(123-02-02) Such A Nice Girl
Such A Nice Girl
Summary: Violet comes into Esme's shop and buys sweets. She is a very nice girl.
Date: 02/02/2016
Related: None
Players:
Esme..Violet..

It's natural enough for newcomers to Oldtown to find themselves drawn sooner or later to its eponymous square, whether to buy a piping hot meat pie from a makeshift stall or 'fresh' vegetables out of a barrow or a funny-looking carpet from one of those foreign peddlers, or even just to sit on the grass and wonder what those poor folk in the pillories did to end up there.

Yes, almost any trifling need or powerful want a person might conceive of, can be sated in Oldtown Square — and if none of the hawkers and peddlers who come and go so irregularly seem to be offering what's wanted, there's always that little red and yellow grocery shop on the corner of the Shambles, bright and beckoning, open from the cool hours of the morning till after the sun has set, closed only on major holy days of the Faith of the Seven. The owner is a devout woman, elderly, given to wearing dresses as garishly striped as her shopfront. (Blue and green and yellow this afternoon, and a headscarf in a subtly different yellow which fails utterly to flatter her complexion.)

The days of rain which depressed business in these parts, have given way to a stifling heat which seems only to be producing a similar result. All the shop's windows are open in the hope of breezes as yet uncaught. Fed up with her shop girl's sweating and swooning Esme has sent her upstairs to lie down with a cold cloth on her face for half an hour. She herself, untouched by the heat, perches in solitary splendour upon her high stool behind the counter with an enormous ledger lying open to one side of her and a half-knitted sock in her bony old hands. The sock too is yellow. Was there ever a doubt?

A young woman idly wanders into the shop. Her face is slightly flushed from the heat, but she seems no worse for the wear, all told. She wears a simple blue traveling dress, decent enough to walk into a sept, but not modest enough to disguise her considerable… charms. Her dark hair is pulled into a loose plait to try and keep cool, though braid has frayed from movement and the humidity. She eyes a display of sweetmeats: marzipan and small candied fruits.

The only customer in a shop is always a figure of some interest to the proprietress. When the bell tinkles to alert Esme to the girl's arrival her gaze lifts at once from her sock, though the tiny rosewood knitting needles in her grasp keep moving at the same swift, steady pace, her right hand feeding inch after inch of wool from a yellow ball somewhere below the counter.

The sweets are all kept high up, out of the reach of marauding children. The heat has turned them sticky, releasing a touch more of their scent into the air… just as though to tempt a hungry creature with a sweet tooth.

"Like sweets, do you?" the old woman behind the counter inquires. Her tone is friendly, her accent that of Oldtown's lower middle class. "Three for the price of two in this weather, dearie, and you'd be doing me a favour."

"Are they… are they fruit, or sweets that look like fruit?" The girl asks pointing to the moulded marzipan, her own accent clearly more rural. She looks both curious and delighted, rising on her toes and leaning in to sniff the confections.

The little shopkeeper chuckles at the girl's curiosity and her confusion both. "Sweets that look like fruit," she clarifies kindly, still knitting away at speed; "though two shelves up and one across, those little jars are candied fruit, for putting on cakes and suchlike. You might like to try the both and see which suit you the best." Upselling a specialty.

The girl grins a dimpled grin, glancing sideways at the shopkeeper. "Don't have to sell me too hard on that, mistress. How much for both?"

What a nice girl. Esme beams at her; "Oh, you might take half a dozen of the little fruit candies, and a jar of the cherries or the orange pieces, for—" And she names a sum which, like all her prices, reflects the convenience of shopping in a shop rather than from the back of a here-today, gone-tomorrow barrow or cart, but which won't by any means cause another pretty young girl to require a lie-down with a wet cloth on her face. The sweets really are three for two, she wasn't making it up for the sake of a sale.

The sale is made and the girl the girl starts eating the marzipan sweets immediately, all while eyeing the rest of the goods in the shop casually. She licks the sticky almond residue from her fingers, to some effect. "Never seen so many… things before," she remarks.

The jar of candied fruit stands on the counter between them as the dainty little pieces of marzipan vanish apace; Esme smiles benevolently at her decisive and peckish new customer. "I thought I hadn't seen you before," she admits, "I've a good memory for faces. Are you new to the city, then?" As though that accent hadn't already given the girl away at her first utterance.

"Mmhmm! Just two days past," the younger woman says, half around a mouthful of marzipan, though she covers her mouth with her slightly-less-sticky hand. "Easy to get lost, but the parts I know are interesting, and the people have been real friendly."

"Have they, now," echoes Esme pleasantly. She took up the yellow sock again after dropping Violet's coins amongst their new friends below the counter; she has just set aside two of her needles and is working back and forth with the others, turning the heel. "Well, I'm glad to hear you've been getting on all right. Some parts of the city can be a little too interesting, and that's a fact. You don't have kin here, though, people to look out for you?" she inquires, studying the sweet-fancier with grandmotherly concern.

"No, mistress. No kin I know of, at any rate," Violet shrugs, admiring some dried, speckled beans. "Though I met a lovely baker and she let me stay on with her last night. And I have a place to stay tonight. I came to find work," she explains matter-of-factly.

The little shopkeeper nods, yellow headscarf bobbing. "Oh, I see. Well, there's always plenty of that about, for a willing girl," she agrees. Then the headscarf tilts speculatively. Black eyes linger upon Violet's hands. "This baker friend of yours — not Mistress Audra, across the way…?"

Violet's eyes light up. "Yes! I met her and a /real Targaryen/ and she let me sleep in the bakery," she says, a little too enthusiastically.

The girl lights up; Esme just smiles. "Well, you fell on your feet," she pronounces, "and I'm sure there's many a girl arrives in Oldtown and isn't so fortunate. Mistress Audra's a good woman. I've known her husband Terris since he was so high," rather than making the traditional gesture with her hand low to the ground, she simply gives a quick little nod, "and her since he brought her home as his wife a few months past. Very good people," she confirms.

"I s'pose you're right," the girl replies, sobering a bit. "I've been lucky or blessed or… something, I guess?" She heads back over to the counter. "Since we both know Mistress Audra, I should introduce myself. I'm Violet," she says with a small nod.

"Violet," and the thin little old woman behind the counter sounds pleasantly surprised. "What a pretty name," she comments. "It's a pleasure to meet you, and to have someone to talk to for a little while when my shop's been so quiet all afternoon. I'm Mistress Esme, and the butcher next door," she nods over her shoulder towards the door which connects the two establishments, "is my son Edmyn. We've been here since he was just a babe, and Terris's family has had the bakehouse since time began, so of course we all know each other." She nods again, briskly. "Will you be staying there long, do you think?"

Violet smiles. "That's nice. Like a small village inside the city," she remarks, largely to herself. "I hope to stay for at least a few years, if business goes well. Don't pretend to know what the far future holds. I'm not that stupid." She opens up the jar to sample a few of the sugared cherries. She grins. "These are good, too."

"It is like a village," Esme agrees, nodding; "sometimes a little too much like one, if you take my meaning. We all get to know each other's business the way you do in a village. But then, if you need help, you know where to find it, which isn't always the way in such a great city." It doesn't surprise her that a girl who just et six pieces of marzipan with hardly a pause for breath is now on to the cherries. She just glances at the jar in Violet's soft, pretty hands and adds mildly, "They are, aren't they? I always have a few different kinds of sweets in, because my son's so fond of them — but they change all the time, depending what's best, so you'll have to be sure you come back and see me now and again, won't you?" she suggests.

Violet grins. "Oh, I most certainly will! I think I may become your best customer, if they're all this good." She takes a few more out of the jar and pops them into her mouth. "I'm not pestering you overmuch, am I?" she asks.

Esme reclaims a third knitting needle and begins picking up stitches, glancing down now and again to her work, and then up to Violet's pretty face and altogether ripe figure. "No, no," she promises her, "I like a little company. And, of course, you're a friend of Mistress Audra's." This apparently goes a long way. "Did you come far? Brave of you to make the journey alone."

Violet leans on the counter, watching Mistress Esme knit. "I don't know if it's far or not far. I'd never left Ashford before, so I don't know how far other places are." She tilts her head a little, clearly in a moment of existential quandary. Coming back down to reality, she continues, "It was just me. Don't got anyone else."

"Ashford, eh? Well, that's… north of the Dornish marches, isn't it? Farther than Highgarden, but not so far as Bitterbridge or Goldengrove," explains Esme as she crosses the gusset of her yellow sock, providing a degree of context for the girl — but slowly, as though she has to think about it, as though she doesn't know perfectly well. "Some of my cheeses come from almost so far away. A really good cheese can be difficult to find," she admits, "and my customers are particular… House Hightower of course, House Tyrell, even House Stark; I sell to just about all the great families who keep manses in Oldtown."

"So is it far?" Violet asks, "I want to know for the next time someone asks," she clarifies, running a finger along the grain of the wood of the counter. "Not that it matters, I could say I'm from anywhere," she shrugs. "No one truly cares."

"It's far enough, let's say. The other side of the Reach." And Esme collects the fourth of her knitting needles before it can roll away; and, smiling gently at Violet, looking like the most harmless old thing that ever drew breath, adds, "If you don't mind my saying so, you might find it's better for you to tell the men you've come from somewhere else. Just as you might not tell them your real name, or where you're living now."

Violet looks up at Esme in mild surprise. "Did Mistress Audra tell you, then?" she asks, folding her hands on the counter. "I figure, there ain't no reason not to tell them about Ashford. Got no one there for them to bother…" she muses aloud. She pauses, awkwardly. "I'm still welcome on the premises?"

The shop seems very quiet then, but for the baa'ing of sheep being driven to an abattoir further along the shambles, and the tiny, almost inaudible clicks of Esme's needles. She smiles down from her high perch and shakes her head as though to dispel any such thoughts. "Your coin's as good as anyone's here," she promises, "and Mistress Audra didn't say a word to me — I haven't seen her all day! If she was keeping a secret for you she didn't betray it."

"Oh," Violet says, still awkwardly. She purses her lips, then licks them, then wraps her hands around the jar. "If, um, I should… go, I suppose, then…" She flushes a little, as if she had been found out by her own grandmother.

"Oh, now," and Esme sighs and draws away and adopts a slightly chiding attitude, "there's no need to be so bashful, dearie, you've your living to get the same as anyone else." She nods. "And Oldtown's a better place than most for it, I hear. Now, if you wanted some other sort of employment, I could certainly help you find it, but it's not my place to judge and so I don't."

"The pay is good, and there's not much a girl like me could do that would pay near as good," Violet admits, shrugging. "I know it's not forever. I hope to have a bunch saved up by the time I start to fade so I can… have a soft life."

The pay. Yes. Esme nods sympathetically. "Well, that's not the worst plan I've ever heard," she admits. "And, of course, I'm sure Mistress Audra told you…" Of the warm bed and the warm bakery she currently enjoys.

Violet nods. "It's work, it's regular, and I'm not breaking myself doing it. I see girls my age worn half to death from lye soap and scrubbing floors." She drums her fingers on the countertop, unsure of what else she can say.

"There's something to be said for the one and something for the other," allows Esme, mistress of a great many cleaning-women, "and as I told you, dearie, I don't judge others for how they live, I don't feel I've the right." She smiles kindly at Violet over her rapidly-growing sock. "You seem like a very nice girl, and I'm glad you're doing well for yourself, however it is you must."

"It's awfully kind of you to say so, Mistress Esme," Violet says softly. "I hope you have a good evening," she mumbles, bowing her head again and turning to leave.

"And you, too, dearie. Enjoy your cherries."

"Thank you, mistress," comes the receding girlish voice from the doorway.

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