ’bout twice a month.”
Violet, perking up, offered a ten percent discount if he placed a recurring order.
“Delivery?”
She grimaced. “Not yet. It’s just me in the store, so I haven’t—”
“S’pose it was too much to ask, place like this. I’ll come pick it up. Now, would a tall lady like yourself be willing to help load all this dirt into me cart?”
“Of course,” said Violet, hefting one of the sacks into her arms. It was easily bigger than Jerome himself, and she wondered how he was going to get it off the cart once he was home.
“Once, I’d have been able to do this meself,” he said mournfully, watching Violet heave the bags up onto her back. “Used to be a lot stronger in me youth.”
“It’s no problem,” Violet gasped, clutching the soil. She was a strong woman, but she needed to purchase a wheelbarrow. Immediately. Out front, Jerome’s small cart waited, hitched to a pairof goats tethered to a post at the edge of the green. Violet dutifully loaded the bags one by one, smiling and waving to Pru as she strolled out of the apothecary, cup of tea in hand.
“Rava’s tits, that’s ripe!” Pru exclaimed, waving her free hand in front of her face. “Manure?”
Violet brushed bits of dirt off her apron (a process that, as a person who spent her entire day embroiled in dirt, was entirely in vain). She wrinkled her nose at the putrid smell of decay on the air. “No,that’ssomething else.”
